Children of the Dawnland (North America's Forgotten Past Series) (15 page)

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Authors: Kathleen O'Neal Gear,W. Michael Gear

BOOK: Children of the Dawnland (North America's Forgotten Past Series)
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T
WIG SAT ON her bedding hides with her chin propped atop her knees. The Stone Wolf was whispering to the yellow spider painted on Mother’s medicine bundle. She strained to understand the words. Strange that she had never heard them talking before. But Power was loose on the night. She could feel it nipping at her skin with tiny fangs.
She fiddled with the sleeves of Screech Owl’s green ritual shirt, tugging at the fringes while she studied Screech Owl and Mother. They sat cross-legged near the fire.
If Twig had to listen to their silence much longer, she wouldn’t be able to breathe. What had they said to
each other on the way to the lodge? Something bad. Mother’s face looked stormy as she filled bowls with grouse stew. Screech Owl wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he was drawing magical signs in the hard-packed dirt floor.
Is that what the Stone Wolf and the spider were discussing? Their voices had dropped even lower.
Twig turned to watch the lodge flap sway in the wind. Every now and then, when Wind Woman shoved the flap open, she glimpsed Moon Maiden’s face sitting above the rocky ridge. The tumbled boulders stood like dark sentinels against the silver undercoat of moonlight.
“Riddle,” Screech Owl said very softly, and Twig took a deep breath. “You don’t have to believe us, but—”
“I don’t believe you,” Mother responded in a low, shaky voice. Anger and hurt flashed in her eyes. “I think you’ve taught Twig enough. Maybe I won’t let her go back to see you ever again!”
The deep wrinkles around Screech Owl’s eyes tightened. “Dreamers are not made in a few days, Riddle. If Twig has to learn on her own, the pain will probably drive her away from dreaming. Power has chosen her. This is not something you or I have a say in. She will be a Spirit dreamer. The only choice we have is whether or not to help her. If we leave her to stumble around trying to find her own way—”
“Some people do better stumbling around than being guided by a crazy old fool.”
Tears stung Twig’s eyes. She just wanted Screech Owl
to teach her for a little while longer—she didn’t want to hurt Mother.
Mother tramped across the lodge, tugged the Stone Wolf from her medicine bundle, then walked back and knelt before Twig. The Wolf had a new leather thong on it, turning it into a necklace.
Mother’s eyes looked blacker than black when she said, “See this, Twig? I made this so you could wear it when you got home.” She draped the thong over Twig’s head.
Twig shuddered when the Stone Wolf fell over her heart. Threads of power seeped from the Wolf and soaked into her chest. She barely heard Mother say, “The Wolf will help Twig, Screech Owl. She no longer needs you.”
“But Riddle …”
A ragged scream shredded the night.
Screech Owl whirled around to look at the door curtain.
Just when he started to rise, war cries rose out of nowhere. The high-pitched shrills slipped up and down like someone playing a bone comb with a chokecherry stick.
Someone cried,
“It’s the Thornback raiders! Grab your weapons!”
Screech Owl dove for the door, jerked the flap aside, and peered out at the night.
Twig could see them, and she knew immediately that she was too late! Too late to tell Grandfather or the elders what she’d learned. Too late to stop them!
As the raiders ran through the village, casting their flaming spears into the lodges, they looked like black
scraps of cloth flying on the wind. Lodges burst into flame, and people scrambled out to run.
The ghostly black raiders yipped and fell on the old men, women, and children alike, chasing them down.
A flaming spear landed on the roof of Twig’s lodge.
“Fire!” Mother screamed. Smoke rose in a gray haze and started to fill the lodge. “Screech Owl, our lodge is on fire!”
“Riddle, grab Twig! We’ll have to break through the poles on the back of the lodge to get out.”
“But they’ll be watching!” Mother cried in terror. “You know they will. They’re probably waiting for us to—”
“It’s our only chance!”
Twig shouted, “Look!” and pointed at the roof.
