He was panting now, feet sliding with each powerful attempt to lever himself up the loose scree.
He screamed as Bramble shot him one last smile. Then she turned and slowly walked away. For a moment, the great wolf watched him with its burning eyes before it, too, turned, and with a flip of its bushy tail, disappeared.
Screaming his rage, Windwolf attacked the slope, fighting his way bit by bit to the top. There he leapt to the peak and stood, breath tearing at his throat.
The high peak gave a view of the west. To the northwest, he recognized Loon Lake shining in the sunlight. The sounds of war, men shouting, screaming, and the clacking of war clubs drew his attention to the north. There, at the foot of the Nightland Caves, he watched his warriors running through the Nightland camps. As they ran, women and children fled before them. Even across the distance he could hear war clubs smashing heads. Children screamed as they were run down and murdered. He watched in mute horror.
Bramble? Where is Bramble?
Turning, he looked west. And there, far out over the forest, he could see Bramble, the wolf at her side, marching off like some distant giant toward the low hills on the western horizon.
“Bramble!” he screamed, falling to his knees.
She looked back across the distance, the wind still teasing her long hair. He thought she smiled, and then pointed toward the distant hills. After a final knowing glance she turned and continued on her way.
The wolf hesitated for a moment, staring at him through those odd yellow eyes before it trotted off in Bramble’s tracks, the tail waving until both were lost against the distant hills his people called the Tills.
“She’s gone to the Tills,” Windwolf whispered to himself.
He rose to follow. Setting his steps toward the west. But with each step he took, the ground seemed to slide beneath his feet, leaving him stuck in place. All the while, behind him, he could hear Nightland women and children screaming, pleading, and dying under the weapons of his warriors.
“Bramble?” he asked weakly. “Come back to me.”
But the distant Tills remained empty, almost shimmering in the eerie light.
“Bramble … ?”
“War Chief? Wake up!”
Windwolf blinked, started, and sat up to stare stupidly around a rocky enclosure. It took a moment for him to remember the old white-haired man who held a small bark lamp in his hand.
Trembler looked down with kindly eyes, saying, “You were Dreaming, War Chief. I hated to wake you, but it’s morning. The Nightland have left.You are needed.”
Windwolf rubbed his face, shaking off the last fragments of the Dream.
He nodded, collected his few belongings, and followed Trembler back along the tortuous route they’d taken the night before. Today, he could see the splinters of dull light that penetrated between many of the boulders. They dappled his path with a cold white gleam.
“Lookingbill is alive, but he’s weak,” Trembler said. “He ordered me to bring you to him.”
“I understand. What about the village?”
“Oddly, Kakala did but little damage. He spared the women and children when he could have killed them. Most of the elders survived. But …” He exhaled hard. “The Chief ’s daughter, Mossy, was killed in the fighting.”
He forced himself to think, the image of the Tills still lingering in his soul’s eye. “What about your warriors? How many survived?”
“We lost ten, War Chief. It could have been much worse.” He glanced back. “Kakala turned several of his captives loose. He said that he was only after you. That if we would turn you over, he would simply leave.”
“How kind of him.”
They stepped out into the gray morning and took the trail that led to the enormous ceremonial cavern. Just outside, fifteen dead bodies were laid out in rows. They’d all been freshly bathed and dressed in clean hides.
As they passed, Trembler said, “Fish Hawk saw only ten and six warriors with Kakala, thank the Ancestors. Five of those will not be returning home with him.”
“Kakala was outnumbered. He’ll be back with five tens.”
Windwolf shivered slightly as he stepped to the mouth of the cave. Though most of the sky was clear, snowflakes fell from the drifting Cloud People, lighting as softly as feathers on the ground and frosting the boulders. The sharp fragrance of wet spruce needles and damp earth rode the breeze.
Images from the Dream kept spinning behind his eyes: Bramble, striding westward over the forest, the wolf by her side. All the while, he could hear the piteous cries of the Nightland women and children as his warriors struck them down.
The black wolf ’s eyes seemed to burn inside him.
His dread had lifted, replaced by a terrible weariness that made all things seem blessedly unreal. He’d been living out a precarious charade, laying battle plans for his warriors, speaking to people only when absolutely necessary, retreating to his hides at night, knowing he’d Dream. And finally he would jerk awake in the darkness, sweat pouring from his body. Images of Bramble, blood welling from her mouth, would linger.