Sindak slowly pulled his war club from his shoulder and gripped it in both hands. The leafless, gray branches of the bayberries resembled skeletal fingers reaching for the sparkling campfires of the dead. The trunks grew closely together, too closely.
“I thought we’d lost you,” he whispered.
Right after they’d left the ravine, a pack had dogged their steps, appearing and disappearing loping along their back trail. But as they’d neared Bog Willow Village, the animals had vanished. Sindak had assumed they’d been drawn away by the odor of dead bodies rising from the burning village.
A barely audible “huff” echoed, the sound made by a startled deer. Towa’s signal. Sindak turned to look at his friend and saw him pointing to an especially thick bayberry copse, where another pair of eyes glinted.
“Yes, I see them,” Sindak whispered.
He and Towa both started walking slowly back toward the camp, and the shining eyes flashed between the trees, paralleling their courses.
When they stood three paces in front of their sleeping comrades, Sindak whispered, “Why aren’t they at the village gobbling down freshly roasted meat?”
Towa’s brows quirked. “You’re a sympathetic soul tonight. Do you think we should try to shoot one? It might scare away the pack.”
The two pair of eyes joined, then separated again, and shone like four small silver moons. More eyes appeared, weaving through the brush. A big pack. The bayberry trunks were barely a hand’s width in diameter, but there were hundreds of them. “Those saplings are as thick as dog hair. An arrow will collide with a trunk or branch long before it pierces flesh.”
Towa gripped his war club in both hands. “They’re staring straight at us.”
“Impudent, aren’t they? Sindak watched the eyes coalesce into a line just inside the trees.
“There must be ten or twelve of them.”
“Well, if we can’t shoot them, maybe we should charge out there and try to scatter them?”
Towa calmly replied, “I saw a buck do that once. He charged right into the middle of the pack with his antlers swinging. He managed to gore several before they brought him down and chewed out his still-quivering heart.”
Sindak irritably shoved a lock of hair behind his ear. “You never like my ideas.”
“Maybe we should wake Koracoo? Her ideas are generally better than yours.”
“I’m not waking Koracoo until the wolves have my heart in their teeth. But you can … if you have a death wish.”
Towa shifted his weight to his other foot. “On second thought, the wolves could just be passing through, headed for the village.”
“You want to let them surround us, eh?”
Towa scratched his cheek. “Let’s just watch them for a while. There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
Sindak had known Towa his entire life. He could tell from his friend’s expression that lives might depend upon this discussion. “Are you finally going to tell me?”
“I’m not telling, I’m discussing. Or rather, asking questions. Why would Chief Atotarho have been in the warriors’ camp last night?”
“How would I know? Maybe he went there to Trade. Maybe he went there to visit old friends. Maybe he—”
“Maybe he went there to meet Gannajero?”
Sindak turned to stare at him. Towa was grinding his teeth. Sindak could see Towa’s jaw moving in the starlight. “Why would you say that?”
“Well, if Koracoo is right, and Gannajero is Atotarho’s long-lost sister, I was thinking that maybe they’re working together.”
The silence stretched until Sindak thought his nerves might snap. The wolves were slowly twining through the trees, coming toward them.
Sindak said, “That’s the kind of thinking that makes men do desperate things.”
“Think how I feel. I’ve been working on this problem for almost a moon.”
“How am I supposed to help you if I don’t know what your secret orders are?”
Towa seemed to be wrestling with himself. “My friend, each day that passes, I like these orders less and less. If I tell you, then you’ll be obliged to keep the confidence, and I don’t want to put you in the position of—”
“Having to disobey them? Which is what you’re considering doing?” He could tell when Towa was second-guessing orders. He’d seen him second-guess often enough in battle.
One of the wolves yipped, and two others answered with barks. As though grateful for the chance to change the subject, Towa said, “Somebody needs to decide whether or not we ought to move on. You know how wolves are. If they’re really starving, the rest of the night will be a cat-and-mouse game. They’ll sneak up and surround us; then two will charge snarling and yipping to keep us busy—”