"Burials are savage," Badgertail whispered bitterly to Locust. "Don't let them do this for me when my time comes."
"You mean that Tharon's burials are savage," Locust clarified.
She exchanged a pained look with Badgertail. They had worn their finest warshirts. Locust's a pale gold deerhide with intricate quill work that accentuated her breasts and hips, Badgertail's made of white moose hide and covered from knee to shoulder with green falcons, wolves, and badgers: predators held sacred by warriors. Copper beads spsirkled in their braided forelocks.
"I won't. Not if I can prevent it," Locust replied softly, but her eyes narrowed.
When the procession began climbing the mound. Badger-tail clasped his hands in front of him. It seemed an eternity before everyone took their proper place around the trench, but at last Tharon's litter sat on the east side. Nightshade stood on the west side. Everyone else grouped along the southern edge.
Badgertail mustered the courage to look at Bobcat's oiled and painted body. The face had been painted in bright red, with lines of yellow crossing his breast and black zigzags streaking down his legs. The corpse had bloated and deflated from the heat and the tending in the chamel house. It didn't even look like Bobcat.
Attendants threw back the curtains of Tharon's litter, revealing him sitting there regally, dressed in gold and with a pounded-copper headdress that flashed in the night. He wore a beautifully crafted mask of Long-Nosed God—not really appropriate for this ceremony. He looked around haughtily before he inclined his head to the Six Sacred Persons, raised his handspike to the Star Ogres, then lowered it to point at the Underworld. A giddy excitement filled his voice when he addressed the mourners: "We come to pray for a great warrior of our people! Worthy Bobcat, of the Squash Blossom Clan, brother to Leader Badgertail, is about to start his long journey down the Dark River to the Land of the Ancestors. Who will accompany him on his journey?"
The drums began, low at first, then rising to boom like thunder when the first cries erupted. Moonseed's cries.
Two of Moonseed's kinsmen brought her forward. Her face had gone pale, and her legs wobbled as she walked. She wilted in their arms, weeping incoherently. Her black dress blended so well with the night that she almost vanished when they yanked her away from the glare of the torches and forced her to stand at the edge of the burial trench. To her credit, she did not plead for life. The blow came quickly, the hammer smashing the back of her skull as it would a ripe melon.
Badgertail flinched at the sound of the blow. Moonseed, why didn't you let them buy your life, or provide a substitute? Would it have been so hard to live without Bobcat?
Moonseed's clansmen carefully lowered her over the edge of the trench, where one of the Sunbom gathered her in his arms and laid her out on the sparkling bed of shell beads.
When they brought up the attendant who would serve Bobcat in the Underworld, Badgertail looked away. The servant could not have been more than twelve. Her cries shredded his soul before the cord strangled her.
It's only the death of the body, not of the soul. His eyes darted over the stars, moved to the mounds huddled within the protective walls of the palisades, touched on the torches in the plaza, and finally came to rest on Nightshade. And considering what lies ahead for us, perhaps they are the lucky ones.
Another young girl screamed.
But the world had gone quiet around Badgertail. Though he could sense people moving, he saw only Nightshade's black, luminous eyes sucking him in, devouring his soul.
When she started toward him, he frowned.
"What's she doing?" Locust demanded. "She can't do that! The priestess has to stay in the west until the ritual is finished!"
The mourners pointed, whispering behind their hands. Badgertail glimpsed Tharon lunging to his feet in indignation.
Nightshade stopped no more than a handsbreadth away and placed slender fingers over Badgertail's heart. A tingle went through him.
"What is it, Nightshade?"
"Wanderer," she said softly. Her beautiful face tensed as she searched Badgertail's eyes. "You must not kill him. Bring him to me. He has found the way to First Woman."
"Wanderer? I thought he was dead. Where is he?"
She shook her head as she started to back away. "I don't know. We'll know in a few days." She returned to her place in the west.
Badgertail braced his, feet as if to steady the world. Another woman's body was lowered into the tomb. A chill played along his spine like dancing mice feet. Wanderer? The old lunatic? Bobcat was lifted and carried forward, lowered gingerly, and placed beside his wife. Badgertail battled to keep tears at bay, trying to still the turmoil inside. Yes indeed, the lucky ones.