Children of the Dawn (6 page)

“Adahhh!”

T
OR BELIEVED THAT
A
SHAN WOULD USE HIM TO FIND
her way back from the world of spirits. He didn’t understand how, but he was not going to fail her. Their minds, their very
souls, were connected as she journeyed among the stars—so connected that he missed all that had happened since he laid her
on the riverbank in the gray light of dawn.

His mind was gone when Tenka brought their people. He was far above the world at sunrise when the tribes saw each other for
the first time; missed the ritual of finding stones as morning became day. Even when the spell around the two tribes broke,
Tor’s mind still did not come back to the riverbank.

It took his son’s howls.

“Adah!”

Tor shook off the remains of the trance, glanced around; Saw Ashan, sleeping in a circle of stones; Tenka hunched over her—

“Ahhh-dahhh!”

Kai El! Tor looked for his spear, but it wasn’t there. He stood, and found himself between two tribes facing each other like
bristling cougars.

The Tlikit crone, Euda, was holding two children by the hair, beating them with a stick—Elia—and Kai El!

“Stop!” Tor shouted. Then in Tlikit: “Yah kuut!”

Euda looked up. The two boys broke loose and ran.

Struck silent, the Tlikit people gaped at Tor.

What were they thinking? If they saw Tor,
the man,
their former slave, they might attack him. But if they saw Wahaw-kin,
the god
they’d once believed him to be…

“Wahawkin the Water Giver returns!” he boomed—surprised at how their language came back after so long. “Sahalie the Creator
sent me to give you one more chance!”

Euda jabbed her stick in the air. Her ugly flesh shook.

“We know who you are, Tor! You’re nothing but a man! Go away! And take these people who hide under animal skins!”

Tor wished he had his spear—he would smash her head. He clenched his fists and took a menacing step forward.

“Stinking woman! I found this place! If anyone leaves, it will be you!”

The crone did not back down. “This is our home, not yours! We will keep what is ours!”

Tor! He’d been there all that time, and Tsilka hadn’t known it! It felt like a bird was loose in her chest; her ears buzzed;
her head was light. Some old part of her hated the man, but she’d already forgotten that—the greater part had never stopped
wanting him.

Tsilka bit her lip—this was no time for passion. The world was coming apart around her like a spiderweb in a windstorm. She
had to get control—now. The intruders were too many. If fighting broke out, it would be a massacre.

Tsilka elbowed her way through the snarling mob. She gripped Euda’s shoulder, digging her fingernails into fat flesh.

“Do you forget the man-god’s power?”

“Man-god!” Euda said, and spat.

Tsilka raised her hand to strike the witch. Euda’s chin jutted out and her eyes challenged, but she backed away.

Tsilka looked at Tor again and sighed. Everything else faded from sight but the magnificent creature who stood there looking
at her, with long legs spread, hands on hips. A shaggy bison robe made him seem like a powerful, very
male
animal. His flowing black hair gleamed in the sun. His proud face was lean, high-cheeked, and sharp-jawed; with knowing,
demanding eyes; long nose with arrogant nostrils; full lips
drawn in a faint smile. To see him after so long took her breath away. She imagined his broad chest under the bison robe,
his shoulders, his arms; imagined hard flesh under deerskin leggings; her fingernails scratching his back; his arrogance turned
to desire.

Forgotten longings shivered inside her. Breathing deep, she went to him. Instead of taking her outstretched hands, Tor held
one of his up, palm outward as if to greet a brother. Tsilka bit her lip and lowered her arms. She gazed into his shining
black eyes in a way that made men want women. She licked her lips.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” she said, and was surprised that her tongue still knew Shahala words.

Frowning, Tor crossed his arms over his chest.

“I told you I would bring my people.”

She laughed softly. “We never believed you.”

“As you see, I spoke the truth.”

“So you did,” she said, nodding, then shaking her head. “But I think bringing them was a mistake.”

She pointed, first at her tribe, then at his. They were silent now, trying to hear the words of their leaders. But they were
stiff and ready to fight.

“Our people don’t seem to like each other, Tor. I wonder what you are going to do now?”

