The People of the Black Sun (48 page)

While the Ruling Council retained its dignity, the people who'd had their ears pressed to the council house walls, listening to the proceedings, burst into cheers. A riot of hoots and cries erupted, along with the sound of pounding feet, as the news swept Canassatego Village.

Kwahseti felt slightly weak in the knees. Chief Riverbank leaned to whisper to her, “I hope they know that the Bear Clan High Matron was only part of the problem.”

“We will make sure they know.”

Yi looked pointedly at Adusha. The Little Matron bowed deferentially and stepped back, yielding the floor to Matron Yi.

Yi walked to the edge of the benches. “The former matron of the Bear Clan, who stole the position of High Matron, is dead.”

Cries of joy exploded in the plaza, while the council house was filled with gasps and murmuring.

Yi raised her voice. “There is—as you all know—another matter to be considered. Chief Atotarho. While our Ruling Council refused to send him the two thousand warriors he requested, he remains in Standing Stone country with a large war party intent upon crushing the Standing Stone People once and for all. What is your opinion of this?”

“She asks our opinion?” Riverbank noted with a frown. “As though we have already agreed to reunification and are part of her nation?”

Little Matron Tarha of the Beaver Clan rose to her feet. Hunched and gray-haired, she used her walking stick to prop up her thin body. “Before we discuss Chief Atotarho, I wish to address another matter. Riverbank Village and Coldspring are both gone, destroyed by
your warriors,
Matron Yi, and Canassatego Village barely survived. Did the Old Hills council order the destruction of our villages?”

Hateful voices rumbled around the circumference of the house.

Yi answered, “Blessed Spirits, no, Little Matron. Our council knew
nothing
of these attacks until warriors came streaming into Atotarho Village carrying their wounded. From what the warriors told us, Atotarho ordered the attacks to punish your villages for turning against him during the Bur Oak battle. It was completely Atotarho's decision.”

Kwahseti thought about it for a time before she rose to her feet. “If it pleases the council, I would speak on the issue of Atotarho and his war party.”

Matron Tarha sat down, and Gwinodje said, “Please do so, Matron Kwahseti.”

Kwahseti didn't look at Yi. Instead, she turned around to face the other council members. “Atotarho is utterly mad. I don't know when he lost his soul, but it's been wandering aimlessly in the forest for at least thirty summers that I can recall. He must be stopped. As you all know, High Matron Zateri sent one hundred warriors back to Bur Oak Village to help protect them, as she promised she would do, but if Matron Yi is telling us the whole truth, it will not be enough to stop Atotarho from wiping the Standing Stone nation from the face of the world.”

Kwahseti turned back around and stared directly at Yi. Yi's face had gone rigid. “So, we ask you, Matron Yi, will the
old
Ruling Council join the new alliance and send warriors to reinforce ours … or does it prefer to wait and see how many of its enemies Atotarho can kill?”

Yi lifted her chin and gazed down her nose at Kwahseti, but a tiny grudging smile of respect tugged at her lips. “The Ruling Council has already carefully considered this matter. We will
tentatively
agree to join the Peace Alliance, and order our forces to support yours, but only,
only,
if you agree to reunify our nation.”

From the rear of the house, a flash of dawn light filled the chamber as someone entered. Kwahseti turned to see Zateri gracefully marching forward. Her long white cape gleamed in the firelight. The blue paw prints around the bottom swayed with her steps. The High Matron stopped in front of Yi with her feet spread and her fists clenched. In a powerful voice, raised for all to hear, Zateri asked, “If we agree, will the Ruling Council send word to Atotarho that his people have declared him Outcast, and he is a member of the walking dead? He must become a man with no name!”

A cacophony of shouts and supporting voices exploded inside the council house, and more outside. The entire village roared.

One of Yi's delicate black brows lifted. She gave Zateri a challenging look. In an equally strong voice, she called, “Only the full council of matrons has the right to take back his name and depose him from his position. If you rejoin the nation, and undergo the Requickening Ceremony to accept your grandmother's Spirit, I give you my oath that I will support that motion in council. But first,
High Matron
”—the assembly hissed in response to her calling Zateri the High Matron of the nation, which forced Yi to hold up a hand to get their attention—“let's make this nation whole again.”

Every nerve in Kwahseti's body tingled with shock. Zateri stood like a small statue. Her cape was so still it appeared to be carved of white marble. Her face showed no give.

Gwinodje edged forward to whisper, “Blessed gods, Zateri, this is what we've been praying for.”

When Yi heard Gwinodje's words, some of the fire went out of her eyes. She reached out to place a gentle hand upon Zateri's shoulder, and softly said, “You are not my enemy. You never have been. If your people agree to reunification, we can immediately send a runner to War Chief Negano telling him to use our army to support the alliance. But it will take almost two days, running day and night, for him to get there. We must do this quickly, Zateri. Or we will be too late.”

 

Forty-nine

Sky Messenger

Weary. We've run almost straight through.…

As the slanting rays of sundown filter through the trees, amber-tinted mist seeps up from the piles of old leaves that cover the forest floor and twines around the bases of the maples like gossamer vines. It is so quiet. Baji and I run side-by-side down the trail that leads to Bur Oak Village, listening to the sound of our moccasins striking earth. Gitchi trots behind Baji, staying right at her heels, as though he senses she's in danger. We have no idea what lurks in the forest ahead. Three more rises to go, and we will know for certain if Tagohsah told the truth and Atotarho's army surrounds Bur Oak Village. Smoke fills the air, but this far away it is faint. It may come from the fire hearths in the longhouses, not from enemy campfires. My heart thunders in anticipation.

