The Dawn Country (9 page)

“I certainly hope so. That could bring some wisdom to this confrontation.”

Aggrieved warriors hunting down the people who’d murdered their families lost all reason. Their intent was simply to avenge their loved ones. Elders, however, could generally see through the emotion to the future repercussions of such slaughter. Often, they stayed the hands of their warriors.

After another five hundred heartbeats, one of the children in the rock shelter began talking, then crying.

“Hallowed Ancestors,” Gonda said, and called, “Sindak? Do something!”

Before Sindak could speak, Odion ordered, “Stop it, Hehaka!”

It didn’t stop. Finally, one of the boys slid out. “I’m not staying in there!” Hehaka cried. His face was lit by the moon, but the rest of him remained in shadow. As he rose to his feet, he might have been a disembodied head bobbing through the forest.

“Hehaka? Get down!” Odion ordered.

Cord observed as Hehaka scrambled through the maze of moonlight and black shadows, heading down the slope to where Koracoo stood amid a cluster of boulders.

Odion lunged from cover and hurled himself after Hehaka, shouting, “Take cover! They’re going to kill you!”

Hehaka shouted back, “I don’t care!”

Odion dove for Hehaka and knocked him to the ground with a
whump
! Hehaka shrieked as they rolled and fought.

The girls crawled out and ran for the two boys. In less than ten heartbeats, all of the children were out of the rock shelter—and clear targets for their enemies.

Sindak raced down the slope, grabbed Hehaka by the hand, and led all the children behind the boulders near Koracoo. Cord could see them clearly.

The children whispered plaintively and leaned against Koracoo’s legs for protection. The youngest girl, perhaps eight, kept tugging at Koracoo’s cape and pointing out into the trees, as though to get her to look at something.

This seemed to agitate the Wolf Clan. The whole group sprang to its feet and pressed forward tentatively, each cocking an ear to listen to the children’s cries, as though hoping to recognize a voice.

Cord counted the visible warriors. “There are only eight now.”

Gonda jerked a nod. “I know. That means the others are behind us.”

“We need to spring the ambush soon.”

“When a few more have walked into the ravine, Koracoo will—”

Odion said something to Koracoo, and she bent low to whisper with him. After twenty heartbeats, Odion walked down the steep hill and into the bottom of the ravine. He had his spine straight and his hands up, which spread the moosehide blanket knotted around his shoulders and revealed his chest to anyone who wanted to let fly.

“Koracoo is using your own son as the bait?” Cord said in disbelief.

There was only a hint of fear in his voice when Gonda replied, “Odion must have asked to do it. I don’t hear any bows singing, do you?”

“Not yet.”

Rustling and snapping sounded in the forest as warriors shouldered through the brush, getting into better position. Their faces were silvered by the moonlight, and he could see them smiling, displaying an arrogance Cord knew well—the arrogance that fills a warrior when he knows he’s won. It was an arrogance of possession. The prey already belonged to them. The kill was just a matter of time.

Gonda swung around toward the noise. “They’re tightening the circle.”

Cord used his nocked arrow to point. “I’m most worried about those three. See them?”

In the bottom of the ravine, three youths bellied along the ground, moving toward Odion.

“If they capture your son, what will you do?” Cord asked.

“When it happens, I’ll let you know.”

Odion clenched his fists and stood tall, though he must be terrified. Admiration warmed Cord’s veins. “Someday soon that boy is going to make a fine warrior.”

Gonda glanced down at him, and his lips twitched. “You would not have said that one moon ago. I considered my own son to be a coward. He was afraid of everything.”

“That flaw isn’t apparent tonight. What changed?”

Gonda blinked thoughtfully. “Something. Gannajero.”

Cord knew better than to ask any further questions. Such dramatic changes were only born in terror and pain. He returned his gaze to the bodies slinking toward them through the moonlight. Warriors seemed to be everywhere. Their pursuers were growing bolder, venturing well into bow range. On the opposite side of the ravine, two black shapes scrambled to within springing distance of Sindak and Ogwed. What was Koracoo doing? It was well past time to shout the command to fire. Of course, when that happened, they would likely all be killed.

