“I’ll tell you what they have to do with me.” As though greatly pleased by being able to relay the news, Lambkill
explained, “My wife killed their youngest brother, Buffalo Bird. She drove a tapir-bone stiletto into his heart. Beware, Nighthawk. She is not as frail and innocent as she seems. If you so much as mention my name in her presence, she’ll kill you without a second thought. Evil Spirits have possessed her soul.”
Nighthawk rose to his feet and wiped his clammy hands on his pants. His beaver hat sat canted at an odd angle on his head. “That may have been true a moon ago, Lambkill. But by now, Sunchaser will have driven any bad Spirits out. No one among my people will believe she’s still evil. Evil cannot exist in the shadow of Sunchaser’s Power.”
Lambkill’s cheek muscles twitched. “You have helped us, Nighthawk. I thank you, as one Trader to another.” He extended his hand and gripped Nighthawk’s firmly.
Nighthawk glanced around anxiously and leaned forward. In one last effort to keep his valuable trading connections alive, he whispered, “There is one other thing that might help you, Lambkill.”
“What is that?”
“The villagers who saw Sunchaser and the woman yesterday? They said that Sunchaser asked them where Otter Clan Village had gone.”
“Gone? Do you mean this village has moved recently?”
“Yes,” Nighthawk said and straightened up cautiously. “We don’t know where it went. But apparently that was where Sunchaser was headed.”
“Where did Otter Clan Village use to be?”
Nighthawk gave lengthy directions, but Tannin only half listened. He kept his eyes on the camp, watching each and every movement. Dislike now lined faces that formerly had shown only suspicion.
“.. . can’t overlook it. The skeletons of thirty-four mammoths are lying on the shore. If you keep going farther south, another three days’ run along the beach, you will come to Whalebeard Village. Then—”
Lambkill interrupted, “I am obliged to you, Nighthawk.
I would appreciate it if you would answer a final question: Have you heard of any witches in this area, on the coast?”
Nighthawk’s face froze. He shook his head once. “No. Not in cycles.”
Lambkill whirled and tramped away through the center of the village, glaring at anyone who had the courage to meet his eyes.
Tannin followed, wary, his hand on the atlatl that hung from his belt thong.
Thirty
“Witches?” Tannin asked. “Why did you ask about witches? What would we do if we met one?”
Lambkill tossed a piece of pine onto the fire. Sparks spurted into the air to whirl and wink as they floated upward. Lambkill had been pacing restlessly. They’d made camp in a grassy meadow on the high cliffs above the beach. A few dogwood trees stood to the north, their blossoms shining brilliantly in the moonglow. Two hundred hands below, Mother Ocean rocked and roared, dashing the shore angrily.
“Do, my brother?” Lambkill answered. “Why, we would ask the witch to curse Kestrel. Maybe to curse her feet so she couldn’t walk, or to curse her eyesight so she couldn’t see her way. Witches have many valuable uses. I’m surprised that you would even ask.”
Tannin shifted, stretching out on his side by the fire. “But they’re so dangerous to work with. They can’t be trusted.”
A small school of finback whales moved through the
waters between the shore and Pygmy Island, their fins gleaming against the dark waves. They’d seen a school in the daylight yesterday, and Tannin had thought them magnificent. But tonight, in the moonlight, they seemed unearthly, like disappearing phantoms.
“I’ve always hated Sunchaser,” Lambkill continued. Dirty strands of gray hair matted his cheeks.
“I didn’t know you’d ever met him.”
“I haven’t, but it doesn’t matter. I know he’s driving his penis into Kestrel.”
Tannin grimaced at the lukewarm tea in his wooden cup. “Lambkill, that’s not possible. Dreamers don’t do that. At least not Dreamers of Sunchaser’s status.”
Lambkill’s lips pressed into a white line. The bags beneath his eyes had turned a dark blue. “You’re gullible, brother. I’ve seen dozens of Dreamers. None of them are as holy as they claim. Each has a fatal flaw.”
“And you think Sunchaser’s is women?”
“Yes, he’s the type. He’s very young. And the greatest Dreamers are usually fools at heart.” Tannin shook his head impatiently. “What difference does it make? Our task is to find Kestrel and take her home.”
“Who will turn her over to us if she’s with Sunchaser, brother?”