Goodeagle dove through on all fours, looked around, and lunged to pick up an abandoned war club. “Keresa! It’s up to you! What are you going to do?”
Keresa, panting from exertion, hauled Kakala into a sitting position, looked into his vacant, half-lidded eyes, and propped him against the wall. Blood streaked his face and had soaked his war shirt until it clung to his muscular body in wet folds.
“Is it true?” Goodeagle demanded, and stared wild-eyed. “Did Windwolf escape?”
Keresa could only pant, staring out at the narrow opening. She could hear the screams and pleas of her wounded warriors. Despite clamping her eyes shut, she could see too clearly with the eye of her soul: They were writhing, bleeding, staring in horror at the wooden shafts sticking from their flesh.
One by one, the screams stopped. The Lame Bull were repaying blood with blood.
Goodeagle spun around, frantic eyes rising from Kakala to Keresa. “He’s killed your entire war party. They’re all dead. You fool! You let him kill your people! I tried to tell you—”
Keresa rose, drew back, and slammed a fist into Goodeagle’s mouth.
Goodeagle staggered backward, sobbing as he hit the floor.
“Deputy?” Degan called. “There’s a hole in the rear of this shelter.”
She shook herself, gathering her scattered wits, and worked her way back along the narrow passage. In places she had to drop to her hands and knees. Then the tunnel opened, and she saw the high crevice. Bishka and Degan were staring up, their faces illuminated by diffused daylight.
Tell me it’s a way out. “Degan, you and Klah carry the war chief. Follow me!”
It took all of her strength as she levered her body up the narrow crack, then poked her head up into the light. Some premonition warned her; a shadow moved on the rock. She loosened her hold as an adz whistled down to shatter on stone. She felt the wind of it, stone splinters pattering on her hair.
Keresa slid, her body bouncing off the rocks to land in a heap at the bottom. She winced, raising her hands to find raw and bleeding palms.
Feet shuffled behind her. She turned to see her frightened warriors emerge into the chamber. They manhandled the limp Kakala between them. Each was looking to her, desperation in their eyes.
She climbed painfully to her feet, turning her attention to where the tunnel forked. She glanced warily around the right bend. Up ahead, sunlight lit the tunnel.
Raven, let this be it!
Wiser now, she proceeded warily, her warriors creeping along behind her. The tunnel narrowed until barely wide enough to pass her shoulders. Looking up, she could see a wide, funnel-like opening, impossible to climb.
Pray no warrior is up there. He could drive a dart down through the top of my head and clear to my foot.
Once through, she turned, grabbed Kakala’s arms, and hauled him forward to allow the warriors behind him to get through.
Kakala’s eyes rolled. That much, at least, was an improvement. He reeled in her arms, disoriented. He kept saying, “What … what … what …”
Keresa called back, “There’s sunlight up ahead. We’re going to try to climb out!”
Warriors followed along after her, eyes wide as they stared at the forbidding stone around her.
She grabbed hold of the rocks, planted her feet, and started to climb. The hole at the top consisted of a gap between three boulders. This time, she peered around carefully, easing her way up, fearing an ambush.
She found it—saw the faces of tens of warriors above her, grinning. She jerked back as a stone-tipped dart snapped against the stone where her head had been. The shattered dart dropped past her.
The clattering sound of falling rock echoed through the tunnel. She slid back to the cavern floor, staring with the rest as Degan hurried back they way they had come.
“Oh, gods, Keresa!” Degan shouted, throwing himself back before a cloud of rock dust. The tunnel had been collapsed to seal them in.
The choking wall of dust continued to billow out as rocks and debris thundered down.
Above her, the Lame Bull warriors were rolling boulders into place, sealing the opening.
She breathed, “Blessed Raven Hunter, we’re trapped.”
Thirty-three
Goodeagle hunched in the rear of a chamber, surrounded by five other warriors. When the tunnel collapsed ahead of them, they’d been forced to turn around and go back. Somewhere in another tunnel, he heard shouts, but the voices were muted, as though coming from beneath a deep layer of earth and stone. He coughed and squinted at the veil of dust that filled the chamber.
The opening through which they’d entered mocked them. When Mong had eased up to the opening, a long dart had sailed in, opened a cut along his ribs, and clattered off the wall.