More grunts followed. Kakala gave Windwolf a slight nod, then gestured to Keresa. “Lead the way, Deputy.”
Windwolf trotted along behind Kakala, asking, “That’s it? Just walk in, tell the guards to leave, and open the gates?”
Kakala said, “What do you expect? I lay awake that last night at Headswift Village, asking, ‘What would Windwolf do?’”
Sixty-three
Skimmer glanced up at the rounded ceiling of ice over her head. The fact that she could see so well in pitch blackness still amazed her.
Raven Hunter’s gift!
She prowled up the winding tunnel, awed by the way it rose and fell, only to twist to the left or right. The place reminded her of the wormholes she had observed in a clod of freshly turned earth.
“And now I am a human worm.” Was this how the little beasts felt? Oddly safe and protected? She had never thought of the earth as a thing to live in, but something to walk on.
She closed her eyes, letting her soul drift, feeling the cold eternity of the ice, but this, too, was passing. Year by year, it melted, the waters draining away. One needed only walk north from the distant oak and pine forests to see the moraines, kettles, and boulders left behind.
“Where will it end?” she mused. “With all of the world’s ice melted?”
She remembered the ever-present winds blowing up from the distant south, warm and balmy, even in winter. The world was changing, warming. The old ways were about to die, and how were people to adapt? Could they become one with the new land, the new plants? And what of the animals, creatures like the mammoth, sloth, and short-faced bear who clung to the spruce barrens?
“We live with death,” she murmured. “Everything in its time.” But now time was running out.
So she stood, savoring the darkness, feeling the ice. It moaned and creaked, the wind keening through the tunnels, forever drawing warm air into the depths, only to have it cool, and suck more warm air down into the slowly melting ice.
For that moment, she felt eternal.
A voice broke the peace.
She turned, hearing someone say, “This way, Kishkat … I think.”
The faint flicker of a light shone around the tunnel’s curve.
Skimmer reached down and slipped the ax from where it rode on her belt beside the Raven Bundle.
“Kishkat?” she called. “Is that you?”
Silence. Then a tentative voice called, “Skimmer?”
“I’m just around the corner.”
She squinted at the faint light the warrior held before him. His eyes widened in surprise as he stared at her.
“You have no lamp!” he stated.
She looked past him. “Greetings, Tapa. But what are the two of you doing here?”
Kishka lowered his eyes. “Looking for you.”
She smiled grimly. “Missed my company?”
Kishkat sighed, and to her surprise, slumped to the floor. “We’re supposed to kill you.”
“I see.”
“Where’s your lamp, Skimmer?” Tapa asked.
“I don’t need one.”
“You don’t?” Kishkat wondered; then he stared down at his flickering flame. “This is the last of our fat. When it burns out …” He closed his eyes. “What seems like an eternity ago, when the big quake struck, it blocked the tunnel we were in.” A pause. “Tibo was on the other side.”
“I just want out,” Tapa said fervently. “Nashat can lock me in a cage. Break my back, but I’ll be able to see the stars.”
“Nashat,” Skimmer said softly. “He ordered you to murder me?”
Kishkat nodded. “We found out why. It’s because you protected the Guide.” He looked up. “But I guess you’re as lost as we are.”
“Nashat ordered you to kill me …” She stiffened. “Ti-Bish!”
“What?” Kishkat asked.
“Come. We have to hurry.”
“Is it on the way out?” Tapa asked anxiously.
“It is. Follow me. As soon as we know the Guide is safe, I’ll show you the way out.”
She left at a run, chafing at the slow progress they made trying to follow her. They didn’t dare let their precious flame blow out in the draft rushing through the tunnel.
With his light flickering before him, Nashat stalked down the tunnel, gleamings of yellow reflected on the ice around him.
He took the familiar turn, watching his footing as he descended a steep slope, then rounded a bend. He paused, listening.
No voices could be heard.
He swallowed hard, hating the fact that he couldn’t bring a warrior with him. He’d thought about Karigi, but wasn’t sure he could trust the man in the long run. Karigi had an utterly practical streak, one that might be held against Nashat in the future.