The wrinkles in Oxbalm’s face rearranged themselves into sympathetic lines. He reached up and touched a lock of Sunchaser’s hair. “Is that what has turned your hair white? The dread?”
Gulls fluttered over the skeletal remains of the mammoths, and a cold well opened in the pit of Sunchaser’s stomach. He couldn’t tell Oxbalm about the maze. Not yet. “Is a world without mastodons … or mammoths… worth living in, Oxbalm? You tell me. I must know.”
Oxbalm tipped his face up. As the wall of blue-black clouds moved closer, the first raindrops beaded on his cheeks. “Isn’t that why we Dance the Mammoth Spirit Dance? So we can save ourselves and the mammoths? I thought that was what Wolfdreamer told you when you visited the Land of the Dead.”
Sunchaser tightened his folded arms, hugging himself. “That’s what he told me. Yes.”
“But you’ve decided that the Dance isn’t going to work. Is that it?”
“I didn’t say that. I meant—”
“That we’re going to die. Just like the mammoths on the shore.”
“No. No, Oxbalm. I—”
“You’ve lost faith, Dreamer,” Oxbalm said, but his voice held no reproach, only a deep sadness.
Sunchaser wanted to scream, to deny it, but he merely bowed his head.
Oxbalm whispered, “How did that happen? When did it happen, Sunchaser? It doesn’t matter, really, but I’d like to know.”
“I still have faith,” Sunchaser replied, his voice almost too low to be heard. “Maybe you have hope. Yes, maybe. But hope is not the same as faith. So, tell me, Dreamer, how does a man who has looked Wolfdreamer straight in the face stop believing? Tonight, at the council session, people will ask you that. Catchstraw will ask you. Prepare yourself.”
Sunchaser let out a taut breath. “Oh, I’m prepared for many things. I’ve heard the rumors about Catchstraw’s Dream. What frightens me most is that somewhere deep inside me, I fear that Catchstraw may be right. I’ve been having … trouble, Oxbalm. With my Dreaming.”
“What do you mean? Trouble? Just because you’re having problems Dreaming, it doesn’t mean you’ve been abandoned by Mammoth Above, as Catchstraw alleges.”
“No, but—”
Helper barked sharply as he ducked out of the small lodge that Oxbalm had set up for them. The dog had one ear pricked, the un furred one, and his dark eyes shone like obsidian under water.
Sunchaser frowned. “What is it, Helper?”
The dog trotted by him and loped out across the sand toward the lions. The big male got to its feet and growled, but not at Helper. At something it sensed in the forest. Its breath condensed into a shimmering gray haze. When Helper began to run northward along the beach, toward the mammoths’ skeletons, both lions leaped down from the rocks and followed.
“What do they see?” Oxbalm asked.
“I don’t know. I see nothing.” But Sunchaser’s heart began to hammer wildly. “Stay here, Oxbalm. I’ll go find out.” He had taken three steps when someone in the village screamed, and he whirled.
The first mammoth broke through the trees like a tidal wave, her head swinging, her ears flapping back and forth. The reddish-brown hair on her body hung long and shaggy and shook as she ran. She lifted her trunk and trumpeted in fury, then charged out into the midst of the village, six other mammoths close on her heels.
The lions roared and fled into the forest, seeking the protection of the trees, while the dogs scattered with their tails between their legs, yipping as they ran.
Sunchaser stood stunned as the mammoths thundered by him, shaking the ground with their massive feet, heading into the village. Oxbalm fell back a step, his mouth open in shock. “Blessed Mother Ocean,” Sunchaser whispered to himself. “Why is this happening?” An attack so soon after the drownings? What was Mammoth Above trying to tell humans? She must have been desperate to have The village awoke in a shrieking, running horde. Women grabbed their children and raced toward the safety of the densest trees, while men struggled to nock darts in their
atlatls. Three of the mammoths trampled lodges while the other three pursued the humans, trumpeting, twisting their thick trunks like writhing serpents.
“Sunchaser, get your weapons!” Oxbalm shouted.
“I… I can’t kill a mammoth!” Sunchaser blurted. “They’re sacred animals to me. I can’t do it!”
“You would let them kill us instead?” Oxbalm shouted in rage. “Get out of our village and never come back!” He ran on rickety legs for his own lodge and his weapons.