People of the Wolf (31 page)

"Remember the way Runs In Light called the caribou?"

"Yes." One Who Cries whacked his baton along the edge, he'd prepared, driving flat thinning flakes from the tool. "Good tool stone up there. Haven't found anything like it down here."

Dancing Fox crowded closer to watch, absorbed by his work.

"Hey!" Singing Wolf complained. "Quit that! Those flakes of stone go all over the place. Next thing you know, I'll sit down and have one stuck in my butt!"

One Who Cries looked around in disgust. "Man can't knap out a good point to save his soul around you. But just wait, huh? Soon as I'm finished, you'll want this point. You'll be trying to trade one of your little pictures for it."

"I can't help it if you make the best dart points of all the People. Especially that new thin one you created. What am I supposed to do? Let my family starve? Besides, these pictures I trade are powerful, give you luck."

"Then quit hollering about the flakes! You can't make a point without—"

"I want that point," Dancing Fox said boldly, studying the stone. "I'll trade two fine fox hides for it. Good hides, the kind for lining parka hoods or insulating mittens."

"It's yours." One Who Cries beamed his pleasure at Singing Wolf, who muttered something under his breath and bent to his ivory.

"Make me a detachable foreshaft—and maybe I'll trade you a couple of points," One Who Cries mentioned slyly.

"Detachable darts?" Singing Wolf waved it away. "You're out of your mind."

"Something I thought of after that buffalo almost got me." One Who Cries frowned. "Just think about it, huh?"

"You don't think we should follow Raven Hunter?" Laughing Sunshine asked, steering the conversation back to the matter that worried them all.

Singing Wolf scratched his chin. "Odd things are happening. What if he was right? What if Geyser's people should have turned and fought back? I wish I knew more. I just don't know."

"Fighting isn't our way," One Who Cries protested. "I remember a tale Flies Like A Seagull used to tell. About a long-gone time when we warred with Others. That's why the People came here, to get away from all that. She said it was better to leave than to have all that raiding. She said people looked over their shoulders all the time and nothing ever got done. There was no time to hunt. That's why Father Sun brought us here. Gave us rules so we didn't kill each other."

"Maybe Father Sun brought the Others here? You know, sort of a test?"

"Maybe." Singing Wolf paused, looking thoughtfully into the distance. "Maybe Runs In Light was his way of telling us there's another way.''

"Runs In Light! Runs In Light! Enough of him."

"No one died but one little girl. My wife and I lived." Singing Wolf shook his head. "Brought us to Heron. A Dreamer. A real Dreamer. Not someone like Crow Caller."

"Crow Caller," Fox murmured in a low savage voice, closing her eyes.

"What he did to you was wrong," Singing Wolf agreed softly.

"Don't forget that Raven Hunter helped."

"And you think he's mad?"

She nodded quickly. "Something's tormenting his mind. He says Dreams. But I don't know."

One Who Cries sighed, looking at Fox with a thoughtful set to his wide mouth. "Seems like it always comes back to those two brothers, huh? Trouble in both of them."

"At least Runs In Light hasn't suggested you go off to get a dart driven into your belly," Green Water answered with a lifted eyebrow. "A leader should keep the health of the People foremost in his mind. I can't help but believe we'd be better off just avoiding the Others."

"Runs In Light doesn't want us to fight," Laughing Sunshine agreed, "he just wants us to go get eaten by the ghosts in the Big Ice." She pulled the knot tight with her teeth, inspecting the new boots she'd made.

"Raven Hunter comes back tomorrow. Most of the young men are planning on going with him. All ready to stick darts into the Others." Singing Wolf lifted his ivory, scratching furiously with the burin in his hand. "If it had to happen, it's a good time. Lots of meat now. The Renewal's about to break up. Won't have to make the fall hunt for a while yet."

"I'm not going," One Who Cries decided, looking to Green Water, seeing the relief there. "I have a family here'. Young one on the way."

