At the same time, Dogrib’s other warriors had cast. He had no time to see the results. He shouted, “Run!”
They thrashed their way out of the raspberry patch, ripping their skin, tearing their war shirts. Feet beat the ground behind him as they raced toward escape. He heard screams, curses, and then the most glorious sound: White Stone bellowing, “After them!”
It was working! A quick glance over his shoulder showed warriors pounding in pursuit. A spear thudded into the ground ahead of him, the shaft vibrating with the force.
He leaped a fallen log and hurtled down the steep hillside almost out of control. He couldn’t have stopped if he’d wanted to. His only hope was to guide his headlong flight around obstacles—like boulders—that might kill him. Another spear hissed past him to shatter on an angular basalt boulder.
“It’s Dogrib! Get him! Run faster!” an enemy warrior called.
Over his shoulder, Dogrib shouted, “Eat maggots and die, you worms!”
Two more spears came close enough that he could feel the wind of their passing. He shot through a small hollow surrounded by trees and headed straight for an opening in the far side.
“Oh, my Ancestors, please help me!”
Just when Dogrib was certain he was dead, he heard Rain Bear shout:
“Hold … hold! Cast!”
Spears glittered as they shot from the trees ten paces ahead and to either side. Dogrib dove for the ground, hit, and rolled, the wind knocked out of him. In a retching agony, he covered his head. The sound of the spears cutting through the air above him was like tens of falcon wings hissing by. When they’d flown over, he jerked around to look.
The spears arced into the midst of the enemy warriors. Every man in the front row shrieked, tumbled as if broken, and fell writhing to the ground. Some jerked futilely at the spears embedded in their flesh. Others stared in disbelief, mouths open in horror. Others whimpered with pain and fear.
The remaining warriors rushed onward, coming ever closer. Dogrib figured that if he stood, he’d look like a mouse who’d roused a porcupine.
“Hallowed Ancestors,” he whispered, “let me live through this and I promise I’ll never—”
“Cast!” Rain Bear shouted.
Another volley hissed angrily through the air barely ten hands over Dogrib’s head. He tried to curl into an invisible ball in the grass.
The screaming grew louder. A man fell on top of him. Dogrib stared into the fellow’s wide, panicked eyes. The spear had taken him through the heart, but his body didn’t know it yet. The man struggled to rise, a horrible sucking sound coming from his impaled chest.
Dogrib looked past him to see another two tens of warriors racing down the hill, straight into Rain Bear’s trap.
When the few surviving North Wind warriors turned and ran, a great roar went up.
Dogrib held his breath, waiting.
Then he heard it. On the hill above him, White Stone ordered more warriors down the hill. Their distinctive North Wind war whoops ululated as they ran.
“Come on!” Rain Bear cried and burst from cover. “Keep them running!” He pointed to the fleeing North Wind warriors.
Dogrib watched his fellows rush from the trees, screaming their war yell—a sound like the hoarse throaty caws of a flock of ravens.
Within moments, the ululations and caws mixed with the whistling of spears to form a terrifying sound that resembled an avalanche tumbling downhill.
Dogrib froze until the last of the Raven warriors dashed by him; then he rose. His four warriors poked their heads up, wide-eyed as they gasped desperately for breath. He could see the amazement in their expressions. Like him, they were stunned to be alive.
Dogrib began to laugh. Starved for breath, surrounded by maimed and dying men, peal after mad peal of laughter shook him.
His men took it up. Together they laughed with the intensity of the insane.
Sixty-four
Pain was an old companion. Cimmis ground out a cry as Deer Killer tried to pull the slim spear from his hip.
“The stone tip is lodged in the bone, Great Chief.” Deer Killer looked as if he was going to throw up.
Cimmis blinked, his vision sliding in and out. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath. “Just pull it out! You, Hunter, grab on to that shaft and yank!”
They both grasped the polished wood, looked at each other, and pulled. The scream tore out of his throat, deafening even to him.
He felt his body jerked, and then both Deer Killer and Hunter tumbled backward, the slim shaft clutched in their hands.
“Quick, you fools! Take my cloak. Wad it up. Use my belt to bind it over the wound to stop the bleeding.”
By Gutginsa’s balls, where was a Healer? He considered calling Dzoo for a moment, and decided against it. She might take the opportunity to finish the job that three-times-accursed Dogrib had started.