“And I want one of those stilettos,” Zateri says, and extends a hand to Auma, who pulls it from her belt and places it in Zateri’s hand.
Auma sobs, “What if it’s a warrior? What are we going to do? We can’t fight! We have to run!” She starts to back away.
“You can run if you want to,” I whisper. “But I can’t. I won’t. Not ever again.” Though I can barely walk, I stiffen my spine and stagger toward the brush.
“I’m right behind you, Odion,” Baji says.
“So am I.” Zateri’s steps are catlike.
Forty-five
As the Cloud People drifted through the night sky, the landscape alternated from pitch black to moon-silvered in a matter of moments. When moonlight streamed through the maples, Koracoo picked out the trail again. Dredged through ankle-deep snow, it cast a crooked black line through the white. Towa was taking the old woman away from the river and out into the dark depths of the forest where gigantic trees loomed.
Koracoo silently paralleled his course. After spending almost one moon on the trail together, she knew Towa: He had an implacable sense of honor. Following his chief’s orders must be tearing him apart. But would he kill her to save Gannajero?
Ahead, a tangled stack of rotted timbers created a dark wall. The trail vanished when the clouds shifted, melting into the utter blackness. Five heartbeats later, it reappeared silvered in moonlight, veered wide around the deadfall, and snaked back into a grove of maples. A few old leaves clung to the branches and rattled in the breeze, but Koracoo heard no human sounds. No feet crunching snow. No whispers.
She circled the deadfall, keeping her eyes on the fallen timbers. The tangle made a perfect hiding place. Wind Mother whistled through the dead branches, carrying the earthy fragrance of decaying wood. One step at a time, she followed the wide curve past the deadfall and halted behind a massive sycamore trunk.
Cloud People darkened the sky again, briefly turning the world dark and cold. She shivered beneath her cape. Her shirt was sweat-soaked from the fight. Now that her body was cooling, the warmth was draining out of her muscles. When the clouds moved on, snowflakes pirouetted from the heavens like white wisps of eagle down, softly alighting on the ground and branches around her.
Koracoo gripped CorpseEye in both hands and examined the way the trail slithered around the tree trunks, heading off to—
A carefully placed foot squealed in the snow behind her. She knew how he moved.
Without turning, she called, “Towa? Let’s talk.”
“Toss CorpseEye aside and spread your arms, then turn around.”
Koracoo reluctantly did as he’d instructed and turned to face him. In the icy wind, his long black hair played around his broad shoulders. She said, “Do you have any idea what you’re doing? This is wrong, Towa.”
As he walked closer to her, his cape swayed around his long legs. “I know you want to kill her. So do I. The gods know she deserves to die for what she’s done, but I can’t let that happen.”
“Do you trust Atotarho? Really? You actually believe the Wolf Clan is going to install her as the new clan matron?”
As Towa came nearer, she could see his grimace. He was having a very hard time with this. “If they do, it’s a death sentence. It may be her birthright, but the other clans will instantly start plotting her murder.”
“Then I doubt that she’ll live more than a few days after you get her home.”
“I doubt it, too. But it’s still my duty to get her there.”
“I admire your loyalty to your chief, Towa, but why would he give you such orders when he knows the other clans will never allow her to rule? You need to think this through, before you—”
“I have.” Towa nervously licked his lips. “I’ve done little else over the past moon. My guess is that once he gets her home, he’s going to turn her into some sort of prize he can parade around to elevate his status among our people. He’ll boast that he captured her; then he’ll send word out to all the surrounding villages so he can sacrifice her to the cheers of a huge crowd.”
“Blessed Spirits.” Koracoo’s hard jaw went slack. Towa had always been the thinker, the one who worked a problem every step of the way until his conclusion was more than probable; it was a near certainty. “That makes perfect sense.”
“The irony is that the only way he could get her to go along with it was to send her the most cherished artifact of his clan—the Horned Serpent gorget. She’d have never believed him otherwise. Never once in the entire history of our people has the gorget left the hands of our leader. Sending it to her was a stroke of genius.”