Dreams That Burn In The Night (3 page)

Natina shivered, remembering the winter. When
one could not get enough to eat, the cold of winter stayed in the bones all the time.

"Natina, where are you going?" asked
Kawina.

"To the creek for water. Want to
come?"

Kawina frowned, glancing around quickly to see
if anyone was listening. She said, "You aren't supposed to leave the camp alone."

Natina ran her fingers along the soft feathers
behind the hawk's head. The hawk put his head close to hers affectionately.

"I'm not alone. I have my hawk to protect
me."

Natina kept on walking, trailing the water
gourds over her shoulder.

Kawina fell in step beside her. "The old men say
the enemy is near. Six days ago a war party was seen. Rainmaker says an evil lhaman makes war on
us from the north."

Natina smiled. "I am not afraid of the shaman. I
have my own magic. I have my white-head hawk. He will protect me."

Kawina shook her head. "It is forbidden to go
for water or leave the camp without warriors for protection."

Natina shrugged. "I'm not scared. Besides, I'll
just fill my water gourds and hurry right back."

Kawina made one last appeal. "You better not go.
You'll get stolen. They say the enemy is everywhere. You should stay and play kick-stick with me
and Natje and the others."

Natina stroked the hawk's mending wing. He
seemed to like it. Kawina stopped walking as they neared the edge of the camp. Natina turned and
looked back at her friend and just shook her head no. She wanted very much to play, but she had
to work.

Natina kept on walking until she had passed the
last lodge at the edge of the village. The gourds banged against her back, all tied together with
a long strip of deerskin. When all the gourds were full, she would hang them from her
outstretched arms and walk back carefully so as not to spill the water.

No one noticed her leaving the camp except
Kawina, who wouldn't tell. If someone had seen her leave the camp alone, they would have stopped
her.

The long grass was alive with grasshoppers and
birds in song. Butterflies danced in the air above her head, and the wind was fresh and alive
with the smell of summer. It was too beautiful a day for trouble or worries about the
ever-present threat of the enemy.

Natina and the white-head hawk moved slowly down
the path toward the creek. Natina knew she ought to hurry, but there were so many things to look
at, so many things worth looking at. She saw a snake stalking a bird in the long grass. Slowly
the snake crawled toward the bird, which was seemingly asleep in the topmost leaves of a
milkweed. Just as the snake lunged forward to seize the bird, the bird sped into the air like a
hard-pulled arrow, leaving the snake looking silly and still hungry.

The bird made several passes in the air over the
snake, as if teasing the already disappointed reptile. The snake hissed and then disappeared as
quickly as it had come into the grass to wait for another victim.

Natina hurried on. The hawk on her shoulder had
watched the snake and bird with as much interest as Natina had. He rode very comfortably and
contentedly on her shoulder. His eyes were bright and inquisitive and seemed to take in
everything around him.

Soon they reached the creek. Carefully, she
unhooked the bird's sharp claws from the thick material of her shirt. The bird protested the
separation, trying to retain his grip on her shoulder, but she gently and firmly removed him. She
set the hawk on a limb of a fallen tree near the water's edge.

She had to bend over to scoop up the water, and
she didn't want the hawk falling into the water.

She busied herself with filling the gourds. As
she knelt beside the stream, unknown to her a pair of eyes, cold and hostile, watched her from
the other side of the creek. A painted face, blood red, painted like a demon, belonged to the
eyes that watched her.

Uhlat, the shaman, watched her. He was
short-bodied and dark beneath the red paint that covered his body. A wolf's head cov­ered his
thickly braided black hair. He carried a medicine stick with the skull of a fox on one end and
the skull of a human being on the other.

A clan sign was painted on a small stone tied to
a hole in his left ear. He was dressed in white buckskin with quill patterns of yellow interlaced
with red and blue. A small fringed medicine bag, containing ground-up bones and hanks of hair
from his ene­mies, hung at his waist.

His right arm, from shoulder to wrist, had been
painted black. His left arm was painted red and held a war shield painted with demon
signs.

He was Uhlat, an evil shaman from the north,
where they wor­shipped demons and not the Great Spirit.

Natina filled each gourd carefully, arranging
them so that when she lifted the deerskin strap that held them together, they would not spill.
Her mind was on her task, and she did not sense the ap­proach of danger.

It was the hawk that told her first that
something was wrong.

His shrill cry rang out frighteningly loud.
Startled, Natina al­most tumbled into the creek.

Uhlat stepped out of hiding, crashing through
the dense under­brush. Natina saw the cruel figure and screamed. Not in terror but for
help.

She was a long way from camp, but she knew sound
carried well in the morning. She was frightened but not too frightened to act.

She picked up a rock, a heavy one, intending to
defend herself as best she could. She wished she had brought her knife.

Uhlat laughed as he saw the puny girl, little
more than skin and bones, pick up the rock. She held the rock over her head, ready to throw it at
him.

Uhlat waded across the shallow creek, not
worried by the rock she held. He did not expect much resistance from a mere girl. That was his
mistake.

The rock flew with unerring skill and surprising
force toward him. Before he could duck, the rock slammed into the side of his face and shoulder,
almost knocking him over backward into the water.

The jagged rock tore his cheek and gouged his
shoulder. A long cut opened in his neck. He howled with pain and rage. He stumbled toward her,
running now in the shallow bed of the creek. Natina tried to dodge, to evade his huge grasping
hand. The bird shrilled wildly at her back. She slipped on the bank, nearly falling in her haste
to get away.

Uhlat lunged, missing her on the first pass. She
stumbled to the top of the creek bank, tripped over a vine, and slid back down the bank a little
way. Helpless, she realized she was falling back down toward him. Her hands seized upon another
rock, much too small to do any real damage, but he did not give her a chance to use
it.

