People of the Sea(13)

steps behind her. Frantic, she threw herself headlong down the slope, slipping and sliding, almost falling, but when she braced a hand on a boulder to steady herself, Lambkill caught her by the hair and snapped her head back to glare into her eyes.

“You’ll never escape me, woman! Never.”

“Lambkill, please … just let us go. We’ll never come back. You’ll never have to worry that—”

“Not after what you’ve done to me!” He wrenched her hair violently, and she kicked and clawed at him, but he used her awkward balance against her. As she swung at him furiously, he slammed his left fist into her face, then grabbed her and spun her around so he could tighten his arm around her throat. He forced her back uphill, into the wet plaza, where her mother still stood, her back turned. But Owlwoman’s soft cries pierced the sounds of the storm.

Lambkill pressed his mouth to Kestrel’s ear and whispered, “You haven’t asked yet what I plan to do with Iceplant.”

The touch of his withered lips made her flesh crawl. She stammered, “He helped you to f-find me, didn’t he? If he … he helped you, you should let him go.”

“Oh, yes, he helped me. He told me what time you’d left and which trail you’d taken. He even told me where the two of you had planned to meet. And I will let him go … just so I can hunt him down!”

“You would break a promise that the entire village heard you make? The elders won’t let you do that. The clans will force you—”

“And after I hunt Iceplant down,” he continued as though she hadn’t spoken, “I’m going to drag him back here and slit him open before your eyes.”

“Clan law will forbid it.”

He laughed. “Not when I explain to the village that I’ve changed my mind, that I no longer want your death, but Iceplant’s. Oh, his family will be upset. I’ll probably have



to give them a few buffalo hides, maybe some rare sharks’ teeth from the southern ocean. But eventually they’ll agree. Everyone knows it’s my right to decide your fates. Yes, Kestrel, I’m going to let you live. I want you to suffer for what you’ve done. The village will disown you. You’ll have only me to shield you from their taunts, only me to feed you, only me to keep you company.”

Lambkill stroked her bared breast with a callused hand. “But hear me. If I ever find you with another man, I will kill you. You can never run away from me. No one can protect you. I will find you vulnerable someday, and I will kill you then. Do you understand me?”

Lambkill tightened his arm over her throat.

Kestrel gasped, “Help… someone, help me! Mother … Mother!” A gray haze formed at the edges of her vision and Stealthily began to blot out the world.

“No! In the name of Above-Old-Man,” Iceplant screamed. “Lambkill, stop! Stop it!” Through the crowd, Kestrel glimpsed Iceplant running toward her. “Don’t hurt her. It was my fault. I forced her. I’m the one to blame! Punish me. Punish me!”

“Get back!” Lambkill snarled.

Heedlessly, Iceplant let out a roar and used his fists to beat a way through the crowd, then threw himself at Lambkill, breaking the Trader’s hold on Kestrel and toppling him to the ground. They rolled and kicked in the mud as Kestrel staggered away. The crowd surged forward like a pack of hungry wolves closing in on a wounded doe. The people stared at her without pity.

Iceplant, much younger and stronger, slammed a fist into Lambkill’s stomach, then straddled him and sank his fingers into his throat.

Lambkill’s eyes widened in terror. He struggled vainly against those granite hands, and Tannin and Cottontail pulled their war clubs and waded into the fight. They jerked Iceplant off of Lambkill and started kicking him in the sides and in the face until blood ran down his cheeks. He tried to rise, but



they hammered him with their clubs, striking his spine, legs and head and keeping him down. He huddled, covering his head with his arms. Lambkill crawled to his feet and drew his own war club.

“Kestrel!” Iceplant’s panicked voice impaled her. “Run! Save our baby! Run!” Insanely, Iceplant threw himself sideways, knocking Tannin’s feet out from under him. Then he dove for Lambkill’s legs, tackling him and wrestling him to the ground again.

As though in a nightmare, Kestrel shoved her way through a group of old women who screamed and clawed at her. Shouts went up as she dashed down the muddy slope. Purple threads of lightning wove an eerie web through the blanket of clouds, partially illuminating her way.

At the base of the hill, she stumbled into a thicket of head high sage and stood panting. Night had swallowed the land, but she knew the worn paths by heart. Through the blacker patches of juniper that created weaving, serpentine lines across the hills, she could picture the tangle of trails. Which way should she go? Where could she hide? Lambkill would track her. In the mud, it would be easy. How could she From out of nowhere, a hoarse scream tore the darkness. It pulsed amid the roars of the Thunderbeings, rising and falling, the wail of a lost soul.