Tor looked unsure of himself—a look Tsilka had seldom seen. He took a deep breath, waved his arm toward the ring of stones.

“Ashan… ” he said, and his voice sounded lost.

Oh, the look on his face!
Something inside Tsilka broke with awful pain, as the man she loved gazed at another woman in a way she had only dreamed
of.

“My Ashan knew what to do, but she’s on a journey with spirits. My little sister is the Other Moonkeeper, but I don’t think
she even knows we’re here.” He cleared his throat. “It’s up to me now.”

Stinking meat!
Tsilka thought, as rage battled searing pain.
It was Tor’s other woman, his
Shahala
woman, whose death made him senseless with grief!
Bitterness twisted her as she stared at the body lying in the stone circle.

Something made her wonder if the woman was really dead.

Longest Hair,
she thought, trying with her focused energy to bore a hole into the enemy’s head.
I want this man. If you’re not dead already, die now. Do you hear me? Die!

Tor said, “Tsilka, I need your help.”

Why should I help you,
she thought, but only for a moment. There were many ways to snare a man. A smart woman used them all. Tsilka reached out.

“Take my hand, Tor. You and I must stand together as one, as the leader of all these people.”

He just stood there.

“Take my hand,” she commanded, “or many will die today.”

With his son safe, Tor just wanted to sit by Ashan again, to find her journeying spirit, and be there for her when she was
ready to come back.

But Eagle from the Light, Tor’s spirit name taken when he was seven summers, also meant Brings Messages. Remembering this,
he took Tsilka’s hand, not flinching from the sparks it threw into his, and—
no he must not remember when they’d loved like cats
—he thrust their clasped hands high.

“Hear me!” he shouted. “Kah cheat!”

Tor’s eyes traveled, striking face after unsmiling face. Suspicion and hostility glared back. Everyone knew him, although
in different ways. To the Tlikit, he was a god—or a slave. To the Shahala, he was the Moonkeeper’s kidnapper—or the hero who
rescued her from man-eaters and returned her to the tribe.
Pride of the Shahala; the Evil One. Water Giver; slave. One woman’s mate, another’s lover.

Holding the hand of his greatest mistake, the man who was many spoke in Tlikit.

“Sahalie wants people to spread out in the world and mix their blood, so we do not die out like mammoths and horses. The Creator
brought us all here to Mother River to live as one tribe. Reunited—Tlikit and Shahala, children of the same Father, brothers
and sisters to each other.”

Then he repeated it in his own language, using the name “Amotkan” instead of “Sahalie.”

The Tlikit responded with shaking heads, angry looks, grumbles, and snarls; the Shahala with stiff backs, ready
spears, the arrogance of greater numbers. Tor saw that many in each tribe did not care what the Creator wanted.

“Listen to him! He speaks the truth!” Tsilka shouted, but it did not stop her people from muttering.

Tor went on in a louder voice, waving his hand—the one not holding Tsilka’s—toward Ashan.

“This woman inside these stones—she seems to be dead, but is not. You have reason to fear her. This woman has more power than
I. She is the Moonkeeper who speaks with the spirits. She journeys with them now, to talk about this great coming together
of tribes. She will be chief when she returns, chief over
everyone.
You will be happy that it is so. You will love her.”

At these words, Tsilka stiffened at Tor’s side. He released her hand—almost threw it away—glad to be rid of the hot, tight
grip of her—and went on about Ashan.

“Like a mother she is to her people, and like a daughter. She is Ashan, Whispering Wind, Song of the People. She is wise,
and has enough love for every creature.”

Tlikit grumbling brought him to the most important thing they must know about Ashan. At the moment it was the only power Tor
had over them.

“You must believe this,” he said in a threatening voice. “The Moonkeeper knows magic.
Deadly magic.
She can save your life, or kill you, just by thinking it.”

Maybe some believed it, but a tight, angry knot of young Tlikit men stamped away toward their village, hurling words over
their shoulders like rocks.

“Go away! You’re not welcome here!”

“We’re not afraid of a dead woman, or a slave!”

“We will kill you if we see you again!”

Tor said, “Tsilka, stop them.”

