The Dawn Country (35 page)

Gannajero turned to her own men. “The rest of you have a choice to make. You can either split my four packs, or you can pledge yourselves to the new matron of the Wolf Clan, and earn vastly more as my personal guards. If you decide to—”

Towa shouted, “
Zateri.
Where is Zateri?”

Gannajero paused, grunted, then lifted a hand and motioned to one of the men in the trees. “Waswan, bring the girl.”

A very thin man with a broken nose came out of the darkness shoving a girl before him. Zateri was even smaller and more slender than Sindak recalled. She was wearing a blue-painted cape that was much too big for her. It dragged the ground. At some point in the past moon, she’d cut her hair short in mourning. It hung around her chin in irregular black locks.

Koracoo ordered, “Put her in the canoe with the other children.”

Waswan’s inhuman eyes went to Gannajero, and the old woman nodded. “Do as she says.”

As Waswan marched Zateri to the canoe, he laughed and taunted, “I’m going to miss you, Chipmunk Teeth,” and he groped her young breasts.

Koracoo’s eyes flashed with rage, and Sindak’s breathing went swift and shallow. Before they reached home, he was going to kill that man.

Zateri climbed into the canoe, and Tutelo and Baji leaped forward to hug her in a tearful reunion. He heard Zateri say, “Where’s Odion?”

“Now,” Koracoo said with a threatening tilt of her head. “Where are the other children?”

“You mean the two Yellowtail Village children?” Kotin said. “They’re safe.”

“Not just the Yellowtail children,” Koracoo responded. “We want all the children, no matter their nation.”

“We didn’t promise you
all
the children,” Kotin insisted. “Only your own—”

“Let them have them.” Gannajero turned to one of the Dawnland men and barked, “You. Go fetch Dakion and the other brats. Bring them here.”

“Yes, Gannajero.”

After he’d trotted away into the darkness, Gannajero scowled at her remaining men. Kotin was seething. He looked like he longed to get his hands around her throat. Gannajero said, “Well? Which of you is willing to serve as the personal guard to the matron of the Wolf Clan of the Hills People?”

Waswan trotted up and grinned. Kotin continued standing beside her, but he made no sign of assent.

From behind Sindak, a man shouted, “I’ll take what’s in your packs.”

Kotin growled, “You’ve always been worthless, Ojib! You disloyal cur!”

“Give him half the packs,” Gannajero said.

“Half!” Kotin objected. His mouth hung open. “You were going to force four of us to split four packs—that’s one each. Now you’re giving Ojib
two
.”

“Do as I say! You’re going to get far more over the next few summers.”

“But I was supposed to get the two Dawnland girls that you just gave away! If Ojib gets two packs, I want the other two as compensation!”

“You can’t have them. When Dakion returns, he may want to be paid, and what will I—?”

Sindak flinched when he heard the hiss of an arrow behind him and, from the corner of his eye, saw Ojib fall. The arrow had taken him through the throat. He was trying to scream, but couldn’t. Five heartbeats later, Cord appeared, slit the man’s throat to silence him forever, and then lifted a hand to get Sindak’s attention. When he knew Sindak was looking at him, he pointed to his own chest, and Sindak nodded, understanding that he was to wait for Cord’s signal. Cord slipped back into the darkness.

A flush of hope filtered hotly through Sindak.

There was no one behind him now. As Kotin and Gannajero’s argument grew louder, all attention fastened upon them.

Kotin shouted, “This isn’t the first time you’ve promised me girls and then sold them out from under me. Two moons ago—”

“Stop whining! I’ve already told you I’ll pay you for your losses when we get to—”

Sindak reached down, picked up his club, and tucked it beneath his cape. Next, he sidled forward to stand beside CorpseEye. Slowly, he lowered his hand and grasped the legendary club. As he rose again, he hid it behind his back, and it was as though Koracoo felt his hands upon the weapon. A shiver went through her. She turned to look at Sindak … and smiled.

Forty-two

A
few of the Dawnland men kept glancing uneasily back into the trees, as though they sensed Cord’s presence, but the fire had obviously blinded them. They squinted, fidgeted with their bows, and turned back to watch Gannajero and Kotin. The old woman was shouting in his face.

Cord dropped to his knees atop a low hill with a clear view of the camp and pulled six arrows from his quiver, laying them out in a neat row at his side. By now, he trusted Sindak had collected weapons.

Cord nocked his bow and sucked in a deep steadying breath. As he sighted down the shaft, he heard steps just barely crunch the snow behind him.

I’m dead.

He clenched his jaw, waiting for the impact of the arrow.

When it didn’t come, he shot a glance over his shoulder. Black Cape stood three paces away with his gaze focused on Gannajero. There was a bizarre quality to the man, a stillness so total it was as though he had been standing behind Cord for thousands of summers, waiting for this moment. He had his pale hands folded in front of him, and Cord noticed for the first time that he wore sandals, as though he was immune to the cold.

“What … ?”

In an unsettlingly soft voice, Black Cape said, “She was telling the truth, you know. Our brother did sell us into slavery when we’d seen eight summers.” Heavy lids gave his eyes a sleepy expression that made their unnatural wolfish gleam even more sinister.

“You’re her brother?”

“Her twin.”

Cord saw no resemblance, except that they both had utterly mad eyes.

