"Who are you? What do you want?"
Lichen stumbled over a black mustard bush. Sobbing, she regained her balance and ran again. Prismatic reflections sparkled through her blurry eyes as she dodged into a thick bramble of berry vines and fell to her knees. Through the dense tangle, she watched in horror as the warriors shoved Wanderer toward the creek, stabbing his back with the blunt ends of their war clubs. Her mother's body, legs dangling, hung limply in Wanderer's arms as the group disappeared down the black throat of the creek bottom. Was her mother dead?
A fist tightened around Lichen's heart. Mother? Mother, don't leave me!
The screams were fading now, dying to a few breathless squeals.
Lichen gasped desperate breaths of the cold, smoky air while she tried to spot anyone she knew. Warriors trotted around the skeletons of houses, haughty, one laughing while he checked bodies, kicking them to make sure they were dead.
Flycatcher, where are you? Bird-Man, let him be all right. Oh, Wart . . .
Lichen crawled to the far end of the bramble so she could view the village from a different angle. Corpses lay hideously sprawled across the scorched grass in the plaza. Ashes fluttered down from the sky like horrible snowflakes, covering the dead with sheets of white. Lichen sniffed the pungent odors that oozed from the breeze. Her soul writhed with the coppery scent of blood.
"Stone Wolf? What's happening to me?" she cried.
Eight warriors trotted from the village and began striking the brush with their war clubs. They flushed a rabbit that darted away into the firelit crevices of the rocks. The warriors laughed. But when old man Wood Duck rose from behind a clump of rosebushes and tried to run on his maimed leg, one of the warriors pounced on him. The club smacked wetly against his skull. Lichen's heart thundered,
"They're searching for anyone still alive, little one," the voice said softly in her head. "You have to run. Run, Lichen. Hurry!"
"But if I stand up, they'll see me. What . . ."Suddenly, she knew.
She flopped on her stomach and slithered through the brush, as silent as Water Snake, her movements hidden by the wavering dance of shadows.
Twenty-four
Retaga sat beside Gopher in the chief's open-sided shelter north of Red Star Mounds and peered intently out at the darkness. Half of his warriors had come up through Slippery Elm and Goat's Rue Villages, while anotfier third had been with Hailcloud at Axseed and Bluebird before they'd broken off to come join him. The remainder, perhaps three hundred warriors, had coalesced along the river south of One Mound Village—waiting for Badgertail.
No fires burned on this night. Everyone knew that at least three of Badgertail's war parties lurked a day's walk to the north, just over that hump that thrust up on top of the bluff.
Another two days, then Petaga would attack. They couldn't risk being spotted, not now, not when they stood on the brink of battle.
In silver-edged darkness, warriors groped awkwardly for their packs and blankets. Everywhere Petaga looked, black forms swayed as they completed final nightly duties. They moved in grave silence—as silent as the dead.
Father? From your pole high in Cahokia, do you watch us through your empty eye sockets? Coming . . . yes, coming for you, Father. Coming to take your head home and bury it with your body so you can walk in the Uruierworld with pride and honor.
Old Gopher leaned sideways to look out from beneath the hastily constructed grass roof at Moon Maiden. She hung in the middle of the sky, surrounded by concentric halos of green, orange, and yellow. Far out on the western horizon, lightning bounced around inside the belly of a bank of dark clouds. Petaga strained his ears to see if he could pick up the roar of Thunderbird, but he heard only the pounding of his pulse.
"Gopher?"
The old man cocked his head expectantly. At the age of forty-two sunmiers, his long black hair and bushy brows had grown streaks of gray. He had a broad nose that spread out onto his cheeks like a flattened ground cherry. He had worn an ancient deerhide warshirt painted with the faded-blue image of Falcon—it had brought him luck, he'd boasted, in his early days when he had been one of Red Star Mounds' greatest warriors. But it looked tattered and shabby to Petaga's eyes.
Gopher frowned. "What is it, young Petaga?"
"I've been . . . concerned . . . about something."
"What?"
Petaga ground his teeth. If you don't discuss it with someone soon, you'll burst from the anxiety. Gopher should be the perfect man to talk to. He was your mother's favorite cousin, and he gave three hundred warriors to this venture. That should be proof enough that he believes in your cause. Still . . .
Petaga grooved the dirt with the toe of his sandal. In the dusty moon glow, the groove resembled the dark, slithering track of a snake. "I—^I was wondering what you think will happen if we destroy Tharon."