Children of the Dawnland (North America's Forgotten Past Series) (20 page)

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

BOOK: Children of the Dawnland (North America's Forgotten Past Series)
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T
WIG SCREAMED AS she ran headlong through the piles of tumbled ice.
Eagle-Man’s feet thumped the ground behind Twig as he danced his pursuit, spinning and leaping, his wings outspread so that the feathers brushed the ground. The blue gleam coated his body until each feather shimmered like liquid turquoise.
She tripped, stumbled into a rock, and caught her balance. Her knees were trembling.
Shadows flicked through the broken chunks of ice. Every so often she caught sight of a mask, just a glimpse of jasper or shell beads.
Eagle-Man’s steps echoed: thump-thump-thumpety-thump. Then they stopped.
Twig looked up and cried out in horror when she saw him perched on an icy ledge over her head. He had tucked in his wings and bent forward to peer down at her, like Vulture waiting for a wounded deer to die. His snakeskin belly glittered.
“Why are you hunting me?” Twig cried. “You are my Spirit Helper!”
“Yes,” Eagle-Man hissed, sounding like a snake, “I am.” His black eyes gleamed as he shifted on the ledge, stepping back and forth in a strange dance. Gravel cascaded from the ledge with each stamp of his feet.
Movement stirred the shadows, and six ghostly forms shuffled out from the narrow tunnel. Some wore bushy-headed masks of beautifully woven grass; others had animal masks, decorated with the upcurving horns of buffalo. The seashells on their leggings blazed in the light. Through the enormous sockets of their eyes, only blackness showed: empty, ominous, with no glint of life.
They closed in around her and began throwing spruce pollen at her. It netted her hair and stuck to her arms and legs.
“What are you doing?”
Spruce pollen purified and sanctified the way for power. But she did not understand why they were throwing it on her.
Finally, the dancers shuffled backward and opened their hands to Eagle-Man, who was circling near the cavern ceiling. He looked like a black dot.
“Will you give up, Twig? Or will you fly for your people?”
“I want to fly, Eagle-Man! I’ve always wanted to!”
Eagle-Man let out a cry of triumph and plummeted down, his sharp talons reaching for her.
Twig shrieked when he knocked her to the ground and clamped his talons around her chest, in the manner of Eagle catching Chipmunk.
“Eagle-Man, no! You’re my Spirit … Helper.” She coughed as the air went out of her lungs in a gush. Her arms and legs flailed weakly while his talons tightened, and she could hear her ribs cracking.
The chanting began again.
Eagle-Man lowered his head and stared into Twig’s terrified eyes.
“This is the moment Screech Owl told you about. The moment when you must step into the mouth of the Spirit that wants to chew you up. Are you brave enough, Twig?”
A gray haze fluttered at the edge of Twig’s vision.
In a bare whisper, she said, “Yes.”
With a wrench, Eagle-Man sank his claws deeper into her flesh, and his huge beak dropped out of the gray to tear at her chest and arms. She felt her flesh being torn from her bones as he devoured her.
Twig gave a final gasp as Eagle-Man’s beak opened and plunged for her eyes. The last of her body began sliding down his throat, into his stomach.
Then … darkness.
A
S THOUGH IN a dream, Twig sank into the pool of blood and it began to sway, rocking her back and forth. Her soul grew thinner and thinner, blending with the blood until it melted into the blackness.
And from that nothingness came light.
As though Eagle-Man had opened his beak, a stream of gold flooded down through an opening above. Twig reached for the warmth, but her fingers were … different … like, yes, like wings. Frail dreamer’s wings strengthening, growing. She shook herself, and white bits of down fell away, revealing brown-speckled feathers.
From deep in her throat, Prairie Falcon’s shriek rose:
kree, kree, kree!
Twig spread her wings and soared upward toward the opening, where she flew out into a vast blue sky. Cloud People twisted and tumbled in the high winds. Twig tested her wings, diving and sailing on the cold air currents, feeling the way that each feather affected her flight when she flapped or tilted her tail. Joy brought tears to her eyes. Such freedom!
As she glided over the Ice Giants, she saw a narrow rushing river below, and a woman sitting on an ice ledge on the other side. Lying in the woman’s lap was a small medicine bundle decorated with a black raven.
The woman was looking up, watching Twig.
When Twig soared across the river and flew down to get a better look at her, the woman said, “So. You made it across the river into the Land of the Dead. I knew you would. You are strong.”
Twig alighted on the ledge a short distance away. The woman was beautiful. Tall and willowy, long black hair framed her oval face. She had full lips and a turned-up nose with coal-black eyes.
“Are you Cobia?”
“I am, child.” She wore a white mammoth-hide cape, and a huge bear claw pendant hung in the middle of her chest.
“Please, help us! We need your help to defeat the Thornback raiders. They’re killing us!”
Cobia cocked her head. “You have braved great dangers, and therefore earned the right to talk. But I warn you, I’m not going back with you.
You
are their dreamer now.”
“Please, Cobia! You have to. We need you!” Twig cried as she balanced on the ledge, thinking about Screech Owl and her mother … and about Greyhawk, who was bravely protecting her even now. They would die if Cobia didn’t help them.
Sadness came over Cobia’s beautiful face. She patted the ledge beside her. “Come here, child. Let me look at you. You’re very young. Too young to have made this difficult journey to the Land of the Dead.”