Screech Owl lunged for Twig and knocked her back against the wall as a burning section of roof poles toppled into the lodge.
When Twig sat up, she saw Mother’s arm, twisted at an impossible angle in the midst of the flames. “Screech Owl. Save Mother! Help Mother!”
The fire roared, searing Screech Owl’s face until he had to close his eyes. Roughly, he grabbed Twig’s hand, dragged her to the back of the lodge, and jerked the frame poles apart. “Run and hide, Twig!” he shouted as he shoved her outside. “If I don’t come to find you soon, remember what your Spirit Helpers have told you. Their words may save all of us!” He leaped back into the burning lodge.
Twig stood rigid, staring at her lodge. In terror, she cried, “Screech Owl! Mother! Where are you?”
No one answered.
Twig put her hands over her mouth to stifle her sobs and dashed out into the night.
Everywhere dark eerie warriors were chasing after running, screaming people.
Twig climbed up into the rocks, trying to find a good place to hide. Firelight reflected across the boulders, swirling like monstrous creatures with fiery wings.
Twig stumbled over a rock, regained her balance, and ran again until she could crawl into a thick brier of old bushes, where she fell to her knees. She watched in horror as enemy warriors shoved Screech Owl through the village plaza. He was carrying Mother in his arms. Her body, legs dangling, hung limply. She watched until they disappeared into the darkness. Was Mother dead?
A fist tightened around Twig’s heart.
Mother? Mother, don’t leave me!
Twig gasped desperate breaths of the cold, smoky air while she tried to spot anyone else she knew. Warriors floated around the charred skeletons of lodges.
“Greyhawk, where are you? Eagle-Man, let him be all right. Oh, Grandfather. Grandfather, where are you?”
Twig crawled to the far end of the brush to see the village from a different angle, and she spied eight raiders creeping through the darkness. They seemed to be checking the base of the rocks for survivors. They flushed a mouse that darted away into the firelight crevices; then Old Man Blood Duck jumped out and tried to run on his maimed leg. One of the raiders pounced on him and
clubbed him in the head. The old man crumpled to the ground like a rabbit-fur doll. Twig’s heart thundered.
They’re going to find me. I have to run. But if I stand up, they’ll see me. What … ?
Suddenly, she knew. She flopped on her stomach and slithered through the brush, as silent as Water Snake, her movements hidden by the wavering dance of shadows.
G
REYHAWK HID BEHIND the low rock wall west of Buffalobeard Village, watching the lodges burn.
All around him, ash fell like black snowflakes.
Raiders stalked around, kicking dead bodies, spearing the wounded to make sure they would not rise again. Groans and hideous shrieks rang out.
Greyhawk was shaking so badly he could barely stand.
Yipper, who stood at his side, let out a low growl, and Greyhawk panicked. He grabbed Yipper’s jaws hard and held them together, hissing, “No! Don’t make a sound!”
Yipper stared up at him with wide eyes, but he seemed
to understand. When Greyhawk let go, Yipper sat on his haunches and kept quiet.
Greyhawk moved along the boulders until he could see farther to the east. The raiders had captured several children. He saw Rattler, Buzzard, Little Cougar, and Black Locust huddling together. Two men guarded them. The raiders must be planning on marching them home as slaves. Where were the other children? He saw two dead boys lying on the far side of the village, near the stone wall. Who were they? Which friends?
Ten paces away from the children, Screech Owl sat with seven adults. The old man had his shoulders hunched, staring down at the woman who lay unconscious across his lap. Twig’s mother? Greyhawk couldn’t see very well, but he thought that’s who it was.
“Where’s Father?” he whispered to himself. “Where’s Elder Halfmoon, Searobin, and our other warriors? Where’s Twig?”
He didn’t see any of them, alive or dead.
Raiders encircled the villagers, holding their nocked atlatls up, ready to cast. Only one raider stood inside the circle with the villagers … and he was big. Tall, and muscular, and dressed all in black, he looked like one of the giants from the Old Stories. All of the raiders had covered their faces with soot. The only thing Greyhawk could make out clearly was their eyes, shining in the firelight.
