“Wakdanek,” Gonda ordered, “build up that fire.”
“Why?”
“Because I asked you to.”
“Very well,” Wakdanek replied uneasily, and knelt. As he pulled a stick from the pile and began separating out the warmest coals from last night’s fire, he kept glancing at Gonda.
Koracoo walked over to Gonda and whispered, “Be thorough.”
Gonda grabbed the severed head by the hair, swung it up, and hurled it toward the fire pit. The head thudded soddenly against the ground, rolled, and came to rest staring up at the morning sky. “Oh, I plan to. His afterlife soul is doomed.”
Gonda bent over the left arm and brutally began hacking it apart with the ax.
Sindak squinted at Gonda for several moments, then called, “Do you need to do this yourself, or can I help?”
“Take the legs,” Gonda said.
Sindak pulled his chert knife and went to work. He sliced through the muscles, then sawed down to the hip joint. When he’d severed the right leg, he moved to the left.
Towa said, “I’ll take care of the pieces.”
He picked up the leg and dragged it out into the middle of the camp where a flock of crows squawked, dropped it, and returned.
Cord was an outsider. It was not his place to interfere unless asked to do so, but … he walked around to crouch near Gonda. “Tell me what to do.”
Without even looking up, Gonda said, “The other arm.”
Cord pulled his knife from his belt and knelt near the dead man’s shoulder. He worked in utter silence, slicing through the meat toward the joint, neatly disconnecting the arm in fluid strokes.
Gonda was focused completely on the task at hand, and Cord heaved a sigh of relief. When Koracoo had asked Cord’s opinion, he’d felt Gonda’s anger like a knife in the air. It was a simple courtesy. They were both war chiefs. Koracoo wanted him to know that despite the fact that he had willingly subordinated himself to her authority on this war walk, she considered him to be an equal. Cord appreciated the gesture.
Just as Cord finished severing the last bit of sinew, he heard the whimper. It was very faint, as though coming from beneath a pile of hides, almost not there—but he swore it was more than the cries of the grieving Dawnland People. He straightened up, and his gaze drifted over the broken pots, torn blankets, and looted packs that scattered the camp.
Nothing moved, except people and the feasting birds.
From the edge of his vision, he saw Wakdanek blowing on the coals. They reddened quickly, and flames licked up around the wood. He added more branches.
Towa grabbed one arm, and the other leg, and hauled them to different areas of the camp.
Gonda rose, and Cord glanced up. The man looked like he was ready to burst at the seams, but he gave Cord a grateful nod. Cord nodded back.
Gonda grabbed the arm Cord had severed and, with a hoarse cry, swung it around in a circle, then flung it as far away as he could. The arm cartwheeled across the frozen ground.
Cord wiped his bloody knife blade on the dead man’s cape and studied Gonda. He’d turned his back to the children and stood with tears running down his cheeks as he gazed out across the camp.
Koracoo softly said, “Gonda?” and walked over to him. “We need to—”
“When we find the old woman, she’s mine,” Gonda hissed in a shaking voice. “Do you understand? Mine!”
“She’s yours. If possible.”
With sudden violence, Gonda grabbed Koracoo and crushed her to his chest. In her ear, he hissed, “Dear gods, what are we going to do? How can our son ever find—?”
“If you want to help him,” she said without a shred of emotion, “show him how a man faces something like this.”
Admiration filled Cord. How could she stay so calm, so focused? The boy was a stranger to him, and still every fiber in his muscles longed to lash out at something. Being able to defer emotion in the most emotional of circumstances was the hallmark of a great war chief. A goal he had never quite managed to achieve.
Gonda’s shaking embrace slackened. He released her and wiped his face on his sleeve. After he’d sucked in a breath, he said, “You’re right.”
Gonda stalked over to the fire and piled on more wood. When the blaze roared, he turned. Odion and Baji stood at the edge of the trees, watching wide-eyed. Gonda called, “Odion, come over here.”
Odion shook his head.
Gonda shouted, “I told you to come over here. Do it now or I will drag you over here!”
Odion’s contorted face resembled a winter-killed carcass as he marched forward with Baji at his shoulder.
When he got close enough, Gonda grabbed Odion’s hand and forcibly led him to the severed head.