People of the Nightland (North America's Forgotten Past) (29 page)

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

BOOK: People of the Nightland (North America's Forgotten Past)
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A
s night fell, Skimmer followed Kishkat around the last curve in the trail. To her left, the jagged peaks of the Ice Giants rose so high they disappeared into the bellies of the Cloud People. Their mournful groans and squeals echoed, sounding like lost ghosts.
“We’re almost home,” tall Homaldo called, and gestured toward the orange campfires that bordered the ice. The fires seemed to blink, and Skimmer realized that tens of people must be walking back and forth in front of them.
“Thank Raven Hunter,” Tapa said. “I miss my wife and boy.”
“At least we’ll see them again.”
The warriors glanced back and forth, fear behind their grim expressions.
“Remember,” Kishkat reminded, “we were sent with Skimmer before the attack.”
They trotted straight toward the Ice Giants, and Skimmer saw the black maw that led into the Nightland Caves. Last time, she had been held farther south and never brought this close to the famed cavern. It was a huge opening, perhaps four body lengths across. Passing Traders had told her that once a person went through that maw, the
ice tunnels branched many times, flowing out in every direction. One of them was reputedly “the hole in the ice” that led back to the Long Dark where Raven Hunter still lived and breathed.
Her legs had been shaking for the past four or five hands of time. Skimmer longed to sit … .
“Stop!” Kishkat called, peering into the half-light. “Who’s there?”
The warriors surrounded her, the move almost protective. For days now, they had traveled together, sharing meals, water, and stories.
When did I begin to see them as friends?
The notion stunned her.
Rocks and gravel scalloped the edge of Thunder Sea. Some of the boulders were three times the height of a man.
Skimmer struggled to see what had alarmed Kishkat. Near the rocks ahead, a human form slipped through the shadows.
“We said stop!” Tapa insisted, and lifted his single dart.
The man kept coming, and finally a soft voice called, “Kishkat? Is that you?”
Kishkat’s eyes went wide. He stepped forward and whispered, “Blessed Spirits! Guide? Is that you?”
The warriors fell to their knees, and long-legged Homaldo called, “Guide! We’ve brought the woman you wanted. Kakala dispatched her when we encountered her on the trail.”
The Guide walked gracefully, hands clasped behind his back, apparently deep in thought.
The warriors hissed back and forth, wondering how Ti-Bish had known Kishkat. It was too dark to see their faces.
Homaldo shot a frightened glance at the other warriors and said, “Guide? How did you know it was us? No runner could have beaten us here. No one knew.”
“I’ve known from the moment Skimmer slipped away from the Lame Bull caves,” the Guide said.
Hatred and fear burned through Skimmer’s veins like a Spirit plant, paralyzing her trembling legs. She could only stare as he walked nearer.
When no more than two body lengths away, he stopped and looked at her. She couldn’t be sure in the darkness, but she thought a faint smile curled his lips. He spoke gently, “Raven Hunter said you’d be here tonight, Skimmer. I’ve been waiting for you for a long time.”
“Ti-Bish, I must talk with you. Don’t … don’t hurt me.”
He stepped closer, took her arm, and led her up the trail, as though they were friends of many summers.
The warriors followed a few paces behind them.
“Don’t worry. You’re safe now.” Then he bent down to whisper, “Raven Hunter told me to wait for you here. He didn’t want Nashat to see you first.”
As the words sank in, a wave of nausea tormented her. “Why?”
“He said Nashat would frighten you.”
She looked at his gentle hand on her arm and the kindness in his eyes. “Why would you care?”
In the silver gleam of light that reflected from the Ice Giants, she saw his jaw tremble. “You need me, Skimmer. Raven Hunter helped me see that truth. He wants you close before the first motions of the destruction begin.”
“The … destruction? Of what?”
“Oh.” He smiled boyishly. “Everything.”
Skimmer’s stomach threatened to empty itself. She’d walked into the lair of a madman.
Windwolf had been right. She couldn’t see this thing through.
Run! Now!
The desire made her shiver. He noticed, turned, and wrapped his arms around her. His bearskin cape felt warm, but smelled of darkness, of things that grew deep underground where sunlight never reached.
“Don’t run. Please? You don’t know the whole truth yet.” He murmured softly, “Come. Let me take you inside where it’s out of the wind and we’ll talk.” To the warriors he said, “Thank you for being so kind to Skimmer on the way here.You may go home to your families. You will be rewarded for your service.”
