Twenty-One

Cloud Playing walked swiftly down the darkening trail, trying to reach Talon Town before the storm worsened. A half a hand of time ago, black clouds had rushed in and blotted out the first Evening People. Misty rain had fallen for a while, then stopped. But it would return. Lightning flashed over the eastern horizon.

She broke into a trot. The canyon wall loomed like a brooding giant across the drainage, mottled with silver patches of moonlight. In front of her, Straight Path Wash carved a deep jagged ravine. The trail dropped down into it through a still, wet world.

Cloud Playing descended, her footsteps as silent as in a dream. A trickle of water burbled in the bottom. She leaped it effortlessly and started up the opposite side of the drainage. The fragrances of soaked stone and earth twined into a rich perfume.

As she neared the top, an eerie sensation possessed her. Her pace slowed. Just beneath the crest, she found herself at a dead stop, breathing hard. Shafts of moonlight penetrated the clouds and threw odd shadows. She stared at one that resembled a crouching monster. She would have sworn it had eye sockets, huge and empty, and focused solely on her. But it didn’t move.

“You are almost home,” she whispered, irritated with herself. “Stop being silly.”

She continued up the trail, peering about uncertainly as she strode out onto the mud-slick flats several bow shots from Kettle Town. In the flash of lightning, the pillars in the front stood out like ugly square teeth in a fiendish grin.

Talon Town glittered in the distance. Torches lit the plaza, casting a fluttering amber glow over the white walls and the Great Warriors. They had their heads up, anxiously gazing out across the night. Cloud Playing smiled and—

Movement caught her eye.

A nightmare feeling swept over her so strongly the world went out of focus for an instant.

A voice spoke from the shadows, “Who—who are you?”

“I am Cloud Playing, daughter of—”

“Cloud Playing? You are Cloud Playing?”

“Yes! Who are you? What are you doing out here skulking around in the shadows?”

A man stood up, his black-painted chest and arms almost invisible. But as he stepped toward her, she could see the colors of his mask: red, blue, and yellow. One of the sacred thlatsina masks! Very few people had the right to touch them.

Cloud Playing’s nerves hummed as she backed away. “Are you a priest? Out offering prayers to the full moon? What is your name?”

“You … you are really Cloud Playing?”

“Yes, I told you!”

“Oh,” he said in a strained voice. “Oh, no. I prayed you would not be here. Why are you here?”

She unslung her bulging pack, where she had crammed both her things and her mother’s, and held it like a weapon before her. The four black spirals painted across the front glowed darkly. “I am the daughter of Night Sun, Matron of Talon Town! My father is Crow Beard, our Blessed Sun. I am on my way home! You will let me pass!”

He spread his eerie black arms like a bird preparing to soar, and leaped at her, lifting his knees high in some perverted imitation of an eagle hunting on the ground.

“Don’t you know who I am?” Cloud Playing screamed. “Stop it! Leave me alone!” and swung her pack with all the force she could muster. It struck his shoulder, knocking him sideways.

She sprinted back down the trail into Straight Path Wash and up the opposite side. Hearing no one pursuing, she risked a glance over her shoulder … and saw nothing. Nothing at all. A beam of moonlight briefly struck the wash, shadowing every undulation.

Terror drew a noose about her throat. She stopped and fought for control. Cocking her head, her ears strained for the sound of breathing or carefully placed steps. Could it have been an obscene joke?

“Doesn’t matter. I’m not walking that trail!” And as soon as I can send word to War Chief Ironwood, he’ll have his warriors scouring every square hand of this country until he finds the culprit and brings him in.

She looked westward. If she headed down the drainage, she would find the cut in the bank where the slaves came to fill water jugs and wash clothes. For a woman of her status to walk a slave’s trail would create a stir, but better that than the black apparition.

Slinging her pack over her left shoulder, she proceeded stealthily, clinging to the deep shadows cast by the overhanging bank. All around her, golden owl eyes winked. The birds burrowed holes into the banks and lived there until the spring runoff cracked their homes off the drainage walls and washed them downstream. Her terror retreated. She braced a hand on the bank and continued cautiously.

A huge black cloud sailed over, and just as Cloud Playing looked up, Thunderbird bolted through the Cloud People, using his sharp talons to rip open their bellies. Sheets of rain gushed out, shining whitely in the moonlight.

