The Broken Land(8)

I say, “I know,” and force myself to stand. Wavering veils of white blow across the ridgetop. The trail is a vague serpentine slash through the forest, rising and falling with the terrain. Deer have kept it open, their hooves churning the snow away, their legs dredging it back.

Gitchi trots out ahead and vanishes into the falling snow. I pound the trail behind him.

It quickly becomes routine: just run, don’t think about the future. Instead, I fall into the past … .

… She runs at my side, her perfect face streaked with sweat, her long hair dusted with summer pollen … .

How can these memories be so clear? Her footsteps are there. It’s unnatural. A spike driven into the heart.

… Occasional touches, a bare brush of skin inflaming the world … Breathing hard because we know what we want of each other, but it must wait … Messages passing between us, directly through lips, eyes, carried on the sweltering, dogwood-perfumed, air …

Unconsciously, I reach for her, like a man in danger would reach for his war club. My fist closes on snowflakes. She is not here. She is not.

Behind me, twigs crack.

A voice. Utz.

I do not stop to look. I force my burning muscles to charge ahead. Like a madman, I dash around boulders and leap trees that have fallen across the path. Gitchi’s sleek body flashes on the trail ahead of me, dark gray against the white snow.

“There he is!” Utz calls.

“I see him.”

I do not recognize the second voice, and for a brief instant I try to determine why not. Has the man’s voice gone hoarse from running? Perhaps he’s turned away from me and his words are being blunted by the trees? Or maybe emotion has strangled it—because he knows what comes next?

As I pound into a dense grove of maples, the darkness closes in. Owls huddle on the branches, their feathers fluffed out for warmth, watching me with glistening eyes.

When I emerge from the grove, I enter a clearing ringed by short witch-hazel trees covered with straggly yellow blossoms. Winter solstice is only two moons away, and they are blossoming. Though these are the last flowers, for the fruit pods have already popped their seeds and sent them flying. The husks blow across the snow.

Momentarily, I am confused. I look around for Gitchi, or his tracks. I see neither. Which way did he go?

Utz calls, “I told you … south … Hannock, you go …”

They’re spreading out, surrounding the meadow.

Suddenly, Wind Mother dies down to a soft purl. The branches stop clattering, and a lethal silence possesses the world. If I make a single move, they’ll hear me. As though the Cloud People have sliced open their own bellies to hide me, torrents of snow flood from the dark sky. Wet snow, heavy. I can no longer see the trees, or anything more than two paces away. I swing around to look behind me. They could be right there and I’d never …

Yes. There.

A man walks through the heavy snow toward me. Soundless. His silhouette is faint, but definitely there. Swaying. Every instinct I have is urging me to pull my war club from my belt and strike him down before he sees me. As my heartbeat thrums, I start asking questions. Just because he is a friend, is his life worth more than mine? Besides, I don’t have to kill him. Just disable him. Knock him unconscious so he can’t call out. But if he does call out …

Subtly, I draw my club and brace my feet.

The snow has become a solid wall, pouring out of the darkness. It is so quiet I hear the flakes alighting on my shoulders. I blink to clear my eyelashes.

I’ve lost sight of him. Did he turn? Is he walking away from me? How is it possible that I hear nothing? His feet should be crunching snow.

As my fingers tighten around the shaft of my war club, my shoulder aches with fiery intensity. It is an old injury, broken by an enemy warrior when I’d seen eleven summers. On cold nights, it always hurts.

Another glimpse. Movement.

My heart beats harder, pounding against the large False Face gorget—a shell pendant that covers half my chest—resting beneath my war shirt. When Father gave it to me, he told me it would protect me. It is a Power object. Alive. Its soul is always present with me, but especially when …

The Voice is barely audible, “Bahna is right. It’s about forgiveness. All of it.”

The creature seems to ooze from the storm. Like an amorphous black cloud, he takes shape less than eight hand-lengths from me. My arms go weak. I lower my weapon. Old Bahna is a Healer in my home village, Yellowtail Village, but I have no notion what he’s talking about.

He steps closer. His black cape has no snow upon it, but gleams as though enameled with the night. As always, I wonder if he’s really here, or stands bathed in moonlight in the Land of the Dead, and only appears to be here in this meadow. He’s never come this close to me before. My skin tingles as though I’m covered with biting ants. He’s turned slightly away, watching the warriors who almost certainly surround us.