Cord hissed, “Why haven’t they loosed their arrows? They could have killed four or five of us by now, and captured the rest.”

“That’s why Koracoo is waiting. She’s trying to figure out what they are up to first. A man should never taunt a bear that has him treed. The bear might, after all, just walk away.”

“A wise move.” If he’d had his wits about him, he’d be doing exactly what Koracoo was—waiting.

The unknown boy emerged from the shadows and walked up the ravine to meet Odion. Though the Dawnland boy was frighteningly thin, little more than a skin bag stretched over knobby bones and stringy muscles, he was a head taller than Odion. If it came to a fight, Cord suspected the wolf-boy would win.

To his right, Cord saw Koracoo’s dark form step from behind the boulder where she’d been hiding. Was she preparing to kill the unknown boy if he attacked her son?

“The boys seem to be talking,” Gonda said. “But I can’t hear …”

Before he knew what was happening, Cord’s eyes fluttered closed. When he jerked out of the doze, it startled Gonda, who snapped, “For the sake of the gods, Cord!”

“F-Forgive me.” A spasm of fear went through him. He got on his knees, drew his bow again, and fought to keep his eyes open. The boys were gesturing with their hands.

“Stay awake,” Gonda warned, “or I’ll shoot you myself.”

Rage briefly surged through Cord’s veins, then vanished. This man had children to protect. He had every right to demand alertness. “I will.”

Odion backed away from the unknown boy and called, “Mother? They’re looking for a Trader named Tagohsah.”

“Tagohsah?” Cord said in surprise. “He’s a Flint Trader. A despicable character. What do they want with him?”

Gonda said, “Stay down. Let me do the talking.” To the boy, he called, “I have heard of Tagohsah! He’s a Flint Trader, but he’s not here. Why do you wish to find him?”

“He has my cousin!” the boy shouted back. “A ten-summers-old girl.”

Cord leaned against the boulder and whispered to Gonda, “She was probably one of the children stolen during the Bog Willow Village raid. I’m sure she’s already been sold.”

“Let us pray she was not sold to Gannajero.”

Koracoo cupped a hand to her mouth, and shouted, “Tagohsah is not here, and we know nothing of your cousin. Go away and leave us in peace!”

The tall warrior rose from the midst of the “elders” circle and walked toward the unknown boy. He wore a cap made from the shoulder skin of a moose; the long hairs of the moose hump formed a bristly crest down the middle of his head. Two feathers were tied to the crest, and they bounced with his steps. A sheathed knife rested on his breast, hung from a cord around his neck. In addition to his slung bow and quiver, he carried a war club with a ball head, probably made from the root crown of a hardwood tree. “We have you surrounded. You can’t escape. Stop lying! We know you were part of the war party that attacked our village. We followed you from their camp.”

Cord stared at Gonda. “They don’t want you, Gonda. You didn’t hurt them. If you’re smart, you’ll give us up to protect your children.”

“Well, frankly, I would, but my former wife stubbornly protects her allies. Even if they are Flint People.”

As though she’d heard, Koracoo called, “I am War Chief Koracoo from Yellowtail Village of the Standing Stone People. We did not attack you. Though you are correct, you did see us run away from the warriors’ camp last night.”

“You
are
Standing Stone,” the man replied, and sounded confused. “I can tell from your accent.”

The man carried on a brief conversation with the other members of his clan, then turned back. “My elders tell me there were no Standing Stone warriors in the attacking war party. What were you doing in their camp?”

“We weren’t in their camp. We went there to rescue our own children from the monster, Gannajero.
She
was in their camp. When our village was attacked and destroyed by Mountain warriors, my son and daughter were stolen and sold to Gannajero.” Koracoo walked out into the moonlight, giving them a clear shot at her. “Tell me your name.”

“I am Wakdanek, a Healer of the Dawnland People. It is my daughter, Conkesema, who is missing, as well as many other children. I saw Tagohsah buy Conkesema from one of the men who attacked us.”

