Twenty
Windwolf eased through the trees, sticking to cover as he made a careful scout of their surroundings. The spot where Skimmer and Ashes slept wasn’t the best hiding place they could have picked, but he hadn’t the heart to wake them.
Such compassion could get us all killed.
He growled at himself, irritated more with his own fatigue and depressed spirits.
Nashat and Karigi waded in and murdered over two tens of women and girls! Just like they were cracking nuts! He winced, hatred and loathing rising like bile into his throat.
He backed away, having searched the approaches to the best of his ability. Stepping around the tree, he cocked his head, studying Skimmer and the sleeping girl. Despite their awkward postures where they were propped on the rock, neither had moved. He raised the flat of his hand to the sky, measuring six hands up from the horizon to the sun. To have slept that long, in such an uncomfortable pose, told him just how exhausted they were.
He hunched down, reaching for a slab of dried meat in his pack. Clamping the hard stuff with his teeth, he twisted a piece off, chewing. Food would buy him some time before he, too, collapsed.
Skimmer lives. He glanced back toward Headswift Village. But what does that mean for us?
He studied her slack expression, partially hidden by her gore-matted stringy hair. The odor of death clung thickly to her clothes. It took no stretch of belief to imagine her secreting herself beneath a pile of the dead.
Would I have had that kind of desperate courage?
When he and Bramble had fought the Nine Pipes band so many years ago, he hadn’t had a very high opinion of Hookmaker. Brave and brash, the young war chief had led his warriors straight into Windwolf’s ambushes three times. In each, the Nine Pipes warriors had fought bravely, standing and casting while Windwolf’s warriors shot them down one by one from concealment. Each time they had finally broken and fled. When the Nine Pipes had finally offered a settlement, it had to have stung.
Yes, Skimmer had stood against him and Bramble when they tried to forge an alliance. Why wouldn’t they? But now, with those events so distant in the past, neither he nor Skimmer were the same people they had once been.
So, Skimmer, have they finally broken you? She reminded him of an eggshell, fragile, so easily shattered. He had seen the terror bright in her eyes, watched her shake uncontrollably as she relived the memories of those last days in the pen.
He shook his head. What little push would it take to crack what remains of your shell, Skimmer?
“Not much,” he whispered to himself, and sighed.
He started to rise, figuring to make another scout of the surroundings. In the split instant before he could comprehend, the world seemed to tense. Then the jolt shivered earth and air. A soft boom followed by a faint rumble accompanied the quake. Squirrels chattered; birds cried and flew.
Windwolf felt it through his feet, into his very bones. Such things were commonplace, but they always left his soul tingling.
It was a measure of Skimmer’s and Ashes’ exhaustion that they slept right through it, only shifting to new positions as the stone and ground they rested on quivered.
He looked out to the north. “Too bad it didn’t bring your rotted ice caves crashing down on your heads!”
The dream began as it always did … Windwolf was running, running hard … .
Ahead of him, just over the hill, he could see the roof of the ceremonial lodge where Bramble should be waiting. He charged headlong for it. As he crested the hill, Walking Seal Village filled the hollow. Hawhak’s Nightland warriors fled in panic before them, some turning, casting wild darts that hissed as they cut the air, then clattered and snapped as they hit the hard earth.
“Windwolf! This is madness!” Silt yelled behind him.
The village was in chaos. Fleeing Nightland warriors reminded him of hares on the run.
My people! Where are my people?
“Continue the attack, Silt!” Windwolf commanded. Heedless of danger, he ran with all his might, heading straight for the center of the village and the large, round-topped lodge. He caught a glimpse of several Nightland warriors sprinting from the opposite stand of trees. Kakala, Keresa, and … and Goodeagle?
No, it couldn’t be! He’d just had a glimpse.
How could this have happened? What had he missed? But for the chance encounter of a fleeing woman, he’d have walked right into the trap. What had gone wrong? Something … something critical. Bramble had sent word that she was meeting to talk peace with Deputy Karigi.
Peace?
He heard Silt’s feet hammering the ground behind him. “Windwolf, the villagers need us,” Silt panted. “We have to press the attack on the Nightland warriors! If they regroup, it will go badly for us!”