“At noon?” Kestrel tried to remember. She shook her head. “I—I was at Desert Tortoise’s lodge. She asked me to come and paint—”
He leaped forward and brought his war club down on her shoulder. She screamed. The force of the blow sent her toppling to the dirt floor.
“I hate Desert Tortoise! You know I do. Why did you go there? I hate her whole family!”
Kestrel threw up her hands to fend off his repeated blows, and Lambkill changed his aim, deliberately smashing at her wrist and fingers until she shrieked in agonized terror. “Lambkill, stop it! Please, sjop!”
“You like to paint, eh? I’ll make sure you never paint again!”
“No, Lambkill! Please!” She hid her hands in her armpits, and he slammed his club into her chest and over the top of her head, trying to force her to defend herself with her hands.
Kestrel fell forward onto the floor, hiding her hands beneath her, and he took out his rage on her spine and legs. She wailed shrilly.
In the village, people yelled, and she could hear their steps running closer. Lambkill shouted, “Stay back! Don’t come near! You hear me? She’s my wife!”
Voices hushed. Steps retreated. But a few people continued to talk in low tones. In rage and fury, Lambkill roared, “Get away from my lodge!” The murmuring went silent, too.
Kestrel scooted back, getting as far from him as she could. Her hands burned. Dizziness made her unsteady, but she knew she had to stay awake. If she didn’t, he would crush her fingers, one by one. A pathetic voice in her soul cried, But maybe he’ll love you if you’re a cripple. Maybe it would be better… She wept silently. She wanted him to love her. But she needed to paint. What had she done to anger him so? She had clan obligations to fulfill. Desert Tortoise was her cousin!
Lambkill whirled and glared at her. “I don’t ever want you to go to Desert Tortoise’s lodge again. Never. If you do—”
“Why, Lambkill?” she sobbed. “She asked me to come. Why can’t I?” Lambkill lunged for her, dragged her to her feet and twisted her arm until she cried out. “Get out of my lodge, woman. Get out and never come back!”
As fast as Antelope, she’d crossed the crowded village, burst into Tannin’s lodge and thrown herself into Calling Crane’s arms, bawling hysterically, “He hates me! He tried to break my hands! Why would he do that? Why, Calling Crane? All I did was go to my cousin’s lodge to paint her new baby’s cradle board! Why would that anger Lambkill… why?”
Kestrel jerked awake, panting into the darkness. The mutterings of the river kept her entranced for a moment. Voices? No, no. Water. Just the sound of the river.
The fire had burned down. Cloud Girl still slept in her lap,
peaceful, oblivious. The baby’s head had fallen sideways, and she had sucked on the fur of her hood. Gray and brown hairs stuck to her little mouth.
Shaking, Kestrel added sticks to the coals. Flames crackled and spat. The rough walls of the shelter gleamed amber. She kept her gaze focused on the darkness beyond. Her fingers crept spiderlike, reaching into her pack for the tapir-bone stiletto. She brought it back and rested it on her knee. ‘
Owls hooted as they ghosted over the shore on silent wings in search of mice or pygmy rabbits that had secreted themselves in patches of willow. The wind had died. Nothing moved except the perpetual rush of the river. Yet the pounding of Kestrel’s heart made the shelter seem to quake.
At last, Dawn Child grayed the eastern horizon enough to illuminate the shrubs and rocks. Kestrel fed Cloud Girl, gathered her things… and ran.
Eleven
Oxbalm pulled Sumac’s wrinkled hand into his lap and held it gently. They huddled together beneath a mammoth-calf hide, watching the beginnings of the Mammoth Spirit Dance. They had waited a week, hoping that Sunchaser would arrive, but when he hadn’t, Oxbalm could delay the Dance no longer. People had been filtering in from all over the countryside, from villages that sat several days’ walk away.
Thick fog billowed in off the ocean. In the past hand of time, it had started to freeze on the trees, turning them into glittering giants. It was common for this time of cycle. One never knew what Spring Girl would do to trick people into being lazy, thinking that warm weather had come at last.
Icicles hung like pointed claws from the ridgepoles of the lodges that clustered in the trees and spread out across the beach.
The Mammoth Spirit Dance lodge, which they had constructed from eight of the dead mammoths’ hides, looked especially magnificent. It was three body lengths wide and seven long and painted with scenes of mammoths on every available space: mammoths grazing placidly in spring-green meadows; mammoth calves lying almost hidden in a field of wild roses; bull mammoths in rut, locking tusks and pushing each other back and forth. On the door flap, the face of a cow mammoth with fiery-red eyes stared at each passerby. Strings of shells scalloped the roof line, and collections of mammoth vertebrae, like bizarre one-eyed heads, draped the ends of the ridgepoles that stuck out from the lodges. They rattled and clacked in time with the wind.