The Broken Land (38 page)

“I’m greatly relieved to hear that, but right this instant I am more concerned about how your people are taking the news.”

“Badly. It could mean civil war. The attack was not sanctioned by the Ruling Council. Coldspring Village is not the only Hills village upset by the outrage. Riverbank Village and Canassatego Village are both up in arms.”

Sky Messenger let out a breath that fogged in the cold air; then he stared up at the firelight reflecting from the aspen leaves. As the golden leaves trembled in the breeze, the light fractured and flashed in hundreds of places at once. “After everything he did to us, I don’t know how you can live here and not kill him.”

“He’s Zateri father. If I didn’t love her so desperately, I assure you”—he glanced around to make certain his warriors could not overhear their words—“I’d have killed him when I first came here. His words are like an eel in your hand, slippery. You can never quite get hold of them.”

In a warm voice, Sky Messenger asked, “How is Zateri?”

“She is well. But she’s going to be devastated that she didn’t get to see you.”

“I was hoping to see her,” Sky Messenger said, disappointed.

“You won’t. She’ll be in council for most of the night. And you, my friend, are going to have to leave here before either of us wishes it.”

“How soon?”

“Very soon. Before anyone finds out you’re here. We have, perhaps, one-half hand of time.”

“Then I should get to the point.” But he hesitated and wiped his palms on his cape.

Hiyawento noticed the action, and with great care said, “I was glad to hear that Matron Kittle reversed your death sentence.” He cast a meaningful glance at Taya. “Your vision was on everyone’s lips.”

“Yes, it’s a long story, and that’s why I’m here.” Sky Messenger massaged his forehead. “I’ve been having Spirit Dreams. I don’t know what to make of some of them.”

Hiyawento straightened. “Is there more than one, or is this the same Dream that started when you’d seen eleven summers?”

Taya’s head jerked around to stare. He’d been having the
same
Spirit Dream for twelve summers? Did Grandmother know that? Or any of the Ruling Council? Blessed gods, if it were true …

“It’s basically the same Dream.” Blood flushed Sky Messenger’s cheeks. Even in the pale light, Taya could see it. “It’s changed slightly over the summers. Images get added, some are deleted, as though not even the Spirits know the final shape of the story.”

“Does the Dream come every night?”

“Recently, it’s afflicted me two or three times in a night. I just abruptly find myself walking in a strange glittering world where Elder Brother Sun—”

“Covers his face with the soot of the dying world?”

Taya’s spine tingled. She glanced at Sky Messenger.

He shuddered as if he’d been doused with ice water. Just above a whisper, he said, “Blessed gods, those words are as powerful today as the day you first said them. They still strike at my heart.”

Hiyawento leaned closer to Sky Messenger. “Mine, too. I remember the day I heard them as though it were this morning.”

Sky Messenger hesitated. “Could you tell Taya the story of what happened to you that day, Wrass?”

Hiyawento was quiet for a time, as though preparing himself for the memories. “It was twelve summers ago, just before War Chief Koracoo and her search party found us. I was lying in the old witch’s canoe. The beatings I’d taken the day before had left me badly fevered. I was lying with my cheek on the cold gunwale when a man walked through the water toward me. He had a bent nose, like one of the Faces of the Forest.”

Sky Messenger whispered, “Shago-niyoh. The Voice.”

Taya sat down hard in front of them. Her knees had gone weak. Sky Messenger’s Spirit Helper had also come to Hiyawento? That meant Sky Messenger might not be a mad fool. “Then what happened?”

Hiyawento’s dark eyes took on a troubled expression. “I was afraid. I asked him if he was one of the hanehwa.”

Instinctively, Taya’s gaze went to the forest, searching for flits of gray slipping between the trees. “What did he say?”

