"Wolf Dreamer."
Singing Wolf stopped at the anxious tone in her voice. "Where? What's happened?"
In the darkness, he could see the familiar shrug of her shoulder. "There. In Heron's shelter."
He could feel One Who Cries' eyes on him, waiting. "Jumping Hare. Keep the dogs out of the meat and see that it gets distributed." He started quickly for the shelter, One Who Cries on his heels as he walked the winding path along the pool.
"Wolf Dreamer? You there?" he called at the door.
"Come."
He anxiously licked his lips before lifting the flap. Heron's shelter always prickled his scalp. A Power place to begin with; something about the eyeless skulls, the intricate colorful drawings on the rock, the fetishes in niches, all left a man's gut rotating.
Singing Wolf blinked in the dim light of a fading fire, seeing Wolf Dreamer sitting up, hood thrown back. Then he stopped, One Who Cries pushing alongside, his flat face forward, peering.
But who was this man? His face, once smooth and young, looked pinched. A curious, knowing light burned in his black eyes. As if Runs In Light's features were possessed by someone else—someone different, strange.
"I ... We were ..." Words stuck in his throat. "You're back."
Singing Wolf shifted uneasily, waiting for One Who Cries to speak.
Wolf Dreamer smiled wistfully, sensing their disquiet. "I crossed the Big Ice."
Stunned, Singing Wolf dropped to his knees. "You ..."
Wolf Dreamer nodded serenely. "But the People won't be able to follow in my tracks. It's too dangerous. Lost both the dogs. To cross is, well, a nightmare worse than Crow Caller's threats."
Singing Wolf slumped, weariness flowing back through his exhausted body. "Blessed Star People, that means things are bad."
"Bad?" Wolf Dreamer reached for one of the old sticks from the willow-wood pile and dropped it on the fire to a rising of sparks.
"Very bad," One Who Cries agreed. "In the three turnings of the moon that you've been gone, four camps of people have come over the hills to winter here. Beyond, down where the Big River flows out into the plains, the People find nothing but war. Our young men and the Others, they raid back and forth, moving constantly, striking each other. The old, the children, they can't travel constantly. Not in the Long Dark. So they come here to find peace."
"All but the young men and women?"
Singing Wolf nodded uneasily. "Yes, how did you know? The youth find this new life exciting."
Wolf Dreamer's eyes watered. "But who tells them the winter stories? How is the lore of the People passed on if all they do is run and fight? Who hunts for the old, the young?"
"Only our camp," Singing Wolf said softly.
One Who Cries sighed. "And the Others aren't leaving as Raven Hunter promised. The raids continue endlessly, back and forth. They're fighting through the Long Dark. Can you imagine that? What about the Soul Eaters?"
Singing Wolf added, "And our supplies are dwindling fast."
"What of the Others' supplies? Are they suffering—"
' 'They trade to different camps to the north and west along the salt water. They have plenty of food and new hides. They move their sick and old to camps farther up where meat has been taken and frozen. Then they send their young men to follow the Big River south, all carrying their weapons over their shoulders."
Wolf Dreamer's jaw muscles bunched under his cheeks. "And my brother?"
Singing Wolf lifted his hands. "He claims he's keeping the Others at bay. The People, at least the ones here—who don't count in the end—wonder. They see only disaster."
Wolf Dreamer nodded.
One Who Cries lowered his eyes. "We had hoped the Wolf Dream . . . That there was a way across the Big Ice."
Wolf Dreamer looked up at them, eyes oddly lit. "Across the Big Ice? No, not for the People. Too many would die, slip, fall, be lost in crevasses. There's no food up there. Only snow, and ice, and gravels melting out. I crossed the Big Ice in a month. Most of it without food."
One Who Cries looked nervously at Singing Wolf. "Then it looks like we'll have to take up Raven Hunter's way. Fight until—"
"No ..." Wolf Dreamer whispered eerily. "My Dream is right."
"Right?"
Wolf Dreamer nodded. "I crossed the ice. Had to kill Grandfather White Bear up there. But I lived on his flesh." He extended a pouch.
With trembling fingers, One Who Cries undid the binding, spilling out a wealth of claws. Singing Wolf swallowed and looked up.
"Grandfather White Bear? So far south? He eats seals, hunts the ice." One Who Cries shook his head. "I don't understand."