People of the Nightland (North America's Forgotten Past) (28 page)

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Authors: W. Michael Gear,Kathleen O'Neal Gear

BOOK: People of the Nightland (North America's Forgotten Past)
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“He will lead us to the paradise of the Long Dark.” It was a safe answer.
Windwolf stared at her for a long time before saying, “Kakala is interesting, isn’t he? After the Sprucebell massacre, did he really send runners to the surrounding Sunpath villages telling the chiefs to be ready for the survivors?”
“He did.”
“Thoughtful of him, considering that the Nightland Elders might have had him killed for it.”
“He knew that.”
“Then why did he take the chance?”
“To save a few worthless Sunpath lives.”
Windwolf ran a hand through his damp hair. “That’s difficult to believe, considering the tens of tens he’s taken in the past few summers. But I’m sure he has his reasons. I’ve promised myself that after I’ve had a thick buffalo steak and slept for three days, I’ll think about it.”
She lifted a brow. “Why don’t you just ask him? When he gets better.”
“If he gets better. I really was trying to kill him.”
Just like I tried to kill you.
She clamped her jaw and watched the way the dim light shadowed his forearm above his wrist. His hand shook slightly from exhaustion. “You’re not very subtle.”
“But I’m a good host. Your cup is empty. Please fill it again. Some of the refugees killed an elk on the way. They would think poorly of me were they to learn, but you are welcome to the piece offered to me.” He raised his voice. “Fish Hawk?”
“Yes, War Chief?”
“Could you bring that roasted elk to me?”
“Of course.”
She dipped her tea, thinking,
Keep him talking on friendly terms; think of something.
“That was a crazy stunt you pulled at Jayhawk Village.”
He looked at her curiously, aware of the change of subject. “You were holding my people hostage. What did you expect me to do?”
“Something saner.You rushed a heavily armed camp with six warriors to rescue
two
people?”
“I liked them.”
“You must have.Your escape at Star Tree Camp, however, was brilliant.” She gave him a small smile.
He smiled back, as though he saw right into her soul. “I didn’t know you were so devoted to me, Deputy.”
She lifted a shoulder. At Star Tree they’d had his warriors boxed tight in a narrow valley, outnumbered five to one. Rather than surrendering like any sane war chief who knows he’s lost, Windwolf stationed eight warriors in strategic locations, then stampeded a herd of buffalo right through the middle of Kakala’s camp. When their warriors scattered in every direction, Windwolf’s people had picked them off like wingless ducks.
“You killed ten of our warriors that day,” Keresa said.
“I’m disappointed. I thought it was more.”
“Hopefully Wolf Dreamer heard that and will make sure your soul becomes a homeless ghost, wandering the forests forever.”
He tilted his head and smiled. “Wolf Dreamer, Deputy? I’ve heard that you follow a different Spirit.”
She ground her teeth. She’d always had what Kakala called “a noxious interest” in Sunpath beliefs. “I’m not a disbeliever.”
Windwolf laughed softly. “You’re a surprise, Deputy. Though I don’t see what that has to do—”
“Your vision is very limited, isn’t it?Yours and Goodeagle’s. Is that a Sunpath trait?”
He set his cup on a hearthstone and looked her over in detail.
At that moment, a boy, perhaps eight summers old, entered with a bark plate on which a thick section of elk backstrap rested. The aroma drifting off the hot meat sent the juices flowing in Keresa’s mouth.
“Bless you, War Chief,” the boy said in awe. “We saved the best for you.” Then he shot a worried glance at Keresa, and fled.
She took another long drink, letting the warm tea wash away her sudden craving for the meat. It didn’t work.
Windwolf extended the bark plate, setting it before her. “Oh, go ahead. If you’re going to escape, destroy me with the handful of warriors you have left, you’re going to need your strength.”
She lifted the piece of meat, tearing into it, trying not to look like a starved wolf, but failing, as the twinkle of amusement in Windwolf’s eyes communicated too well.
As she ate, he said, “Deputy, let’s discuss what you and I are doing here. I’m trying to protect both Sunpath and Lame Bull People from the brutal orders your Prophet, Council, or whoever, has been giving. I’d lie, cheat, steal, do anything, say anything, to kill him and every one of your clan Elders. I—”
“Leave the Guide out of it!” She cursed herself as that look of understanding glinted in his eyes.
