As he closed, he fit an arrow in his bow. The wide smile of success bent his lips. She was far enough away that no one would hear her cries. By the time anyone realized she was missing, he’d have her body packed to his canoe, and by this evening, she’d be resting on the bottom of a swamp.
Lotus Root had slowed her pace, staring around uncertainly, as though worried about what might await her in the forest. He closed the distance. Then she turned, seeing him. The woman vented a loud shriek, and ran.
Too late! Fast Legs pounded after her, his thick moccasins slipping on the leaves. She ran as fast as she could, scrambling across the icy ground. The trail went between two gum trees, partially blocked by a fallen log. She clambered over it, slipped on the icy crust, and almost fell, veering wide as she clawed for balance, then raced on up the trail.
When Fast Legs reached the log, he jumped it, landing on his left leg. He barely had time to throw his arms up as the leaves and sticks collapsed under his weight. Momentum threw him forward and down, smacking him face-first into the trail. His bow went flying, the arrow snapped in two. Dazed, he blinked. Shock and disbelief surrendered to a sudden sharp pain.
He stared down, trying to determine what had happened. A hole! He had stepped into a deep hole! He twisted, screaming at the pain. Pushing up, he could see his left leg, bent at a hideous angle where it was thrust down between a series of logs laid sideways in the narrow pit.
Broken! My leg is broken! He swallowed hard, trying to collect himself, pushing with his arms to get his bent right knee under him.
“Don’t,” a voice called.
Fast Legs looked up to see an Albaamo hunter dressed in brown, an arrow nocked and drawn as he crept forward.
Fast Legs clawed for his bow where it rested an arm’s length beyond his grasp.
“If you are not still,” the Albaamo said, “I will drive this arrow right through your arm.”
“Kill me, you piece of filth!”
“Oh, no,” another voice said from behind. “We want you alive.”
“And you will live,” a third voice called.
Every direction he looked, he could see Albaamaha approaching, each holding a bow, each wary and ready.
Another called, “Lotus Root? We have him!”
The first hunter said, “Drag him out of there. Then fill the trap so that no other poor soul steps in it.”
A trap! That’s what they did during those two days. They’d known he was there the whole time.
Fast Legs lowered his head, fingers clawing futilely at the frozen leaves in the trail. Across time, space, and through the murky water, Red Awl’s gleaming eyes seemed to drill straight through Fast Legs’ souls.
The man called Trader sat—his dog Swimmer beside him—in Rainbow City’s great temple. For the moment he was barely aware of the crackling fire in the large central hearth. The fire cast yellow light over the spacious room, illuminating the clay-plastered walls and the hanging reliefs of carved wood and beaten copper. One consisted of a warrior holding a war club in one hand and a sorcerer’s severed head in the other. The hero wore a triangular apron, necklaces of shell beads, and copper ear spools. His hair was pulled back in a bun, pinned with an arrow to mark his victory, and a beaded forelock hung down over the forked-eye tattoos on his face.
Across the room, the three spinning triangles of the Yuchi world—indicative of the three great lights in the sky—were surrounded by the six moons that waxed and waned between solstices, and a final encirclement of clouds. The sky in all of its phases preoccupied the Yuchi, but then they also believed they were descended from Mother Sun, born when drops of her menstrual blood fell to earth.
Trader was young, but twenty-six winters old. He had a smooth face, strong of jaw, with wide cheeks. Two parallel lines had been tattooed across his cheeks and nose; the outline of forked-eye designs surrounded his thoughtful brown eyes. The effect was as if the tattoos were unfinished. Trader wore his long black hair pulled up into a bun and pinned at the back of his head.
Sprung from drops of menstrual blood?
“All people believe something that others consider crazy,” Trader said wearily. Years of paddling a canoe up and down the mighty eastern rivers had left him muscular, thick through the shoulders, with strapping arms. He sat cross-legged and ran his fingers along the intricate carvings that decorated a wooden box resting on the split-cane matting in front of him.
At his words, the dog at his side lifted his head, ears cocked, a question in his curious brown eyes. Long black, white, and brown fur gleamed in the firelight. The nose was pointed, a dot of black on a white blaze, and the animal’s chest sported a gleaming white bib.