been freezing. Mammoth Above had guided her to him. His gaze caressed the bluish glints of her hair, the smooth lines of her face, the silken bare skin of her shoulder against his.
“Yes. It probably will, but…” He slipped a hand beneath the wealth of her hair. He pulled her face down so he could kiss her gently.
She blinked back her tears. “I love you, Sunchaser, but I don’t want to hurt you. The last man who loved me is dead and I—”
“That wasn’t your fault.” He brushed away the glossy hair that stuck wetly to her cheeks. “No more than this is.”
But in the depths of Kestrel’s soul, memory of a hoarse voice whispered: “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.”
Sunchaser put an arm around her shoulders and rolled her over onto her back. He stared down at her.
Kestrel shivered as he tenderly smoothed a hand down her bare side. In his eyes she saw desire… and the reflection of her own certainty that this should never happen.
Tannin’s steps pounded a steady rhythm against the dragging sand. Lambkill had taken the lead and now he ran three body lengths ahead, his gray braid lashing the back of his soiled buckskin shirt like a whip, driving him ever onward.
Rolling green hills rose to the east, where Dawn Child’s golden glow had just touched the tops of the tallest fir trees. To the west, the ocean barely moved. Waves purled softly as they caressed the shore. Coyotes yipped and howled, serenading the new day.
Tannin concentrated on his feet.
Lambkill had been pushing him hard. They had eaten little yesterday, and slept less. They had run through the snow until
they’d hit a rocky section of shoreline, where they’d kept tripping and stumbling. Lambkill had reluctantly agreed to stop. Still, Tannin had had barely two hands of rest last night.
Then Lambkill had awakened him long before sunrise. They’d rolled their bedding hides in silence and trotted through the luminous gray world of predawn. Snow had coated the beach, but stars had gleamed over their heads.
Tannin’s stomach growled. The hunger took a toll on his strength. He trotted faster, catching up with his brother, but Lambkill didn’t even glance over at him; he kept his eyes squinted at the curving shoreline, like a wolf on a fresh blood trail.
“Lambkill?” Tannin said as they ran through the dappled shadows of a copse of trees. The scents of melting snow and dogwood flowers rose strongly. “Let’s stop and eat. I’m sure the tidal pools are brimming with snails. Maybe a few abalones.”
“You’re weak, my brother. You used to be able to run for days on an empty stomach.”
“I’m not as young as I used to be, Lambkill.”
Lambkill pointed ahead. “We’ll stop at the village just over that rise. Someone will offer us food. And we will learn where we are.”
“What village?” Tannin shielded his eyes and searched the distance.
“It’s there. Believe me. See the tops of those scrubby aspen trees? Near there.”
Lambkill picked up the pace, forcing Tannin to run with all his might. He hated running in sand. It ate at his muscles like the poison of the shiny black spiders that lived under rocks. Yes, that was it, poison from dark places.
He couldn’t help but stare at his brother’s back when that thought twined into his soul.
When they veered around the base of the rise, splashing through the shallows of the sea, the village came into view. Tannin glanced at Lambkill, amazed.
“How did you know it would be here?”
“Simple, brother. Nighthawk said that Whalebeard Village sat exactly three days south of the old Otter Clan Village. I assumed that Nighthawk meant ‘at a Trader’s pace.” That’s why I’ve been pushing you. I knew that if we ran hard, we could reach it in half that time.”
Tannin looked at the village. Fifteen hide lodges sat in a semicircle at the base of a low hill, facing the sea. Three women stood near cook fires, and a few children played at the edge of the water, but only four men lounged on the sand in the plaza. It looked as if they played a shell game, for the man in the center had three clamshells laid out in a line. No laughter carried, nor any strains of conversation or the happy shrieks of children.
Tannin glanced at Lambkill. “This is a somber village, brother. You think they’ll know something about Kestrel?”
“We shall see.” When the men in the plaza saw them pounding through the surf, they rose and spoke to one another. One man, short and wearing a frayed, soot-stained bear hide coat, ran toward them, waving his arms.