The Dawn Country(23)

“Which sick boy? Hawk-Face or—”

“The Dawnland brat.”

Kotin’s shoulder-length hair flopped around his ears as he stalked across camp. He had a square face with a mouthful of broken yellow teeth, and he wore a soot-stained buckskin cape. He moved like a tall gangly stork.

He kicked one of the new warriors awake. “Akio, get the children up. We’ll be leaving soon. And bring the two Dawnland boys to Gannajero.”

Gannajero had hired Akio at the big warriors’ camp last night. He had seen perhaps sixteen summers and had a florid face and pudgy body.

“Yes, Kotin. Don’t worry.” He sounded very eager to please.

Akio puffed as he waddled through the camp. Where was he from? Wrass had heard someone name his village. He tried to force his brain to work, to think, but the pain in his head was so overwhelming he could barely move without throwing up.

The pudgy guard stabbed one of the sleeping children with his war club and ordered, “Get up. We’ll be leaving soon. You two. Come with me.”

Six heads lifted. On the far side of the group, Zateri stood up. Her black hair glistened in the firelight. She was skinny and short for her ten summers, eight hands tall, and had a round “chipmunk” face. Her two front teeth stuck out slightly. She glanced at Wrass.

As the new children woke, the crying started. The two Bog Willow girls had fled their burning village dressed in thin doehide dresses. They stood huddled together, whimpering. The boys refused to stand. Toksus lay curled on his side on the ground, sobbing against his cape. The other boy tried to sit up, but fell weakly back to the ground. He didn’t even seem to have the strength to cry. Zateri and the new Flint girl stood a short distance away, talking while they watched the guards. Auma and Conkesema walked over to join them. They were all shivering.

And that’s how it would be for many days.

It was part of Gannajero’s method of breaking new children. They would freeze and starve. When the evil old woman finally decided to throw them a rock-hard biscuit or ratty blanket, the children would weep their thanks while they groveled at her feet.

Involuntarily, his gaze darted to the left.

The old woman rose. Gannajero the Crow, black, black as coal.

She walked over to a fire and sat down with two warriors. In the orange gleam, the greasy twists of graying black hair that fell around her wrinkled, toothless face looked like handfuls of baby snakes. “Where’s Hehaka’s blanket?” she demanded to know.

The warrior sitting with his back to Wrass shrugged. “I don’t know. Why?”

“I want it, Dakion, that’s why,” Gannajero snapped. “Find it.”

The man rose and walked away. A short while later, he returned and handed her a blanket. The old woman clutched it to her lips, as though it were a long-lost child, and started whispering. He thought he heard her singing a song. Was she witching the blanket?

Wrass closed his eyes. If he just concentrated on breathing, maybe the pain would ease.

A few instants later, he heard steps. The canoe rocked. He opened his eyes to see Zateri walking toward him across the packs.

“Z-Zateri,” he whispered. “Are you all right?”

“I’m worried about you.” She put a hand to his fevered brow, and fear tightened her brown eyes. “Your fever is dangerously high, Wrass. I brought you food. You need to try to eat.” She pulled a wooden cup filled with smoked eel from beneath her cape and slid it into his limp fingers.

Wrass closed his shaking hand around the cup and stared at the food. Gingerly, he pulled an eel from the cup and brought it to his lips. The smell made his stomach squeal. He took small bites.

“Wrass, have you been chewing the strips of birch bark I gave you?” She sounded desperately worried.

“Yes … but most came right back up.”

She reached into the top of her knee-high moccasin, drawing out several willow twigs wrapped in yellow cloth. “I cut these twigs from the river just a little while ago. They’ll be bitter, but they’ll help with the pain and fever. Then you have to drink, Wrass. Your headache will only get worse if you don’t drink. And I need to bandage your head with this cloth.”

“Z-Zateri,” he stammered around a mouthful of eel. “Since the beatings, I keep stuttering. Will it go a … away?”

As Zateri watched him struggle to swallow each bite, her dark eyes glistened with tears. “I think so, Wrass. A long time ago, I saw my mother Heal a warrior who’d been clubbed in the head. His headache was so bad that for many days he couldn’t speak at all; then he stammered uncontrollably for many more days. But, finally, he was all right.”