Snow fell silently through the firs and dusted Ecan’s small camp. It settled on the sleeping forms of warriors who lay wrapped in hides and bark blankets. It drifted down onto the packs lying about, and sizzled as it touched the hot ashes in the smoldering fires.
The warrior known as Hunter sat guarding the prisoner, Dzoo. Flakes began to dot his hair, giving it a gray look where he sat before a small fire. He pulled up his hood and went back to sharpening his deer-bone stiletto. He’d broken the tip during the War Gods Village fight. The weapon made a soft zizzing sound as he drew it back and forth across a piece of sandstone.
Every now and then, he shot a glance at Red Dog, his companion on guard duty this night. The old warrior sat cross-legged two paces away, eating a long strip of elk jerky. He had a puzzled expression on his battered face. He chewed and gave Dzoo a perplexed squint. Red Dog’s nose had been broken in the past, but it hadn’t healed well. It had a bend in it that made people stare. This night he wore a tattered deerhide cape with patches of missing hair. He swallowed and twitched his lips thoughtfully.
“What are you looking at?” Hunter asked.
Red Dog cocked his head, clearly lying when he said, “Nothing. I was just thinking about Mica.”
“What about him?”
“This is the third time in six moons he’s been selected as ‘most valiant warrior.’”
“Well,” Hunter growled, “for all the stomach you showed at War Gods Village, I don’t think you’re in danger of being awarded the head.”
“I was too busy packing weapons to Ecan. What kind of a fool surrenders his weapons just before a battle, anyway?”
“Rain Bear demanded it.” Hunter tapped the side of his head with the stiletto. “It’s strategy, planning. Things you’re too dumb to do.” But he glanced over at the rolled figures around Mica’s fire. Earlier that evening, and with great ceremony, Mica had roasted the head, cracked the base of the skull open, and spooned out the old woman’s brains.
Red Dog finally muttered, “I’m glad I’m never selected as most valiant warrior. I don’t have the stomach for brain.”
“Few warriors do. Most carry the heads home and give them to their slaves to clean before hanging them on the wall. I think Mica really believes he’s going to get smarter. He’s ambitious enough to wipe Ecan’s ass twice a day as it is.”
Red Dog’s worried gaze was fixed on Dzoo again.
“Yes?” Hunter prompted.
“I wish Wind Scorpion hadn’t given us this detail. If he wants to watch her, he should do it himself. Me, I don’t like being this close to her.”
“Nothing scares Wind Scorpion.”
Red Dog ripped off another hunk of jerky and slurred, “White Shtone says he’s going back to shearch for the boy tomorrow. Will you go with him?”
“Only if ordered,” Hunter answered, and leaned back against the old stump. “But if he asks for volunteers, I’ll tuck my tail between my legs and run straight home to Fire Village. If Tsauz is still alive—and that’s a big if—Rain Bear has him by now.”
Red Dog narrowed an eye. “What do you mean ‘if’?”
“It was dark.” Hunter lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper. “People were running, screaming. I killed three different kids. You know, they just ran by in the darkness and smack, you bash their brains out. Now, if Tsauz came running up to some warrior, bawling like an orphaned elk calf, well, you know …”
Red Dog grunted.
“And if he’s alive?”
“Rain Bear will use him as bait. Whoever goes with White Stone is a dead man.”
Red Dog used his teeth to rip off another chunk of jerky before examining their prisoner again.
Dzoo sat on a log, bound hands in her lap. Snow coated her buffalo cape. In the past four hands of time she hadn’t so much as blinked, shifted, or made a sound.
“Do you think she’s breathing?” Red Dog asked.
Hunter rolled his stiletto to sharpen the opposite side. “If she were dead, she would have fallen over by now.”
Red Dog lowered his jerky to his lap. “I haven’t seen her take a breath. The snow’s not even melting on her hands.”
Hunter blew the ground bone from his sharpening stone and gave Red Dog a reproachful look. “You’ve seen three tens of summers; that’s ten more than I have. You ought to know by now that a determined warrior is a lot more dangerous than a sleeping woman.”
Red Dog wet his lips. “Maybe she’s Soul Flying. I’ve heard that Soul Flyers often look dead.”
“Soul Flying,” Hunter grumbled under his breath. “The way she’s bound, that’s the only part of her that could move.”