“How do you know?” Her suspicion burned brightly.
“Because Windwolf won the fight.” He waved it away. “It doesn’t matter. I think Keresa was Traded for you.”
“Keresa?” She frowned, remembering young Silvertip’s Dream.
“I don’t understand all of the details, but they are fighting over the end of the world.”
Of course, the end of the world. Skimmer pointed to the huge maw. “Aren’t we going through there?”
“No. I have a chamber prepared for you in a different part of the caves. No one will know where you are until I tell them. It may take some time before I can teach you some of the things Raven Hunter has taught me. I want you to be happy during that time.”
She stared at him. He wanted to keep her all to himself, locked in the bowels of the Ice Giants?
“Ti-Bish, the warriors will tell Nashat I’m here. He’ll search the caves until he finds me.”
He timidly lifted a hand to stroke her long hair, and she forced herself not to shudder. “He won’t find you, Skimmer. No one will.”
Forty
The Council chamber smelled of sweat and damp hides. Lookingbill smoothed a hand over his bald head and gazed at the warrior who stood guard outside the entrance.
Tens of people walked along the tunnels. The rockshelters were already packed. Where in Wolf Dreamer’s name would they put any more? He thanked the gods that Dipper was making those decisions. After the past few days, he felt hollow, as though his insides had been eaten out.
“I don’t know which hole to aim for,” Ashes said.
He looked back and frowned at the holes in the floor and the positions of the round stone balls. The goal of the game was to roll the balls into the holes with a flick of the wrist. The stones couldn’t be bowled. It wasn’t easy.
“You’re just tired, Ashes. Would you rather take a nap, like Silvertip?”
His wounded grandson lay on a hide on the far side of the chamber, next to his elderly cousin Loon Spot. The old woman had been snoring for a hand of time.
He tried not to look at Silvertip. The Healer had drawn sacred designs on his face and forehead, each but a desperate attempt to keep his soul contained in the body. The swelling on the side of the boy’s head had finally receded, but the high fever remained.
Old Loon Spot had taken to continually dribbling water between the boy’s lips. Any more than a couple of drops at a time, and he’d choke, unable to swallow.
More than once, Lookingbill had feared the boy was dead, but placing his ear to the thin chest, he could hear the heartbeat, frighteningly slow, but there nonetheless.
“No,” Ashes said, maintaining the fiction of Silvertip’s “nap.” “I—I have bad Dreams when I close my eyes.”
“What kind of bad Dreams?”
She shrugged. He’d tried to get her to discuss her Dreams since dawn, hoping he could ease some of the girl’s terror, but she’d refused.
Lookingbill saw her mouth quiver before she clamped her jaw. “Your mother is all right, Ashes. She’s a strong woman, and she knows what she’s doing.” He hoped.
“I was thinking about my father.” She swallowed hard to keep tears at bay. “Wishing he were here.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“The day the Nightland warriors burst into the ceremonial lodge and started killing people.”
No wonder she had no desire to sleep.
Ashes flicked one of the stone balls. It rolled across the hard-packed floor and settled in a hole.
“Good aim, Ashes. Well done.”
She didn’t look happy, just relieved. “I don’t want to play any longer.”
“We don’t have to play. Would you like to do something else?”
“No, I just—”
Loon Spot woke suddenly—stared at them as though she’d never seen them before—and threw a basket with all her might.
Lookingbill dodged just in time; it went sailing across the chamber toward the warrior who stood guard. The poor man must have thought it sounded like a dart cutting the air, because he dove for cover.
“Loon Spot, what are you doing?” Lookingbill demanded.
The willowy old woman had a shriveled triangular face tucked beneath a gray mop of hair. A broad smile creased her lips.
“I Dreamed you were a dog,” she said.
Lookingbill scowled and thrust a hand toward the guard, who peered nervously through entrance. “Look what you made the guard do.”
She grinned. “He moves fast. That makes me feel safer.”
“I wish you’d go find another chamber to sleep in. I’m tired of you and your snoring.”
With all the dignity he could manage, the guard pulled himself to his feet and straightened his war shirt. Beneath his breath, he murmured, “Crazy old—”