Reading Online Novel

People of the Nightland(76)



Honors? What honors were left to win when all the world was busy destroying itself?

At night, he had crawled into his hides, ill, but too numb to feel, or relive any of the nightmares that tormented him like evil Spirits with fiery darts. In too many, Bramble stared up at him, hatred marring the face he had once loved. He would see her choke on the blood welling from inside her. When she called out his name, it was in a crimson spray that coated his skin.

He didn’t have to do the silent calculations of how many Sunpath lives had been lost, or would be lost in the moon ahead.

Windwolf, this is all your fault.

The ache in his gut started to rise again. He swallowed and forced it down.

Why were so few people out front? He shook his head. Could they be the bait? The thought affected him like a dart in his belly.

For several stunning moments, his thoughts riveted on strategy sessions held over campfires—just him, Windwolf, and Bramble. What fine times those had been. He could recall …

There are so few Lame Bull People out in front of the rockshelters.

He, Bramble, and Windwolf, they’d been stretched out on the dry grass near the Thunder Sea, watching the Nightland People pack up their camps, speculating on what it would take to get inside the Nightland Caves. Insane strategy—things to be tried only when they were already dead men, trapped, and no other path lay open to them. An ice-scented wind had blown off the Thunder Sea, rustling the grasses.

After the Nightland People had gone, he and Windwolf had explored every ice tunnel, trying to learn how the passageways connected.

Windwolf’s deep voice rose in his thoughts: “No, two tens would be too many. If you’re going to take the caves, it’ll have to be a small war party. Six men, with specific duties, and a crowd. That’s all you will need. The war party will have no more than ten tens of heartbeats, but—”

“Oh, no!” Goodeagle spun around and ran down the trail with his heart in his throat.

“You … fools! You stupid … stupid fools! Windwolf is going to … to kill all of you!”





Thirty-one

Cloud People filled the brightening sky. The queer leaden light lent an unearthly brilliance to the cold world, and turned the shawl of frost on the rockshelters into a glittering mantle.

Keresa trotted up and knelt beside Kakala, expecting a reprimand for being late. “It took longer than I expected, but our warriors are ready. As you instructed, I ordered the three tens of warriors going with us to capture any Elders they saw.”

“Good. Did you dispatch a runner to inform the nearby villages that they will have refugees coming in?”

“I sent young Aniya. She’s one of the best runners we have.”

Kakala squinted up at the village. He looked as nervous as a big cat on a hunt. Sweat matted his black hair to his forehead. “Why aren’t there more people outside?”

“I’ve been wondering that same thing. Something’s wrong.”

“Do you think they got word we were coming?”

She studied the few people who were outside, mostly women and children, one old man. They acted perfectly normal. The squealing children were playing a game of hoop-and-stick, running and trying to cast their sticks through the hoop to earn a point. The women who stood near the mouth of a small rockshelter were using jasper scrapers to clean the last bits of flesh from a buffalo hide. The old man dozed in the sunlight.

She said, “They look nervously calm.”

Nervously calm? He shrugged it off. “They do. But then, given what the Sunpath People have been through, how could they look calmly calm?” A pause. “Maybe there’s a ceremonial in one of the rockshelters—a burial rite, or a marriage.”

Keresa whispered, “It’s possible. We should at least hear drums and flutes.” She stiffened. “I think they know we’re here and have run into the rockshelters to hide.”

Kakala nocked a dart in his atlatl. “Then … they would have taken the Sunpath People with them. Maybe it’s a village Council meeting. That would explain why there’s no music or Singing.”

Keresa nodded reluctantly and took the opportunity to nock her own atlatl. “It would also explain why the Sunpath People are outside going about their day. They wouldn’t have been invited.”

Kakala said through a long exhalation, “That makes sense.”

“Does it? I’m not so sure.”

He started to rise, but suddenly ducked and stared up at the cloudy sky.

“What’s wrong?”

He shook his head. “Nothing … I—I thought I saw a shadow. Something black … moving over me … the shadow of huge wings.”