"Yes, yes, all right. I'm going. I'll tell them." Bucktooth scrambled to his feet and ran away, limping.
Black Birch scowled at the night. Given the narrow swath of land from which the arrows came, it had to be a small party, but he couldn't tell how small. Twenty warriors? Or five, firing in rapid succession? Petaga, you poor boy. You must be desperate to send such a tiny contingent so far north just to harass us. Well, you can count these warriors as dead. We'll pursue them to their doom.
Black Birch leaped over a bush and sprinted downhill to gather his forces.
Twenty-five
Lichen's lungs ached, but she dug her toes into the crumbling clay of the trail and forced her body quickly up the steep slope. The bluff loomed above her, a tan wall two hundred hands high. Mist shrouded the cap rock. The thick veil had been rising progressively since before dawn, edging up to become clouds. Scraggly stalks of hyacinth and buckbrush clustered along the ledges, where moisture gathered on damp mornings like this. The pale-blue petals of the blossoms glistened with dewdrops. Lichen fought stinging tears as she panted up the slope. Maybe from the top she could see someone else who had escaped the attack.
Father Sun poised precariously on the crest of the bluff, peering over the edge at the world below. Filaments of mist twined up from the rocks as the day warmed, caressing that glowing amber face with tenuous fingers.
"Mother?" she croaked softly. "Where are you? I need you. Wanderer, can you hear me? I'm calling you! Come and find me."
He had promised that he would if he could. But she had seen no sign of any of her people since last night. Maybe Wanderer couldn't come and find her. What had the warriors done to him? To her mother? A suffocating bubble swelled in her throat, making it hard for her to swallow. Those bad men had killed everyone else in the village. Even old man Wood Duck with his crippled leg—and children like Wart.
During the terror of the night, running, hiding, and running some more, a chasm had opened in Lichen's soul. Every time she thought about her mother. Wanderer, or Flycatcher, her soul gaped like Bear's huge maw, threatening to swallow her.
Lichen shoved her frizzy braid over one shoulder and scurried around a bend in the steep trail that overlooked the bottomlands. The smoke from Redweed Village still spiraled into the crystal sky. When it reached a certain height, it flattened out and pointed westward, like an extended arm, silently accusing the Sun Chief of the crime. Cahokia was the only place those warriors could have come from. The Sun Chief must have been punishing Redweed for siding with the River Mounds warriors. Lichen remembered her mother whispering with Flycatcher's mother. They had been frightened that Cahokia might attack Redweed just as it had attacked Hickory Mounds.
Her legs trembling. Lichen tried to run, but it was hard. As she climbed, mist enfolded her in a shimmering rainbow haze. The coolness felt good on her dirty face and scratched body. When she had raced through the bushes last night, her hem had been ripped to shreds, baring her legs to the thorns. The dried blood that clung to her skin had started to bum every time she took a step.
It pained her to look at Wanderer's sacred shirt. The red spirals hung in sad tatters around her ankles. She remembered the love in his eyes when he had given it to her on the day after she'd come back from the Underworld. He'd been proud of her . . .
Lichen started crying again. The sobs came in terrible waves. "Wanderer! Come find me! I need you!"
Terror clutched at her soul. What would she do if no one ever came to find her? Where could she go? Who would take care of her? She was only ten summers! Could she take care of herself?
Lichen pursed her quaking mouth and studied the bluff face, noting the niches where toadflax sprouted. The edible urn-shaped fruits that clustered in the top leaves would not be ripe for another moon. Here and there, clover stretched its willowy arms toward the sunlight. She could dig the roots and eat them raw; the leaves she could brew for tea. She might be able to find some violet wood sorrel down on the moist prairies and dig the bulbs. When she had the time, she would braid strands of her hair into a bowstring and cut a stem of willow for a bow. Then she could hunt. She didn't know how to make arrow points, but a sharpened hardwood stick would work on small game.
Maybe she would be all right.
Maybe . . . Wanderer, I don't want to live without you . . . or without my village.
But Redweed was already gone—^wiped from the earth forever. She understood that truth, even if her heart shouted that it wasn't so.
The higher she climbed, the farther she could see. From up here it looked like the whole world had burst into flame. Northward, coils of smoke sprouted everywhere. Was that Petaga? Or had the Cahokia warriors split up and gone to murder other villages the way they had Redweed?