Ice Fire shivered, sensing hands on his body, voices slowly penetrating the numbing haze in his mind.
“Wake up!” someone yelled in his ear. Red Flint. No one else had a scratchy voice like that.
He blinked his eyes open, seeing hides and feet and knees where they pressed into the soft ground.
“What happened?” His voice cracked and broke. Red Flint bent down to hear him.
Out of the blur of vision, he could see the sky, puffed with white clouds. The sun slanted down from an angle—early morning. The camp lay just behind him from the sound of women and children. Around him, scrubby wormwood clung to the thin gravelly soil. The southern horizon seemed to glow orange, like red filaments of … webbing … .
Red Flint spread his hands in mystification. “I don’t know. You were walking out toward the hill again and you cried out. We all saw you spin around and stare into the sun. Then you screamed, raising your arms and batting at the air, like flies or something were swarming around you.”
“Like you were batting away darts in battle,” Walrus offered, frowning fearfully. “You know … struggling.”
Ice Fire tensed, the vision coming back. “Yes,” he gasped, seeing the blood-red threads searching for him. “I remember.”
“Tell us,” Red Flint pleaded. “What did you see?”
“Red spindles, like strands of a web, spinning out from the south. The Enemy Dreamer was there, spinning the web—like some strange spider.”
“Do they make magic against us?” Sheep’s Tail demanded, clattering his darts against the ground.
“They’ll wish they hadn’t!” Horse Cry added vehemently. “They’ll see! They’ll see what Mammoth People do to those who—”
“No,” Ice Fire croaked, fighting his way to sit up, still dazed as he cataloged the faces around him and braced himself on his arms. “It wasn’t magic against us. I was afraid at first. Feared the web he’d spun. But in the end … yes, in the end it wrapped around me. Drawing me, drawing me south to the … to the …” He frowned, shaking his head.
“Was it the Watcher again? Did she do this to you?” Red Flint dropped to stare intently into his eyes.
“No, not the Watcher. I didn’t feel her.”
“What? Think. Remember, old friend,” Red Flint pleaded.
Ice Fire looked up, shaking his head. “I can’t … can’t remember more. The vision broke then.”
“South.” Horse Cry looked around with a predatory smile. “To the Enemy.”
Ice Fire looked at him, a curious premonition rising within. “Beware, Horse Cry, things are not to be as you imagine.” Not when Power wraps its threads around the lives and souls of men.