Uhlat swung his arm and smashed his heavy wooden
shield against the side of her head, knocking her completely over. She was stunned. His hand
seized upon her arm and jerked her to her feet. She was dizzy from the blow, hardly able to
stand.

Uhlat shook her savagely, angry at this small
girl child who had hurt him. He was tempted to bash her head against a tree, but the shouts of
men coming toward them in the distance stayed his hand.

Quickly, Uhlat lifted her up and threw her
across his shoulder. He turned and ran back across the creek.

The white-head hawk hopped off the limb, running
to the edge of the creek, his shrill cries filling the air.

Natina felt the hard edges of Uhlat's shoulder
blades bite into her stomach. Her head spun, as Uhlat ran, bouncing her in a sickening spiral
against his back. She felt the blood rushing into her head. She thought she was going to be
sick.

They crossed the stream quickly. Uhlat, running
as if unbur­dened, sped into the thick underbrush on the other side of the creek. Tirelessly the
shaman ran through the dense woods. Branches and brambles whipped back across him as he ran, but
he did not seem to notice them. Several times Natina cried out as brambles tore into her
legs.

Uhlat ran for an hour, until the sounds of
pursuit were no longer with them. He shifted Natina from one shoulder to the other. She still
felt sick. Her head was pounding; her stomach seemed to be on fire.

Uhlat rested for a few seconds, Natina still
draped over his shoulder like a dead deer; then he started running again.

Sick as she was, Natina was still able to marvel
at the strength in Uhlat. But then Uhlat was a shaman, and shamans often had powers unlike other
men.

As Uhlat ran, he said a chant, a spell to make
the way difficult for those who would pursue him.

Natina tried to think of ways to escape, but
hanging upside down, jouncing with Uhlat's every step, it was all she could do just to breathe,
let alone think. Besides, it seemed hopeless. Uhlat was from the north, a demon worshipper, and
Kawina's mother, herself from the northern tribes, had said that Uhlat's people were eaters of
flesh, soul-eaters. One look at the demon signs painted on Uhlat's face had told her from where
he came.

Natina's heart was heavy. She thought her name
would soon be lost to the world.

As Uhlat ran, Natina's heart walked upon the
ground. She missed her father and mother. She missed Arrow, for all his con­trary ways. She
missed many things, things and people she thought she would never see again. She wanted to cry,
but she couldn't; she wouldn't let her enemy know that she was afraid. Uhlat ran without letup,
tirelessly, relentlessly through the forest.

With each mile, Natina knew with growing despair
that no one in the village would be able to catch up with them. On and on Uhlat ran.

They came to a wide clearing in the forest where
a fire from a lightning-struck tree had burned off some of the trees.

Suddenly there was a crash of thunder. It seemed
to come from all around them, from the very ground itself. Uhlat stumbled and almost fell. Natina
turned her head a little until she was staring up at the sky. The sky was as blue as a lake,
without a single cloud anywhere. How could it thunder with the sun shining as bright as
summer?

Uhlat lowered Natina to the ground, moving
cautiously, his shoulders hunched slightly. He turned his head slowly, looking for trouble in
every direction. Natina tried to stand up, but all the blood had rushed to her head and she was
too dizzy. She could not stand. She collapsed in a heap at Uhlat's feet.

Something touched Natina's shoulder from behind.
It felt like a tiny hand and Natina, startled, almost screamed. It was the white-head hawk,
lifting his undamaged wing to her. He ruffled his feathers, clumsily trying to jump upon her
shoulder.

Natina gasped in surprise. She had no idea how
the hawk had got there. He could not fly. His broken wing was still folded as she had bound it.
It must be magic, she thought. No hawk could fly with only one wing.

She cradled the hawk with one hand and, lifting
him, helped him to a safe perch on her shoulder.

The hawk dug his claws into the tough deer hide
of her shoul­der, settling contentedly onto his perch. He rubbed his head against her neck like a
tame dog wanting to be petted.

Uhlat took out a head cracker, a rounded stone
tomahawk that hung from his belt. A loop of deerskin dangled from the handle. He tied the loop to
his wrist so he would not lose the weapon.

The thunder cracked again, so close it seemed to
shake the very ground they stood on. Uhlat covered himself with his shield, bending low behind
it, looking in every direction for an enemy.

Natina heard an owl hoot. It was an unusual
sound and very near. Not often did one hear an owl in the middle of the day. There was something
strange in the sound. It had an unnatural rhythm. Natina was sure a human being had made the
sound.

Uhlat chanted. The air around his head seemed to
crackle with energy, with great power.

Uhlat danced in a circle among the blackened
stumps of fire-ruined trees. His voice keened, knife-sharp, splitting the air with an eerie
ululation.

Natina heard strange things in the wind, evil
things. The sound of a thousand things moving, rolling, shaking in the wind, a thou­sand forest
things marching all around them. She shivered, feeling suddenly cold.

She could feel the hair rising on the back of
her head. The air seemed to be blue with strange power, as if lightning had just swept across the
clearing.

The presence of the white-head hawk on her
shoulder was comforting. While all about them, the world seemed angry with strange forces, the
hawk was calm, at peace on her shoulder. He did not seem to be frightened, and because he was
not, she was not.

Natina knew something terrible was about to
happen, but she had no idea what.

Something was out there in the dark trees,
something hidden from sight. Something powerful and maybe evil. Whatever it was, Uhlat had
identified it as his enemy, and he was preparing to do battle with it.

Something moved, something tall like a man.
Uhlat turned to face the presence. Natina heard the thunder crack across the sky.

The hawk on her shoulder cried shrilly. The sky
seemed to darken as if a storm approached. Dark clouds rolled overhead like flights of angry
hawks.