“Dead, War Chief.” Turquoise Fox stopped short, as if aware that his sweaty body and dust-caked war shirt carried the odor of a man too long without a wash. And there was something else about him: a sweet, cloying, but not unpleasant odor. The stains on his red shirt looked like grease, and there were smudges of charcoal and soot.
“It’s such a shame.” Creeper sadly clasped his hands together. “I knew Right Acorn. I watched him grow from a boy to a man. My heart goes out of his family.”
“His murderers suffered, I assume,” Desert Willow interjected.
“Yes, Matron,” Turquoise Fox replied. “In a hideous way.”
“And what way was that?” Desert Willow asked with mild annoyance. “Let me guess, their bodies are now feeding ants, coyotes, and vultures. Their bones are bleaching in the sun, their relatives wailing in despair.”
Turquoise Fox frowned slightly. “Matron, we had to take special measures.”
Webworm tossed the eagle mask to Creeper, heedless of the string. It ripped the cloth of his costume before snapping the mouth shut with a clack as the string parted. Creeper barely scrambled forward in time to catch it before it crashed to the floor.
Pinning Turquoise Fox, Desert Willow demanded, “Did you torture them first? Yes? Did you rape the women, gut the men slowly? I won’t have the storerooms being raided by these pesky barbarian thieves.”
Turquoise Fox straightened under the barrage, as if to attention. “Blessed Matron, we did worse.”
“What could be worse?” Wind Leaf asked. “I take it that Leather Hand understood the severity of the situation.”
“Yes, War Chief. He did.”
“And?” Webworm demanded.
“We ate them.”
For a moment the great kiva was silent. Webworm seemed to be struggling with the notion. Desert Willow, too, looked confused. Only Creeper’s eyes widened.
“Ate them?” Wind Leaf prompted.
Turquoise Fox swallowed hard. “War Chief, you must understand, these people, the ones who stole from us and killed our Priest, they had nothing left to lose.”
“What of their lives?” Webworm shouted. “Isn’t that enough?”
Turquoise Fox shook his head. “No, Blessed Sun. They were dead anyway. The drought, you see. They were starving. They’d eaten their seed corn. All of it. And they had nothing to Trade for more.” He looked panicked for the first time. “Don’t you see? They had nothing!”
“Yes, yes,” Wind Leaf waved it down. “They had nothing. So, what did you mean when you said you ate them?”
Turquoise Fox licked his lips, shifting uncomfortably. Wind Leaf wondered if it was fatigue from the long run, or if his nerves were failing. “War Chief, do you remember Deer Mother Village several winters back?”
“Of course, they were starving, snowed in. They …” He stopped short. “Wait, you mean you were starving?”
Turquoise Fox was now looking distinctly miserable, as if this wasn’t going the way he had anticipated. “No, War Chief. Do you remember the horror among the people when they talked about what had happened at Deer Mother Village?”
He nodded. It had been the talk of the country.
Knotting a fist, Turquoise Fox cried, “Blessed Sun, don’t you see? It’s the only weapon we had left to inspire terror! Nothing else would work. We had to teach them that they had something more terrifying to fear than just death!”
Webworm looked stunned, if slightly ludicrous, in his gaudy costume. “You mean Leather Hand ordered his men to eat the thieves? Cook them up like deer and … and gobble them down?”
“Yes, Blessed Sun.” Turquoise Fox looked as if he, too, had suddenly lost everything.
“And what was the response from the people?” Desert Willow asked, her voice oddly tinted with curiosity.
“Abject horror, Blessed Matron. We brought some of the other Dust People to see the remains. You could see it in their eyes. They melted back from us, avoided our gaze as if we were monsters. I would say that by now there isn’t a single occupied farmstead in the whole of the country below Thunderbird Mountain.”
“And the warriors?” Wind Leaf was amazed. “They agreed to this?”
“Yes, War Chief.” He paused. “Well … all but an Ant Clan man named Black Rabbit. Deputy Leather Hand killed him for refusing. A war chief must enforce discipline.”
Gods, can this be true? Wind Leaf was trying to comprehend the ramifications, how this was going to change his plans. Then he glanced at Webworm. What if the Blessed Sun ordered him to punish Leather Hand? Eating another human being just wasn’t done. What if half of his forces bolted for fear of being forced to eat human flesh? Gods, this could turn into a real mess.