The Dawn Country(8)

“We have to find Hehaka.” Gannajero’s sharp voice rose from the bow. “It’s the only way.”

The old woman had been speaking quietly to her deputy Kotin for two hands of time, but as her voice grew more desperate it got louder.

Kotin replied, “But by now Hehaka could be halfway to Standing Stone country. How can one little boy—”

“Don’t tell me what I already know!” she snapped.

Wrass turned in time to see Kotin shrink like a water bladder being wrung dry.

“Yes, all right,” Kotin mumbled, taking a stroke with his paddle.

Wrass cautiously lifted his head, wincing at the pain. Two warriors sat behind him, alternatively paddling and steering them through the frozen night. They wore capes against the cold, skin caps on their heads, and did their best to look in any direction but at Gannajero.

Wrass let his gaze trace the canoe’s sleek gunwale, following it forward to where Gannajero sat in the bow. The old woman wore a new cape made of finely smoked deerhide and decorated with circlets of seashells and flashing twists of copper. She had seen around forty summers. Greasy twists of graying black hair framed her deeply lined face, framing her toothless mouth and that shriveled plum of a nose.

And her eyes … Her eyes were black bottomless pits that seemed to have no pupils. Looking into them was like gazing into a well of hopeless terror that froze a person’s souls. Whatever Gannajero was, nothing remotely human ever seemed to look back.

Kotin leaned over her hunched form like a hunting heron about to spear her with his long nose. He reminded Wrass of the hagondes—cannibal Spirits who carried off bad children in a basket. Grandmother Sayeno and her sisters had seen one once. It had been walking near an old longhouse and was clearly visible in the moonlight. The Spirit’s nose had been so long it almost touched the ground. They’d tried to catch the Spirit, but it had let out a hideous scream and vanished into the forest before they …

“That little boy, as you call him,” Gannajero snarled, “is valuable in ways you’ll never understand.”

Hehaka? Valuable? Wrass made a face, only to wince at the pain it caused him.

Three children rode in the canoe just beyond Wrass’ feet: two girls and a boy. The boy had seen perhaps seven or eight summers. The girls were a little older, ten or eleven. All had been captured during the Bog Willow Village battle, and sold to Gannajero. They were Dawnland People. At the sound of the old woman’s voice, the boy curled into a tighter ball and started crying. The two girls continued to sleep fitfully.

“Are you all right?” Wrass asked the boy in the Dawnland tongue. He was good at languages. He had always listened intently when Traders came through, trying to learn as much as he could.

The boy turned to peep at Wrass from beneath a skinny arm. He was half Wrass’ size, with a narrow face and an unkempt mass of chin-length black hair. His blade-thin nose kept quivering and dripping. A ratty cape—made from woven strips of weasel hide—covered his shoulders. “No, I’m c-cold, and my throat hurts.”

Wrass inched forward, lifted his cape, and draped it over the boy like a blanket. The boy slid backward, pressing against Wrass as he cried.

Wrass drew him closer. “Shh. Don’t cry.”

“I can’t stop.”

“Believe me, it doesn’t do any good.” Wrass stroked his arm. “You need to get some sleep. You have to be strong.”

Above the rocky riverbank a shrubby blanket of winged sumacs seemed to roll on forever beneath the dark maple trees that fringed the winter sky. The campfires of the dead gilded the shrubs with an opalescent sheen that made them appear to shimmer as the canoes passed.

The boy whispered, “What’s your name?”

“Wrass. I’m Bear Clan from Yellowtail Village of the Standing Stone People.”

“I’m Toksus of the Otter Clan from Bog Willow Village.”

“Toksus? That’s a good name. How old are you?”

“Eight summers.” The boy suddenly twisted his head to look up at Wrass. “My parents are coming, aren’t they? They must be right behind us by now? Have you seen them?”

Wrass let out a deep breath. When he’d first been captured, the strangling mixture of fear and hope had been unbearable. “Toksus, I’m not going to lie to you. You have a lot of hard days ahead. But I know this for sure: Someone is looking for you.”

Toksus stared up with swimming eyes. “And … they’ll find me soon?”

“I’m sure they will.”

“My parents are alive. I saw them! When the Flint warriors rounded up all us children after the battle … as they marched us away … I saw my parents standing in a line with twenty other people. They were being guarded by six warriors.”