“He said, ‘
We are all husks, Wrass, flayed from the soil of fire and blood. This won’t be over for any of us until the Great Face shakes the World Tree. Then, when Elder Brother Sun blackens his face with the soot of the dying world, the judgment will take place.’
I swear the words are burned into my afterlife soul. I hear them in my sleep, on the war trail, when I’m playing with my daughters. I wish I knew what they mean.”

The lines at the corners of Sky Messenger’s eyes pinched. He shoved his cape aside and reached into the red Power pouch tied to his belt, where he drew out the splinter of charred skull. Attached to it was a tightly wound strand of black hair that had been tied with a cord—as though it were precious to him—and she wondered if it belonged to Baji.

Sky Messenger tenderly tucked the hair back into the Power pouch and held out the piece of skull. “This has something to do with the ‘judgment.’”

Hiyawento frowned at it.

Sky Messenger flipped it in his hand. “This skull ties you and me to the Dream. I just … I’m not certain how yet. But I must find out.”

Hiyawento extended his hand, and Sky Messenger placed the piece of skull in it. The war chief’s black brows drew together over his hooked nose. He examined it carefully. “Where did you find this?”

“Just north of Bog Willow Village. It belongs to the … Do you … do you remember the Mountain war chief … the one who took me out into the forest?”

A swallow went down Hiyawento’s throat. His voice came out filled with hatred. “Yes.”

“What did he do to me, Wrass? What happened out in the trees?”

Hiyawento bowed his head and shook it, as though to ease the memories. “I didn’t see it, Odion. I know he hurt you. You told me he did. But I don’t know for sure. Something … something terrible. Why do you ask?” He handed the piece of skull back and rubbed his hands hard on his shirt as though to rid them of the taint.

Sky Messenger tucked it into the red pouch again and pulled the laces tight. “At the end of my Dream, I hear his voice.”

Hiyawento paused. “What does he say?”

“It’s as though he has his lips pressed to my ear. He orders, ‘Lie down, boy. Stop crying or I’ll cut your heart out.’ Then a great hole opens in the cloud-sea beneath my feet, and I fall and fall. Wisps of cloud trail behind me as I tumble through nothingness surrounded by glittering petals shaken from the World Tree.”

Taya sat stunned. Blood pounded in her ears.
Blessed gods, what did the war chief do to him?
A sensation of pained awe filled her. It was real. The Dream was true, and it was tied to whatever had happened to both Sky Messenger and Hiyawento twelve summers ago. She had thought his soul was loose. But if Sky Messenger and Hiyawento had the same Spirit Helper and both were having the same dream … great ancestors!

“Taya and I just came from the Dawnland country. I spent a day walking the old campsite and the forest, trying to remember that part. The last thing I recall is being taken by the hand and dragged into the forest. The rest … the rest is just gone.”

Softly, Hiyawento asked, “Why is it so important to remember, Odion? There’s nothing but pain there.”

“Old Bahna says that before I can stop Elder Brother Sun from turning his back on the world, I have to remember.” Sky Messenger clenched his fists. “Wrass, there’s something I must ask of you.”

Hiyawento said, “Long ago I promised you on my life that I would be there with you. At the end. I mean to keep that promise. So be careful what you ask, for I will do it without question.”

For a time, Sky Messenger just stared into his friend’s eyes. Finally, he said, “Great Grandmother Earth is dying. Our war is killing her. We have to stop it.”

“I agree, but how? It’s been going on for generations.”

“Will you ask Zateri to speak to the matrons of the other Hills villages about establishing a truce so that I may tell them my Dream? I know Atotarho won’t listen, but perhaps they will.”

“I will ask her. And what do you wish me to do?”

Sky Messenger took a deep breath. “I hesitate to ask, because I know what it will cost you. Will you, War Chief Hiyawento, speak against war in your next council?”

Hiyawento straightened. The ramifications must be sinking in. A war chief who argued for peace was likely to find a stiletto between his ribs.

Finally, Hiyawento nodded. “Yes, I will. And you know Zateri will do everything necessary to support you. She …” Hiyawento’s expression slackened, as though something dire had just occurred to him.

