The Dawn Country (33 page)

She started forward, and Sindak said, “I’ll be right behind you.”

“No,” she replied. “I want you and Towa to stay out of the clearing for as long as they let you. Be ready to grab your weapons when the fight starts.”

“The sooner the better.”

The men who formed the circle at the edge of the trees shifted as Koracoo walked toward Gonda, altering their aims to follow her. Her souls were doing a mad dance, calculating strategy, trying to find some way …

Kotin didn’t mention Cord.
If they’d captured a Flint war chief, Kotin would have boasted about it.

As she made her way into the firelight, her glance searched the shadows, praying he was out there watching this, waiting for his chance.

Thirty-nine

C
ord silently eased through the moonlit trees east of the campfire. He’d followed Odion’s path to the place where the boy had been captured, studied the two sets of tracks, then backed away and taken the long way around. After he’d followed the river south for a few hundred heartbeats, he’d circled back to the east to approach the fire through the woods rather than the noisy brush. A dense stand of maples surrounded him. The bed of moldering leaves that covered the forest floor was damp and quiet to walk upon.

He slipped from behind the trunk where he’d been hiding and moved to the next. The earthiness of freshly fallen snow suffused the air. From his new position, he could see the low fire built in the hollow beneath the uprooted tree. It cast reflections upon the long, crooked roots. But he saw no one sitting around the flames.

Was the fire a lure, meant to draw in the enemy? He suspected that the first man to walk into the light would find an arrow through his heart.

Somewhere close by, one or two warriors would be watching the fire. Where?

Dark shapes covered the ground; most of them were bushes, or saplings, but a few might be hunching men. His gaze lingered on those shapes, searching for movement. Even the most diligent warrior moved on occasion, adjusting his cape, shifting his weapons, drinking from his water bag. Unless of course, he knew he was being watched; then he froze. But in that case, Cord would already be dead.

Down the incline near the place where Odion had been captured, a vague ripple touched the darkness, like a voluminous coal black cape whipping in the wind. When the figure moved toward Cord, floating across the snow as though weightless, Cord’s fist went tight around his war club.

Black Cape moved into the trees and seemed to hover between the tree trunks as though examining the tracks that led to the fire.

Cord hesitated. He had his bow and quiver. He could have easily shot the man, but … he wasn’t sure what he was seeing. A man, for certain, but he moved with an almost eerie grace. Barely a whisper of his cape disturbed the stillness as the figure glided behind the trees and continued at a leisurely pace up the hill to the northeast, starting and stopping often enough to convince Cord he was following a trail.

Cord remained perfectly still, watching until the man disappeared over the low hill.

Then Cord faded back across the leaf mat to the shadowy well behind a maple trunk and waited, listening. His four summers as a war chief, and ten summers as a warrior before that, had trained him well. He could smell peril; the forest stank of it. The silver brightness of the moonlight winking from the snow made the stillness all the more ominous. But he had the odd sense that this man was not the source of it. Something else was out here with them, and it breathed the darkness like a hunting bear.

Keeping to the tangle of shadows that weaved latticelike through the moonlight, he softly crept along behind the man, who seemed completely unaware of Cord’s presence. His black cape swung when he looked down.

Cord eased behind a sycamore.

The man never turned. He kept walking straight north, paralleling the river.

Conscious of the weight of his body, Cord moved a few steps, then halted, careful not to snap twigs buried beneath the leaf mat. By angling his head, he could see through the dense trunks to a moonlit meadow ahead. The man appeared to be heading for it.

He followed.

Long before he reached the meadow, Cord was aware of the sound of children’s soft voices. The hair at the nape of his neck stood up. As he crossed the ice-skimmed leaves, silvered by the night, he felt something. No sound accompanied it, no smell. It seemed to drift around him in the cold air. He shivered, trying to shake it off, but the sensation grew stronger, until it was almost overpowering. He didn’t know how to explain it … . It was a … a hunger, a hatred that would outlive the passing of centuries, a need for vengeance that went far beyond his comprehension.

But it called to his warrior’s blood like the singing of a thousand bows fired at once.

Blood started to pound in his ears. He blinked and looked around. Black Cape had vanished. Cord hadn’t even seen him move. He’d thought the man was still standing, looking down at the meadow, but …

A child sobbed.

As though the girl was buried beneath a pile of leaves ten hands deep, the sound was muffled.

Cord set his jaw and continued on down the trail that curved through the dogwoods. Just as he veered around a clump of brush … Black Cape stepped from behind a tree less than five paces away.

Cord froze.

The man’s ability for stillness was unnatural. Eerie. Black hair hung like silken strands around his oval, bent-nosed face. Fine as cobwebs, it shone brilliantly in the moonlight. His eyes were black as eternal night, with a wolfl ike luminosity. Cord couldn’t take his gaze from that strangely pale face. The man’s pallor contrasted so sharply with his black cape that he more resembled a corpse than a living man. And stranger still, he carried no weapons—at least none that Cord could see.

Barely above a whisper, Cord said, “Who are you?”

“One of the condemned. But no threat to you, my friend.”

Cord hadn’t seen his mouth move, but perhaps he’d just missed it. “You have a Hills People accent, but you’re not one of them or you wouldn’t be out here alone tracking them. What—?”

“If you’re going to help your friends, you’ll have to hurry. They’re surrounded.”