The big raider walked over and kicked Screech Owl hard in the ribs. “You, what’s your name?”
“Screech Owl. What’s yours?”
Had the old man’s eyes and beaked nose grown bigger? They seemed enormously large in the thin frame of his face. His tan shirt was filthy, covered with dark streaks of charcoal.
“What do you know about a Spirit object called the Stone Wolf? It’s supposed to live in Buffalobeard Village. Have you ever heard of it?”
“Oh, yes,” Screech Owl said, and mopped his forehead with his torn sleeve. “It did live here, many summers ago. But it vanished.”
“What do you mean it vanished?”
“Someone stole it. Quite a long time ago. Isn’t that what happened, Riddle?”
The woman lying in his lap turned to glower at the big raider. Her mouth moved, but Greyhawk couldn’t hear her answer. Her voice must be very weak. At least she was alive.
The big raider slapped his atlatl against his leg. “I don’t believe you. Our chief told us there was a Stone Wolf here and that it possessed great power.”
“Well, if it was here,” Screech Owl remarked reasonably, “it certainly didn’t possess much power. Look what happened to Buffalobeard Village.”
The other raiders burst out laughing and gestured to the smoking lodges, but the big man didn’t seem amused.
He pointed his atlatl at Screech Owl’s gray head. “We’ve been gathering every Spirit object we can find. We want that Stone Wolf, and the girl who possesses it.”
Screech Owl went rigid. “What girl?”
As though annoyed by the question, the raider gripped Screech Owl’s shoulder and shoved him backward. Twig’s mother covered her head, expecting a blow. “We have to find that Wolf. I know a little girl has it. Where is it? What have you done with it?”
Screech Owl tucked his hands into the folds of his shirt, but before he did, Greyhawk saw them shake. After a few moments, Screech Owl asked, “What do you want with all these Spirit objects?”
The big raider leaned down and grinned at Screech Owl with broken, yellow teeth. “Our chief, the Blessed Nightcrow, has foreseen the destruction of our world. In his vision, a giant ball of light sets the forests on fire, the Ice Giants turn black, and war breaks out. He’s going to use the power in the Spirit objects to kill all of you before you can attack us in the scramble for what is left of the food.”
“Really? Does he know how to extract the power? That’s not as easy as it sounds. Believe me, I know. Is Nightcrow that powerful?”
“He is the Thornback People’s most powerful Spirit dreamer. And once he has stolen all the sacred objects from his enemies, he will be the most powerful dreamer in the world.”
“And the girl? Why does he need her?” Screech Owl said.
Hook shrugged. “He does. That is all I know, or need to know. She must be very power—”
A hoarse shout rent the night, and Greyhawk almost
screamed he was so frightened by it. He desperately peered through the rocks to see what was happening.
Near the eastern ridge on the far side of the village, one of the raiders pulled a child and a man from the darkness and dragged them into the glow of the burning lodges.
“Stop it, let me go!” the boy shouted.
Grizzly! It’s Grizzly!
The raider hauled Grizzly by the scruff of his neck while he twisted wildly, kicking, biting, trying to wrench free of the man’s iron hands.
Grizzly’s father, Black Star, had been wounded. He was dragging his right foot, and blood soaked his pant leg.
“Let me go!” Grizzly screamed, and sank his teeth into the raider’s hand.
“You little wildcat!” the raider shouted, and lifted his war club to kill Grizzly.
Before he could land the blow, Black Star leaped upon the raider, and they toppled to the ground in a rolling, fighting blur. Both men roared at the tops of their lungs.
Three other raiders ran forward and began beating Black Star with their war clubs. It took less than ten heartbeats for Black Star to collapse on the ground.
Grizzly stood as though frozen in shock, staring at his father’s brain where it was visible through the crack in his skull.
The raider who had threatened Grizzly got to his feet and lunged at Grizzly to finish the job and kill him.