“Shortly after that, we were sold again, to different men in distant villages. I didn’t see her for another ten summers. She had just bought her first children.” Hatred inflected the tones, but subtly. “I was a warrior. I had been with the war party that attacked the village. She came to our camp to purchase some of the orphans we’d rounded up as slaves.” He hesitated, as though he had all the time on earth to finish this story. “At first I—I wasn’t sure it was her. Then I saw the gorget she’d made for herself. It was as though she believed she was matron of the Wolf Clan, as though nothing had ever happened to us. I couldn’t stand it. I stole the gorget and freed every child. Most of them made it home. Alive or dead. I made sure. I carried them in my arms.”

Cord slightly eased off his drawn bow. “I want to hear the rest, believe me I do, but right now—”

“Don’t kill her. The others, yes, but not her.” He spoke as though he weren’t breathing; his chest did not move with air.

Somehow, it reminded Cord to exhale the lungful of air he’d unwittingly been holding. “Why not? She is the problem, my friend. Her men are just—”

“Yes,” he answered in a sad voice. “She has always been the ‘problem. ’ But there are many who have claims on her life. You are not one of them.”

Cord shook his head. The obsidian eyes held his. The man did not blink, or look away. No expression lined his face, only a strange serenity far more frightening than anger.

“And if I do kill her?” Cord asked.

Black Cape moved his pale hands, reclasping them. It was a sort of weightless gesture, as quiet as the light snowfall, and Cord had the distinct impression that he was not flesh and blood. The man said, “You must help me with this one thing. It is not your right to kill her.” The desperation in his voice never touched the glassy stillness of his face. He remained oddly immobile, as if centuries had taught him that, like the serpent in the leaves, survival rested in stillness.

As the voices in the camp rose to a crescendo, Cord became acutely conscious of the blood surging in his veins. It was now or never. “Very well,” he said, “but I can’t speak for anyone else.”

Black Cape’s head moved faintly, a dip of gratitude that seemed stripped to bare bones, a far-off echo of a human gesture. The man’s gaze shifted to Gannajero. There was an instant of terrible silence where Cord had the feeling he was gazing upon a starving monster biding its time, motionless, waiting to strike until the prey came close enough.

Cord drew back his bow, aimed, and released. Before the arrow had even struck Kotin, he had another arrow nocked and aimed at Waswan.

He let fly, and glanced at Black Cape. The creature seemed frozen in time.

Cord nocked his bow and drew back again, but a hail of arrows began striking the trees around him. Cord flattened himself behind the hill as shouts went up and men started running for cover.

“Get down!” Cord yelled.

Black Cape just stood serenely staring at Gannajero, as though oblivious to the rain of death.

Forty-three

S
indak’s muscles hardened and swelled against his leather shirt as he waited for Cord. What was taking him so long? Sindak’s hand ached where he was gripping CorpseEye, hiding the club behind his back. To make things more interesting, CorpseEye had started to warm his fingers, and it terrified him. Was the club trying to tell him something? What was he supposed to do about it?

Gannajero and Kotin’s argument had grown violent. The old woman was shoving Kotin with both hands while he waved his war club. He must have been weighing the momentary pleasure of beating her to bloody pulp for humiliating him in front of his warriors against the next twenty summers of untold wealth, and perhaps even status as the matron’s personal guard—

An arrow flashed in the firelight, the chert point glinting as it drove into Kotin’s back with enough force to send him staggering drunkenly across the ground.

One of the warriors shouted, “We’re being attacked! Kill them!”

“No!” Gannajero yelled. “If you kill them, I lose everything!”

Before anyone could react, another arrow
shish-thump
ed into Waswan, and the man let out a hideous cry. Then a melee broke out. Shouts and screams rose. Men started running in all directions. Two men launched themselves at Gonda and knocked him to the ground, while several others wildly fired arrows into the darkness, trying to stop their attacker.

Sindak lunged into the clearing, shouting, “War Chief!” and when Koracoo turned, he tossed her CorpseEye.

As it spun through the air toward her, her eyes lit with a feral gleam. Koracoo snatched the weapon out of the air, pivoted on one foot, and charged into the fight spinning and leaping like some Spirit creature from the old stories. Two men sprang at her, grinning and whooping. She used a side-handed swing to crush the shoulder of the first and send him stumbling for the forest; then she spun on her toes and knocked the feet out from under the second man. Before he had time to roll, she brought her club down on his skull and moved on, running deeper into the fight.

A big warrior with missing front teeth shrieked a war cry and barreled toward Sindak, his club up. Sindak had just enough time to pull his own club from his belt and parry a blow meant to crush his skull, but the force of the assault toppled him. As he scrambled to get up, the warrior hissed, “Die, Hills dog!” and swung his club down hard, aimed for Sindak’s spine.

Sindak rolled. The club whomped the ground less than a hand’s breadth from his body. Gasping for breath, Sindak clawed his way to his feet, and they circled each other like buffalo bulls, growling and panting.

“Are all your men so slow?” Sindak taunted with a grin. “Or are your knees just weak from rutting with your sisters?”

“You filth!”

Their clubs collided with arm-numbing force, and the man’s superior weight drove Sindak back five steps before he recovered, side-stepped, and slammed his club into the man’s chest. As the man stumbled backward, gasping, Sindak took the opportunity to cave in his ribs.

Then he charged for the fracas around the fire. His gaze instinctively searched for Towa … but his friend had vanished. Gannajero was gone, too. Towa hadn’t dragged her off to protect her, had he? Despite their chief’s orders, the old woman deserved to be dead a thousand times over. And Towa knew it just as well as he did.