Sweat mats my black hair to my temples and soaks the hide of my shirt, trickling down my sides. Warmth like this two moons before winter solstice is very odd, almost supernatural. By early morning we'd removed our capes and tied them around our waists. Tiny damp curls fringe Baji's forehead, but the rest of her long hair flies around her shoulders in sinuous glistening locks. Her bow and quiver sway with her motions. She has tied her arrows together to keep them from rattling, and carries her war club in both hands, clutched across her chest for balance. Her candid black eyes scan the trees incessantly.

As I watch her, my heart aches. It seems impossible that we are separated by six hands distance. I feel her presence like a physical thing, a warm sea swirling around me, penetrating my body, washing against my souls in languid waves. We are both exhausted. I have no ability for long complex thoughts. The trail has turned into a series of precious moments … light dancing on the curve of her cheek … snatches of birdsong falling around us, spiraling down from the branches like wing seeds … the heart-numbing scent of her hair … my body sulking, longing … memories of silken textures … of skin sliding, inflaming the darkness.

The sunset-varnished air grows cool as evening comes, stroking the fevered flesh beneath my shirt. The odor of hot earth slaked with mist is strong. I breathe it in as though my lungs can't get enough and try not to let my worries overwhelm me.

Blessed gods, I love her. Since she's been at my side, I haven't had the Dream. What does that mean? Is her presence enough to stop the horror from unfolding? Or … is her presence something else?

In the hundreds of times the Dream has come to me, I have never seen her there with me at the end. The soot of the dying world does not darken her face as it does Hiyawento's. I never hear her voice or feel her touch. The possibility that she dies before the final events begin is too much to bear. It haunts me, gnawing at my vitals like a wild beast. I will do whatever I must to protect her … no matter the cost.

Nor have I seen Shago-niyoh there, or heard The Voice seeping from the air around me. Have I done something wrong? Is he gone forever?

We crest the swell in the trail and plunge down the other side into a hollow filled with oaks and dry ferns that
shish
when Gaha softly breathes across the land.

Baji glances at me. I feel it like a huge hand squeezing my heart. “You have to stop worrying about me.”

“How did you know I was—”

“Dekanawida, I know every expression you're capable of.”

“Well, that's unnerving.”

“Get used to it. Even if I die I'm going to haunt you forever.”

“Promise?”

“Absolutely,” she says with such dire certainty it makes me laugh.

Tension drains from my exhausted muscles, leaving me feeling slightly light-headed. The world takes on a shimmer.

“Can you feel it?” she asks.

“Yes, we're headed into it.”

“What does it feel like to you?” Her head tilts in curiosity.

I think about how to describe it. The dark tingling sensation of Power swells and eddies through the trees. “It's a … fire … searing my veins. I…”

Baji suddenly cocks her head and her eyes go wide as she stares to the west with such longing that it tears my heart. It's as though she sees the Blessed Ancestors marching over the hills, coming right at us in a vast spectral army.

“What's wrong, Baji?”

Her smile is heartrending. “Nothing's wrong. I just thought I heard something.”

Gitchi suddenly goes stone still in the trail, and the hair on the back of his neck rises into stiff bristles. Baji and I both stumble to a stop. His yellow eyes are focused unblinking on something.…

As though they emerge from the Land of the Dead, the warriors seem to step from nothingness into this world of rich amber light. While I only see twenty or so, more move out in the trees. I hear their legs threshing ferns, coming. It sounds like thousands. These men and women have been on the trail for many hard days. Each dusty face has sleepless bloodshot eyes, and a greasy mop of mourning hair. Walking skeletons in windblown rags. Ghastly eyes that seem too huge for bony faces. As they draw back their nocked bows, emaciated muscles tremble in arms that once bulged through war shirts.

“Mountain warriors,” I whisper.

Gitchi lets out a vicious growl and starts barking, preparing to defend us with his life.

Baji shouts, “Gitchi down! Stop it!”

The old wolf obeys instantly, sitting close at her side, but he can't suppress the barely audible deep-throated growls that vibrate his throat.

A big man pushes through the crowd of warriors. A dark cold man with ghastly scars, his right eye is missing, plucked out by an enemy long ago. The socket has been sewn closed and creates a shriveled pucker in his face.

“Blessed gods, that's Yenda,” I murmur to Baji.

“Let's show them our empty hands.”

We both slowly lift our arms.

From out of a locked chamber deep inside me, the sound of shrieks rise …
Father drags us out of our beds and orders us to run … burning longhouses … screaming people racing through the firelit darkness … dead bodies. Then standing in the forest, clutching my eight-summers-old sister's hand, stunned, as enemy warriors round us up and march us away …

At the command of the man who now stands before me.

Yenda, now called Chief Wenisa, led the war party that destroyed Yellowtail Village when I'd seen eleven summers. He is the reason Wrass, Tutelo, and I were captured and sold to Gannajero.

For a time, Yenda just stares at us, as though trying to confirm a suspicion.

I've fought against him many times. Bitter and angry, he is a brilliant strategist, careful to a fault, but slippery as an eel, a man who prefers to achieve his goals through torture rather than negotiation. He has no patience for words. He's built his reputation by destroying opponents.

He cocks his head in a birdlike manner, and stares at me with one blazing eye. “I know you.
”

More warriors emerge from the trees. It's forty to two, and increasing. Now or never …

I shout, “Baji, take Gitchi and run!” as I launch myself directly at the horde in front of me, roaring like a madman, hopefully distracting them long enough for Baji to escape.

“Shoot the dog!” a man shouts. “Quickly! It's getting away!”

Arrows hiss, loosed from too many bows to count. I don't make it ten strides before Mountain warriors fall upon me like starving panthers, dragging me to the ground. Fists knock the wind out of me. Feet slam my sides and face. I'm rolling, fighting.