People of the Raven (North America's Forgotten Past) (19 page)

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

BOOK: People of the Raven (North America's Forgotten Past)
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W
here she hunched over the glowing coals of a dying campfire, Dzoo waited. She had spread her cloak out like a conical tent to capture the heat. She could feel the warm smoke from the red embers rising along her skin, cleansing. She enjoyed the sensation as the heat nibbled along her thighs, across her vulva, and up her abdomen. It slipped along the curve of her breasts, massaging her nipples and trickling around her sides.
She leaned her head back to stare up between the shadowed branches of the fir trees. Scattered patches of Star People twinkled against the blackness.
The faint clatter of spears carried on the heavy night air. Dzoo felt the future fall into place. Visions spun inside her, like glimpses of oblivion. Phantoms grimaced, men screamed, and fires touched the edges of her soul.
She filled her lungs with the crystal scent of the night. Rising smoke leaked past her cloak to filter through her gleaming hair.
Somewhere in the distance, a faint shout rang out.
Are you ready?
she asked herself, threw back her cloak, and filled her lungs with the smoky odor rising from her warm flesh. Her skin tingled as she raised her arms to the night sky, and her loose hair spilled over her naked body.
“There is no way back now. Let us Sing the first notes of the new Song.”
The low hum was born deep in her throat. Then, she extended her slim leg, pointed her toe, and took a quick step. With each twist and bend, the Dance possessed her. Ducking and swirling, she pirouetted around the red gleam of the fire, a thing of the forest, Powered by visions of blood, fire, and Death.
 
 
A
woman’s high-pitched scream shredded the darkness. Tsauz started, banging his head on the close confines of his rocky hiding place. Whimpers of fear caught in his throat where he huddled, cold and afraid.
People began to shriek and wail. Shouts of rage carried to his hidden niche. Then feet crunched in the snow, rocks clattered, and people cursed as they panted in the darkness. Tsauz heard the fires roar to life long before he caught the first faint whiff of smoke. Within moments it settled around him, thick, choking. He could barely breathe.
“Run, you filthy Raven dogs! Run!” a man cried.
The hollow smack of a club striking a skull made Tsauz wince as if from a physical blow. A woman screamed so close she had to be almost on top of him. An infant began wailing.
“No, not my baby! Let him go! He’s done nothing to you!”
With a sickly smacking sound, the infant’s squalls were ended. The woman whimpered, only to be silenced by another smacking impact.
“Filthy Raven bitch,” the man muttered.
Tsauz’s heart hammered like a trapped squirrel’s.
When he finally gasped for air, he pulled his cape over his nose to keep from coughing.
A small group of people raced past, and he heard the frantic whispers of women and children. Someone must have fallen.
A woman pleaded. “Get up! Get up!”
The other people kept running.
More feet rushed up the slope. Heavy breathing. The hissing of spears. The woman screamed. A child shrieked. When something slapped flesh, the child’s shriek muted into a gurgling rattle.
“Come over here!” a triumphant man shouted.
“My baby!” the woman shrilled. “You killed my baby!”
“Make a sound and I’ll spatter your brains across the snow! Lie down!” Clothing rustled against the distant screams. “You’re going to enjoy this.”
The woman wept and made choking sounds.
Tsauz heard the man grunt, and say, “I love a tight woman.” The woman’s breathing was ragged, as if torn from her throat. The man grunted, “Yes, yes, yes.” A pause, and his voice lowered. “This is how it will be, Dzoo. Feel me? Feel my love for you?” Then his breath seemed to catch, and he groaned, sighing, “Gods, yes. All these years, I’ve waited for you.”
The woman’s weeping grew louder.
“Dzoo,” the man’s gruff voice whispered.
A sharp whistle carried in the night.
“Over here. I’m coming.” The gruff voice was followed by the rasping of clothing. “Too bad, bitch. If you’d lived, my seed might have grown to greatness in you.”
A snapping impact silenced the whimpering, and Tsauz heard an explosive exhalation.
“Where are you? It’s black as soot out here,” a distant man called.
“Don’t shout at me,” the gruff voice replied in annoyance. Wood clattered as if weapons were picked up. “What do you want?”
The second voice was closer now. “We’re supposed to drag the wounded to the pillars. What’s this? She died with her dress up over her head?”
“Shut up.”
Arms flopped against rocks, thumping.
The second warrior said, “Why are we dragging them to the pillars? Wouldn’t it be easier to just shove them over the cliffs?”
“Of course, but the Starwatcher told us to rope them to the pillars.”
The Starwatcher? Father? Is he close by?
Tsauz listened hard for his father’s distinctive steps, but didn’t hear them.
“Why rope them to the pillars?”
“He thinks it will serve as a warning to those who find them. Now, come on—the sooner this is done, the sooner we can get out of here.”
Dragging sounds … Then a tiny moan was followed by a smacking blow. “Ecan wants them—”
A sob worked its way up Tsauz’s throat. Too late, he clamped a hand to his mouth.
“—where all can see.”
The gruff voice said, “What was that?”
“I didn’t hear anything,” the second warrior said. “Where did it come from?”
Tsauz held his breath.
“Maybe I missed one.” Tsauz heard the scuffing of a moccasin as it dragged on stone just beyond his hole. Had Father placed the rocks right? Could the gruff warrior see that they had been moved?
“It’s dark as First Woman’s cave out here,” the second replied. “Forget it. We’ll search at first light. If anyone got away, we’ll get them.”
A foot settled on the rock in front of Tsauz’s face. He heard the stone shift, grinding like the rending of the earth.
Gruff Voice grunted. “I suppose.”
The foot withdrew. Feet crunched the snow; a soft whispering was accompanied by juddering thumps as bodies were dragged up the slope toward the War God pillars.
When he could no longer hear them, Tsauz shoved the rocks away from his shelter and charged across the rocky slope in blind panic, tripping, falling, hauling himself to his feet, and running again. Ferns slapped him across the face, fir branches raked his cheeks, and vines tangled around his feet.
“He—he heard me! He heard me! He’ll come back!”
In his mad flight he tripped and fell on a warm body. Scrambling to regain his feet, Tsauz planted his hand full into the dead man’s ruined head. His fingers sank through wet blood, broken bone, and spongy brains.
 
