People of the Nightland(82)

Keresa replied, “More than you can defend against, Windwolf. Even if Deputy Silt arrives with your warriors. Even if you manage to coerce every child into carrying a stick.You cannot win. Our warriors are coming, in overwhelming numbers.”





Fish Hawk stood to Windwolf’s left, watching.

Windwolf looked dead tired, drained of every shred of the strength that had kept them alive over the past few hands of time. His dark eyes were dull, lifeless. He propped a trembling fist on the rock, and said, “You’ve just helped me make a difficult decision, Deputy. I thank you. I was actually considering letting you live.”

He got to his feet and walked away.

Keresa shouted, “Windwolf! Windwolf, wait! Talk to me! Talk to me!”





Confusion

I sit with my back against the ice wall and stare at the dark form five paces away. Against the faint gleam of the fiery lake, he looks tall and massive, almost blocking the tunnel when he spreads his wings.

In a very small voice, I say, “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to. Just tell her.”

Raven Hunter might stand right in front of me, but his voice sounds far away, like the distant rumble of thunder.

“Will she understand? About the feather?”

“Better than you know.”

“You’re sure she’s alive?”

“Oh, yes.”

I toy with the fringes on my cape for a few moments before rising to my feet. “I’ll tell her as soon as she arrives.”

“I know you will.”

The blackness retreats down the tunnel, heading for the fiery lake, growing smaller and smaller, as though flying.

The scents of water and algae rise powerfully in the backwash of his wings.

I take a deep breath and watch until Raven Hunter is gone, and the pale gleam of the lake returns to waver over the ice walls like sunlight off water. “Feathers and suffering,” I whisper to myself. “I don’t understand.”

As I slowly head back up the tunnel, I wonder why Skimmer would understand when I do not. Is she smarter than I am? I feel a flush creep into my cheeks. Everyone is smarter than I am. Perhaps after I have told her the message, Skimmer will explain it to me.

“Yes, she’ll explain it.”





Thirty-five

Silvertip couldn’t have explained it—not in words. He was sitting on top of the high boulders that rose over Headswift Village. How he had come to be there was beyond him. He didn’t remember. The fact was: He sat on the stone, where he had been sitting, but with no idea of how long he had been there.

Nor could he explain his body. It lay before him, supine, with arms at the side, legs out straight. His hair had been washed, combed, and braided. A beautiful hunting shirt, stained blue with larkspur dye, had been dotted with white, signifying stars on a night sky.

A terrible wound marred the side of his head, and his eyes were opened to slits, dried and gray with death. The gray lips were parted, and he could see the tips of his teeth, starkly white. His belly was distended, swollen with death.

Silvertip studied his corpse, seeing the familiar scar in the web between thumb and forefinger on his right hand. He’d gotten it while learning to knap flint a year before. A long white chert flake had cut deeply, and when the scar slowly healed, left a bright white line on his skin.

How did this happen?

The memory seemed to seep into him, like water through moss.

I had to die.

He looked down at his Spirit hand, opening the fingers, remembering the feel of the stone. How, half crazy with fear, he’d run into the path of the woman warrior, and cast the stone with all his might. She had easily ducked it, and he remembered his terrible fear as she charged down on him, shifting her dart and atlatl, reaching for the club.

He had stood, frozen, watching the club lift, how it had flashed in the sunlight. Then, darkness.

And I am here.

He should have been afraid. Worried, or perhaps sad. Instead, he felt hollow, as if nothing were left.

“That is the way of it,” a voice said gently.

Silvertip turned, startled, to find a great black wolf, its yellow eyes studying him intently.

“You were in my Dreams.”

“The Spirit world lies beside yours. Separate, but touching. Power flows through them both, binding and pulsing. It beats with your heart, lives in the center of the stone, and flows with the sap in the trees. It waves with the grass in the wind. Then, sometimes, when the right kind of soul touches it, it fills a person.

“Like me?” Silvertip asked hopefully.

“Just like you.” The wolf raised his eyes. “He comes.”

Silvertip followed the wolf’s gaze, seeing a dark dot high in the glowing sky. It circled slowly, hanging on the air, floating. As it drew nearer, the long black wings could be seen.