Grandfather Day Maker had not yet risen, but a golden gleam arched over the eastern horizon. The tufts of mist glimmered in the treetops, and drifted along the lakeshore. A cool fish-scented wind tousled Wren’s long hair around her face.
Wren took a breath and winced. She sat cross-legged before the plaza fire, her hands braced on her knees, while Matron Dust Moon wrapped her chest with bandages. Rumbler sat beside her, holding tight to her pant leg, but his dark eyes studied the movements of the warriors in the plaza. His plump cheeks and chin-length black hair gleamed from the thorough scrubbing Dust Moon had given him a hand of time ago.
Dust Moon ripped the ends of the strip of fabric and
knotted it. “Now take a deep breath, Wren. Can you feel your ribs shifting?”
Wren cautiously obeyed, filling her lungs. Tendrils of pain flashed across her chest, but nothing like the fiery lances that had tormented her throughout the night. “No. They feel better. Thank you, Dust Moon.”
“Good, let’s slip on your shirt.”
Wren squinted against the pain as she lifted her arms, and allowed Dust Moon to pull her blue shirt on. Then Dust Moon draped a red blanket over Wren’s shoulders, and said, “I was thinking I’d comb your hair for you.”
Wren turned to peer up at her kind, deep-wrinkled face, and the golden fleck just beneath the pupil of her left eye. She wore her hair in a long gray braid. “Yes,” Wren said and gave her a tremulous smile. “I’d like that.”
Dust Moon smiled, and pulled a wooden comb from the open pack beside her. As she started gently running the comb through Wren’s hair, Wren sighed. No one had combed her hair since her mother’s death. Warmth grew in Wren’s heart and filtered out through her tired body.
Rumbler shifted beside her, and Wren turned. He frowned at the ring of prisoners who sat twenty paces to his right, their hands and feet bound. Many had untended wounds. Elk Ivory lay curled on her side next to Acorn. She had yet to sit up this morning, and after the blow she’d taken to the skull, Wren suspected she wouldn’t until someone forced her to. She probably felt violently ill. Turtle Nation warriors surrounded them, their expressions grim. Occasionally one of the Silent Crow warriors would kick one of the Walksalong Village warriors. It hurt to watch.
Silver Sparrow stood near the prisoners, talking to Spotted Frog and Hungry Owl. They made a strange sight, Silver Sparrow with his wrinkled face and long
white hair, beside the young dark-haired Hungry Owl. Both men towered over Spotted Frog. The patron of Silent Crow Village stood with his hands laced over his large belly, and his head bowed. He wore his black hair in a series of intricate braids, coiled on top of his head, and pinned with a shell comb. He kept nodding at Silver Sparrow’s soft words.
Finally, Spotted Frog said, “No, it’s too dangerous. Who is to say what will happen if we let them go?”
Hungry Owl said, “I agree. They may decide to attack other Turtle Nation villages on their way back to Walksalong Village.” His eyes narrowed as he scanned the burned lodges, and the dead bodies that lay in a row at the edge of the trees. “I don’t want to see other villages slaughtered the way we were.”
Spotted Frog nodded. “I think it would be best if we just killed them here and now. It would certainly send a scare into the Walksalong matrons—”
Sparrow interrupted, saying, “Or maybe make them decide to dispatch the rest of their warriors for Silent Crow Village, Spotted Frog.”
In a forlorn voice, Rumbler whispered, “I can’t stand to see anybody else die, Wren.”
She clamped her jaw. Tears had sprung to Rumbler’s eyes.
Silver Sparrow said, “Listen to me, please. This insanity has to stop somewhere. I—”
“It could stop,” Wren said in a strong voice, “if we established an alliance.”
“A—a what?” Hungry Owl scoffed. “An alliance with your people? We can’t trust anyone from the Bear Nation! You are all murderers and thieves!”
Wren lowered her eyes, and blinked at the ground. Her heart had started to pound.
Rumbler shouted, “No they aren’t! They are just people. Like us. Can’t we talk with them?”
Spotted Frog looked at Wren and Rumbler with a strange respect.
Wren had never had an adult look at her that way, and it scared her a little. She groped for Rumbler’s hand. His good finger went tight around her thumb.
Silver Sparrow and Hungry Owl followed Spotted Frog across the plaza. They stopped a pace away, and Spotted Frog said, “Do you truly believe this might work?”
Rumbler nodded with a lot more certainty than Wren felt. “Yes,” he said. “It might.”
Wren added, “My uncle … he always wanted to establish an alliance between the Turtle Nation and the Bear Nation. He said that if we agreed to stop raiding, and to help each other, that we would all be better off.”
Spotted Frog fingered his triple chin. “If it worked, yes, but—”
“How can we ever trust them?” Hungry Owl demanded to know. “After what they have done to us?”
Silver Sparrow’s bushy brows lowered over his beak nose. “Well, let’s ask what would happen if we could. Trade would definitely benefit. And if we agreed, as Wren suggests, to help defend each other’s villages, our alliance would be virtually invincible.”
“It would certainly make the Flicker Clans think twice about attacking us, wouldn’t it?” Spotted Frog asked.
Hungry Owl scowled down at Wren. “The Bears might agree to an alliance, and then turn around and attack us when our defenses are down.”
“Yes, it’s possible. I agree,” Spotted Frog said, “but if Little Wren and Rumbler think it might work—”
“It will work,” Elk Ivory called. She lay curled on her side, and squinted at Spotted Frog through one eye.
The village went quiet as people turned to peer at her.
Spotted Frog said, “And what makes you so sure?”
Elk Ivory squeezed her eyes closed, and weakly sat up. “I am not war leader yet, Patron,” she said. “But I think I will be when I arrive home. If you allow me and my warriors to return to Walksalong Village, and if my people cast their voices for me … I give you my pledge that I will talk with my matrons about this alliance. I have always believed, as Blue Raven did, that it would mean greater safety and prosperity for all of us.”
Spotted Frog scanned the faces of his warriors, and said, “It cannot hurt us to try.”
Elk Ivory nodded, and eased to the ground again. Her mouth pursed as if nausea tweaked her. She said, “Let us go, Patron. Give us the chance to work for this alliance together.”
Spotted Frog appeared to be considering, then he looked at Silver Sparrow, and Hungry Owl, and saw each of them nod in turn, though Hungry Owl did it reluctantly.
Spotted Frog waddled toward Wren and Rumbler. He peered down at their twined hands, knelt, and put his over the top of theirs. A light shone in his eyes as he smiled. “You two children may have just changed our world forever.”