“Yes.” The faintest hint of smoke rides the air.
I lead her off the main path and onto a narrow deer trail that slithers between trees and massive head-high boulders. All around us, the forest shrieks and branches crash together. A constant shower of leaves and twigs pelts our faces and capes. Taya has one arm up to protect her eyes.
“Sky Messenger?” Her voice is almost lost in the gale. “How much farther to White Dog Village?”
“By now we should see the firelight reflecting—” I stop suddenly and sniff the wind again. “Blessed gods,” I say when the distinct scent of burning longhouses reaches me. “Stay here! Gitchi, don’t let her follow me!”
I release her hand and break into a dead run.
As I round the curve in the trail, the dark bulk of the still-burning village, with its high log palisade and skeletons of charred longhouses, looms like a black wall. I feel as though I’ve just been kicked in the belly. Firelight halos the village, but the surrounding forest is uncommonly dark and blustery.
“No!” I run, duck through a charred hole in the palisade, and dash across the plaza toward the Snipe Clan longhouse, the clan my father married into. Discarded arrows cover the ground. Baskets, broken pots, and dropped capes are scattered everywhere. Hungry dogs lope through the devastation with their tongues hanging out, looking frantic, or in despair. Their masters are gone, probably dead, but they do not know that, and won’t leave the chaos of charred ruins until they search every crevice and nook.
I can tell now that the village was attacked days ago. The longhouses are little more than piles of ash, the remaining poles and log benches fanned to flames by today’s gale. If Father is alive, he is not here. He fled with the other survivors. I pray they made it to Bur Oak Village.
From outside the burned palisade, Gitchi barks, and I hear Taya shout, “Let me go!”
I trot back to the hole in the palisade and duck outside. Gitchi, still obeying me, has his teeth embedded in Taya’s sleeve and is tugging her backward. She must have tried to follow me.
“Let me go!” Taya screams in rage, and shakes her arm, trying to dislodge the wolf’s massive jaws.
“Gitchi, it’s all right,” I call. “Let her go.”
Gitchi releases her and leaps back to avoid Taya’s fists. “I hate this animal!” she shrieks.
Panicked by her loud cries, I dash back. “Are you trying to attract the attention of the attacking warriors?”
“No, I—”
I grab her hand and drag Taya into the shadows of nearby trees, pausing only long enough to examine the forest for hidden warriors, or desperate survivors who will kill anyone not from their village. Beneath the cacophony of wind and storm, the faint whining of village dogs rides the gusts.
With Gitchi at my side, I drag Taya to a small meadow ringed by black oaks. The shiny ridges of bark on the trunks glisten in the fading light. Swirling leaves and the pungent scent of the ferns crushed by our feet trail us to the fallen log.
“Sit down,” I order. “I need time to think.”
“I don’t understand,” Taya says. “Why are we stopping? We should keep moving. This is dangerous! Can’t you think while we run?”
“No. I need to be here, Taya. Since the villagers are gone, my only choice is to wait until tomorrow morning to get the information I need. There’s someone I have to meet.” My thoughts race, thinking about the Trader’s rounds, trying to figure out …
“But there must be enemy warriors and hundreds of angry ghosts roaming the forest!”
I close my eyes for a long moment, calming myself, then lift my gaze to the clearing. “I’ll keep watch tonight, just in case either warriors or survivors return.”
“What good will that do? You have no weapons to protect us.” Taya jerks her cape more closely about her, pouting. “When did this happen?”
I clench my fists to keep from saying something that will hurt her. “Four or five days ago. There are no bodies along the main trail, and I don’t see any scattered around the palisade, which means the survivors already collected the remains of their dead relatives.”
“But if it happened five days ago, why are the flames still so high?”
“The wind kicked up this afternoon. It must have fanned the embers smoldering beneath the charred piles of bark and timber.”
She grabs her flying hair when a particularly brutal gust sweeps the forest, cracking limbs together and hurling a barrage of acorns and twigs at us. When it passes, she asks, “Do you think your father is alive?”
I rub my hands over my stunned face. I can still feel Father’s breath moving inside me, as I can my sister’s and mother’s, and a handful of friends. But hope often masquerades as truth. “I pray he is.”