People of the Moon(148)
Travel in safety. The words echoed between his souls. Nightshade had wished him well as he stuffed his blanket into his pack that morning. She had given him the little round brown pot to cook his meals, and had ordered him to take the last of their food.
He had touched his forehead in respect, then wound through the willow trails to this last stand of leaf-green stems. Here, he had stopped, suddenly unsure.
Rot it all, he could still hear the plaintive voices calling from her Spirit pack.
just go! He knew what few others did: Their world was about to shatter into mayhem and conflict. Nightshade had given him leave to save himself.
Not just myself. Yellow Petal and her baby. Perhaps as many as I can talk into it.
He grimaced as he imagined Yellow Petal’s response: “What? You want to leave? Spots, the corn is a moon from being ready to harvest! Do you really think we’d be stupid enough to walk away from our fields? Just leave an entire winter’s supply of food? To do what? Go starve in the mountains? All on the word of a witch?”
He chewed his lip, stomach churning in a battle of indecision. The voices in Nightshade’s pack were calling.
“We all have choices,” he whispered to himself. “Choices on one hand, and the cages that bind us on the other.” Yellow Petal was so completely ensnared in the cage of her responsibility that he would have to bind her, gag her, and carry her away from First Moon Valley.
“I should go and try to warn them.” He could feel the warp and weft of his own responsibility to his people closing around him.
Of course they would listen to him. Just as they had listened to Ripple? Old White Eye had been the only one who understood, the only one to act.
Yellow Petal’s voice chided, “Don’t be a fool, Spots! This is our home. Nothing’s going to happen to us.”
To her, to the majority of his people, it was inconceivable. Generations of the First Moon People had lived there. How could they comprehend that their world was coming to an end? Gods, but for having lived what I have in the last half moon, how could I?
He still wasn’t sure he believed it.
As he watched the last of the procession splash across the river and begin the winding climb up the silty gray trail, he listened to the grinding of his teeth.
Nightshade’s expression that morning haunted his memory.
She knows she might not win, the unified voices whispered to his soul.
Spots frowned as he clawed at another of the mosquito bites. It was sobering to think of what it would take to frighten Nightshade.
Choices.
He groaned, climbed to his feet, and slipped back through the willows. Twice he had to stop, crouching, as women from Flowing Waters Town followed trails through the brush to fill water jars. Only after they had balanced the heavy jugs on their heads and turned back did he proceed.
He approached the little camp he’d shared with Nightshade, using all of his hunter’s skills to sneak up on the place.
Nightshade sat there, back straight by the dead fire. He could see a thin gray paste drying on her temples, her eyes glazed and black in her slack face.
She made no move, then smiled slightly, blinked, and reached for her pack.
Spots heard the voices sigh as she shouldered the pack. He almost nodded with the sense of inevitability.
Like a fox he crept along behind her.
Once in the open, she took the shortest trail through the cornfield.
Spots hesitated. Then, throwing caution to the wind, he ran, taking one of the paths through the willows until he crossed the major trail the women followed to get water. Turning, he trotted out into the open, approaching Dusk House from an angle to Nightshade’s path. Through occasional openings in the corn he could see her, walking ever so stately in her red dress and black cloak.
Gods, I must be mad.
Forty-three
To avoid the hot morning sun Webworm had seated himself in the shady angle created by Dusk House’s eastern and northern walls. Back braced in the corner, his butt rested on a comfortable triple fold of split turkey-feather blanket. A tall mug of berry juice stood by his side; he whistled and scraped at the little stone carving he was making.
Wind Leaf glanced up at the morning; despite the early sun, the sky was already pale, the air hot. A single buzzard could be seen—a portent of the bounty drought could provide. When Wind Leaf looked south, beyond the green band of the river fields, the hills were scorched. The grasses had gone dormant before spring ever began. Even the stones looked thirsty. Slowly dissipating dust marked Blue Racer’s path to the east.
Wind Leaf considered the contrast between the spare world around him and the Blessed Sun. The man’s round belly was beginning to bulge out over his hips. His light summer shirt had been spun of fine white cotton; it stretched around him like a toad’s sides.