“We do not recall our warriors,” Flying Hawk said firmly. “We don’t have time.”
“Then will you draw warriors in the dirt?” Night Star asked. “And perhaps have the Hopaye breathe life into them? Is our Power that great?”
“Do not mock me, Chieftess. You know better than that.”
At the tishu minko’s nod, Blood Skull stood, crossing his arms. “Ah, but that seems to be the problem, doesn’t it? The Chahta attacked when they shouldn’t have. Knowing full well that we do not have the forces to respond.” He gestured around the Council. “We understand the grievance, High Minko. And well do we know the danger of chaos when out of balance with order. The question is: What do we do to maintain ourselves until we can accumulate enough warriors to attack White Arrow Town?” He smiled grimly. “That is, outside of blowing Spirit into warriors you’ve drawn in the dirt.”
Flying Hawk deliberately turned his head to Smoke Shield.
Smoke Shield took a deep breath, stilling his nerves. “I think I know a way. But we must act now, while they think we are weak, and before we can recall any of our warriors.” He began outlining his plan, but as he spoke, only images of Morning Dew filled his mind.
Nine
Amber Bead threaded his way through the clutter of houses, corn cribs, and ramadas that lay between the plaza and the south gate. Split Sky City buzzed like the summer insects. People clustered around cooking fires, their talk centered on the just-concluded Council in the tchkofa. Children—unconcerned with the politics of the day—ran back and forth, laughing, playing tag, or tossing deerhide balls with small stickball racquets. If only Amber Bead could be so free of worry. But the children’s time would come when they, too, adopted the mantles and cares of adulthood.
The fragrance of wood smoke, grilling meat, fish, and fowl favored the nostrils with an incense that tickled Amber Bead’s empty stomach. He stilled his hunger, mind on the plan that Smoke Shield had just outlined. The idea was daring, and so fraught with risk.
But what does it mean for my people?
As he observed the faces of the adults around their cook fires, he realized their expressions mirrored his own: concerned. The Sky Hand people took the balance of Power seriously. They believed with all of their hearts that unless the White Arrow Chahta were successfully punished, and the balance between life and death, order and chaos was put back in harmony, they would suffer for it in the end.
He could hear Singing, accompanied by the clacking of rhythm sticks and the hollow melody of flutes in the night. Like the concept of universal balance, the lilting melody mitigated the worried conversations with hope of redress in the grander Spiritual world.
He stepped around a broken basket that lay in the path and glanced up at the evening sky. High overhead, against the day’s last light, a V of geese winged southward, their honks barely audible over the sounds of the city.
“Mikko?” someone called from a nearby fire. “What news from the Council? You were there, weren’t you?”
Amber Bead raised a hand, ducking his head as was required of an Albaamo when addressing a Chikosi. “A decision is made,” he said carefully, recognizing the speaker, a middle-aged man of the Deer Clan. “My apologies, respected sir, but I am forbidden to speak of it. Your chief, Two Poisons, is the one to ask. Again, my apologies.”
He hurried on before the man could rise from his fire and pursue more. Gods, the wrath of the world would fall upon his aging shoulders if he disclosed any of the Council’s decisions. After so many years, and endless accusations by his own people that he was nothing more than a Chikosi lap dog, he should have grown used to such burdens.
Perhaps that will change. And a faint flicker of hope was kindled in his old breast.
He rounded one of the last granaries. Six paces across, the granary had been built on peeled posts so that the floor was head high, the upper walls made of woven cane and saplings. The thatched roof extended so the drip line was well out from the walls, the whole structure designed so that air circulated around the cached corn to keep it from molding. The posts, too, were greased so that wily raccoons, opossums, and rodents couldn’t climb up the slippery wood to the bounty stored within.
He nodded respectfully to the warriors standing at the gate and walked through the narrow gap and into the night beyond Split Sky City. A soft sigh of relief passed his lips. He always felt trapped within the city. Once again he was nominally in Albaamaha territory, though the many camps, houses, and granaries clustered just as thick outside the gates. Here, too, people crouched around their evening fires. The place smelled of humanity, smoke, urine, and dung. He nearly tripped over a broken piece of pottery and stepped around a wad of discarded cloth too worn for any function but to foul a man’s feet in the deepening dusk.