People of the Nightland(9)

“You always had to go it alone, didn’t you?” Goodeagle asked. Then he paused. “And now you’ll do it with Councilor Nashat.”

“Is that why you betrayed Bramble? Because she couldn’t see it, whatever it is?”

He looked away, a spear of guilt on his face.

“Go on,” he muttered. “Shiver yourself to sleep tonight. And while you do, imagine what the Nightland are going to do with you.” Then he turned. “Blue Wing! When you cross, drop your pack. I think I’ll give you the honor of warming my robes tonight.”

Skimmer sighed as the man walked back down the line to match his pace with the hapless Blue Wing’s. Once she had admired both Blue Wing and Kicking Fawn for their good looks, and the way men watched their bodies as they passed. Now she knew it for the curse it could be.

“Is that true, Mother?” Ashes asked. “Did he really kill Bramble?”

“After a fashion, yes.” She took a breath, walking out onto one of the rocky islands, following the wet trail the others had left on the rocks. “But then, maybe we all did.”

“Good.” Ashes said softly. “Bramble was evil.”

“And Windwolf?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Ashes said between panting for breath. “People here think he’s going to come and rescue us.”

She considered that as she followed Ashes into the next ford.

Would Windwolf come to rescue the Nine Pipes? Even after all that we did to ensure that none of the other bands would join him in an alliance?

“We have only poisoned ourselves.”

She followed the long line across the narrow channels, through the willows on the far bank, and struggled, her muscles protesting, up into the trees on the first terrace.

“Camp here!” the warriors called as they entered a small clearing in the trees.

Skimmer shrugged out of her pack, looking around at the rest of the captives. These women, people she’d known for years, now appeared as strangers, expressions haunted, faces slack, and eyes dull. Each was living her grief, remembering dead husbands, brothers, and sons left lying, unburied, in the smoking ruins of the Nine Pipes camp. They had become strangers.

As I have become to myself.

“We’ve been fools, Ashes.”

And now it’s too late.





Flames danced and flickered as they greedily consumed a collection of broken branches placed on the flames. The fire cast its warmth and light, cheery in the cool night. Keresa sat cross-legged and watched the branches burn, lost in her thoughts. Across from her, Kakala puffed at a stone pipe, blowing out wreaths of blue smoke to rise toward the star-speckled night sky.

She could hear the soft whisper of Lake River, the great braided river that drained from Loon Lake, a great oval-shaped body of fresh water that lay to the west. Technically, Lake River marked the boundary between the Lame Bull and Sunpath territories. Kakala’s warriors had forded it earlier in the day, wading through the interwoven channels.

Around them, spruce and hemlock reflected the firelight. Raising her eyes, she could see the five fires the slaves had made in the center of the clearing. The rest of her warriors were spaced around them, most relaxing and talking after having eaten.

Between them and the slaves, stacked bundles of meat and fat had been laid out in a ring. The warriors kept bright fires, a deterrent to hungry bears, wolves, and lions. A stack of branches lay readily at hand in case any of the animals decided to challenge the humans. They would be met by burning brands and sharp darts.

Hunting darts were made with detachable foreshafts that fitted into hollows on the main shaft body. When hunting animals, especially large ones like mammoth and buffalo, the stone-tipped foreshaft was driven deeply into the animal’s body, the springy fletched main shaft detaching to bounce back from the animal’s side. A hunter could retrieve it, twist another foreshaft onto the dart, and cast again. The embedded foreshafts continued to cut tissue, and allowed the blood to drain from the hole in the animal’s side.

In war, her people preferred a solid dart, one that splintered, or broke its point on impact, so that an enemy warrior couldn’t pick it up and cast it back again.

Keresa lowered her eyes to the fire.

“You saw the Lame Bull hunters watching us ford the river today?” Kakala asked casually.

“They just watch.” She shrugged. “They know we are just passing through.

“So far.” Kakala puffed on his pipe before blowing the blue smoke through his puckered lips.

“So far?” She glanced up at him.

“How many of the Sunpath bands are left?” Kakala narrowed an eye as he studied her across the fire.