The big raider shouted, “No, Chub! Wait. Bring him here.”
“What for?”
“Because I said so!”
Chub lifted his war club, ready to strike Grizzly despite his war chief’s orders. “He’s a little animal, Hook. The sooner we kill him, the better!”
Another warrior, a very tall man, grabbed Grizzly and dragged him away from Chub, which obviously enraged Chub. He glared pure death at the insolent warrior.
“Here he is,” the tall man said, and shoved Grizzly down at Hook’s feet.
“Good work, Shrike,” Hook praised, and studied Grizzly. “Children are less skilled at lying. Perhaps he knows where the Stone Wolf is.”
Grizzly scrambled to his knees, breathing hard, and stared at his dead father, as though expecting him to rise.
“What’s your name?” Hook demanded to know.
“Grizzly.” His voice broke and tears filled his eyes.
“Grizzly, what happened to the Stone Wolf?”
“Why don’t you ask her?” Grizzly responded, pointing at Twig’s mother. “Her name is Riddle. She’s the keeper of the Wolf Bundle.”
Hook didn’t deign to glance at Screech Owl or Riddle. He motioned for Chub to step back and knelt before Grizzly, staring hard into his terrified eyes. “Which lodge belonged to Riddle?”
Grizzly thrust out his arm to show where it was.
Hook looked up, and Chub said, “We searched it. We found nothing valuable in the ashes.”
Hook turned back to Grizzly. “Where could it be if it wasn’t in her lodge?”
Grizzly stared at his dead father, and tears streamed down his face. “M-Maybe Twig has it.”
Greyhawk thought he was going to throw up.
“Twig?” Hook almost shouted. He looked excited. “The girl’s name is Twig? Where is she?”
“I don’t know. I—I saw her run away.”
Hook rose to his feet and ordered, “Spotted Skull, take five warriors. Tell our men they are hunting for a little girl. We’ll finish the job here; then we’ll join you in the search.”
“Yes, Hook.”
Greyhawk silently eased back into the shadows and, shaking badly, leaned against the cold rocks. Hook was splitting his forces. Greyhawk’s father had told him a war chief should never do that unless he had a lot of warriors to spare. Greyhawk counted twenty-one Thornback raiders. With six gone, that left fifteen. If only his father were here … .
Yipper stood up and nosed Greyhawk’s arm. He didn’t seem to be breathing, just waiting for a command.
Greyhawk let out a shaky breath. He had to find Twig before the raiders did. He’d known Twig all his life. He knew her favorite hiding places. He could find her—but how could he get away and start looking without the raiders seeing him?
Greyhawk motioned for Yipper to follow and crawled along in the shadows of the boulders, with Yipper at his heels. Pure black, Yipper blended with the darkness.
When Greyhawk had only ten paces left to reach the eastern ridge, he saw the gap in the defensive wall. He had to cross there, but he would be in full view of the raiders if he did.
“Oh, Yipper,” he whispered. “We’re in trouble.”
Yipper cocked his ears. He knew that tone of voice; it meant he should be afraid, and he understood perfectly. He went stone still.
Greyhawk got down flat on his stomach and motioned for Yipper to do the same. Side by side, they slid across the ground on their bellies until they reached the gap. It was about as long as Greyhawk was tall. If he could just …
“Did you think you could escape?”
a man roared from behind him.
Greyhawk spun around. The raider had his war club up, ready to swing it at Greyhawk’s head.
Greyhawk opened his mouth to scream … just as Yipper sprang out of the darkness, knocked the raider to the ground, and leaped for the man’s throat. When he clamped his powerful jaws around the man’s neck, a horrifying blend of snarls and screams erupted.
Greyhawk lunged into the darkness and ran with all his might.
Hook spun and shouted, “Netsink?”
Two warriors charged out to help their friend, and the sounds of clubs striking flesh rose. Yipper’s snarls turned into shrieks of pain, then suddenly stopped.
Hook must have seen Greyhawk. He shouted,
“There’s a boy! Catch him!”

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