People of the Raven(4)

So much lost. How did a soul bear it? Or the humiliation of her captivity? Even now, so much later, she could feel the pain as, one after the other, Ecan, and then Kenada, pried her legs apart to drive themselves inside her. Her skin crawled with the memory.

Perhaps it is better to die. Her fingers tightened in the gritty moss carpeting the hollow. Hot tears began to leak past her eyes, a painful knot forming under her tongue.

Her daughter’s high-pitched wail rose again in her ears.

But if you die, Cimmis and the Council will have won. They will continue to kill, enslave, and murder, until nothing fine and beautiful is left.

She swallowed hard. It would be so much easier to die.

Movement.

The warrior eased back through the trees, stepping softly, crouched, eyes alert. A hunter on silent feet, he slipped back to the place where her tracks could be seen. Then, patiently, carefully, he began to search the pool and the fern-covered shale wall behind it.

Evening Star’s heart began to race again.

The droplet of water rounded, elongated, and fell. A silver streak before her eyes, it spattered on the stone, a finger’s width from her cheek.

The warrior cocked his head, a foot lifted, as he listened to the forest. Then, with the faintest of grunts, he turned and eased back into the tangled vines before trotting off between the swaying fir trees.





Wind Woman whistled down the mountain and batted at Cimmis’s long gray braid as he walked the starlit path through Fire Village. This place, Fire Village, was the home of his ancestors. It nestled high on the southwestern slope of Fire Mountain, the great volcano that dominated the land. From the cliff that lay just behind the village, a sweeping panorama of the surrounding country could be seen. On those heights, the Soul Keepers and Starwatchers could greet the morning sun and chart the track of the stars across the sky. The expanse of ocean to the west—dotted by thousands of islands—could be seen in the shimmering afternoon. Here his people lived among the clouds, forever blessed by moist ocean breezes ameliorated with the damp scents of the surrounding forests. The village itself was surrounded by a twenty-hand-tall palisade of cedar that wound around boulders and trees, creating a serpentine oval that protected not only the Council, but the four tens of bark lodges where the most powerful of the North Wind People lived.

Cimmis glanced over his shoulder at the three old women ducking out of the Council Lodge. They wore buffalohide robes over their shoulders. The fine brown hairs twinkled in the light of the Star People. Old Woman North hesitated and shot him a look of irritation. Of them all, she was the most recalcitrant and insidious. By force of will, she dominated the others and insisted that her senseless notions be adopted as policy.

Even as he walked away, the memory of her shrill voice grated on his ears: They shall pay! Of course there’s food! There’s always food! They owe it to us.

No matter what insane orders the Council gave, he would enforce them. If Old Woman North was mad, so perhaps was he to follow her? He glanced down in the darkness to his strong right fist. Throughout the known world, people trembled and quailed at that fist. Gods, how had that come about?

Looking at it, he saw only muscle, bone, and sinew wrapped in age-leathered skin.

“You will regret this decision you have made tonight,” he grumbled to himself.

He cradled his weak left arm against his chest. He’d seen fifteen summers since the buffalo had charged him during the hunt. He’d tried to leap out of the way, but the big bull had slammed into his arm, flinging him four tens of hands before dashing away in a cloud of dust. The arm still worked; it was just weak and much smaller than his right.

The beaten path curved around the plaza fire and continued up the slope. Bark lodges created a perfect circle around him. Each was made from a large pole frame covered with bark; life-size paintings of the gods decorated the exteriors. The enormous white eyes of Buffalo Above flashed as he passed Old Woman North’s lodge.

“A pleasant evening to you, my Chief,” a young slave woman called.

“And to you,” Cimmis replied sourly.

Even at this time of night slaves scurried about, dressed in brown sea-grass capes, carrying food or firewood. Most just bowed as he passed. Others felt obliged to speak. As he walked in front of the plaza fire, its light threw his monstrous shadow over the lava cliff behind the village; it danced like a leaping ghost.

He ignored it, his mind on the Council. If they kept making the sort of decisions they had made this night, that’s what they would all become: dark, lonely shadows. He could feel the truth knotting his belly.

His North Wind People had been here since the beginning of the world. Didn’t anyone remember the old stories? About the Creation? About Singing the World into existence? About the coming of Wolf and Coyote, Eagle, and Killer Whale? About Raven, the Trickster, and his dark-haired children?