He continued. “I’ve watched tens of tens of my people die under your darts, Deputy. Do you know what it’s like to witness old men, women, and helpless children running in terror before they’re slaughtered by warriors from the far north? Do you have any idea—”
Desperate rage smothered her. Unthinkingly, she rose to her knees and slammed a fist into the tripod, sending the tea bag splashing across the floor. “You just murdered two tens of my warriors, Windwolf! They’re lying in a pile, naked, hacked, and stabbed. Don’t be so righteous!”
He leaned forward tiredly, and his blue-painted shirt rustled in the sudden quiet. “And you’ve destroyed seven of our bands since last summer, Deputy. We kill warriors, not babies. Didn’t you ever feel a twinge of conscience murdering children?”
She sank to the hides again, hearing her own words in his mouth. “No warrior enjoys killing children.”
“Well, maybe the Nightland warriors are human after all. Some of my people have begun to whisper that you’re evil Spirits straight from the Long Dark that your Prophet preaches about.”
She gripped her cup hard and took another long drink. “Windwolf, what are you going to do with all the refugees here?”
“Find some way to feed them.”
“And then?”
“Explain.”
“I’m no fool. I suspect your warriors, what’s left of them, are on their way here right now.”
Are they?
“When they arrive, are you going to use me and my warriors as sacrificial offerings in the stead of our clan Elders?”
“Sunpath warriors have souls, Deputy, despite what you’ve heard.”
“Does that mean your men won’t rape me and torture my people?”
When she’d said the word
rape
, he’d flinched. Thinking about Bramble, no doubt.
Through a long exhalation, he said, “As to torture, that depends on whether or not you tell us what we need to know.”
She shook her head, picking up the meat again. Her stomach had started to ache again; perhaps filling it would help. “We’re not going to tell you anything.”
“Then what are you doing here? You asked for this meeting.”
“I …” She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. “I need your help.”
His dark eyes glittered as though he was wondering how she had the guts to ask.
Keresa swallowed the last of the succulent elk. When she looked up, she found him watching her like a cat at a mouse hole. “We need water. We drank all that remained in our water bags yesterday.”
He thumped his finger against his cup. “And what will I get in return?”
Keresa swallowed hard. “I’ll order my warriors to lay down their weapons; then I’ll turn the weapons over to you.”
“All of them? No tricks?”
“No tricks.”
A suave brutality tinged his voice when he asked, “And will your warriors obey you?”
Keresa glared. “Yes.”
He smiled as though intrigued by the entire conversation. “Let me make certain I understand. I’ll give you water, and you’ll willingly become my prisoners. Is that it?”
“Willingly? I said we’d give you our weapons, not our hearts. We’ll fight to the last to kill you and escape. We’ll just have to use our hands to do it.”
“These are the kind of warriors the Nightland Council would put in a cage?” A small smile touched his lips. “I agree to give you water.”
She bowed her head in relief. “One other thing.”
“Yes?”
“Kakala … I fear he may be dying. While I know this may not disappoint you, it does me. If there is a Healer in this village, I would appreciate—”
“If I send a Healer to care for him, what will I get in return?”
“What do you want?”
He drummed his fingers on his cup, as though trying to decide. “A map of the Nightland Caves.”
The boldness of the request made her laugh. “Is that all?”
“No. It’s just the beginning.” His face showed no more emotion than a dead panther’s.
“I can’t do that,” she said. “And my map wouldn’t be much good to you anyway. I—”
“If it wouldn’t be any good, what’s the harm in giving it to me?”
“I’ve been in the caves a few times, but I know only the main passageways. There are tens of tens that I’ve never seen. You don’t want a map from me.”
He looked regretful. “Then I can’t send a Healer.”
Fear soured her belly. She wasn’t sure Kakala would survive without a Healer. Nor was she sure he’d survive with one. Windwolf’s blow may have crushed his skull, and he was already dead; his body just didn’t know it.
She said, “I’ll draw you a map of the main passageways. After the Healer treats Kakala.”
“A true map. No tricks?”
“I give you my word.” She frowned before saying, “I won’t have to worry about the Healer murdering Kakala in his sleep, will I?”
“I’ll make certain the Healer understands that will be my privilege, and mine alone.”
Bizarrely, that made her feel better. “I thank you for the food and drink.”
She rose to her feet, and he quickly got up to face her.
He takes no chances … .
He reeled slightly before he caught himself. Even in exhaustion, his physical presence was daunting. He moved with a leashed power that made her wish she had her war club in her fist.