“Thank you, Guide,” Kishkat bowed deeply, and backed away.
As the warriors trotted out toward the campfires scattered across the tundra, Ti-Bish led Skimmer through looming shadows toward a small cave. “Raven Hunter wants you to know that your daughter is safe. Ashes is staying with Dipper and Lookingbill.”
“How do you know?” Her suspicion burned brightly.
“Because Windwolf won the fight.” He waved it away. “It doesn’t matter. I think Keresa was Traded for you.”
“Keresa?” She frowned, remembering young Silvertip’s Dream.
“I don’t understand all of the details, but they are fighting over the end of the world.”
Of course, the end of the world.
Skimmer pointed to the huge maw. “Aren’t we going through there?”
“No. I have a chamber prepared for you in a different part of the caves. No one will know where you are until I tell them. It may take some time before I can teach you some of the things Raven Hunter has taught me. I want you to be happy during that time.”
She stared at him. He wanted to keep her all to himself, locked in the bowels of the Ice Giants?
“Ti-Bish, the warriors will tell Nashat I’m here. He’ll search the caves until he finds me.”
He timidly lifted a hand to stroke her long hair, and she forced herself not to shudder. “He won’t find you, Skimmer. No one will.”
T
he Council chamber smelled of sweat and damp hides. Lookingbill smoothed a hand over his bald head and gazed at the warrior who stood guard outside the entrance.
Tens of people walked along the tunnels. The rockshelters were already packed. Where in Wolf Dreamer’s name would they put any more? He thanked the gods that Dipper was making those decisions. After the past few days, he felt hollow, as though his insides had been eaten out.
“I don’t know which hole to aim for,” Ashes said.
He looked back and frowned at the holes in the floor and the positions of the round stone balls. The goal of the game was to roll the balls into the holes with a flick of the wrist. The stones couldn’t be bowled. It wasn’t easy.
“You’re just tired, Ashes. Would you rather take a nap, like Silvertip?”
His wounded grandson lay on a hide on the far side of the chamber, next to his elderly cousin Loon Spot. The old woman had been snoring for a hand of time.
He tried not to look at Silvertip. The Healer had drawn sacred designs on his face and forehead, each but a desperate attempt to keep
his soul contained in the body. The swelling on the side of the boy’s head had finally receded, but the high fever remained.
Old Loon Spot had taken to continually dribbling water between the boy’s lips. Any more than a couple of drops at a time, and he’d choke, unable to swallow.
More than once, Lookingbill had feared the boy was dead, but placing his ear to the thin chest, he could hear the heartbeat, frighteningly slow, but there nonetheless.
“No,” Ashes said, maintaining the fiction of Silvertip’s “nap.” “I—I have bad Dreams when I close my eyes.”
“What kind of bad Dreams?”
She shrugged. He’d tried to get her to discuss her Dreams since dawn, hoping he could ease some of the girl’s terror, but she’d refused.
Lookingbill saw her mouth quiver before she clamped her jaw. “Your mother is all right, Ashes. She’s a strong woman, and she knows what she’s doing.” He hoped.
“I was thinking about my father.” She swallowed hard to keep tears at bay. “Wishing he were here.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“The day the Nightland warriors burst into the ceremonial lodge and started killing people.”
No wonder she had no desire to sleep.
Ashes flicked one of the stone balls. It rolled across the hard-packed floor and settled in a hole.
“Good aim, Ashes. Well done.”
She didn’t look happy, just relieved. “I don’t want to play any longer.”
“We don’t have to play. Would you like to do something else?”
“No, I just—”
Loon Spot woke suddenly—stared at them as though she’d never seen them before—and threw a basket with all her might.
Lookingbill dodged just in time; it went sailing across the chamber toward the warrior who stood guard. The poor man must have thought it sounded like a dart cutting the air, because he dove for cover.
“Loon Spot, what are you
doing
?” Lookingbill demanded.
The willowy old woman had a shriveled triangular face tucked beneath a gray mop of hair. A broad smile creased her lips.
“I Dreamed you were a dog,” she said.
Lookingbill scowled and thrust a hand toward the guard, who peered nervously through entrance. “Look what you made the guard do.”
She grinned. “He moves fast. That makes me feel safer.”
