Skimmer didn’t answer. Five body lengths away, a young girl, perhaps ten, gripped the feet of her dead sister, trying to drag the corpse to the pile.
“Move?” the girl begged a cluster of people blocking the way.
“Please! I’m not very strong, and I have to—”
“Go the other way round. We’re too tired to move.” A young woman just glared. “Or leave her there. We’re all dead anyway.”
The girl struggled to comply, dragging her sister three paces in the opposite direction. But the women there refused to move. All paths were closed. Finally, in defeat, she dropped back to the ground and buried her face in her sister’s dirty shirt to muffle her sobs.
Softly, Skimmer began the First Song:
Flight of the bird, so big so loud,
calls the thunder from the cloud,
Sun children kill each other,
Long way south for the death of a brother,
Hot, dry, war is nigh,
War is nigh …
Legends said that Wolf Dreamer’s first teacher had been an old woman named Heron, and that she’d died with those words on her lips.
Yellow Woman bowed her head. Tears dripped from her long nose and landed glistening on her filthy sleeve.
Skimmer stared. How could she have so much water left after so many days of thirst? It didn’t seem possible. Her own tears had dried up long ago.
“They’re going to slaughter us,” she wept. “You know it too, don’t you?”
“Everyone knows it.”
“We must do something. We can’t just let them kill us. What can we do?”
“Fight. We can band together and fight.”
“Are you mad? Do you want to try and climb the walls? In our weakened condition—and against armed warriors who can dart us all in a few heartbeats?”
“I won’t just sit here and let them kill my daughter.”
Skimmer rose to her feet, aware of Ashes’ frightened look.
A din of voices erupted outside. People were calling, “The Guide! It’s the Guide! Look!”
“Do you think he’s really out there?” Yellow Woman asked. “The Guide. Do you—”
“Guide? Prophet? What does it matter?”
“Maybe he thinks we’ve suffered enough and will let us go. Maybe he’s come to—”
Skimmer laughed. “Do you think Wolf Dreamer has sent him to save us?”
“Yes … yes, that’s it. Wolf Dreamer has finally seen our agony and—”
“Even Wolf Dreamer turns his head tonight,Yellow Woman. All the Spirits have.”
“It’s not true!” she shouted angrily. “We’re his relatives. He loves us!”
Skimmer studied the guards. They’d changed positions. Instead of walking along the log walls, they stood massed before the gate. Receiving orders to do what?
“We’re not going to die,” Yellow Woman said. “You’ll see. He’s come to forgive us.”
“Sunpath People!” a voice boomed through the gate. “Greetings from the Guide.”
“Hallowed Spirits, let us go!” Yellow Woman shrieked.
Cries rose across the enclosure, people screaming for mercy, striking those next to them to drive them far enough away that the Guide could see their waving arms and repentant faces.
Skimmer cocked her head. That wasn’t Ti-Bish’s voice. This was Elder Nashat.
More guards climbed onto the log walls. They had their atlatls nocked with beautifully fletched darts.
“I believe!” a young woman screamed. “I believe in the Guide’s Dream!”
“I’ve seen the Truth! I know the Guide is the promised Dreamer!”
People wept and promised allegiance to Ti-Bish, if only he would let their children live.
Skimmer gazed down at the soft outline of Ashes’ legs beneath the hem of her cape. Was her daughter dead? Is that why she didn’t move even though a cacophony of shrieks and shouts filled the air?
Gratitude overwhelmed her. For days she’d been girding herself to kill her girl before the Nightland warriors could get their filthy hands on her. Perhaps Wolf Dreamer did exist and had spared her?
“No,” Yellow Woman insisted, eyes glistening with tears of hope. “He’s going to save us. I feel it. Don’t you feel it? Wolf Dreamer has sent him to release—”
“Witness,” Nashat called through the gate, “the power of the Guide you all conspired to murder.”
The gate was pulled open, and Karigi strode in at the head of a party of warriors. Each held a stone-headed hammer.
Skimmer blinked, reading the dark expressions on their faces. They had their jaws clamped, as if resolute to do something terrible. In that instant, Skimmer reached down, jerking Ashes to her feet.