Jumping Badger walked the trail a step at a time. Waves washed the shore, and water dripped from the trees. A hundred paces ahead, he thought he glimpsed dark branches wavering through the fog. But as the twilight deepened, he couldn’t be sure of anything. They might be ghost legs, running to surround him.
The dead had been waiting for this moment. He had no torch. No light to keep them back. His knees shook.
Behind him, that accursed Rides-the-Bear whispered, “Elk Ivory wanted to attack in the darkness. It looks as if she will get her wish. Unfortunately, we can’t see them any better than they can see us.”
Jumping Badger held up a hand and clenched it to a fist, ordering silence.
He took another step.
Rides-the-Bear, Shield Maker, and the two other warriors moved with him, the sound of their moccasins too faint to be heard from more than three or four paces away.
Out on the lake, a goose honked, a distant, haunting
cry, as if the bird called to a lifelong mate who could suddenly no longer answer.
Jumping Badger stopped, slipped his pack from his shoulders, and let it down easy onto the sand. He gestured for his warriors to do the same. In a dangerous situation, the weight of a pack could unbalance a warrior and make his arrow go awry. None of them would take chances tonight. Especially him. He would be fighting for his life against the living and the dead.
His breathing now came in shallow gasps.
The warriors did as he’d instructed, and Jumping Badger continued up the trail.
He knew this village. When they attacked before, he’d memorized the layout and the trails that led into the plaza. Most visitors approached either from the lakeshore, or from the inland trail that ran east from Silent Crow Village. Massive piles of deadfall bordered the village in a number of places on the southern and western margins. They provided excellent hiding places—and the warriors who had been with him on the first attack knew it. Most of their losses had come from people lurking in those intricate hives.
Jumping Badger stopped when the first conical lodge came into view. Four paces across, it stood around twelve hands high at the peak. No smoke curled from the roof.
He walked closer. Two more lodges appeared out of the mist. Both stone-cold.
Jumping Badger scanned the plaza. He saw nothing that would indicate people had used it in days. No hides lay staked out on the ground. No pots or baskets cluttered around the fire pits in the plaza.
The voices began again, high-pitched, like the keening of dying rabbits. The shrieks blasted his ears.
Jumping Badger tightened his grip on his stiletto and braced his legs. If they came at him from the shroud of
mist, he could kill several before they knocked him down.
Rides-the-Bear and Shield Maker eased up on either side of Jumping Badger. The two young warriors who flanked them, Earth Diver and Bald One, remained behind.
Rides-the-Bear whispered, “The village looks abandoned. Perhaps they packed up and left after our last attack.”
Shield Maker answered, “Perhaps, but more likely they are hiding in the forest.”
Jumping Badger cautiously walked into the middle of the empty plaza. An orange glow took shape on the northern perimeter of the village, and relief flooded his veins. A fire!
“Look!” Rides-the-Bear said. “There’s someone there!”
Jumping Badger spread his arms, holding his staff out to one side, and his stiletto out to the other. He ordered, “Lower your bows.” He had his own bow and quiver slung over his shoulder.
The warriors exchanged a horrified glance, but did it.
Jumping Badger walked forward.
Through the glittering haze, the man took shape. He stood tall, silhouetted against the fiery orange halo.
Jumping Badger squinted, and thought he could make out flowing white hair.
As recognition dawned, Jumping Badger froze.
Rides-the-Bear asked, “Who is that?”
“That … is Silver Sparrow.”
“Silver Sparrow!” Rides-the-Bear backpedaled, and swerved to aim his bow at the old man, bracing himself as if to battle one of the Faces of the Forest.
“Don’t shoot!” Jumping Badger hissed, and batted Rides-the-Bear’s bow down. “I must speak with him
first! Shield Maker, come up on my right side. Rides-the-Bear, you guard my left. You two youths, guard my back!”
Jumping Badger walked to within forty hands of Silver Sparrow, well into the halo of firelight, and tucked his stiletto back into his belt. “Lower your bow, old man.”
Silver Sparrow cautiously bent over and placed his bow and quiver on the ground. He rose with his hands up.
“So,” Jumping Badger said. “You and Dust Moon were the Turtle people traveling with Blue Raven.”
Silver Sparrow nodded. “I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out long ago, Jumping Badger. Surely Cornhusk returned to Walksalong Village and told you that we were coming, as you requested, to complete our ‘bargain.’” Rides-the-Bear gave Jumping Badger a puzzled look.
“I don’t know what you’re speaking of, old man,” Jumping Badger said, and shifted nervously.
The ghosts chittered nearby.