 
T
he yellow gleam of dawn tinted the snowflakes that whirled over the mist-shrouded mountaintop where War Gods Village smoldered in ruins.
War Chief White Stone trotted down the slope from the War God pillars toward Ecan. The Starwatcher stood in the village plaza below, his white-caped body wavering in and out of the fog.
“We followed your orders,” White Stone said as he bowed. “As we speak, a warrior stands at the pillars to send the signal of our victory to Chief Cimmis. Now let us leave this place. I do not wish to be here when Rain Bear discovers what we’ve done.”
Ecan stared at the wreckage surrounding him, a gloating expression on his handsome face. Snow and fog had damped most of the flames, but charred hides smoldered in piles around the blackened lodge frames. Overturned baskets, gut bag containers, and clothing scattered the ground. A child’s doll, made in the shape of Killer Whale, lay torn in half and mud-smeared.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Ecan asked softly.
“It is but one more ruined village, Starwatcher. The stench is the same.” He shot Ecan a measuring look. “But this time we have kicked the wasp’s nest.”
“And they shall swarm, I assure you.” He reached out, and one by one he closed his fingers as if grasping something out of the air. “We are tightening our grip on their souls. Can you hear them, War Chief? Their screams are drifting on the wind, echoing in the ears of each survivor. Ecan, the Starwatcher, strikes terror into their hearts.” He drew a deep breath. “Their pitiful bleats are a soothing elixir to my soul.”
“Starwatcher, each moment we linger is one less we have to avoid Rain Bear’s warriors when he discovers this atrocity.”
“Atrocity?” Ecan opened his grip, blew across his palm, and indicated the village. “This is divine retribution, War Chief. Powers are at work here that you cannot understand. We are remaking our world, weaving it into something new.”
“Yes, Starwatcher. Now, please allow me to assemble our warriors.”
“When I say.” Ecan gave him a flat stare. “And not a moment before.”
“But, Starwatcher—”
“I wish to savor this.” Ecan pursed his lips. “And I must see the matron before we leave.”
White Stone hesitated. “Why? She’s dead.”
Ecan turned and gave White Stone a look that would have withered Cimmis himself. In a terse voice, he commanded, “Just make sure I am safe while I carry out my duties, War Chief.”
“Of course, Starwatcher, but we have tied her corpse to the stone. It will take time to walk up there.”
“I wish to present her head to our most valiant warrior in gratitude for his service.”
White Stone secretly prayed he would not be chosen as the “most valiant warrior.” In the past cycle, he’d been awarded the head too often. For the moment, he just wanted to be making tracks away from this place. He could feel anger building in the air around him, as if the wrath of the Raven People were thickening with the storm.
“But I thought we were just supposed to take the heads of her husband and son? Cimmis said nothing about Matron Weedis.” White Stone had wrapped the men’s heads in several layers of cloth and stuffed them in a pack he’d found in the wreckage. With his luck, they’d leak down his back as he trotted home.
“No,” Ecan answered. “The matron defied us. I wish to make an example of her.”
“If you must do this, please hurry. It will take us two hands of time to get down to the trail. The fog will shield most of the smoke, but if Rain Bear suspects what we’ve done—”
“I will take her head; then I will fetch my son, and we will go.”
“Your son?”
a velvet voice called from a swirling pocket of mist.
White Stone pivoted and grabbed for the war ax tucked in his belt. “Who’s there? Show yourself!”
The eerie mist spun, then seemed to part before her as she gracefully walked toward them. Tall and willowy, a long red dress clung to the decidedly female body visible beneath the buffalo cape. Her hood was up, and wisps of waist-length red hair fluttered over her chest. Beneath the hood, though, White Stone saw only shadows.
She walked directly to Ecan, and when she pulled back her hood and lifted her beautiful face, her black eyes seemed to drain the light from the world, sucking it down into endless darkness. She leaned forward and whispered,
“A man who mocks the gods pays a terrible price. Your son is gone.”
“Dzoo.” Ecan stood paralyzed, eyes locked with hers.
A terrible smile curled Dzoo’s lips, and Ecan reacted as if bludgeoned.
He stumbled back, grabbed White Stone by the arm, and hissed, “Quickly. Find Tsauz!”
 
 
T
he smell would haunt him: coppery blood, the sour tang of entrails, the pungent odor of feces. The wet breeze carried its burden to Tsauz’s quivering nostrils.

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