Panther Above, I am alive! On bunched legs she charged into the camp, desperate for the sight of the enemy. The mist-shrouded huts were all around her now. It would be but a moment before she found a target. Borne as if by a storm surge, she threw her head back and a scream of ecstasy tore from her throat.
A shape emerged from one of the low doorways, but to her dismay, it ducked away into the mist before she could make her cast. “We are the Swamp Panthers! We are here to kill you! Bowfin! My brother! Come and watch us take our revenge!”
She danced on feathery feet, muscles charged, but only the swirling mist and the gray-thatched huts met her anxious gaze. Behind her, Spider Fire, Cooter, and Slit Nose, slowed, circling, darts nocked and back for the cast. They bent low, peering into the fog, searching for someone, anyone to attack.
“I saw one!” Anhinga declared. “He ducked out and ran before I could kill him.”
“This accursed mist”—Right Talon gestured with his free hand—“is the work of …”
She heard the impact: a hissing slap, as it smacked into Right Talon’s left side. She blinked, seeing the blood-shiny stone point where a hand’s length of dart protruded from Right Talon’s right side. On his left, the shaft still vibrated, driven in up to the fletching. The expression on Right Talon’s face reflected a wide-eyed disbelieving confusion. The young man’s mouth was open, working, but no sound broke his lips despite a mighty contortion of his chest. He sagged to his knees, darts and atlatl clattering to the ground.
Instinctively, Anhinga was in the act of reaching out to him as a second dart hissed and thumped into Slit Nose’s body. He had been agape, frozen in disbelief as he watched Right Talon collapse. The scream that ripped from Slit Nose’s lungs would haunt Anhinga’s nightmares for the rest of her life.
“We are ambushed!” Mist Finger came to his senses first. “Run! Back to the canoe.”
His voice broke Anhinga’s panicked trance. She turned, pelting back the way they had come. She flinched as something hissed through the air beside her head. Her eyes caught the briefest flicker of something flashing past before it buried itself in the mist.
Cooter, running at her side, grunted, stumbled, and pitched headlong into the charcoal-stained dirt. She saw him hit, saw his body bounce at the impact and slide. He pawed weakly at the damp soil, a long dart implanted in the middle of his back between his shoulder blades.
Screams of rage and ululations of joy broke out on all sides. Shapes emerged from the mist, charging toward her, darts in their hands. Warriors! So many of them! Gripped by terror, she opened her hand, letting her darts and atlatl drop into the grass as she sprinted on Mist Finger’s heels headlong back down the dark slash of trail up which she had led them brief moments before. She barely heard the sobbing sound her throat made as fear tightened it.
Spider Fire’s voice shrieked from behind her, the sound that of wrenching pain. So violent was it that birds broke from the trees, flapping into the gray haze.
Panther, let me live. Help me. Keep me alive. Breath was tearing at her throat as she pumped her arms, flying through the mist-choked forest. The ground dropped away, and she dashed from foot to foot on the wild descent to the canoe landing, feet sliding on the wet dirt as she scrambled for balance and speed.
Mist Finger, too, had thrown away his darts for speed. She was several body lengths behind him as he slewed to a stop, almost toppling as his bare feet slid in the muck. He had started to bend, reaching for the canoe, when a man rose from behind it.
She watched in horror as Mist Finger raised his arm, barely having time to block the blow as a stone-headed ax snapped both bones in his forearm. Mist Finger screeched in agony as the enemy warrior whipped his ax back and forth, each smacking blow breaking through Mist Finger’s pitiful attempts at defense. As she watched, Mist Finger was being beaten into a hunched mass of blood and broken bones.
A wild scream, instinctive, broke from her lips as she threw herself at her enemy. Her fingers were out, ready to scratch him apart.
Instead of the hard impact she expected, the man turned. He looked young, no older than she, a smile on his lips. She could see Mist Finger’s spattered blood stippling the young warrior’s face, hair, and chest. A dancing fire lit the man’s dark eyes as he gracefully pivoted on one foot. Carried forward by her momentum, Anhinga couldn’t react as he artfully dodged out of her way. As she flew past, his arm swung, the movement blurred. Yellow flashed—lightning in her brain—as her head rocked with a hollow bang that deafened her.
Her loose body hammered the muddy ground. A shrill ringing in her ears and pain, such terrible pain, filled her. Her brain had been dislocated from her body, as though floating behind her swimming vision. Her eyes blinked of their own volition. She was staring into Mist Finger’s face—seeing but not comprehending the blood that ran from his gasping mouth or the blank emptiness behind his eyes. That image cast itself on her souls as she fell away … and away … Drifting into a soft gray blankness.