Singing Wolf looked at his wife. "Maybe . . . maybe I'll go."

Laughing Sunshine straightened, a horrified look in her eyes. "No, not you."

"I want to see. Maybe someone like me ought to be there. As a witness to what happens."

"No," she whispered again, reaching out to take his hand.

Singing Wolf looked soberly into his wife's eyes. "Maybe it's time I started doing what Broken Branch and Heron said. That's why we keep elders around. To make us learn. And I need to know, to see both sides. Someone with sense should come back and tell the People what really happened. I don't trust Raven Hunter."

He looked up at One Who Cries as a long silence lengthened. "If I don't come back, will you pray my soul to the Blessed Star People?"

Laughing Sunshine clamped her jaw tightly, looking away in dread.

"We'll pray you to the Blessed Star People." One Who

Cries nodded, gravity in his eyes. "But, look, there's no good in-"

"You'll take Laughing Sunshine? Make her a wife along with Green Water? Raise my-child?"

One Who Cries bit off his next protest, nodded, and exhaled. "I will. You and I, we've been together a long time, eh? Hunted mammoth, saved each other's lives. I'll do this thing for you as you would for me. I'll take Laughing Sunshine as my wife. Your child will be as my own blood."

Singing Wolf looked down at his hands. "Maybe I can learn the truth of these brothers. One must be right."

Laughing Sunshine chewed her lip, eyes bright with worry. Dancing Fox moved to grip her hand, squeezing it reassuringly.

"And maybe," Sunshine moaned, "find out if Heron was right about you."

Singing Wolf crouched warily in the gray morning mist, looking over the rim of the rocky terrace at the camp of the Others spread across the sandy plain below. A broad river skirted the lodges, its soft roar loud in the predawn silence. He turned slightly, glancing at Raven Hunter. A keen light filled the warrior's eyes. He stabbed his dart at the waking Others as if they would magically fall over.
Two
children— up before the adults—flitted around the lodges, laughter pricking the cold breeze.

A haunting hollowness throbbed in Singing Wolf's chest.
They'd kill children?

Below, a tall man ducked out of the lodge, yawning to the horizon. The east glimmered in waves of red and orange.

"Ready?" Raven Hunter whispered, bracing himself to leap, to charge down the bluff.

Young men nodded impulsively, wetting dry lips. Singing Wolf's heart shriveled.

"Let's go!"

Raven Hunter shrieked a war cry and leapt over the bluff, racing down into the Others' camp. The People's warriors boiled out behind him, screaming their wrath.

Singing Wolf followed Strikes Lightning into a dark lodge, watching in horror as the man raised his dart, using it like a spear to puncture the throats of huddled old people and newborn babies.

Unable to move, he allowed himself to be shoved brutally aside as Strikes Lightning ran from the lodge to duck into another. Singing Wolf's stomach rose into his throat as he stared at the carnage. Sightless eyes stared back, the coppery smell of blood bathing him in horror.

"Come on!" Strikes Lightning screamed at him.

He backed unsteadily out into the cold morning, swallowing convulsively. He caught movement from his right just as an Other thrust a dart at him from behind a meat rack, ripping his forearm. Instinctively, Singing Wolf jumped away and let his own dart fly, piercing the man's neck. A garbled bark of fear and hatred rang out as the man fell.

Singing Wolf ran wildly through the village, jumping over dead bodies, shoving aside terrified women and children who struggled to flee. Wailing gashed the morning.

He spied Raven Hunter and stumbled in that direction, panting hoarsely. Their leader had caught a lodge still sleeping, skewering foggy-eyed men as they scrambled for weapons. It seemed that everyone in the world was screaming and crying.

A tiny boy, barely three, crawled madly from beneath the lodge cover, tears streaking his dirty face. Raven Hunter shouted, "Get him! He'll grow up to kill us!"

