Horseweed shifted uncomfortably. “And if he hasn’t?”
Oxbalm’s mouth tightened. “Then we must end it quickly.”
“What if…” Horseweed and Balsam exchanged a frightened look, and Horseweed’s gaze scoured the trees and sky. “Grandfather, what if Catchstraw has learned how to change himself into Condor? Or other animals? What will that mean once we bring charges of witchcraft against him?”
Oxbalm’s chest felt as if a granite boulder sat atop it, making it almost impossible for him to breathe. He slipped his arms around both of his grandsons and hugged them. “Then we are in worse trouble than we think. Much worse.”
The sun had slipped through the opening on the horizon and entered the Land of the Dead, but whispers of its brilliance flitted across the surface of the ocean and reddened the specks of clouds that dusted the deep blue. Tannin stood with his atlatl gripped in both hands, watching Lambkill pillage the abandoned Otter Clan Village. His brother growled
maliciously as he crushed a beautiful seashell hairpin beneath his foot, then reached down, picked up a clamshell atlatl hook and tucked it into his shirt pocket. Rage smoldered in Lambkill’s faded eyes. He kicked at the scattered remnants of a whalebone lodge frame and muttered darkly to himself.
Tannin exhaled hard.
Cold gusts of wind rustled the firs growing thickly along the shore. Slate-gray waves curled into white breakers to thunder on the sand, and gulls wheeled around them, cawing, flapping, cocking their heads in curiosity. Two dozen of the birds sat atop one of the giant mammoth carcasses that lay in the midst of the devastated village. Flaps of moldering hide clung to the skeleton, but the meat had been cleaned out long ago by predators. Tannin wondered how much those magnificent ivory tusks would bring if traded to the right people. Lambkill would know, but Tannin dared not ask him. Not now. Tannin feared that anything he said would trigger Lambkill’s insane temper.
Lambkill tramped across the sand and jerked a long pole from a pile of deadfall. He tested its strength and then thrust the pole up into one of the tree burials.
Blessed Mammoth Above…
Lambkill levered the burial out of the tree, letting the rotting corpse tumble limply onto the sand, spilling maggots and grave goods helter skelter
Tannin stared with disbelief, his breath caught in his throat, fear prickling along his veins. “Lambkill, no … no!”
Heedless, his brother dislodged another burial, and a little girl’s corpse thudded headfirst onto the ground.
Tannin gaped in horror as Lambkill kicked the brightly decorated burial wrapping apart, unconcerned with the putrid reek of death and corruption. The child’s head lolled amidst a disarray of long black hair that came loose in patches.
“Here!” Lambkill cried, picking up a carved ivory doll. “This is worth a fortune inland.”
Tannin fell to his knees, his sleeve draped over his nose to block the stench.
The little girl’s body lay hunched and stiff, half desiccated. The empty eye sockets, long picked clean by ravens and gulls, stared accusingly up at Tannin; the flesh around her mouth had dried into a death’s moan.
Trembling, Tannin crawled away on rubbery knees, sobs choking him.
Lambkill stopped suddenly and knelt down to brush at the sand. His loose, shoulder-length gray hair hung in dirty strands around his wrinkled face.
“Look here, my brother!” Lambkill said and grinned. “See these prints? We have her!”
Thirty-two
Father Sun—a fiery orange ball in a smooth blue sky gleamed through the canopy of trees over Kestrel’s head. Where the sun pierced the thick branches above, damp logs on the ground steamed. Ghostly wisps of fog filled the forest. Kestrel’s moccasins cut a meandering swath through the dew-soaked grass as she skirted the meadow and headed down the slope toward the beach. She still needed to gather lichen for the rich yellow that would be the focal point of her design. She hurried, afraid that Sunchaser would be waiting for her. He’d told her that he wanted to sweat and chant until noon. After that, they would begin.
She would paint, and he would Dream.
Anxiety gnawed within Kestrel’s belly the way Porcupine chewed on winter-shed antlers. She had been feeling strange all day, jumping every time a squirrel chittered. She wanted so much to help Sunchaser. But could she? The possibility of failure terrified her.
You don’t even know for certain what the problem with his Dreaming is. She sighed uneasily. What was it? The turn in the maze? That was what he had said during the Ant Ordeal.
All night long, she had been designing her painting with that in mind. But if she’d guessed wrong, her painting might make things worse for him.