“I think you do.” Silver Sparrow spread his arms, exposing his vulnerable chest, and walked toward Jumping Badger. “We accepted your offer. I agreed to come and remove my curse from you, and you agreed to kill Blue Raven and give us the False Face Child, alive and well.”
Shield Maker’s mouth fell open. He spun around to stare at Jumping Badger. The other two warriors gaped.
Jumping Badger said, “He’s lying, you fools!”
He could feel the world shifting around him, Sleeping Mist’s warriors, the ghosts, his own people. In the dense fog, none of them would rush. Fear would keep natural inclinations at bay. No one wanted to blindly walk into the arms of the enemy.
Jumping Badger walked closer to Silver Sparrow, his steps light, careful.
Silver Sparrow’s bushy gray brows lowered. He said, “What took you so long? I expected you much earlier.”
The comment unnerved Jumping Badger. Had the old Dreamer foreseen his coming? He held the staff with Lamedeer’s severed head like a shield before him as he approached.
Silver Sparrow grimaced at the rough-hewn crow’s-head mask that covered half of the face.
The odor of putrefying meat almost gagged Jumping Badger, and he’d grown used to it. He saw Silver Sparrow swallow the sickness that burned the back of his throat. Jumping Badger planted the staff in the ground, and lowered his fists to his sides. He saw Silver Sparrow glance at the five stilettos in his belt, four tiny, one large and deadly.
“I was detained killing your friend Blue Raven. What did you pay him to betray his people?”
The mist stirred at the edges of the village, swaying and spinning. Jumping Badger flinched. Had it been touched by a breeze or the cautious movements of ghost warriors?
Silver Sparrow spread his feet. “I gave him what he wanted most.”
Jumping Badger’s chin lifted. He peered at Sparrow through one eye. “And what was that?”
“You.”
Jumping Badger didn’t blink, or breathe.
Sparrow calmly walked toward him.
“Stop!” Jumping Badger said when Sparrow got to within three paces. He unslung his bow and nocked an arrow in it.
Sparrow raised his empty hands. “I thought you might wish to talk. Obviously, I haven’t had time to carry out my part of the bargain.” With a smile, he added, “Or you’d be dead.”
Jumping Badger’s eyes flared. “What do you want?”
“I want you to leave. Call in your warriors and go home. Now. This instant. Before it’s too late.”
“Too late? Too late for what, old man?”
But Jumping Badger already knew. A cold wave of air prickled around him, and he could hear them. Closing in …
Acorn tiptoed along the game trail, his bow up. The fog had started to freeze on the tree limbs and twigs that lined the trail, sheathing them in a glittering layer of ice. Buckeye walked behind him. They had come in from the north, drawn by the bubble of the orange light. A lodge stood in front of them, perhaps twenty hands away. Though they couldn’t see Jumping Badger or Silver Sparrow, they’d been listening to their voices.
Acorn swiveled to look at Buckeye.
The huge man’s skin glowed faintly orange. Rage did hideous things to the scars on his face. They twitched and jerked. Buckeye clutched his bow as if his hands were around Jumping Badger’s throat. He opened his mouth to speak.
Acorn put a hand to his lips, and shook his head. If everything Silver Sparrow had said turned out to be true, Jumping Badger would never make it home.
He might not have had the chance to betray the Walksalong Clan, but he’d planned to.
Silver Sparrow said, “Too late for any of your people to survive this night, Jumping Badger. Surely you wish some of them to go back and tell the Walksalong matrons what happened when you faced me and my army of ghosts.”
Jumping Badger let out a hoarse cry, then laughed breathlessly.
Acorn tried to swallow the sourness that tickled the back of his tongue. Ghosts? His eyes darted around the mist.
“Tell your ghosts to stay where they are!” Jumping Badger shouted. “I am alive, and my warriors are alive”—he raised his voice to a shriek—“because my Power is greater than yours!”
Acorn could envision Jumping Badger shaking the staff with the rotting head, and it made him want to retreat and let Sleeping Mist Village have his war leader.
Buckeye’s face had gone bright red. Acorn could see the splotches on his cheeks even in the dim glow.
Buckeye used his blunt chin to gesture to the lodges, and Acorn nodded. They would make a perfect hiding place.
They bent low, and eased forward.
Acorn had taken three steps when a bloodcurdling shriek tore the air less than fifty hands to his right, and an arrow whistled past his ear. He felt the wind of its passing.
Acorn swung his bow in the direction from which the shot had come.
An arrow took him in the thigh, spun him around, and sent him stumbling backward. He tripped and fell, rolled, and dragged himself behind a massive tree trunk.
Buckeye staggered toward him with blood bubbling from his lips. The arrow had taken him squarely in the chest. Buckeye shivered, lost his balance and fell.