“Why don’t you wake up the dead woman and have her kill one or two?”

Some of the Tlikit were following the angry young men. The Shahala were finding their voices.

“We don’t want to live with savages!”

“If we want this place, we will take it!”

“Tsilka, please,” Tor implored.

Tsilka squinted up at him. “Oh, all right. For you, I will try.”

He didn’t trust her, wished he could see what was in her heart as she spoke to those of her people who were still there.

“We are not savages,” she said in a loud voice. “We do not have to fight these strangers—not yet. I welcome them.”

Holding out her hands, Tsilka went to a Shahala woman standing near her. She smiled warmly.

“People of Tor, I welcome you.”

Mani took Tsilka’s hands. She hadn’t understood the words, but she understood the meaning.

“You are kind,” Mani said.

On that bright, cold morning in autumn, the Tlikit who had stayed welcomed the Shahala to the Great River.

Tentative, uncertain, doubtful welcome that it was, Tor felt relieved, even lucky. With Ashan unable to use her powers, he
could imagine what might have happened. It bothered him that they’d done it because of Tsilka, not because of him. Had they
understood anything of what he’d said about the Creator’s plan and Ashan’s power? He didn’t know, but they seemed to accept
each other—
for now,
he realized, seeing the dark thoughts hidden behind some of their smiles.

At least they won’t kill each other today.

Putting people and their problems out of his mind, Tor went to the medicine circle and stood gazing down.

Oh, Amotkan
…

It took faith to look at Ashan and not choke. She hadn’t moved since he found her on the ledge. Her breathing was too faint
to see. But her skin was golden with reddish tones, a healthy color. She had never seemed more beautiful to him, or more helpless.
He swallowed.
Why now, Amotkan? We have never needed her more.

Tor sat just outside the ring of stones, with his arms around his knees. He stared at his soulmate, then dropped his head,
closed his eyes, and pushed the world away.

Ashan. Ashan
…

Motionless, he tried to recapture the trance between them. But his spirit couldn’t find its way out of his body. Even if he
could have left himself, only Amotkan knew where to find her now. Fear pricked Tor—she needed him to find her way
back—and fear made it even harder to concentrate. He finally gave up, telling himself that a Moonkeeper’s death usually lasted
three days, and he would have another chance.

It surprised him that the sun had passed the middle of the sky when he opened his eyes again.

He looked at Ashan… still the same, except that someone had strung a hide between sticks to give her shade. Standing, stretching,
he looked for Kai El, but saw no Shahala little ones. He hoped they had been sent away for safety. The rest of his people
and some of the Tlikit were still there. A few were trying to make friends, but most clumped with their own kind—uneasy—hostile.

A voice in his mind whispered,
They need a leader.

I don’t care. I promised not to leave her.

He argued with himself.
You must—just long enough to get them settled in the village.

But I promised…

If fighting breaks out, she won’t have much to wake up to,
Tor thought, as he lost the argument with himself.

E
NCIRCLED BY THE HEALING STONES, THE TWO
M
OONKEEPERS
—one hunched over the other—might have looked like one large person. But not to Tor. One was his soulmate; the other, his
sister.

Poor little Tenka,
he thought. As the Other Moonkeeper, Tenka must make sure Ashan had everything she needed on her journey with spirits—a great
responsibility for a girl of only thirteen summers—though she’d been trained for it since she was seven or eight.

Tenka was asleep.

“Wake up, Far Away Star,” Tor said, using the name he’d called her as a child. He remembered how their mother used to say,
“Don’t be mean, Tor. Your sister’s name is Rising Star.” But even Luka had to admit that Far Away Star better described her
most of the time.

Tor reached out to touch her. When his hand crossed over the circle of stones, the hairs on his arm stood up. It felt like
there was no air inside the circle. The feeling moved up his arm as he reached farther in.

“Tenka, wake up.” He shook her, and jerked his hand back into familiar air.

She looked up at him with half-closed eyes.

“Mmm?”

“Where are the little ones?”

“Are they gone? Maybe their mothers hid them.”

Tor sighed. How could she lead a tribe when she didn’t even know where the little ones were?