People of the Owl(154)
Why do you care what they say about her? You are going to kill them in the end anyway!
It took all of her concentration to remember her uncle’s warning. “You cannot see them as people, Anhinga. That is the single greatest threat to your success.”
Some subtle reflex caused her to look up. There, perched on a high branch, a huge barred owl stared down at her. She almost missed a step. The bird’s penetrating stare ate clear through her, probing like shafts of dark light. The round head bobbed slightly, accenting the facial disks. He might have been peering at her through a mask.
Unease crept up her spine. She hadn’t known they could grow so big. Despite the bird’s size, it triggered a memory. With its whitespotted red feathers puffed against the cold, she couldn’t help but think of Salamander’s carvings, of the potbellied owls he made.
“I have nothing to do with you,” she called over her shoulder as she hurried away. A prickling of danger rode lightly on her nerves. She could almost feel Power crackling along the ice-shrouded branches. Hear it throbbing in the winter depths of the forest. Only after passing beyond the bird’s sight did she slow down again.
Sighing with relief, she picked her way with care, watching her deerhide moccasins crush the frosted grass underfoot. Overhead, bare black branches webbed the sky. The ground, covered with icecoated leaves, required all of her concentration. Her moccasins, while warm, made each step a tricky proposition. The smooth soles had no grip on ice-slick leaves.
She picked her way past gray vines that hung from the trees, seeking the trail she knew led the way back, past the hunter’s blind. Rounding the thick bole of a beech tree, she stopped short. A naked man stood in the trail, steam rising from a fresh puddle of urine.
As their eyes met, she recognized him: Saw Back. The youth who had been sent to kill her uncle. The one Salamander had tricked on the Turtle’s Back. He was holding his dripping penis, naked but for a necklace made of two sections of a human jawbone. Naked? A curious state considering the breath whitening before the young man’s mouth. They stared at each other in disbelief.
“Saw Back? Are you coming back?” a familiar female voice asked from the low hunter’s blind at the side of the trail.
“It’s you!” Saw Back cried, finding his voice. “What are you doing here, you barbarian bitch? Come to spy on me?”
“Anhinga?” A face appeared in the blind’s shadowed doorway, “Here?”
“Night Rain?” Anhinga asked. She saw the hatred rising in Saw Back’s eyes. “Slipping out to part your legs for just any camp dog?”
“Camp dog?” Saw Back cried, stepping forward, his dark skin prickling against the cold. “You call me a camp dog? You’re nothing but a murdering barbarian weasel. They sent me away because of you! You and that skinny joke of a Speaker.”
Anhinga ducked out of the tumpline, letting the firewood bundle drop with a clatter. She groped for her ax handle, quartering as she backed away, keeping it out of his sight behind her kirtle. If this turned nasty, her only hope lay in his belief that she was defenseless.
“It’s me she’s spying on!” Night Rain declared as she scuttled out of the blind. Her mussed black hair fell around her bare shoulders in tangles. Cold had hardened the nipples on her round breasts and coaxed a faint mist from the damp tuft of her pubic hair.
“I spy on no one,” Anhinga answered hotly. “You can part your legs for every flea-infested cur in camp for all I care, fool.”
“Fool? You’re calling me a fool?” Night Rain thrust out a slim finger. “At least I find satisfaction with a real man.”
“Look at my tattoos, barbarian bitch!” Saw Back thumped his chest. “I am a warrior! Not like that child who shares your bed.” He stepped closer, a dangerous gleam in his eyes as he lifted the jawbone necklace. “These I made from the Swamp Panther slime I drove a dart through at Ground Cherry Camp!”
Her vision swam for a moment. Which of her friends was it? Cooter? Spider Fire? Slit Nose? From the way the bone had been ground, she couldn’t be sure. The teeth gleamed whitely in the gray light.
“I could add yours,” he told her, tapping the polished bone. “I could tie them under right here so they would hang under your dead kinsman’s.”
“You are a sneaking cur.” She could feel the danger settling around her like haze, see it in his sharpened eyes, in the tensing of his muscles.
Through gritted teeth, he said, “I am a warrior. My Spirit Helpers have brought you to me.” He danced a half step toward her. “My ancestors are watching, crying for your blood, and now you have stepped into my hands. After I am done with you, no one is going to find your body.”