“Acorn!” he called out. “Acorn!”
Acorn snapped off the arrow in his thigh, slung his bow over his shoulder, and scrambled forward on his belly.
Buckeye clutched at Acorn’s sleeve as he tore open
his shirt. The wound around the arrow sucked and blew. Blood had started to pour from Buckeye’s lips.
“Oh, Buckeye, don’t do this!” Acorn cracked the fletching from the shaft, then rolled Buckeye to his side and cracked off the point. Before he could take hold of the blood-slick shaft to pull it out, several arrows thudded into the ground around him.
He grabbed Buckeye’s arm and dragged him two paces. With his third heave, Buckeye shuddered suddenly, and went limp. Acorn looked into Buckeye’s wide dead eyes, then let his friend slide to the ground.
An arrow hit the tree over Acorn’s head, sliced through a dead branch, and sent it crashing to the ground beside him. Icy splinters flew. He ripped his bow from his shoulder and nocked an arrow.
From the depths of the gray sparkling night, a man emerged, his bow aimed at Acorn’s head. He screamed as he charged.
Acorn shot him in the chest. The man stumbled, twisted around and fell. His hands clawed at the ground until his screams gurgled into stillness.
Acorn crawled toward the closest tree, dragging his wounded leg, and slumped against the trunk. He nocked another arrow.
He heard a shout, then a din of voices. The ground shook with pounding feet. Three Turtle people, two men, and a woman, dashed headlong up the game trail for the village. Behind them came four Walksalong warriors.
The twanging of bows split the air. One of the men pitched forward, and his face plowed into the trail. The woman took an arrow in the back, but didn’t fall. She forced her weaving feet onward. A thock—hiss! and another arrow lanced her chest. She slumped to her knees, and braced a hand on the ground, fighting to stay upright.
The last Turtle warrior turned, saw her fall, and fired
a wild shot at his pursuers. It sailed over the heads of his enemies. In less than a heartbeat, three arrows pierced his chest, and knocked him backward. He was dead before he hit the ground.
The Walksalong warriors leaped Buckeye’s body, and raced by. One paused long enough to kick the dying woman in the face. She flopped over, coughing blood, and slowly went still.
Acorn blinked the stinging sweat from his eyes. Screams filled the forest, coming from every direction.
The war party needed him.
He set his bow aside, looked at the shaft in his leg, and gripped it with both hands. He tugged. It wouldn’t come out. Shaking, he tried again, gritting his teeth, and yanking as hard as he could. The pain blazed through him like white-hot fire. Finally, his hands shook too badly to maintain his grip. He let go, and sank back against the dark trunk, groping for his bow.
He dragged it over his lap, and prayed.
Wren lay on her stomach next to Elk Ivory, the knife in her right hand, her heart thumping in her throat. They hid behind a jumbled pile of rocks to the south of the village. All around them, people crashed through deadfall, yelling, and cursing. So far, Elk Ivory had made no attempt to join the battle.
She lay prostrate, her eyes furiously scanning the mist.
Branches cracked behind them, and Elk Ivory leaped to her feet with her bow drawn.
Wren could make out a line of people coming toward them. Their bodies wavered in the mist, sometimes visible,
sometimes not. She couldn’t tell whose side they belonged to.
Elk Ivory reached down, grabbed Wren by the collar, and jerked her to her feet. “Go down to the lakeshore and run north along the sand,” she whispered. “Now. Run!”
Wren flew down the hill, her legs pumping, and arms flying.
Two men stumbled into the village, fighting, and Jumping Badger spun to look.
Sparrow took the opportunity. Pulling his stiletto from his pocket, he took two running strides, and swung for Jumping Badger’s chest. Jumping Badger caught his arm, pivoted, and threw Sparrow to the ground. Sparrow’s foot shot out, catching Jumping Badger behind the knees. He toppled, but came up quickly and leaped for Sparrow’s stiletto. Sparrow bellowed, grabbed Jumping Badger around the neck, jerked him sideways, and rolled on top of the young war leader. He gouged at Jumping Badger’s left eye, trying to tear it from its socket.
Jumping Badger writhed like a dying animal. He slammed a fist into Sparrow’s throat.
The flash of pain stunned Sparrow. He couldn’t breathe. Jumping Badger flung Sparrow to his back.
As the two men rolled and thrashed across the ground, the village exploded around them. Warriors streamed in from both sides, shouting, and firing their bows from less than four paces. A melee of running, screaming people ensued.
Sparrow heard Dust shout hoarsely, then saw her racing across the plaza with her long gray braid flying. Two
warriors tackled her, bringing her down hard.
