People of the Wolf(142)

The two youths who followed laughed out loud, eyes gleaming in anticipation.

Dancing Fox lifted a brow. "More of Raven Hunter's teachings?''

Red Moon took a step closer, leering. "He told us all about you. The way you—"

"Another step and I'll kill you," she replied easily.

Red Moon chuckled, laying his weapons to one side. "Kill me, woman? I've heard the stories that you killed five Others. Five? Not all liars died with Crow Caller."

"Five," the cool voice added behind them. They whirled, eyes wide. Three Falls hobbled out. "I was there. She has more courage than three children who would rape a woman. As if you could rape her.''

They started at the scorn in his voice. Red Moon swallowed loudly in the dusk, eyes going uncertainly back and forth, realizing how boxed in they were. The two youths with him sidled into the night, feet scuffing softly on the rock as they backed away.

"What's your decision, Red Moon?" Dancing Fox toyed with a dart. "Will you betray the People? Disobey the Dreamer who destroyed Crow Caller and Raven Hunter with mere words? You'd give the Others reason to raid us when" we're ragged and tired? You'd bring their revenge down on us when all we need is another full moon before we can leave this place forever? Is this what honor means to you?''

In the gray evening, she could see the other two boys leaving. The sound of their feet beating against rock turned to a run. Red Moon shifted, head down, swallowing hard. In a final decision, he threw his darts violently to clatter off the rocks before sprinting off in the direction of his fellows.

Dancing Fox closed her eyes, exhaling wearily as she sank down on the rock. "Close one, that time."

Three Falls grunted and shuffled his way over the rock. "But Red Moon was the worst. Stopping him stops the rest. Maybe that's time enough."

She lifted a shoulder. "Maybe. The young men chafe more every day." She shook her head. "How did Raven Hunter do it? Drive them all wild like that?"

Three Falls propped a foot on a boulder. "He gave them a taste of Power. Let them see how fear could dominate their victims." He paused. "But then Raven Hunter drove you into being who you are today, too."

She stiffened, meeting his gaze, finding tenderness there. "Relax, he's gone."

She shook her head. "For me, he'll never be gone." And I can never forget his visions, what he promised so long ago.

At the thought of being dropped in a hole, Raven Hunter's soul screamed within the cage of his exhausted body. His . dreams raged unmercifully, his skin crawling at the imagined feel of the ground as it was thrown over his flesh. He could smell the dirt, damp, musty, clogging his nostrils and mouth, the taste of eternal death on his tongue, grit scratching on his teeth. He could feel the chill eating into his flesh, rocks gouging his skin. Cold, eternally black; his soul writhed and howled at the thought. Rot and blackness surrounding him, he could feel the fire in his lungs as they burned for air. Dirt choked in his convulsing throat, the spark of life draining away while his soul remained, trapped, unable to escape that cage of earth—locked in the roots and rot and cold—forever.

Raven Hunter filled his lungs, opening his eyes, enjoying the feel of the air as it rushed in and out of his body, soothing as it drifted across his skin. The fire glowed dimly red, faint" flickers eerily etching the stretched hide of the shelter overhead.

The place had become familiar by this time. He knew the post supports that held up the roof. The bundles of hides, the hanging pouches full of meat, the curious fetishes hanging from the walls, all had been memorized. This silent, warm shelter would become a bedlam of his screams. The mute fixtures of the lodge would bear witness to his excruciating anguish. Now, in the red light, the shelter seemed harmless-peaceful.

How long until morning? Until they came to torture him? He swallowed hard, mouth dry and tight. Would he scream as loudly as the Others he'd burned and cut? Would he bellow as wretchedly when they smashed his bones? Would he shriek as vilely when they cut his penis and testicles off? What sound would he make as they placed sharp obsidian to his quivering belly? How would their hands feel, squirming inside his body as they ripped out his intestines? Could he keep his sanity when their rough fingers pulled his eyeballs from the sockets?

A wailing agony of horror whimpered through his mind.

"Life can be most precious, don't you think? Especially when the end is near.''

Raven Hunter jerked his head around to see the tall Dreamer they called Ice Fire. This was his father? No! Impossible!

"Walrus is asleep. That drink I mixed for him contained a priceless root. Comes from the far west. Getting scarce now with all the different people moving."