With an effort, he dragged his thoughts from Shell Comb, and settled on the fascinating things he’d been able to hear through the thin sweat house door hanging.
The Panther had been a war leader for the Serpent Chiefs? He would never have guessed. The implications startled him. Nine Killer might pride himself on being a responsible war leader for the Weroansqua, but from the stories told by the Traders, the Serpent Chiefs made a different kind of war—one where entire tribes were pitted against each other, and warriors numbered in the tens of tens. All those warriors did was practice their art. When they marched, their bodies were bedecked with bright feathers, wicker shields, and finely made arrows. Those warriors, he had been told, left on dedicated battle walks, each group traveling like an appendage of the whole.
And The Panther had been the brain for an organization like that? He chewed thoughtfully on his lip, recalling the defeats Copper Thunder had inflicted on the Mamanatowick, and Stone Frog, the Conoy Tayac. Was that the sort of chieftainship Copper Thunder was building on their very borders?
What fate would befall Nine Killer’s people if Copper Thunder consolidated his territory? That thought rolled around in his mind. How could his warriors—a collection of hunters and fishermen—compete with those nearly mythical warriors of the Serpent Chiefs?
Down by the sweat house, Sun Conch turned suddenly, and reached out with a slim brown hand to help The Panther through the low doorway. The old man shivered in the cold air, blinking in what was, to him, blinding light.
Nine’ Killer rose, winced at the stitches in his knees and ankles, and walked down to the shoreline, where The Panther splashed -water on his antique flesh.
Nine Killer gave him a skeptical inspection. Withered skin, now flushed with heat, hung from a bony skeleton. Strings of muscle were only a memory of what had once been strength. Here and there, an old scar still puckered whitely. Even the testicles seemed to hang tiredly beneath the gray thatch of pubic hair. Had this old man really been that kind of War Chief?
“I’ve not done this in years,” The Panther said, rubbing his shivering hide with his blanket. “I think it’s time for a cup of warm tea and a nice fire.”
Nine Killer gestured toward the village as The Panther pulled on his old hunting shirt, arranged his breech clout and slung his blanket around his shoulders. Sun Conch took up her place behind them. For a moment, Nine Killer walked, lost in thought.
Then he caught Panther’s knowing eyes on him, as if the old man were peeling away the layers that protected his thoughts.
“Yes, War Chief?”
“I couldn’t help but overhear.”
Panther’s lips quirked. “I expected as much. It must have been the heat, it ate into my self-control.”
“You served a Serpent Chief? The one called White Smoke Rising? Even I have heard of him.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“I heard you say that Copper Thunder was trying to be just like the Serpent Chiefs. You said that was why he adopted their tattoos.”
“A great many people want to be what they are not. With Copper Thunder, I think it goes back to when he was boy.” The Panther hesitated. “You heard that I captured him? A child is such a curious creature, strong and resilient, yet so very fragile. Grass Mat was all of those.”
“I don’t understand.”
The Panther gave him a thin smile. “When I killed his father and captured young Grass Mat and his mother for slaves, my warriors and I destroyed his whole world. From those shambles, he had to make a new one, one that he could understand.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Elder,” Sun Conch said from behind. “He should have hated the Serpent Chief who took him captive. I would have.”
“Oh, Grass Mat did, but he admired him, too.” Panther glanced over his shoulder at the girl. “Sun Conch, you must put yourself in the boy’s place, see the world through his eyes. Can you imagine that?”
“I think so, Elder.”
“Well, some of us have problems with that.” He cast a sidelong look at Nine Killer. “Despite what the Kwiokos claims, that he can beat the boy’s soul from a body, and chase it away with his rattle, if a man can’t remember his life as a child, he is either a liar, or was hit on the head harder than he recalls.”
Nine Killer grinned at that, knowing full well that after being Blackened, no man would consciously talk about anything that happened in childhood. The Panther was picking at another of his people’s self-imposed rules. Aloud, he said, “Is nothing sacred to you, Elder?”
“Many things, War Chief. But not the rituals of men.” Panther took a deep breath. “So, what do we have? A boy whose whole world is crushed. His father is dead, and for that, the boy will never forgive him.”