Strikes Lightning hurried, grabbing the boy by his hind foot and dragging him backward. The little one fought valiantly, bawling in terror, slamming his fists into his captor's face and arms. Strikes Lightning grabbed a large rock and raised it high over the boy's tiny head.

"No!" Singing Wolf shrieked, tears filling his eyes as he watched the rock hurtle downward, smashing the boy's head.

Strikes Lightning got to his feet, casting a look of utter disdain at Singing Wolf before he trotted away.

Survivors fled west, heedlessly abandoning their weapons, dragging the elders, carrying their children, stumbling away.

"Follow them!" Raven Hunter commanded, and several young men of the People lunged in pursuit of those fleeing over the hills. A gasping Other lay piteously before Raven Hunter, a dart protruding from his gut. Raven Hunter brutally jerked the dart loose and knelt, smiling in mock sympathy. "I won't kill you," he cooed.

"I'll die anyway," the man gasped, rolling agonizingly to his side. He had a triangular face with a large bulbous nose.

"Yes, but this way will be long and painful."

The Other smiled, hatred gleaming in his eyes. "You'd better run far and fast, Enemy man. Ice Fire will search the mists of time until he finds your hiding place. Then we'll wipe your filth from the face of the world."

Raven Hunter laughed and stood, glaring down. "Ice Fire. Who's that? Some false shaman?"

"The greatest shaman in the world. He's seen your coming."

Raven Hunter snorted derisively. "Then why didn't he warn you so you could escape?"

The Other kicked out with his legs, slamming them into Raven Hunter and knocking him off his feet.

Raven Hunter scrambled up, dodging to kick the man hard in the side. Intestines spilled out through the gash in the man's abdomen. "We'll see how brave you are three days from now when the blood fans like a black river through your veins."

Singing Wolf held his breath, respect for the Other surfacing. This man knew what a horrible death he faced, yet he fought with his last strength. The wound would fester in a matter of hours, the gut juices boiling up like green slime, attracting the flies and animals. The odor would draw the scavengers who wait for death—or worse, Grandfather Brown Bear. But even if he managed, his death would be one of incomprehensible pain.

Raven Hunter spat in the man's eyes before turning arrogantly away. Waving to his followers, he growled, "Come. We have to make sure no one in the lodges survives."

Singing Wolf watched them stride from shelter to shelter.

A baby squealed somewhere; the cry stilled suddenly and eternally.

He walked weakly to where the dying Other lay. The man curled into a ball, pushing futilely at the ropes of intestine that lay on the ground, trying to tuck them back into his torn stomach.

"I'll kill you. If you want me to," Singing Wolf murmured in a strained voice.

The Other looked up, squinting in confusion. "Why? Why would you?"

"Because of your courage."

The Other frowned, then lowered his head, nodding tiredly. "We didn't think you knew of warrior's honor."

"How do your people ..." Singing Wolf fumbled for the words. "Is there a special way that sends you to Father Sun? To whatever your ..."

"Yes. The Great Mystery." The man blinked back tears, pointing a trembling finger to his chest. ' 'Take my heart. Give it to the river. She'll carry it to the ocean. The Sea Spirit will come and . . . take me home."

Singing Wolf knelt and tore back the man's hides to bare his flesh. The Other's breast rose and fell rapidly, his whole body shuddering.

"Hurry," the man muttered. "Before your friends return."

Singing Wolf cast a quick glance over his shoulder.
Friends? Were these cousins even human anymore?
Raven Hunter's contemptuous laughter wafted on the breeze, the whimpers of a woman mixing hauntingly with it.

"Hurry."

Their eyes held for a desperate moment, and Singing Wolf sensed the man's distrust and fear. He raised his dart, watching the Other close his eyes tightly. Then he plunged the dart down, ripping the flesh of the chest and pulling it back to reveal the still-beating heart. A soft cry welled up his own throat as he slashed the arteries, blood splattering his face and clothing. He carefully cut the heart sac and drew the precious contents out, holding it hot, wet, and quivering in his hands.