The Broken Land (34 page)

She dipped her head in gratitude. “I would very much enjoy that.”

She and Cord walked across the council house to the door curtain.

When they stepped outside, the light had changed. A lavender veil had fallen over the land and with it, a hush. The village was calm, the warriors on the catwalk unconcerned.

“Well,” Jigonsaseh asked. “What do you think?”

“I think they’re worried this is a trick. But I also suspect they believe you.”

She jerked a nod. “I wish Sky … Dekanawida … could have been here to present his vision himself. They would have had no doubts.”

“Maybe.”

There was an awkward moment where neither of them said anything.

Then Cord gestured to the closest longhouse. “I had hoped you could spend an extra hand of time here. My niece has already prepared supper for us, and carried food to your warriors. Will you join me?”

She smiled. “Yes, thank you.”

The warmth in his eyes caught her off guard. How was it possible that the old attraction between them had not died in the past twelve summers of war?

The two of them, enemies, made a strange pair as they walked across the plaza—he dressed in black, she in white, talking like the old friends they were.

Thirty-three

Sky Messenger

W
ind Mother rampages through the twilight forest, whipping my black cape so wildly that I can scarcely walk. Taya is having an even tougher time. She has her thin willowy body leaned into the gale, but is still stumbling. I walk back and take her hand, helping steady her steps as we plod toward White Dog Village. I need to see my father, Gonda, to hear the gossip. I especially need to know if War Chief Hiyawento is out on the war trail. If so, I needn’t risk traveling to Coldspring Village.

Taya asks, “Do you smell that?” Despite the wind, she’s been trying very hard to keep her voice low.

“Yes.” The faintest hint of smoke rides the air.

I lead her off the main path and onto a narrow deer trail that slithers between trees and massive head-high boulders. All around us, the forest shrieks and branches crash together. A constant shower of leaves and twigs pelts our faces and capes. Taya has one arm up to protect her eyes.

“Sky Messenger?” Her voice is almost lost in the gale. “How much farther to White Dog Village?”

“By now we should see the firelight reflecting—” I stop suddenly and sniff the wind again. “Blessed gods,” I say when the distinct scent of burning longhouses reaches me. “Stay here! Gitchi, don’t let her follow me!”

I release her hand and break into a dead run.

As I round the curve in the trail, the dark bulk of the still-burning village, with its high log palisade and skeletons of charred longhouses, looms like a black wall. I feel as though I’ve just been kicked in the belly. Firelight halos the village, but the surrounding forest is uncommonly dark and blustery.

“No!” I run, duck through a charred hole in the palisade, and dash across the plaza toward the Snipe Clan longhouse, the clan my father married into. Discarded arrows cover the ground. Baskets, broken pots, and dropped capes are scattered everywhere. Hungry dogs lope through the devastation with their tongues hanging out, looking frantic, or in despair. Their masters are gone, probably dead, but they do not know that, and won’t leave the chaos of charred ruins until they search every crevice and nook.

I can tell now that the village was attacked days ago. The longhouses are little more than piles of ash, the remaining poles and log benches fanned to flames by today’s gale. If Father is alive, he is not here. He fled with the other survivors. I pray they made it to Bur Oak Village.

From outside the burned palisade, Gitchi barks, and I hear Taya shout, “Let me go!”

I trot back to the hole in the palisade and duck outside. Gitchi, still obeying me, has his teeth embedded in Taya’s sleeve and is tugging her backward. She must have tried to follow me.

“Let me go!” Taya screams in rage, and shakes her arm, trying to dislodge the wolf’s massive jaws.

“Gitchi, it’s all right,” I call. “Let her go.”

Gitchi releases her and leaps back to avoid Taya’s fists. “I
hate
this animal!” she shrieks.

Panicked by her loud cries, I dash back. “Are you trying to attract the attention of the attacking warriors?”

“No, I—”

I grab her hand and drag Taya into the shadows of nearby trees, pausing only long enough to examine the forest for hidden warriors, or desperate survivors who will kill anyone not from their village. Beneath the cacophony of wind and storm, the faint whining of village dogs rides the gusts.

With Gitchi at my side, I drag Taya to a small meadow ringed by black oaks. The shiny ridges of bark on the trunks glisten in the fading light. Swirling leaves and the pungent scent of the ferns crushed by our feet trail us to the fallen log.

“Sit down,” I order. “I need time to think.”

“I don’t understand,” Taya says. “Why are we stopping? We should keep moving. This is dangerous! Can’t you think while we run?”

“No. I need to be here, Taya. Since the villagers are gone, my only choice is to wait until tomorrow morning to get the information I need. There’s someone I have to meet.” My thoughts race, thinking about the Trader’s rounds, trying to figure out …

“But there must be enemy warriors and hundreds of angry ghosts roaming the forest!”

I close my eyes for a long moment, calming myself, then lift my gaze to the clearing. “I’ll keep watch tonight, just in case either warriors or survivors return.”

“What good will that do? You have no weapons to protect us.” Taya jerks her cape more closely about her, pouting. “When did this happen?”

I clench my fists to keep from saying something that will hurt her. “Four or five days ago. There are no bodies along the main trail, and I don’t see any scattered around the palisade, which means the survivors already collected the remains of their dead relatives.”

“But if it happened five days ago, why are the flames still so high?”