Twig spread her wings, lifted into the air, and softly landed less than four hands from Cobia.
“Yes,” Cobia said. “I spend a great deal of time here, talking with my ancestors. Is Screech Owl your teacher?”
“Yes.”
Love shone in Cobia’s black eyes. She looked away and blinked. “Is he well?”
Tears choked Twig. “He and Mother were captured by the Thornback raiders after they destroyed Buffalobeard Village. Screech Owl may … maybe dead.”
Cobia slowly lifted her head. “When did this happen?”
Twig tried to think. “I’m not sure. I don’t know how long I’ve been hunting for you. Time—”
“Yes, I know, time is different when you’re on a Spirit journey. You may have been gone for moments, or moons. This could be the past, or the future. There’s no way to know until you return to your world.”
“We need you, Cobia. Screech Owl says you’re the only person who can defeat the Thornback raiders. You have to help us.”
Cobia gently stroked Twig’s speckled brown feathers and whispered, “Did your Grandfather ever tell you why I hate him so?”
Twig blinked. “No.”
Cobia smiled faintly. “He is the one who kept the truth from me. For many summers I spoke to every trader who came from the far west to Buffalobeard Village. I asked each one about the stories my people, the People of the Duskland, told about me. I was a magical child. Everyone knew my name. When your grandfather killed my mother and pulled me from her dead arms, my people saw it as a terrible sign. They believed they had been cursed by the gods. They tracked your grandfather and almost burned him to death in a cave where he ran to hide. But he escaped.” Anger lined her face. “I learned the final details of the story just after I’d seen nineteen summers. That’s when I left Buffalobeard Village. I vowed never to return, or to help the people who had killed my mother. Do you now understand why I will not go back with you? I knew you needed to grow wings—that’s why I kept calling to you in your dreams. But you must save your people by yourself.”
Twig was sobbing when she said, “You shouldn’t blame us! You could have gone home after you found out what my people did to your mother. Why didn’t you?”
Cobia drew her hand back and closed it to a fist.
“Because too much hope can kill as swiftly as a spear, young dreamer. I knew nothing about the People of the Duskland. They were my people by birth, but they were not the people I loved when I was growing up. They were strangers.”
“So you decided it was better to be lonely for the rest of your life than to face your fears?”
Cobia’s expression softened. She gave Twig a sad smile and petted her feathers again. “You surprise me.”
“Why?”
“For just a moment, you became Truth.”
“I don’t understand.”
Cobia frowned out at the icy wilderness that spread before them. “Truth is not in words, young dreamer, but in a reflection, an iridescence that causes us to suddenly turn and look. That’s what you just did to me. You made me turn and look. At myself.”
Twig cocked her head. “What did you see?”
“Darkness.”
In the cavern far below, masks flashed and ghostly dancers whirled in time to music Twig could not hear. She watched them for a time before she said, “Cobia, please, help us. I know you hate my grandfather, but I didn’t do those things to you, nor did my mother. And Screech Owl only tried to help you. He loves you. Won’t you at least save him?”
Cobia hesitated. After what seemed an eternity, she stroked Twig’s feathered head and said, “The Spirits never give us all the time we need. Your time here is over. You
must return now. Greyhawk needs you.
Go back … before it’s too late.
”
Twig bowed her head and wept. She had failed. After all the lessons she had learned, all the terrible trials she had faced, Cobia was not going to help her. Sobs clutched at her chest. It was so cold that her tears froze as they fell, and tinkled like bells when they struck the ice. She whispered, “I’m sorry. I’m going.”
She fluttered her wings and rose above the ice, where she hovered, looking down at the vast icy wilderness below. Then she soared south … .
A
BIZARRE FLASH OF blue light filled the tunnel where Greyhawk sat. He spun around breathlessly, trying to see where it had come from, but the ice cave had turned orange again.
“Once we’ve eaten,” a raider outside said, “we’ll pile the last coals from our fires in the tunnel. It won’t take long to finish melting out that stubborn patch of ice. Then we’ll go in after the brats.”
Greyhawk forced a swallow down his throat. The night was very dark, and the raiders’ fire cast odd flickering shadows over the tunnel. The wonderful scent of roasted
venison kept blowing in, making Greyhawk’s empty stomach growl.
A man leaned down and peered into the tunnel. “I want to be the one to go in,” he said, and it sounded like Netsink, the man who had attacked him in Buffalobeard Village. “I can’t wait to get my hands around the boy’s throat.”
Greyhawk shivered. No matter what, he wasn’t going to leave Twig. When the raider started in, Greyhawk would drag Twig as far as he could. After that, maybe he could fight his way out, then lead the raiders away from the cave long enough for Twig to escape.
The warriors would probably hunt him down, but …
Twig let out a breath, and Greyhawk jumped.
Softly, he called, “Twig? Can you hear me? It’s Greyhawk.”
Cruel laughter rose outside.
Raiders started carrying bowls of coals and dumping them in the tunnel less than ten hands from where Greyhawk sat. The red glow cast a lurid halo over the ice walls.
“Oh, Twig, please wake up.”
Water dripped from the ceiling as the cave continued to melt. The raiders cheered and poured more coals on top of the pile.
Greyhawk got on his knees and slipped his hands beneath Twig’s shoulders, preparing to drag her deeper into the tunnel.

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