As she walked for the mouth of the rockshelter, he said, “I have one question for you.”
She stopped and turned. “What is it?”
He stared at her, and it went straight to her soul.
“Is Goodeagle in the cave with you?”
She blinked, surprised.
That means there are other caves where my warriors are trapped? How many?
She remembered Goodeagle screaming at her, asking her what they were going to do. “No. I don’t know where he is.”
She couldn’t read his expression when he said, “That must mean he’s dead.” Then he called, “Fish Hawk, the deputy is leaving.”
Fish Hawk drew the curtain aside and said, “Come with me.”
Before she exited, she looked at him. Their gazes held.
Just beneath that calm confident surface … he was as terrified as she was.
I
n an endless gray, Silvertip thought:
I am.
The sensation was of floating, rising and falling, buoyed by something.
“You are,” a voice told him from the gray. “You can only be after you have ceased being everything else.”
The odd lack of sensation surprised him. He couldn’t feel cold or heat, just being.
“Where am I?”
“Nowhere, lost in the Dream of the One.”
“I died.”
“You did.”
Silvertip let the questions flow away. He could feel a slight pulsing now, a faint sensation of movement.
“You are coming into the Dream,” the voice told him. “It will happen slowly. Do not think, just be One.”
“One,” Silvertip agreed, feeling resistance as his arms spread. The first sensation was of being suspended, as though his arms bore what little weight he had. Then he recognized the rushing sensation, as though he slipped through a delicate resistance.
Wind, he felt wind!
“Just accept,” the voice told him. “You are One.”
“I am One.”
He tried to stop the sudden rising of his arms.
“Do not resist,” the voice told him. “Accept. Allow the feelings to flow through you. Become One.”
Silvertip steadied himself, aware of his arms rising and falling, but something was odd about his hands and fingers: When he tried to splay them, the air pulled, causing a slight roaring.
“Accept, Silvertip. Simply be.”
The soothing words allowed him to relax, feeling the resistance fade. Again he slipped effortlessly through the air.
His arms lifted, stroking down, and experienced the lift, could feel the pressure beneath, the subtle vibrations that quivered in his skin.
“That’s right. Learn, allow the knowledge to flow through you.”
“I am flying.”
“Very good. Accept that.”
And he did. Flying. Not arms, but wings.
Awed, he raised the wings, stroking, feeling the lift, the sudden surge forward.
At a sudden gust, his tail shifted, the experience unsettling.
“Accept. Learn.”
Silvertip allowed his new tail to adjust and felt the rightness as he came back level.
Time had no meaning as he tried different movements, flapping, twisting his tail, marveling in the movement of his body through air.
“Where am I going?” he asked.
“Up there.”
A faint glow suffused the gray. He focused on the glow, stroking with his wings, feeling air rushing past his body.
“Slowly, Silvertip. There is no need to rush. You are outside of time. Accept.”
He stiffened his wings, allowing his beating heart to settle, simply soaring toward the glow. As he did, it grew brighter, the foggy image of clouds appearing. The way it did through mist, the round ball of the sun could be seen emerging above and to the right.
“You are One,” the voice insisted.
“I am One. I accept.”
He turned his head, glancing down through the silvered mist,
aware of patches of trees barely visible so far below. In fascination, he felt himself slip, his body beginning to fall.
“Extend, Silvertip. Do not think. Simply be.”
He reached out with his wings, feeling them catch the air, and recovered his balance with a twist of his tail.
“Now, rise.”
He took a cautious stroke, then another, feeling the lift. Yes, this was easy.
“Of course it is. But only if you simply accept.”
The world below was clearer now, forest and lakes, grassy meadows, the meandering lines of streams like veins upon the land. To his right, he could see the ragged, cracked expanse of the Ice Giants. They looked so odd from up here: dirty, broken, extending to the north in a jumble of peaks, blocks, and dark crevasses. He could see the long inlet of the Thunder Sea, its dark, silty water filled with dots of white ice.
The tundra stretched as a gray-green belt, undulating over hillocks and pocked with holes. Clusters of boulders jutted up, and to the south, the spruce lands of his youth were carpeted with dark green patches of trees. The great freshwater lakes to the west gleamed a greenish blue. Strips of beach were catching the white froth of waves. Sparkles of smaller lakes and ponds caught the sunlight, glimmering as he soared overhead.
“That is not our goal.”
He slipped into complete clarity, the wind rushing past as he sailed out high over the land.
Something caught his eye, just off to the left.
