“If you must do this, please hurry. It will take us two hands of time to get down to the trail. The fog will shield most of the smoke, but if Rain Bear suspects what we’ve done—”
“I will take her head; then I will fetch my son, and we will go.”
“Your son?” a velvet voice called from a swirling pocket of mist.
White Stone pivoted and grabbed for the war ax tucked in his belt. “Who’s there? Show yourself!”
The eerie mist spun, then seemed to part before her as she gracefully walked toward them. Tall and willowy, a long red dress clung to the decidedly female body visible beneath the buffalo cape. Her hood was up, and wisps of waist-length red hair fluttered over her chest. Beneath the hood, though, White Stone saw only shadows.
She walked directly to Ecan, and when she pulled back her hood and lifted her beautiful face, her black eyes seemed to drain the light from the world, sucking it down into endless darkness. She leaned forward and whispered, “A man who mocks the gods pays a terrible price. Your son is gone.”
“Dzoo.” Ecan stood paralyzed, eyes locked with hers.
A terrible smile curled Dzoo’s lips, and Ecan reacted as if bludgeoned.
He stumbled back, grabbed White Stone by the arm, and hissed, “Quickly. Find Tsauz!”
The smell would haunt him: coppery blood, the sour tang of entrails, the pungent odor of feces. The wet breeze carried its burden to Tsauz’s quivering nostrils.
Not more than ten paces from where he hid in the tall ferns, someone crept furtively through the dead. A half-dazed moan broke her lips. That, and the light step, led Tsauz to conclude it was a woman. She moved slowly, as if mindless of the warriors racing around her or the groans coming from the pillars. Tsauz puzzled at the sounds as she shifted heavy limp objects. Some gurgled; others hissed or made flatulent sounds. The woman whispered under her breath, grunted, and wept as another body flopped wetly onto the stone.
Mist blew over his face. He shivered so hard his teeth chattered. Was he freezing to death?
Where’s Father?
The woman let out a small terrible cry, and he heard her fall to her knees. “Wake up now, baby,” she wept. “It’s morning. We have to wake up.”
Tsauz’s fingers knotted and flexed and knotted again.
Warriors ran by calling, “Tsauz? Tsauz!”
He opened his mouth to call back, but no sound came out. He opened it wider—and tried to force air from his lungs.
Tears streamed down his face, but his throat remained frozen.
Nineteen
“Rain Bear?”
He jerked awake to see pale blue light falling through the smoke hole in the lodge roof. Long black hair spread over his chest as he sat up and pawed it out of the way.
Footsteps, coming fast up the trail.
He grabbed his war club, shoved out of his bedding, and lunged outside wearing only his loincloth. A few people had risen. Breakfast fires sparkled across the meadow. Frost glistened on the slender lodgepole pines. Dogrib ran toward him with his white hair blowing around his pink face.
“What is it? What’s happened?”
Dogrib extended an arm. “There’s smoke rising above War Gods Village.”
Rain Bear swung around to look.
Black oily smoke rose through the layer of clouds that cloaked the mountaintop. Not the smoke of ritual feast preparations, but the smoke of burning lodges.
Evening Star ducked out of her lodge ten paces away and looked around, a frown on her fine brow. Long red waves of unruly hair fell down the front of her cape. “What’s wrong?”
Rain Bear ignored her, but gripped Dogrib’s arm. “Find Talon and Sleeper. Tell them to rouse their warriors.”
“Understood.” Dogrib left at a run.
Rain Bear turned to Evening Star’s guards, Wolf Spider and Hornet. “While I’m gone, let no one come near her! Do you understand? It’s the perfect opportunity for an assassin to sneak in.”
“No one will get by us, Chief,” Wolf Spider called, and slapped his war club in emphasis.
The North Wind elder Rides-the-Wind threw back his lodge flap, and his dark eyes lifted to War Gods Mountain. Thick gray brows pulled down over his flat nose. Very quietly, he said, “If you hurry, Rain Bear, you’ll catch them at the fork in the trail.”
A faint sliver of gold marked the place on the western horizon where Raven had flown the sun to sink into Mother Ocean’s belly. Drifting Cloud People shimmered and winked.
“I can’t believe they did this!” Dogrib raged. Blood splotched his buckskin cape and long shirt from where he had cradled victims while he checked for signs of life. “They have desecrated War Gods Village! And we did nothing! Nothing! We promised to protect these people!”