People of the River(116)

"Might be."

"Then we'd better warn the other leaders of the war parties. We might not be the only ones he's tried this on."

Elkhom ran a hand through his wet hair. "Where's High Prairie? He's the fastest runner we have. We'll dispatch him to Black Birch to see."

"I'll fetch him." Soapweed turned back into the savage light of Father Sun, pushing through the warriors who were climbing the hill. Soapweed yelled, "High Prairie! Where's High Prairie?"





Twenty-six


Locust paced before the boulders where Wanderer and the woman. Vole, sat with their bound hands in their laps. Badgertail had ordered the prisoners moved downstream into the tiny grove of flowering dogwood nestled within a group of huge, tilted stone slabs, but the ruins of the village could still be seen across Pumpkin Creek. Wolves skulked around the scorched plaza, snarling as they fought over the bloating bodies of the dead. They always went for the gut first, and the intestines and organs were scattered in bloody heaps around the corpses. Golden eagles wheeled on the warm air currents or perched on the outcrop to await their turn. When a gust of wind blew down from the north, the stench was almost overwhelming.

Locust turned her attention to Badgertail, who stood in a huddle of warriors questioning the runner who had come in from White Clover Mounds. She could barely make out their angry voices.

Badgertail asked, "What do you mean, the chief wouldn't even see Woodchuck?"

The runner, Little Paw, lifted his arms helplessly. "There was nothing Woodchuck could do! He tried everything, but Chief Pevon refused to even open the gate. Pevon told Woodchuck that White Clover Mounds would not fight on either side!"

Locust sighed and gazed upward at the drooping white blossoms overhead, softening the sharp lines of the rocks that formed a jagged fortress around them. The trees and boulders blocked the view from the eastern bluff, theoretically providing cover from Petaga's lookouts.

To the west, the land fanned out in undulations of wilting green. Heat waves obscured the serpentine line of the Father Water, but the closest ponds shone clear and blue.

Locust threaded tired fingers through her gore-encrusted hair. She had combed the black mass, but the blood clung like a fine spray of filth. It had been so long since she'd slept that she felt weak in the knees.

Then she inspected Wanderer. The old man sat like a gangly stork, his gray head cocked to peer at the ground, strangely engrossed by the lattice of shadows that crisscrossed the grass. Locust scrutinized the lattice but saw nothing particularly interesting in the pattern. Wanderer had aged dramatically in the past ten cycles. Had his eyes and beaked nose grown bigger? They seemed enormously large in the thin frame of his facial bones. His red shirt and breech-clout bore streaks of soot.

"Wanderer?" Locust said, and jumped when the old man shouted "What?" as though startled from the depths of his thoughts by a bolt of lightning. He lurched to his feet, his knees knocking together. "What did you want. Locust?"

She surveyed his terrified posture and sighed. "I just wanted to know if you'd ever heard anything about a Stone Wolf that resided in Redweed Village."

"Oh, yes, many cycles ago." Wanderer slumped back to the rock and mopped his forehead with his torn sleeve. "But it's been a long time since the Wolf vanished."

"How long? You mean that it hasn't been here in cycles?"

"Here? No. Someone stole it. Quite a long time ago. Isn't that what happened, Vole?"

The woman moved her bound hands to shield her burned leg while she glowered at the warriors who swarmed the camp. People had been coming and going all morning, whispering news, laughing crudely. Not one had washed the blood from his flesh. When Vole turned to look at Locust, hatred seethed in her eyes. "Yes, that's what happened. The Wolf was stolen."

Locust folded her arms. "I don't believe you. The Sun Chief had word from a trader only days ago that there was a Stone Wolf here that possessed great Power."

"Well, if it was here," Wanderer remarked reasonably, "it certainly didn't possess very much Power. Look at what happened to Red weed."

Locust ignored the logical comment. "We've been searching the ashes of the village all day and have found nothing."

"That's not too surprising, is it?" Awkwardly, Wanderer maneuvered his bound hands to open the pouch tied to his breechclout so he could draw out a handful of dried elderberries. He began sorting the berries, dividing them into piles in his right palm.

"Why isn't that surprising?"

"What?" Wanderer said, his eyes riveted on one pile of four berries. He clucked morosely at it.

"Why isn't it surprising that we haven't found it?"