People of the Moon(219)

It was the odor of cooking flesh that made him relent. “Where is the heart?”

“Gone,” she said simply.

He stared, sharing Desert Willow’s disbelief. What human wouldn’t howl in agony as their hand was subjected to such heat?

Desert Willow frowned, thinking. “You remember the witch boy?”

“The one with the little dog? The one we walled up?”

“Take her down to one of the lower rooms,” Desert Willow ordered.

“Stake her there so that her souls can’t escape, but do it in a manner that doesn’t kill her immediately. Then leave her in the dark. Each day, you will go down, ask her what she did with Webworm’s heart. When she tells you, she can finally die. Quickly, without more suffering.”

Wind Leaf stared at his Matron, envisioning the kind of death this would be. “Stake her?”

Desert Willow was fingering her chin, eyes narrowed as she glared into the witch’s eyes. “I’m not in a forgiving mood, War Chief. Stake her to the floor. Drive it through her pelvis, right down through her womanhood.” A pause. “She’ll talk in the end.”

Wind Leaf felt suddenly hot, as if on the verge of sickness, but he nodded. “As you order.”

“And do it yourself,” she added. “This, I don’t want you to delegate.”

“Come,” Wind Leaf said. “But leave your poisons here. And take off the Priest’s robes. You’ll die naked.”

He watched as the old woman shrugged out of the beautiful cloak, then pulled the white tunic over her head. How she did it with a half-cooked hand was miraculous, but no expression of pain crossed her face.

When they stepped out into the cold, Wind Leaf glanced at the dead guard. Gods, how Powerful was this old hag?

Seeing one his guards on the second floor, he called, “Bring me a heavy stone-headed mallet and a thick wooden stake. And hurry!”

As his guard hastened to his task, Wind Leaf took one last look at the morning, purple and violet now. The final stars were vanishing from the west. “Take a good hard look, witch. It’s the last sunrise you’ll ever see.”

She lifted her eyes to the sky, smiled, and then cast one glance down at the plaza. For a moment her gaze lingered on the wood Trader and Cactus Flower, who had arrived early that day. No wonder—the demand for firewood would be huge.

Wind Leaf shoved her violently into the gloom of the third floor. He had a room in mind, one where no one would hear her scream; and in the end, it would be easy to rock up and seal forever.





Leather Hand climbed wearily up the ladder that led out of the Red Lacewing Clan kiva. His eyes were gritty, his nose burning from the smoke. Time had gotten away from him. Night Sun, by the gods, what motivated that woman?

He stepped out onto the kiva roof, cold hitting him like a wave. He blinked, seeing the dusting of soot-grayed snow that had settled on the curving walls of Talon Town. It frosted the high sandstone cliffs, and occasional flakes, mostly white now, still drifted down from the clearing skies.

Snow? This early in the year? For a moment the incongruity of it left him stumbling. Only then did the implications begin to sink in. What does this mean for the harvest?

He shook his head, blinked his eyes, and plodded to the ladder that led up to the room he’d chosen. Once it had belonged to the Blessed Sun. And it would again, when he and Larkspur led the Straight Path Nation back to this canyon.

Snow?

A shiver of unease ran through him, and he puffed a breath into the cold air, watching it frost before him. Gods, it was cold. Not just chilly, but frozen cold. He could see ice where the first flakes of snow had melted and trickled down the cracked plaster walls. Ice was slick underfoot, too.

Ice meant a deep frost.

A premonition of disaster festered between his souls. No, shake it off. He was tired, exhausted, after a day and night of battling with Night Sun. That look she had given him would mock his memory for the rest of his life.

Next time, I shall gouge her eyes out. Then she couldn’t project that haughty arrogance that drove him half-insane.

She’d almost won, almost driven him too far. But at the last minute, his wits had returned, buffering the anger that had driven him. He had caught himself on the verge of murder, and relented.

Dead, you are of no more use, Matron.

He yawned, rubbed the back of his neck, and allowed the terrible cold to seep into his hot body.

Snow? What did that mean for the future? For his future, once he had destroyed Ironwood, claimed Larkspur, and brought his people home?

He bent his head back, feeling light snowflakes as they landed on his face. “Blue God? Am I only to be a ruler of the dead?”

Night Sun’s knowing gaze burned in his memory.