“I wish you’d go find another chamber to sleep in. I’m tired of you
and
your snoring.”
With all the dignity he could manage, the guard pulled himself to his feet and straightened his war shirt. Beneath his breath, he murmured, “Crazy old—”
Loon Spot said, “He’s not crazy. He’s senile. There’s a big difference.”
“He meant
you
, Cousin.”
She gave him a disgruntled look. “Just wait until you’ve seen six tens of summers.Your aim won’t be so good either.”
Ashes smiled, and it warmed Lookingbill’s heart. She had a soft, luminous look in her dark eyes, betraying the desperately tired little girl beneath.
“It’s good to see somebody around here has a sense of humor.” Loon Spot leaned across the floor to pat Ashes’ arm affectionately.
“How come you aren’t sleeping?” Loon Spot pointed a crooked finger reprovingly. “When I went to sleep, you said you were going to take a nap.”
Ashes’ smile faded, and she stared down at her restlessly twisting hands. “I can’t sleep, Loon Spot. My Dreams are bad.”
“Well, whose aren’t? You should have seen what Lookingbill looked like as a dog.”
Ashes laughed, and it made Lookingbill smile. From the instant they’d met yesterday afternoon, Ashes and Loon Spot had been fast friends.
Loon Spot waved to her. “Come here. Tell me about these Dreams.”
Ashes walked over and sat down. Loon Spot put a skinny arm around her shoulders and whispered in her ear. Ashes sniffled in response.
Gradually, their two low voices intertwined, barely audible, and he could tell the little girl’s fears had ebbed. Her tone grew calmer, brighter. Lookingbill shook his head. Who knew that gruff, sharp-tongued Loon Spot could speak so kindly to anyone?
Loon Spot whispered, “So he came and floated over your bed?”
Ashes nodded, twining her fingers in her cape. “Mother said he was dead. Just like Wolf Dreamer.”
“Did he look dead?”
“Only a little. He had eyes like black stones.” Ashes’ mouth puckered, and tears glistened on her lashes. “Why is he coming to see me? I don’t
want
to see him.”
“Tell him that; maybe he’ll go away.”
Ashes toyed with the fringes on her leggings. “I’ll try to sleep … if you stay here and watch.”
“Oh, you bet I will. Someone bring me another basket. I’ll toss it at any nasty raven that flutters close.”
A raven?
Lookingbill wondered.
Ashes curled up on the hide and closed her eyes. Loon Spot gently kissed her forehead. It seemed only moments before the girl was sleeping soundly.
Lookingbill whispered, “You two get along too well to have been strangers only yesterday. Are you sure you haven’t been giving her gifts in secret?”
“I don’t have to buy friendship. You’re just jealous because you’ve never had a way with women.”
“For once in your life, you’re right.”
They sat in silence for a time; then Ashes moaned.
Loon Spot waited until the girl’s face slackened, then she whispered, “Did you know Raven Hunter was speaking to her in Dreams?”
Lookingbill’s breathing stopped. “That’s what she told you?”
“That’s why she doesn’t want to sleep.”
“Blessed gods.” Lookingbill massaged his brow. “I’m so tired. It never occurred to me to ask why—”
“Of course you’re tired,” she interrupted. “A few days ago you were sitting around enjoying the sun on your face. Now you’re in a fight to the death with the Nightland Elders.”
He lowered his hand to his lap. “I had to help the Sunpath People, Loon Spot. Someone had to.”
“Dipper says the food stores down in the ice caves will be gone by the next quarter moon.”
“She’s right.” He gave her a dull appraisal. “Windwolf has been meeting with the chiefs. He’s preparing the refugees to head west. They’re to leave in small groups, escorted by warriors. He thinks that in small bands, traveling by different trails, many can make it to safety in the Tills.”
“How soon do you think the Nightland Elders will find out Windwolf defeated Kakala and took him captive?”
Lookingbill picked up one of the stone balls and tossed it toward a hole. He missed. It kept rolling until it hit the wall.
“Two or three days, if we’re lucky. Then they have to gather warriors, depending on where Karigi and Blackta have gotten to. Windwolf calculates that it may take as long as a moon to assemble the number necessary.”
“And then?”
He gave her a sad look. “By then, we’ll be a quarter moon’s travel west of here, making the best time we can toward the Tills.”

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