Cloud Playing huddled beneath the overhang. The lower half of her dress quickly became sodden, clinging to her legs like a second skin, but her torso stayed dry.

That morning she had passed a Trader on his way to the Green Mesa villages, and he’d told her rumors that the Blessed Night Sun had been accused of adultery and imprisoned at Talon Town. Cloud Playing had stared at him mutely, too shocked to believe it. But after they’d parted, she’d started running, trying to get home as fast as she could.

When she’d been a little girl, there had been gossip among old women with nothing to lose—gossip about a child born and hidden away. Those old women had believed that someday the child would return to Talon Town with an army to avenge his abandonment. Cloud Playing had never thought much about it … until today.

The rain lasted barely thirty heartbeats.

When the cloud passed, moonlight slanted down, and a long shadow stretched across the wash, cast by someone standing right above her.

Cloud Playing froze.

Unable to breathe, she longed to flee, but her good sense told her to stay put. He could not possibly see her from where he stood. The slave’s trail cut the bank less than twenty body-lengths ahead. If she did not move, did not give him any sign—

“I see you,” he whispered, and his tall shadow dipped and swayed like a Dancing ghost. “What are you doing here? Why haven’t you run away?”

“I am Cloud Playing! Daughter of Crow Beard and Night Sun! I’m trying to get home. I—”

“In Beauty it is begun,” he Sang in a deep and haunting voice. “In Beauty it is begun.”

A white haze showered down before her eyes, and she saw that it was sacred cornmeal. Three more handfuls fell, shimmering.

“What are you doing?” she demanded. “This is sacrilege!”

“In Beauty it is finished,” he Sang. “In Beauty it is finished.”

Terror shot through her soul—and she burst from cover like a hunted animal, stumbling over rocks, racing blindly for the cut in the bank. Rainwater ran down it, turning it into a silver swath. Just as she neared the crossing, black arms spread above her.

He leaped down the slave’s trail, swaying from side to side, his mask shining, and stood ten hands from her. In an agonized voice, he repeated, “I prayed you would not be here. Why are you here?”

She shook her fists. “I am just trying to get home!”

“I—I’m afraid.”

“Why? I’m not going to harm you!” Did she recognize that voice? It brimmed with such pain she couldn’t be certain. She glanced at the trail that sloped up out of the wash. “Let me go! Please, it’s important that I get to Talon Town. I must see to my mother.”

He tilted his head curiously. “Are you Solstice Girl?”

“S-Solstice Girl?” she asked in confusion. “What are you talking about? We won’t select a Solstice Girl for another three moons!”

He reached over his back and pulled up a bow and an arrow, which he calmly nocked.

“Wait … I—I’ll do anything you want! What is it you wish from me?” She backed warily away from him.

He gestured to the trail with his bow. “You … you go first. I will wait until you are at the top, then I will follow. Go!”

She flew by him, struggling up the slope.

Behind her he cried, “Oh, no! No!”

When she hit the top, she ran full speed across the muddy flats, gibbering in terror, her wet dress tangling about her legs as she headed for the torchlit brilliance of Talon Town.

She hadn’t made it twenty paces when the sharp sting lanced through her chest. She heard as well as felt the thumping impact, and staggered, almost losing her footing. Then the sting grew into a searing pain that burned white-hot through her lungs and left breast. After four more wobbling steps, she fell to her knees. Stunned, she didn’t understand at first. Then she looked down.

The translucent obsidian point had sliced through the fabric of her dress. It glittered just beneath her left breast. Confused, she reached up, fingering the razor point, surprised by how firmly it was planted in her body.

“I beg you,” he called. “Don’t fight me! I must do this thing quickly!”

Steps pounded on the wet sand. He crouched in front of her and peered at her through the eyeholes in the glorious sacred mask. It’s the Badger Thlatsina. Blue slashes rimmed the eyeholes, and a white line, bordered in red, ran down the center of his black face. Raven feathers fringed his head. The white teeth painted on his long black muzzle glowed. He carried a bow in his left hand and another arrow in his right.

The violent strength of the North lived in Badger’s bones.…

A terrible weight had grown in her chest, and blood bubbled on her lips. She coughed, and pain speared her.

Cloud Playing stared into the blue-rimmed wells of his eye sockets as he raised another arrow. The shaft hovered against the background of moonlit clouds.

He whispered, “You are Solstice Girl.”