“Then you and I should talk, Wakdanek. We are all being fools here tonight. Let us see if we share a common goal.”

“We may, War Chief Koracoo, but I fear—”

“Wait, Wakdanek.” A short hunchbacked woman waddled forward. Her feet slapped a clumsy rhythm as she crossed the frozen ground. She wore a conical cap that covered her ears. A frizz of white hair stuck out around the edges.

“She must be fifty summers old,” Gonda observed. “Look at that snowy hair.”

The old woman stopped beside Wakdanek and studied Koracoo, who stood on the ravine’s lip twenty hands above her. “I am Shara, an elder of the Otter Clan. Come down, War Chief. I want to hear your story of Gannajero. That is a name I have not heard in more than twenty summers, and it terrifies me to hear it now.”

Koracoo tied CorpseEye to her belt and started down the steep incline, moving with slow precision, letting them see her hands at all times.

Cord’s gaze shifted. During the conversation, the Dawnland warriors had taken the opportunity to crawl closer to their prey. He could see one youth, perhaps fourteen summers, openly lying on his belly in the moonlight. A short distance away, another boy crouched half-hidden behind an elderberry bush. While Cord watched, the boy opened his mouth, and saliva drooled down his chin. He licked his lips in anticipation.

Cord aimed his bow at the boy and struggled against the overpowering need to sleep. Even with death looking him straight in his face, his body wanted to give up. The need was like a calm pool of warm water; it kept seeping up around him and taking hold of his senses with gossamer hands, then silently dragging him down, down … .

“Stay awake!” Gonda snapped.

Cord roused with a sudden gasp. “It’s getting … difficult.”

“I understand, believe me, I do. But we need every pair of eyes right now. When this is done, you can sleep for as long as you wish.”

Cord chuckled softly. “Forever, maybe. If they have their way.”

Ten

W
rass huddled in the canoe with his cheek propped on the cold gunwale, watching the camp almost hidden in silver maples. His fever must be very high. He seemed to be trapped in a hazy sparkling bubble where nothing was quite real. The blurry warriors didn’t walk—they seemed to jerk from one place to another, shooting about like diving swallows. Nothing but fog and the great river existed beyond the camp’s boundaries. It was still night, but the warriors had risen, and went about building fires, rolling blankets, cooking breakfast. The smell of frying porcupine drifted from the warriors’ fire to his left.

Wrass lowered his eyes to the water that lazily flowed by. The warriors had dragged the canoe half out of the river onto the shore, but the stern was still in the water. He could see his reflection. At eleven summers, he was tall and thin. Normally, he had a narrow face with a beaked nose, and sharp dark eyes … but the beatings had left his face badly swollen and purpled with bruises. Dried blood matted his long black hair to his forehead and cheeks. For most of the night, he’d alternately slept and vomited.

“Get the children up. We’re going to be going soon,” Gannajero ordered. “And bring me the sick boy—and the youngest one.”

Wrass lifted his gaze. Gannajero crouched beside Kotin near a campfire. The two had been together for a long time.

“Which sick boy? Hawk-Face or—”

“The Dawnland brat.”

Kotin’s shoulder-length hair flopped around his ears as he stalked across camp. He had a square face with a mouthful of broken yellow teeth, and he wore a soot-stained buckskin cape. He moved like a tall gangly stork.

He kicked one of the new warriors awake. “Akio, get the children up. We’ll be leaving soon. And bring the two Dawnland boys to Gannajero.”

Gannajero had hired Akio at the big warriors’ camp last night. He had seen perhaps sixteen summers and had a florid face and pudgy body.

“Yes, Kotin. Don’t worry.” He sounded very eager to please.

Akio puffed as he waddled through the camp. Where was he from? Wrass had heard someone name his village. He tried to force his brain to work, to think, but the pain in his head was so overwhelming he could barely move without throwing up.

The pudgy guard stabbed one of the sleeping children with his war club and ordered, “Get up. We’ll be leaving soon. You two. Come with me.”