Sparrow roared, and threw all of his strength into the fight. Dust had been right about his age. Jumping Badger had managed to get on top, and Sparrow couldn’t seem to get the leverage to escape. His muscles were tiring fast, his grip on his stiletto weakening.
Jumping Badger glanced at Dust, then peered down at Sparrow with blazing eyes, and smiled. “I’m going to kill your wife while you watch.”
Jumping Badger jammed his thumbs into Sparrow’s wrist, and Sparrow’s fingers began to open. The stiletto shook. Jumping Badger banged his hand on the ground, and the stiletto flew from Sparrow’s grasp, landing six hands away.
Jumping Badger dove for it. Sparrow rolled to his knees and leaped for Jumping Badger. He reached around the man’s head, grasped his chin, and twisted Jumping Badger’s neck until he could hear bones cracking.
Jumping Badger cried out hoarsely, rolled under Sparrow, and came up with the stiletto.
He plunged it once, twice, into Sparrow’s vulnerable throat and the opening in his coat collar. Blood spurted, covering Jumping Badger’s face and eyes.
Sparrow tried to get to his feet to run, but three warriors hit him at once, and sent him sprawling. Two leaped for his arms, while a third struggled to keep his thrashing legs down.
Sparrow lay on his back, rasping, blood running hotly over his neck and chest.
From somewhere close, he heard Dust mew, “Sparrow.”
Jumping Badger staggered to his feet, and stood over Sparrow. Covered with Sparrow’s blood, and with his own blood draining from his nose and left eye, he looked almost as bad as Sparrow felt. Not that it mattered. If the
stiletto had struck the large artery in Sparrow’s throat, he’d be dead very quickly.
Jumping Badger’s eyes narrowed, as if he’d heard Sparrow’s thoughts. Panting, he gestured with the bloody stiletto. “Rides-the-Bear … bandage his throat … I want him alive.”
“If you want him to live, let me do it!” Dust cried. “I’m a Healer. Let me take care of him!”
Jumping Badger glared at her, then waved to the men who held her. “Let her do it.”
He turned, and tramped down the trail that led to the lakeshore, vanishing into the swirling fog.
Dust dropped on her knees at Sparrow’s side, and pressed the heels of her hands over the wound above his coat collar. As she looked up, fear tightened her eyes, but she whispered, “These are bad, but not lethal. Hold still.”
She removed the heels of her hands from the first wound and jammed them down hard against the side of his throat. Blood from her fingers spattered his face.
Sparrow closed his eyes, and tried to concentrate on breathing. He heard someone retching, followed by a groan. Then voices closed in around the village.
He opened his eyes to see Gull, Hungry Owl, and six other members of Sleeping Mist Clan being herded into the village at arrow point. Hungry Owl had his chin high, but Gull walked like a man going to his own execution—which was very probably true. Walksalong warriors converged from all sides, forcing the eight captives into the center of the plaza.
Sparrow silently counted the numbers of the enemy. Twelve warriors, including Jumping Badger. Where were the others? Dead? Wounded? Or still out in the forest?
Dust ripped a strip of cloth from the bottom of her
dress and wrapped it around Sparrow’s throat. “Can you breathe?”
He nodded, glanced at the two warriors standing close by, and mouthed the word, “Rumbler?”
Only Dust’s eyes moved. They slid to the berry bramble, and came back.
Gods, Rumbler must be huddling in terror. That’s why Dust had run. To draw the warriors away from the boy’s hiding place.
Sparrow weakly reached up and clasped her forearm. She looked down into his eyes.
He murmured, “Will he stay?”
She glanced at the warriors, and shook her head, indicating she didn’t know.
A cold gust of wind blew up from the lake, shredding the mist and tumbling it over Sparrow’s head.
They would not truly lose until Rumbler came out, or the Walksalongs found him.
Either would mean death for all of them.
Sparrow exhaled wearily. He had no particular fear of death. He had been looking death in the eye for a long time. Most people did. They just didn’t realize it. Death was the mirror that people held up to their faces every day. It reminded them of what they really faced, and how little time they had to appreciate it.
Tonight, finally, he fully appreciated it. He only wished he’d—
A wrenching scream split the darkness, coming from down near the lakeshore. Jumping Badger shouted, “Hold still, or I’ll kill you!”
The wind picked up, gusting over Sparrow’s hot body, and tousling his white hair. He took a deep breath. The scents of damp earth and wood smoke thankfully overpowered the smells of blood and death.
“Oh, Spirits, no,” Dust whispered.
Sparrow turned his head, looking down the trail to the shore.
Jumping Badger marched from the mist with several packs slung over his shoulder, and his fist twined in the dark blue fabric of Little Wren’s shirt.