How did one go about finding a witch? Worse, when he found her, what did he say? “Good morning, I’m Ripple. I’m chosen to destroy the First People.”
Right. And then she’d turn him into a packrat’s liver, or suck his souls out through his nostrils, or something equally abysmal.
He thought it a monument to his courage that he could even contemplate searching out such a dangerous being as a witch; yet here he was, bravely walking forth to face her, to look into her eyes.
What if she steals my souls?
Well, Cold Bringing Woman wouldn’t allow that to happen, would she?
“She said I have to be tested,” he muttered under his breath as he entered the shadows of the trees. His nerves squirmed as he considered the ways a witch could test a person.
“She said I had to endure great suffering.” A tingle of fear shot through him. When a person got right down to it, there were a lot of ways a witch could inflict great suffering. He was thinking of curses that made a man’s eyeballs fall out of his head, or that opened oozing sores on his shins and elbows. What if she clapped her hands and caused his body to jerk in fits like the ones that had afflicted Bad Cast’s great uncle Black Root?
Preoccupied thus, he jumped when a dark figure stepped out from the trees, asking in an accented voice, “You are a hunter called Ripple?”
“Yes, I …” Squinting, he tried to identify the burly form, realizing too late just what kind of shirt the man wore.
Ripple hadn’t even begun to turn before two strong arms clamped tightly about his chest from behind. As they tightened, they drove the air from his lungs. Two more warriors appeared on either side, one ripping his atlatl and darts from his hand, the other tearing his pack off his shoulder.
“We’re going to see the Matron,” the first warrior said. The rest laughed as their hard hands trussed him securely with a braided leather rope.
Ripple opened his mouth to scream, only to have a hard fist slammed into his kidneys.
The last thought in his head was, This can’t be happening! I’m chosen!
“Hello!”
Bad Cast blinked his sleep-heavy eyes open. He lay in the warm comfort of his bed. The familiar furnishings of Soft Cloth’s house came into focus: the support beams, the faint thread of smoke from the fire pit, the clay-plastered benches with their lines of ceramic jars, sandal lasts, and folded stacks of blankets and clothing.
Had it been part of the Dream, or did someone have the bad manners to wake him from the most peaceful slumber? Through bleary eyes he saw a pale dawn sky beyond the ladder uprights where they jutted out the smoke hole. A head, haloed by the light, intruded into the square and stared down at him. From the dangling braids it was a man.
“Hey! Wake up!” the voice prodded.
“Wrapped Wrist? Go away.” Bad Cast settled his head back and felt Soft Cloth’s warm body snuggle against his beneath the thin deerhide that covered them.
He was dropping back into slumber’s gentle caress, satisfied to have Soft Cloth’s sleek buttocks cradled in his crotch. The line of her back pressed against his chest, and he absently snugged his arm around her shoulders.
“I said, wake up!”
“Can’t you go find a wasps’ nest in need of tormenting?” Bad Cast opened his eye to a slit, seeing that the head was still silhouetted in his smoke hole.
“We’ve got to go get Spots,” Wrapped Wrist continued. “I’d have been here earlier, but for you living halfway across the valley and on top of Juniper Ridge.”
“Wazzit?” Soft Cloth shifted away from him, pulling the blanket with her so cool air slipped across his skin.
“I don’t believe this.” Bad Cast had been planning on rising late, after he and Soft Cloth repeated the languid coupling they’d engaged in the night before.
“Believe it,” Wrapped Wrist added seriously. “We’re in trouble.”
Bad Cast opened both eyes and sat up. The deerhide fell away from his torso, ensuring he knew it was a cool morning. “What do you mean, in trouble?”
Soft Cloth growled, her eyes open now. Curls of her long black hair matted on her cheeks. She propped herself on one elbow, squinting up at the smoke hole through puffy eyes.
Wrapped Wrist shifted on the roof. A fine trickle of dirt sifted down through the still air. “I had a visitor last night.”
“Only one? I would have thought you’d have a line by the time you got back.”
“Don’t joke. You’ll never guess who.”
Soft Cloth muttered dryly, “Given your reputation, I’d guess the Blessed Matron Featherstone? Or was it that other one? Cornsilk, is it? The one who would be Matron of the First People if she wasn’t Outcast?”