They had one hand of time, maybe.
“Soul Keeper?” Evening Star called just above a whisper.
He turned. “Yes?”
“I have a little dried fish left in my pack, and Tsauz has some dried seaweed. It’s not much, but anything will help keep your strength up.”
“Your kindness is appreciated.” Rides-the-Wind was freezing and hungry. “Pull the yellow bag from my pack and we can chew the last of the pemmican as we go.”
“Yes, Elder.”
As Evening Star reached to fish around in Rides-the-Wind’s pack, she almost pulled him off balance. She handed sections to him, Tsauz, and the litter bearers. They all ate as they walked.
“Is she all right, Elder?” Evening Star indicated the litter.
“I think she’s alive, though I can’t prove it.”
Tsauz bent around to peer blindly at Rides-the-Wind. Worry tightened his young face. “But she’s breathing, isn’t she?”
“Not that I can tell, but that may mean nothing. Several times in the past six tens of summers I have sat beside people who did not seem to be alive. They did not breathe. They had no heartbeat. Yet, two or three days later, they awakened and smiled at me.” He stared at Astcat, catching glimpses of her face. Damp locks of hair spread across her blankets like a dark gray halo.
“She’ll get well, Elder. I know it.” Tsauz seemed so sure of himself.
“I pray you’re right.”
Tsauz was genuinely concerned. He could see it in the boy’s eyes and the worried set of his mouth. “Was the matron kind to you?”
“Oh, yes. After Mother’s death she used to speak to me when no one else would. I think people were frightened by my blindness, but Matron Astcat treated me just the same as she had before Mother’s death.”
“She has guided her people well.”
“She tried to, but when her soul started to fly away, things changed.”
Evening Star’s delicate brows lowered. “How so?”
“Father said the Council of Elders had become like a boat without a paddler. There was no one to tell it which way it should go. It just seemed to flounder without her. Then Old Woman North decided to make the decisions.”
“And we all know what that led us to,” Evening Star said darkly.
Tsauz nodded. “We only started attacking the Raven People after Matron Astcat’s soul left her body.”
It surprised Rides-the-Wind that the boy knew what a bad decision that had been. He hadn’t gotten that from his father, since Ecan seemed to thrive on murdering Raven People.
In a barely audible voice, Tsauz said, “I want to marry her, Elder. I have to.”
Evening Star turned. “What will you do if you become chief, Tsauz?”
He wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Stop the war. Then I—I’ll free all the Raven People slaves. I have to. I’ve seen it.”
“Seen it?” Rides the Wind frowned. “You mean in a Dream? Thunderbird showed it to you?”
Tsauz’s blind eyes seemed to be drifting over the white-crested waves that tormented Mother Ocean just below their trail. “No, this is a Dream I had the night I went blind. Mother was … was dead, and Red Dog left me sitting alone on a hillside with the people who’d been hurt in the fire. They all died, of course; and I was scared. I tried to climb off the rock and fell and hit my arm.” He wet his lips. “Father later said that once I got used to being safe again, I’d stop having the Dream, but it’s never gone away.”
“What happens in the Dream, Tsauz?”
Tsauz looked nervous, his feet feeling for the trail as he held Rides-the-Wind’s arm. “After I have made peace with the Raven People I’m swimming in a lake of blood trying to save a baby boy who’s drowning, and there are strange feathered Spirits—”
“Ah,” Rides-the-Wind said in a soft voice. “I know that Dream.”
Tsauz jerked his head around, almost falling. “You do?”
“Oh, yes. As a matter of fact, I’ve never known a Dreamer who hasn’t had that Dream at least once in his life. The greatest Dreamers have it many times.”
“But why, Elder? What does it mean?”
Rides-the-Wind gestured uncertainly. “I think it’s a warning. Something far in the future, I fear.”
As though trying to memorize it, Tsauz whispered, “A bloody boy far in the future.”
As they wound down the mountain trail through the leafless alder groves, Ecan gradually dropped to the rear of the procession to walk beside Pitch. No one seemed to notice. Almost everyone had shifted positions after the battle. Cimmis now walked in front, beside Dzoo. Kaska’s warriors followed them; then came the three concentric circles of warriors around the Four Old Women. Kaska’s litter was the last in line as they descended the steep trail, and she had new litter bearers—Cimmis’s warriors. Cimmis had effectively separated her from her people.