People of the Wolf(163)

"Perhaps," Eagle Cries agreed sullenly.

"Will you keep your oaths until we meet with the People?" she implored.

"We'll keep them. But after that, we're free men."

"And what will you do with this freedom?"

He shrugged irritably. "Maybe no Others will make it back to tell their warriors how to find the hole in the ice."

"Moon Water stayed with the rest of the White Tusk Clan. She still knows where the hole is."

Eagle Cries laughed harshly. "Then she'll have to die, too."

"And Jumping Hare's child?" Singing Wolf asked coldly.

"It's half Other." Eagle Cries grinned malevolently.

"So's your hero, Raven Hunter," Dancing Fox muttered. ' 'Maybe true strength comes from a mixing of our blood with theirs, eh?" She turned and strolled away toward the rising sun and Ice Fire's camp. A tendril of smoke twisted from the elder's lodge, the soft glow of fire penetrating through the door flap.

Clouds drifting on the horizon glowed pink and orange now from the sliver of gold peeking above the distant mountains.

Eagle Cries frowned and turned to Singing Wolf. "What's she talking about? Raven Hunter can't be ..."

It hurt his eyes. Had the sun ever been so bright? Cloud Woman parted long enough that a shaft of light practically blinded him. Raven Hunter looked away, tears coming to his eyes. On his shoulder, the White Hide beamed, the reflection illuminating the ice that parted to either side as he stumbled out, his back crying as if it had never been straight before.

His useless arm dangled, swollen, the fingers puffy, the lines of his hand disappeared in the bloated member.

Owlishly, he looked around, seeing the pockmarks where the feet of the People had passed over the gravels. Snow blew down from the icy ridge overhead.

' 'We made it.'' He nuzzled the White Hide with his cheek. "We're close now!"

Snow had blown across the trail, but as Raven Hunter looked around, he could see the route they'd taken, the streak of white where the way led up through the brush at a bend in the river.

Bowed under the weight of his burden, he stumbled off, panting in the light as Cloud Woman drew herself close about the sky, threatening, ominous in the still air.

A crow cawed from high overhead.

Their camp nestled at the edge of a grove of towering spruce. Buffalo-hide lodges sprouted in a rough semicircle around a central open space where children played and women

and men labored at butchering the wealth of animals their Dreamer had called.

Wolf Dreamer sat on a fallen log, gazing at the carcasses. As they'd died, he'd suffered with them, feeling the stinging darts biting deep, invading the delicate tissues of their hearts, lungs, and livers. One with them, he'd choked on their blood, shared their terror as death's fingers stole through their minds and their eyes grew dim.

At the same time, he shared the joyous abandon of the People, now wading through dispatched animals: life for another year. Meat and new clothing would fill the lodges.

Yet . . . beneath the suffering and joy, a deeper reality -' called to him—but he knew he couldn't let himself drown in that truth until, like spider, he'd thrown out the first threads of the crimson web.

"Huh!" One Who Cries grunted, walking up to stand by Wolf Dreamer. "You know, we've butchered a lot of animals here, but I never noticed before. The lungs, none of them have worms in the lungs. Wonder why?"

Wolf Dreamer's eyes drifted to the looming blackness in -the north that gained Power with every breath he took. "We're not the only life moving south."

"You mean the hole will widen and let animals through?"

He smiled faintly. "Soon the mammoth and caribou and buffalo will walk down this way of ours. Where they walk, the worms ride."

"Is that good?"

Wolf Dreamer gave him a wry grin and spread his arms, beginning to dance, spiraling around in a circle, never stepping on his tracks again. "See me dancing? How many times have I been around?"

"What?" One Who Cries asked, bewildered. "I don't-"

"Look!" Wolf Dreamer danced back to the beginning before jumping out of the center and lifting his brows questioningly. "Now, tell me which came first. Did I dance from the inside out, or the outside in?''

"Inside out first and then outside in second." He pointed. "Any hunter can tell by the tracks."

Wolf Dreamer sighed, disappointed. "What came first? The inside or the outside?"

One Who Cries pursed his lips. "What does that have to do with worms?"

Wolf Dreamer threw back his head and laughed until he had to hold his stomach. Feeling foolish, One Who Cries began laughing, too, nervously trying to decide what he'd done that was funny.

Wolf Dreamer settled on a log and patted it to indicate his friend should join him.