People of the Raven(84)
Dzoo’s heart ached for Pearl Oyster. Hoarsely, she answered, “I remember that night, too. You Danced ahead of me in line, and not very well as I recall. You were always clumsy, Ecan.”
The corners of his mouth barely turned up. “Are the stories true? Did they take you to the Daybreak Land where the barbarian Striped Dart People live?”
“They did. But do not call them barbarians, Starwatcher. Doing so implies a superiority you do not have.” Dzoo sat up and forced her bound legs out in front of her. “Were I you, Ecan, I would be asking questions about tomorrow, not yesterday. I would want to know about the partner you are Dancing with.”
“What partner is that?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you feel his cool breath upon your cheek? Isn’t that feathery touch in your stomach a warning?”
“Of what?”
“That you are Dancing with Death, Starwatcher. It will finish winding itself around you very soon now. Are you prepared?”
Wind Woman caught the edges of the hide he sat upon and flipped them around his moccasins. “Were I you, I wouldn’t speak that way. You’ll terrify my warriors. They have already begged me to kill you.”
“Then do it,” she said tiredly. “My presence no longer matters. Your son was the missing piece. The future is cast, Starwatcher. Oddly, it was you who tossed the final gaming piece. You didn’t kill him, you know.”
“Kill who? My son?”
“The puppy. It was dark; you only wounded him.Your cruelty has cost you the future. Rain Bear has your son, and he is well on the way to destroying you.”
His composure strained. She saw it in the way the lines around his eyes deepened. “What do you mean?”
“I mean you have lost your son forever. You will never see the boy smile at you again. Never share those moments you had always looked forward to. Caress the corpses of your Dreams, Starwatcher; they are about to rise and dissipate like smoke.”
He didn’t look like he was breathing, but he bluffly said, “Do you think Rain Bear values your life so little?”
“He will not exchange the boy for me.”
He leaned closer, as though speaking for her ears alone, and the dark green wells of his eyes glistened. “It will be interesting to see what it will take. Will a single lock of your hair work? Or will it require your right arm? Perhaps a circlet from your skull?”
Dzoo didn’t even try to control her laughter.
“You find that amusing?”
When she caught her breath, she added, “Yes. I used to think you were a clever adversary.”
“And why don’t you now?”
“If you torture me, send a piece of my body to Rain Bear, you will solidify the Raven alliance. What they may not do for him, they will for me.”
The rich scent of baking codfish drifted from the warriors’ fire. Her empty stomach knotted. On the horizon the last Star People glimmered.
He watched her thoughtfully. “That’s all the more reason to kill you immediately, as my warriors wish.”
“Before you do that, perhaps you should ask your chief, Cimmis, if he wishes me dead. In fact, while you’re at it, ask him if he wishes to exchange the famed Healer, Dzoo, for a measly boy. Go ahead, Dead Man, ask.”
The muscles beneath Ecan’s left eye began to quiver. He stared at her for a long time.
When his warriors started whispering, he got to his feet and walked a short distance away. He seemed to be studying the guard silhouetted on the hilltop to the east. Soft yellow light painted the horizon behind the man.
For over a finger of time, Ecan stood rigid, staring eastward as if he could see all the way to Cimmis in Fire Village.
When he walked back, he dropped to his knees less than a handsbreadth from Dzoo. His eyes had gone cold. “They say brave men lower their voices when they speak your name, Dzoo. I think that by the time this is over, you will lower yours when you speak my name.”
Dzoo leaned toward him and whispered, “I have learned a truth that you have not, Ecan: Love and Death are the most intimate companions of all. Their eyes are forever locked, because neither dares look away. That is the only thing I fear.”
He frowned, as though confused, then rose and stalked toward the campfire. As he neared the warriors, they leapt to their feet, expecting orders, but Ecan passed without a word.
His warriors muttered to each other, then gradually sat down again and picked up their conversations.
Dzoo curled onto her side to watch.
He stood alone in the dawn, his fists balled and trembling at his sides.
Evening Star dipped a cloth in a bowl of warm water and continued washing the scratches that covered Tsauz’s face. The dead puppy lay across the boy’s lap, its dull eyes half closed. Tsauz’s shoulder-length black hair, unwashed for days, hung around his oval face in a stringy mass. His blind eyes kept jerking toward different locations in the forest when the guards moved. Rain Bear had assigned no less than thirty men to surround the boy.