“Surrounded …” A chill sensation of terror went through Cord.

“And outnumbered almost three to one. Go.
Now.
”

Before his souls had even thought it through, he was backing away, then running across the snow, headed back for the river camp.

Forty

Odion

When we finally reach the clearing, tears are streaming down Wrass’ face. I have his arm stretched across my shoulders, supporting him as we fight our way through the snow. I’m practically carrying him now. He won’t say it, but I know the pain in his injured ankle is very bad. He can’t put any weight on it, and I keep losing my sweaty grip on his hand and stumbling to stay on my feet, which causes him even more pain.

“Keep moving,” Dakion orders. “It’s not much farther.”

“We’d be moving faster if you’d help me carry him.”

Dakion sneers. “Complain one more time, boy, and I’ll lighten your load for good.” He swings his war club in case I missed his meaning and adds, “Your friend is a troublemaker. We should have killed him long ago. Don’t give me an excuse.”

Wrass whispers, “I’m s-sorry, Odion. I wish I—”

“Save your strength, Wrass. There’s a fight coming.”

He gives me a sidelong look, as though he can tell I’m secretly trying to warn him that we’re going to make a break for it. Wrass’ expression goes sober. He knows he can’t run and must be trying to figure out what I have planned.

I’m not sure myself, except that I will not become the old woman’s slave again. I’ll die first.

“There,” Dakion says, and points to a small clearing just over the low hill. “That’s where you’re going.”

I take a new grip on Wrass’ damp hand and haul him another five paces before I have to stop and catch my breath. Ahead, I see one guard standing over two children. A strange longing rises in me. I want to see Zateri. To know she’s all right. But as we get closer, the girls’ faces shine in the moonlight. She is not here. Panic surges through me. I whisper to Wrass, “Where’s Zateri?”

He winces and croaks, “They took her. Gannajero said they were going to need her.”

“For what?”

“The old woman … said Zateri had to be there.”

“Where? For what?”

Wrass shakes his head. He’s breathing hard, biting his lip with every step. At least he’s no longer shivering. As I haul him over the hill and into the clearing, two girls leap to their feet and call, “Wrass! Wrass? Are you all right?”

The guards chuckle to each other. They find our concern for each other amusing.

When I reach the girls, I lower Wrass to the ground. He smothers the whimpers that try to escape his throat and looks at the girls. “Auma, are you all right?”

The older girl nods. “Yes, but they took Zateri.”

Wrass uses both hands to adjust his ankle, stretching it straight out in front of him and heaving a deep sigh of relief. While he tries to get comfortable, the girls stare openly at me.

“Who are you?” Auma asks suspiciously. She is tall and slender, and has a broad nose and long eyelashes.

“I—”

“His name is Odion,” Wrass says. “He’s my friend. From my village. He—”

“Wait,” the older girl says. “Isn’t he one of the boys you helped to escape?”

Wrass nods. “Yes.”

As though horrified, she asks, “What’s he doing here? Did they hunt him down and drag him back?”

Guilt fills me. The fact that some of us escaped must have given them hope, and now, seeing me here …

“She didn’t hunt me down,” I explain, and cast a glance over my shoulder. The two guards have walked a short distance away and stand talking to each other. I keep my voice barely audible. “I came hunting for you with a war party. They are camped on the beach less than one-half hand of time away. I swear it.”

“But … what are you doing here? Why aren’t you with them?”

I square my shoulders. “Right after we made camp, I walked a short distance away and glimpsed Wrass’ fire. Then I heard Zateri’s voice. I had to see if they were really out there.”

“But the war party will come looking for you, won’t they?”

“Of course they will.”

The girl wipes her eyes with her hands. “I am Auma, from the Otter Clan of the People of the Dawnland, and this is Conkesema. She—”

My eyes go wide. “Conkesema! You’re the Healer’s daughter. Wakdanek’s daughter.”

Conkesema lets out a cry, then stutters uncontrollably as she scrambles across the ground on her knees to get to me. When she twines her hands in my cape and stares hard into my eyes, she gibbers. I don’t understand any of her words, but I say, “Your father is here. Right now. He came with us to find you, to find both of you.”

Conkesema lunges to her feet to run to find her father, and I grab her around the waist. Against her ear, I hiss, “Not yet. They’ll kill you. We have to wait!”

She whines and sobs against my hair,
“No, no, no, no—”

Auma gasps. “She’s speaking! She hasn’t spoken since the attack on our village.”

I pull Conkesema down and say, “Wait. For now, that’s all we can do.”

The little girl sinks to the snow beside me, sitting so close I can barely move. Her gaze has fastened to my face and won’t let go.

I notice that Wrass is subtly surveying the guards, who stand five paces away, and I wonder what he’s looking at. The shorter man, whose name I don’t know, has a bow and quiver slung over his left shoulder and carries a war club in his hand. He wears his hair in a long braid. Dakion has only a war club, though his belt bristles with stilettos, knives, and a throwing axe.

Dakion says, “I don’t know how she knew … . Witchery … She said there would be a boy and a dog … . All I did was …”

My heart flutters like a bird’s after it’s been shot with an arrow. I can’t seem to catch my breath. She
knew
I would be there?

Dakion continues, “I’m relieving you. Go tell her where we’re holding the two Yellowtail villagers … . I’ll wait … as she ordered, until …”