“Who knows?” Wrapped Wrist coughed, and sniffed in the smoke. “What was it about Ripple? I need to see him, ask him things.”
“He was … I don’t know, wistful and sad. Resigned to his fate. It wasn’t anything he said, just a sense.”
Wrapped Wrist nodded. “Whistle and the elders have been captured. The First People know our plans. Leather Hand has taken Night Sun.” He glanced uneasily at the Soft Earth Moiety kiva. “The way they’re arguing in there, our people are fraying about the edges. Everything that could has gone wrong. Ripple knows it. Now Ironwood’s gone into council with his warriors to plan this rescue?”
Bad Cast nodded. “So, Cold Bringing Woman was wrong? What are we going to do?”
“Try and survive, just like Ripple is going to have to.” He glanced at Bad Cast. “You know, don’t you, that neither one of us can stay here now. After the First Moon Ceremony, the First People are going to come down off that mountain. They’re going to be looking for us. All of us. Anyone that had anything to do with Ripple’s vision and Ironwood.”
Bad Cast missed a step, shock registering on his face. “That’s what he meant. Ripple, I mean. He said I had to take Soft Cloth and leave.”
Wrapped Wrist took a deep breath. “I want you to think of something else. What if Cold Bringing Woman was working with the Flute Player all along? What if her vision was meant to bring us all to disaster?”
“You mean she used Ripple to destroy us?” Bad Cast made a face. “But why?”
A scream was followed by a smacking impact in the trees just east of the plaza.
Wrapped Wrist wheeled, turning to run, his darts gripped in his left hand. He rounded a ramada and dodged through the trees. The gloomy smoke obscured anything more than a couple of body lengths away.
Bad Cast was off to one side, keeping him in sight as they hurried in the direction of the rim. Yes, the shout had come from here, somewhere. He could hear questions being called back and forth in the plaza behind them.
Bad Cast made a questioning gesture, and Wrapped Wrist pointed. A wreath of denser smoke blew past. The effect was eerie: warm smoke mixed with cooler, clearer air. He might have been in a Dream land, the trees ghostly, somehow unreal.
He stopped just in time to hear clothing rasp on rock ahead of him. Dropping to a crouch, he started forward, nocking a dart in his atlatl.
Bad Cast had matched his pace, eyes searching the trees.
At first the shape didn’t register; it looked like a hunched beast. Then the man straightened from the body he bent over.
Wrapped Wrist stepped forward, lifting his atlatl and dart. “Stop where you are,” he called, closing the distance.
To his surprise, the man spun, and in that instant leapt for him.
Wrapped Wrist’s release was instinctive. The hurried cast drove the dart through the assailant’s shoulder, causing him to whirl. The man staggered, raised a war club, and bellowed.
Wrapped Wrist dropped his atlatl, catching the man’s upraised arm. He grabbed a handful of fabric, lifting with his considerable strength, and threw the fellow over his shoulder.
The assailant arched, then slammed into the unforgiving rock with a jarring thud.
“You all right?” Bad Cast asked as he ran up.
“Fine.” Wrapped Wrist realized he’d started to pant; his arms were shaking. “What is it with me and people?” He gestured to the moaning man. “Keep an eye on him.”
Then he stepped over to the prone form, squinted, and bent down.
Ripple’s skull leaked blood from the crown. More blood seeped from the jagged slash in his neck.
“By the gods!” Black Bush cried as he arrived, panting. “What’s happened here?”
“It’s the Trader,” Bad Cast said, retrieving the man’s war club. “The one called Takes Falls.” He drove the head of the war club into the man’s shoulder. “Why? Why did you do this?”
The man screamed as Bad Cast’s blow landed on the broken dart shaft. He grabbed his bleeding shoulder, crying, “For turquoise, you fool! The Matron will pay anyone who can deliver his head!”
Wrapped Wrist stood, a feeling of despair rising in his souls. “Ripple’s dead. The Trader was trying to cut his head off.”
Word passed like from lip to lip as people hurried to the scene. “The Prophet is dead!” “They’ve killed the Dreamer!”
In the dim gloom of evening, Priest Water Bow stepped up onto the third-floor roof of Pinnacle Great House and squinted into the north. The Sunwatcher, Blue Racer, stood there, his long form wrapped in a blanket against the bitter chill. He, too, watched the flames. They could see spot fires burning on the other side of the valley.