“The wind kicked up this afternoon. It must have fanned the embers smoldering beneath the charred piles of bark and timber.”

She grabs her flying hair when a particularly brutal gust sweeps the forest, cracking limbs together and hurling a barrage of acorns and twigs at us. When it passes, she asks, “Do you think your father is alive?”

I rub my hands over my stunned face. I can still feel Father’s breath moving inside me, as I can my sister’s and mother’s, and a handful of friends. But hope often masquerades as truth. “I pray he is.”

She studies me, notes my expression, and says, “Who do you think attacked the village?”

“In the morning I’ll be able to tell by the decorations on the arrows, but tonight? My guess is Mountain People.”

“But we’re far from the lands of the Mountain People.”

“Doesn’t matter. A large enough war party makes territorial boundaries meaningless.”

We ate supper earlier—at her insistence—and I am suddenly grateful. It would be impossible to get a fire going in this wind, and I have no appetite at all. As I look around, the scene takes on the wavering and misted edges of a Spirit Dream. Thoughts hang like raindrops caught in a spiderweb, shiny, fragile. I can make no sense of this. But I must. And I must face the possibility that Father and dozens of cousins are dead.

Taya’s head moves, turning to examine the dark forest, as though afraid. “I don’t like it here. Please, let’s move on.”

“We can’t leave until after dawn tomorrow.”

“Why not?”

“I need to meet someone.”

“You never mentioned before—”

“If my father were here, we wouldn’t have to stay. Since he’s not, we must. I need more information before we head for Coldspring Village. There’s a Trader who is always here on the last day of the moon. It’s part of his regular rounds. He will know all the gossip.”

As the stunned sensation begins to drain away, a cold new light illuminates the political ramifications. Whoever attacked White Dog Village has earned a swift and devastating response from Matron Kittle, and I—

“Sky Messenger?”

Curtly, I say, “Taya, there’s a soft bed of leaves right over there. Why don’t you try to sleep? I’m going to go stand guard beneath that oak.” I point.

Panic trembles her voice. “But you’ll stay in my sight, won’t you? If I awake and look for you, I’ll see you?”

“I told you. I’ll be right there.” Exasperated by this constant refrain, I turn my back and walk to the oak to take up my position.

Occasionally, when the wind shifts, ash and billows of black smoke completely obscure my view of the trail as it snakes down the hill and into the narrow dusk-cloaked valley beyond. A large pond fills part of the valley. Battered by the wind, it appears to be boiling, sloshing back and forth.

When the White Dog survivors arrive at Bur Oak or Yellowtail Village and ask for help, the matrons will be obliged to give it, and there is simply not enough food. At this very instant Grandmother must be calling in elders from all the surrounding villages, preparing them for the worst.

I glare at the tormented forest and think about the quagmire that is clan politics, of my own stake in it, and of matrons like Taya’s grandmother, who scheme and lie and plot so her own kin will remain in power. For many summers High Matron Kittle has been amassing warriors, keeping them close. In the past, villages were widely separated, many days apart. They couldn’t protect each other. So Kittle convinced the other Standing Stone villages to move closer to Bur Oak Village. That way, in time of need, they could pool their warriors and defend each other against attacks. It made sense. It also meant that she had five thousand warriors at her command—providing the individual village councils approved her schemes. And provided they had warning that an attack was imminent. White Dog Village must have been taken completely by surprise. Kittle’s rage must be tearing the nation apart.

“Sky Messenger?”

Startled, I spin around. “What
is
it? I thought you were going to sleep?”

She stands three paces away with her blankets pulled tightly around her slender body. “No.” It is almost a sob.

When I frown at her, she looks at the ground and nervously moves one moccasin back and forth through the fallen leaves. She looks very young and, though she probably doesn’t know it, very beautiful. Her long hair blows about her pretty face.

“What’s wrong, Taya?”

“Sky Messenger, I want you to come to the meadow. Please. Come and lie down with me? I’m cold and I’m afraid to be alone tonight.”

“I’m only eight paces away. I need to keep watch on the main trail.”

“You never try to understand how I feel!”

I suck in a breath and hold it to keep my temper in check. “Explain it to me, please.”

“I’m lonely! At Bur Oak Village, my longhouse had almost three hundred people in it. There was always someone to talk to, or conversations to listen to as I fell asleep at night. Dogs to pet as they trotted by. Here …” She looked up at the violently flailing branches that filled the sky. “There’s no one. No one but you and Gitchi. Please, I don’t want to be alone.”

When she lifts her gaze to look at me, I see desperation, and it occurs to me that my own qualms about this journey have made me impatient and callous. Seeing her first burned village has probably stirred up her fears.

“Yes. All right, Taya. I’ll come—”

“Thank you.” She runs forward and throws her arms around my waist. The setting … the smell of war … her arms … memories of the war trail overwhelm me, memories interlaced with pain.

I am with her … exhilarating, striking more deeply than anything else in my life. At the end, I’d known exactly what I wanted … and did not. Exactly who I was, and was not.

“Sky Messenger, if you need to watch the main trail, I can sleep right here beside you. That way, you won’t have to sleep with me. But I’ll be close to you. I’ll be able to hear you when you move.”

The empty wasteland inside me yawns wider. I ask, “Are you cold?”

“Freezing.”

Against her hair, I say, “Perhaps I can find a way to warm us both up.”