“Do not be startled,” the voice told him.
The sense of vision was odd, taking in the entire world as he coasted through the crystal air. A great eagle slipped sideways, dropping down toward him.
“You’re an eagle?”
“In the One, yes.”
He tried to crane his head, only to lose his balance. But he knew now, and corrected. “What am I?”
“Condor.”
Memory came to him. “A condor ate my body.”
“That is the lesson, Silvertip. Life is the One. You have become what you feared the most. Through death, you live again, in a different form. That is the way of the Dream. We are all the One.”
Silvertip took a breath, allowing his worry to dissolve, and cocked his head, focusing with extraordinary clarity on the eagle that soared off to his left. The sky hunter stared at him with a familiar piercing yellow eye.
“You are the Spirit Wolf.”
“Sometimes, yes.” A pause. “But you will never see me as a Raven.”
“Wolf Dreamer!”
“Come, try your wings. I have something to show you.”
The eagle flapped great wings, the white tail correcting its flight into a turn.
 
 
G
oodeagle leaned against the wall, desperately thirsty, trying to catch some sleep. A hornet’s nest of emotions hummed inside him. He dropped his face in his hands and watched the memories that ran across his soul.
His thoughts kept returning to the firelit rockshelter near Walking Seal Village.
He and Windwolf had been sitting in the mouth of the overhang, gazing up at the magnificent pines that seemed to pierce Sister Moon’s heart. Light penetrated the soughing trees, carelessly throwing moonglow like silver nuggets over the valley. He remembered so clearly, so very clearly, the forest-scented winds that had ruffled their sleeves, the strong handclasps they’d shared.
When had it all gone wrong?
He couldn’t quite place the exact moment, but sometime, somewhere, they had stopped defending Sunpath villages, and started attacking Nightland warriors. Blind. Desperate. Hitting hard and running fast.
He’d pleaded with Windwolf to stop and take a good look at what they’d become. But he never did—couldn’t, he said. Even now, he could hear Windwolf’s deep voice: “The whirlwind has caught us up and twisted us around so much, Goodeagle, the only way out I can see is to fly into the storm.”
“But Windwolf …”
The hands pressing against Goodeagle’s face trembled. He dug his
fingers into his flesh to still the nervous attack. How many innocent people had died while they’d been out attacking Kakala’s camps? They’d kept Kakala busy, but that had freed Karigi to wipe out one band after another. If they’d divided their warriors and sent them to guard vulnerable bands, perhaps those people would have been spared.
For a while Windwolf had been satisfied with a life for a life; then it had escalated to two Nightland warriors for every Sunpath killed. Making up for the past murders, he’d said. Then three to one, because they’d lost so many pregnant women and little girls … .
“All we have to do is find out what they want!” he’d pleaded. “If we go on this way, there will be no one left!”
“They
want
our destruction!” Windwolf had insisted.
“But how can we even
ask
if all we do is kill each other over revenge?”
Goodeagle couldn’t bear it any longer. When they’d been planning the defense of Walking Seal Village, he’d shriveled in upon himself, so staggered by the anticipated bloodbath he could no longer turn his head.
“You will go to Karigi?” Windwolf had asked. “Tell him we wish to meet in Walking Seal Village?”
“Yes,” he’d whispered hoarsely, knowing he’d planted the seeds of the ambush in Windwolf’s mind.
“Good. Bring him here in six days. It will take me four to get our warriors assembled and in position. I will arrive on the fifth, ensuring we have plenty of time to prepare for Karigi’s arrival. If we do this right, only a few will ever see their families again.”
He’d gotten up from the Council meeting and been sick, sick to death with the horror, the screams that filled his dreams, the terrified faces of little children running, running along trails filled with corpses.
“Windwolf,” he’d begged, “let’s go talk somewhere alone. I need to talk to you. Let me talk to you!”
Windwolf had frowned, his eyes distant—already lost in springing the great trap, mind weaving the strategy he devised so well. He’d warmly grabbed Goodeagle’s shoulder and murmured, “I promised to have dinner with Bramble. We have so little time together anymore. Later? Maybe tomorrow after we’ve …”
But there’d been no tomorrow.
He whispered, “Why wouldn’t you listen, Windwolf? I begged you.”
Tendrils of the friendship he’d tried so desperately to kill wrapped around his heart. He hurt as though he’d been bludgeoned.
He brought up his knees and rested his forehead on them.
Why didn’t you talk to me?

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