“What is it?”

“Nothing, it’s just … nothing.” He shook his head as though denying some inner warning. “I will speak with her. That’s all.”

He was holding something back. Sky Messenger said, “If there was any other way—”

“Don’t get sentimental,” Hiyawento replied. “We both know the price of your Dream. We’ve known it for more than a decade.”

They smiled at each other, the smiles of men who’ve known each other since boyhood, fought side by side through the worst of times, and are ready to fight again. Men who share an unbreakable bond of trust.

Blood pounded in Taya’s ears.
The price of the Dream.
For the first time, she considered the possibility that Sky Messenger might truly be the prophesied human False Face. Along with that shocking moment came the realization that his vision—the same vision of War Chief Hiyawento—might also save both of their peoples from the abyss that yawned before them.
It might save all of the peoples south of Skanodario Lake.
it. The

She sat back and looked at the two men. She couldn’t believe it. The man she was betrothed to might actually be a prophet. Taya had to concentrate to keep her stomach from rising into her throat.

Thirty-eight

T
aya swallowed hard. “May I speak?”

Sky Messenger swiveled on the log to look at her and blinked as though he had forgotten she was there. “Yes, of course, Taya.”

She wet her lips. War Chief Hiyawento seemed to be staring right through her. Fear and excitement had conjured the unthinkable in her heart, and she didn’t know how to deal with it. But … but she was beginning, dimly, to understand why Bahna had said she had to go with Sky Messenger on this journey.

Shakily, she said, “I was wondering if perhaps more alliances like the one Grandmother established between the allied Standing Stone villages and Sedge Marsh Village might be possible?”

Hiyawento shifted. Set against the background of firelit palisade, he looked vaguely unreal, his hair dancing around his dark face. “Why do you ask?”

Taya gestured helplessly. “I have spent my life listening to Grandmother’s political lectures, so I know something of what our people need and, perhaps, a little of what the Hills People need. If our two peoples could just agree to protect each other from Chief Atotarho”—she wet her lips again—“I mean, he’s the problem, isn’t he?”

“So far as I’m concerned, he is,” the war chief responded.

Sky Messenger stared at her as if confused. And why wouldn’t he be? Just a few days ago she’d argued that they had to kill all of their enemies to survive. “I was thinking that if we could agree on that one thing—that Chief Atotarho should be destroyed—and we could create an alliance to do that … Well, it would be a start.”

Hiyawento’s eyes narrowed enough to let Taya know he was suspicious of her motives. “Before the destruction of White Dog Village there might have been a chance, but why would High Matron Kittle agree to such an alliance now? I suspect that at this very instant she’s engaged in whipping up a fervor to kill every Hills person alive.”

“But your village was not involved in that attack.”

“No. Most of our nation didn’t even know about it until it was long over. Nonetheless, rage and pain tend to simplify the world, Taya. Your grandmother and the Ruling Council will see only that the Hills People just attacked a Standing Stone village. Such an act demands a response. Your people must be preparing for it as we speak. Our people certainly are.”

“Even Sindak?” Affection laced Sky Messenger’s voice.

“Of course, my friend. He is an excellent war chief. Protecting our people is his sole responsibility. He’ll do whatever it takes to stop a Standing Stone attack. As you would, if the reverse were—”

Sky Messenger shook his head. “No. I’ve given up my weapons. For good. I’ll never touch a bow, or club, again, never raise my hand in violence, not even to save my own life, or the lives of people I love.”

Hiyawento appeared stunned. He hesitated, before quietly saying, “Odion, I’m not sure that this is the time for—”

Taya cried, “Yes, please, tell him how foolish it is! He should take up his weapons and return to being deputy war chief before it’s too—”

Sky Messenger interrupted, “The
only
position I would accept now is that of
peace
chief.” He gave Taya a disgruntled look.

“Peace chief?” Hiyawento leaned back and chuckled softly. “I like the sound of that. It implies something not of this earth.”