Is it truly different this time?
When Father turns to smile at me, tears of relief silver my vision. My anxiety drains away, leaving me exhausted. No matter how long I live, my best memory will be the sight of Mother and Father running out of the forest with their war clubs swinging, killing the men who held us captive.
As I live it again, the strange euphoria intensifies, sharpened to a deadly edge by the fear that this freedom can’t last. They are coming for me. I know it.
My little sister, Tutelo, sleeps beside me. She rolls over and heaves a sigh. I turn to make sure she’s all right. She has a doehide pulled up over her head in the manner of a hood. Only her pretty oval face with its turned-up nose gleams in the firelight. She has seen eight summers pass.
Behind her, Baji is stretched out on her back. I can’t be certain, but I think she’s staring up at the campfires of the dead that sprinkle the night sky. Every so often, I smell the acrid scent of the burning village that clings to my moosehide blanket. Is Baji thinking about what happened earlier tonight? About the gigantic warriors’ camp outside of the flaming village, the screams and cries of orphaned children … the laughter of warriors covered in blood?
Baji has seen twelve summers. Long eyelashes fringe her dark eyes. Her small nose and full lips are perfect. Long black hair spreads across the blanket around her. She was captured in a raid and sold into slavery the day after I was.
Images flash behind my eyes: Girls thrown to the ground by brutal men … suffocating sobs … Gan—
A terrified cry climbs my throat. Barely audible. No one else seems to hear. Except Baji.
She rolls to face me and mouths the words, Are you all right?
I shake my head, aware that the terror has broken loose inside me. Will I ever be able to completely wall it away down in that black space between my souls? For the moment I can only blink at the hot tears and try to control the fear.
Baji wraps her blanket around her shoulders, rises, and tiptoes over to kneel beside me.
“What’s wrong?” she whispers.
I stare up at her. “I dreamed there are warriors coming.”
“Warriors? From the victory camp? Or her warriors?”
“I don’t know. Maybe hers.”
She shakes her head violently, and long black hair flies around her shoulders. She’s just as afraid as I am. “No, I—I don’t think so. Why would they come after us? She bought new children from the destroyed village. She doesn’t need us any longer.”
The evil old woman who buys and sells captured children is a powerful witch. She can hear conversations from a day’s march away. I’m afraid she’s listening to us right now.
I whisper, “They’re coming, Baji. I swear it. I feel the warriors’ footsteps in my heart.”
For a long time Baji looks out at the firelit shadows that sway in the trees, as though searching for hidden men. Then she curls up beside me and stares at me. “Even if she is coming after us, we have a good head start. And your mother and father, and the two Hills People warriors they brought, will protect us.”
“I know.” I want so desperately to believe it’s true.
Baji wets her lips and whispers, “I’m more worried about Wrass and Zateri. Do you think they’re all right?”
A deep ache fills my chest. Our friends, Wrass and Zateri, are still the old woman’s slaves. Somehow, I think it’s my fault. We were separated when the rescue happened. I should have called out to them, or gone to find them. Instead, I just ran away with Mother and Father. I ran as hard as I could.
“It’s not your fault,” Baji says, as though reading the tracks of my soul. Is she feeling the same guilt I am? After the horrors of the past moon, we are closer than friends, closer than family. “It’s a miracle that we escaped with our own lives.”
“I know, I just—”
“And we’re going back for them. Tomorrow morning. Your parents promised. They wouldn’t lie to us, would they? We are going back to rescue Wrass and Zateri, and the other children, aren’t we?”
I have to think about this before I answer. “ … My parents wouldn’t lie to us.”
But I’m not sure that’s true.
My gaze drifts to where Mother stands. Most people know her as War Chief Koracoo from Yellowtail Village of the Standing Stone People. My Father, Gonda, is her deputy. Women war chiefs are rare, and being honored with the title requires unusual courage, intelligence, and skill. Mother is a powerful and respected leader. She’s a tall woman, muscular and long-legged. Her war club—the legendary weapon known as CorpseEye—is propped on her shoulder.
Just seeing her calms my fears. But I miss her long black hair. After the attack that destroyed our village, she cropped it short with a chert knife. Among our people it is a sign of mourning. The short jagged locks fall around her ears as though sculpted. Her gaze is fixed on the darkness just beyond the circle of firelight, as though she hears something, or someone, on the starlit mountain pass above us. We came over that pass two hands of time ago, and are now on the western slope.