That very night Leather Hand had called upon the pick of the Blessed Sun’s warriors and begun his journey from Talon Town. He had followed the Great North Road past the shrines and watchtowers, trotted his forces up the line of great houses and over the trails that brought him to Tall Piñon Town with its large population, critical granaries, and resources.
Nor had he arrived at Tall Piñon any too soon. Within days, he had crushed rebellions and subdued threats at both Lanceleaf and Turtle villages. He had stopped a war party of Tower Builders, ambushing them at the crossing of the River of Sorrows, and ensured that every last vestige of the thlatsina religion was being erased.
Behind him a scratchy voice said, “Is that frown indicative of your normally foul mood, or are you truly displeased with something? Did the painters not meet your expectations? Or has the day just been too busy to give you the opportunity to pull some poor wretch’s arms out of his sockets?”
Leather Hand bit off a curse as he turned to see Matron Husk Woman where she sat in the shade of her T-shaped doorway. “I’m actually very pleased with the painters; it’s the treasonous inclinations of certain persons in authority who should know better that burns in my heart.”
The old woman gave him a thin-lidded stare, distaste in the set of her wrinkled mouth. “I just wish Webworm and Desert Willow would keep their poison down south where it belongs. If they suck on it long enough, perhaps it will gag them and the rest of us can get on with our lives.”
He leveled a hard finger. “You take too many liberties, Matron.”
She arched on old eyebrow. “Beware, Deputy War Chief. I am a Matron of the Blue Dragonfly Clan. You would be wise not to forget it.”
Sighing, he walked over and climbed down through the roof entrance into the quarters provided for him. The upper room was four paces long by two across, plastered in white with black zigzag lines for decoration. A fire bowl filled with cold gray ash lay in the center of the floor. Several corrugated cooking jars rested against the west wall. The larger black-on-white jars along the eastern wall held corn flour, beeweed leaves, saltbush, dried meat, and other foods. Stepping off the ladder, he removed his weapons and laid them to one side.
His slave, Meadow Girl, watched him warily as she ground yellow kernels of corn into flour. She hunched over the mealing bin in the northeastern corner like an oversized mouse. With each stroke she pressed the handstone down over the corn. It made a hollow grumble as it grated against the trough-shaped grinding stone. Corn flour dusted her strong brown fingers and mottled patterns on the backs of her hands. She was young, just eighteen summers. Sound, and firm of body, her breasts swelled the fabric of her brown garment as she knelt over the sandstone-slab-lined mealing bin. Her gleaming black hair was tied back out of the way.
“My cup. I would drink,” he ordered. He had claimed her at Lanceleaf Village after executing her uncles and brothers for their part in the rebellion.
She avoided his eyes as she rose, found his tall cup—a beautiful thing, white with black hatched lines—and poured a cup of cool water from the large brownware jug. She kept her eyes averted as he accepted it and drank.
He considered her thoughtfully. She was emblematic of how the western half of his domain was under control, the people wary of evoking his wrath. He swirled the water in his cup. Sometime soon, he was going to have to make the trip to First Moon Village and see to the situation there. The lunar cycle was almost complete. The Priests who followed the path of the moon were going to want to begin preparing for their most sacred of nights. The Sunwatcher, Blue Racer, would be planning his journey north from Straight Path Canyon to First Moon Village.
It was Leather Hand’s responsibility to ensure that no surprises awaited them. Not only that, Ironwood was alleged to be in hiding near there. And Leather Hand had old business with Ironwood.
I shall see that your ghost rests easy, Brother.
He had to remind himself not to crush the beautiful cup in his hand.
Inside the log-walled lodge, an old man lay beneath a pale white elkhide. His bed was made of moss covered with a thick winter buffalohide laid double to cushion his frail bones. An arm’s length away in the exact center, a fire burned cheerily, sending smoke billowing up to the opening in the roof.
The outline of his skull could be seen beneath the old man’s sunken skin. Wisps of white hair lay askew on his speckled pate, his nose like a wilted mushroom. Thin brown lips were pulled back, revealing receding pink gums that held but a few pegs of worn teeth. His right arm, a stick of bone covered with loose dry skin, had lost its muscle.
Only his eyes—deep within the skull’s hollowing orbits—remained bright, gleaming as they watched the young man who fussed with a bowl of broth. The youth used a spoon crafted from a mountain sheep’s horn to ladle thin venison stew past the old man’s slack lips.