“Set me down. Starwatcher! Bring me your cloak.” As great chief, he wasn’t going to make his grand entry dripping blood like a beheaded rabbit. Besides, the time had come to put Ecan in his place.
The warriors lowered him gently to the ground. Ecan stepped over, eyes dull. He hardly seemed aware as he slipped off his snowy cloak and handed it to Deer Killer.
Cimmis winced as Hunter and Deer Killer untied his belt. Swiftly, efficiently, they wadded Ecan’s white cloak and bound it tightly to keep pressure on the wound.
When they were finished, Cimmis beckoned. “Ecan, a word please.” He placed a hand on the Starwatcher’s shoulder when the man bent over him. “Well, we are here. The Raven People have taken not one but two defeats, and we have flushed all of our adversaries.”
“We have indeed,” Ecan agreed despite the distance in his eyes. “I assume that I can bargain for the return of my son now.”
“Bargain?” Cimmis smiled in a fatherly way. “I don’t think you have the talent for it. You’re not good at making deals with people. You don’t seem capable of reading their true souls.” He shrugged. “The way I heard it, you’d bargain away your future for a sack of stone trinkets.”
The color drained from Ecan’s face.
If he placed Ecan’s head on the first pole outside the gate, he wouldn’t have to walk so far to see it. Better, he could place a wager with White Stone as to how long it would take for the flesh to melt away from the bones.
But who should I appoint as the new Starwatcher?
When Ecan stumbled back, the strength seemed gone from his legs. Cimmis chuckled and shot a glance behind him. The silly old women were preening in their litters, arranging their jewelry.
Four paces in front, White Stone was staring pensively at the distant Wasp Village gate, as if worried. Cimmis squinted at the clouds blowing in from the west. What did White Stone have to worry about? It wasn’t like the storm was going to catch them out in the open.
“Yes, War Chief?” Cimmis gestured toward the gate.
“Nothing, Great Chief, just a feeling. As if something terrible is about to happen.” He smiled. “Are you comfortable?”
“Oh, quite. Everything is finally in place.”
You are a dead man!” Dzoo’s words echoed inside Ecan’s hollow soul. So, too, was his son. He’d seen that in Cimmis’s eyes. No matter what happened, the boy was going to die.
Without his cloak, Ecan felt the chill as he stepped away from Cimmis’s litter. The great chief was talking light-headedly with White Stone while the Four Old Women attended to their appearances. The rest of the remaining warriors lounged and chatted about the battles, their talk filled with animation. The threat was vanquished, and the time for bragging had arrived.
“You’d bargain away your future for a sack of stone trinkets.” Coyote had betrayed him.
Ecan threw his head back and looked up at the dark clouds rolling down upon them from the sea. Lightning flashed. Distant thunder rolled.
It would come in the night, silently, without warning. The next morning someone would go to wake the tardy Starwatcher—only to find Ecan’s mutilated body lying in his blood-soaked bedding.
How did it come to this?
He felt at his belt, but had no weapon. He turned, seeing Kaska, surrounded by her guards.
Is that how I want to go? But perhaps there was still a way to save his son and perhaps save himself.
No weapon.
He crouched, cupped his hands around an angular piece of basalt, and lifted. The stone loosened in the damp soil, then peeled free.
Ecan lifted, savoring the head-sized stone’s weight. He turned, took two steps, and raised the heavy rock high.
“For my boy,” he said softly.
Cimmis had just looked up, his eyes going wide. Ecan slammed the stone squarely onto the great chief’s chest.
He heard the thump, the cracking of ribs, the gush of air blown from the old man’s throat. The expression of shock and surprise gave way to a rasping gasp as Cimmis struggled for a breath.
It took a moment of stunned disbelief before Ecan realized what he’d done. He was still staring into Cimmis’s eyes when a voice whispered, “Run”.
Ecan leaped Cimmis’s litter, pelting full tilt through the following warriors, shoving slaves out of his way as he raced for the screen of fir trees. It was a blind flight, spurred by panic. He had no idea where he was going, how he was going to escape.
He had just reached the trees when White Stone’s spear impaled him from behind. The force of it staggered him, and an odd tingling chill like spearmint mixed with the sharp pain.
Sixty-seven
Coyote carried Dzoo into the winter-bare alders and gently laid her on a pile of old leaves. Her long red hair, matted with sticky blood, spread across the leaves in glistening waves. She looked serenely beautiful. He touched his fingers to the side of her head, feeling to make sure the skull wasn’t broken. Then he raised his fingers to his nostrils and savored the coppery scent of her blood.