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

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BOOK: Children of the Dawnland (North America's Forgotten Past Series)

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Grandfather tossed his stick into the fire and glared at it as it burned up. Finally, in a softer voice, he said, “You had another Spirit dream?”

“Yes, Grandfather.”

“What was it about?”

“I saw a flaming ball of light flying south through the night. It filled the entire sky. Screech Owl said that the Star People might be planning to make war on us. It scared him.”

Grandfather reached over and stroked her hair. “I’m sorry I raised my voice. I didn’t know you’d had another Spirit dream. Your mother didn’t tell me.”

Twig swallowed hard. “She … she doesn’t want anyone to know.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

Grandfather’s mouth tightened, as though it hurt him to hear that. “Twig, you must be kind to your mother. Spirit dreaming comes easy to you. After all the praying and fasting your mother has done, it’s hard for her to understand why Spirits are always walking in your dreams, and not hers. I think she’s a little jealous of you.”

Twig whispered, “But Grandfather, I don’t ask them to walk in my dreams.”

Grandfather put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it tenderly. “I know you don’t. But I suspect that’s why your mother doesn’t want you to see Screech Owl. She’s afraid you will become more powerful than she is, and the village will make you an outcast, just like Screech Owl.”

“But Grandfather, I—”

“I’m glad you told me about this, Twig. I need to warn the elders. Right now they are far more concerned with the Thornback raiders, but later they may want to question you.”

Twig nodded. “Screech Owl said they should know.”

“He’s right. Is there anything else you need to tell me?”

“No. Well … maybe that I invited Screech Owl to come to the Buffalo Way ceremony tonight. I asked Mother if she would talk to Chief Gill about it, but she wouldn’t. Now I’m afraid Screech Owl will come and people will throw things at him to make him go away.”

The wrinkles around Grandfather’s eyes got deeper. “I’ll talk to Chief Gill. I think he’ll allow it. He doesn’t mind seeing Screech Owl, so long as it’s on rare occasions.”

“Thank you, Grandfather.” She leaped to her feet to hug him around the neck.

When she sat down again, she saw Greyhawk studying the lines drawn into the dirt. He pointed at one and said, “Elder Halfmoon, are the Thornback People going to raid us?”

Grandfather reached out and felt for Greyhawk’s hand where it hovered over the line, then pulled Greyhawk’s fingers down to a rock. “Do you know the name of this village, young warrior?”

“That’s Starhorse Village,” Greyhawk said. “I went there with my father two summers ago, to trade beaver-hides for shell beads.”

Grandfather released his hand. “Well, you won’t be going there again. It no longer exists. The Thornback raiders destroyed it ten days ago.”

Greyhawk’s eyes went wide. He frowned at the rocks and the lines between them, as though following out the trails in his head, before he pulled two more rocks from the fire ring. As he placed them on the ground in a line with Starhorse Village, he said, “Did I do that right, Elder?”

Greyhawk took Grandfather’s hand and moved it down to touch the rocks.

Grandfather felt them, then felt the other rocks and said, “You did that perfectly. Do you understand what it means?”

With his eyes still on the rocks, Greyhawk said, “They’re coming up the lake trail, destroying every village in their way? It looks like Clearwater Village is next, or maybe Oakbeam Village.”

“It appears so.”

Greyhawk’s hand dropped to the spear on the ground at his side, as though he feared he might need it. “Why are they killing people?”

Grandfather paused and frowned. “They have a new
Spirit dreamer. His name is Nightcrow. He’s powerful and evil. I think he wants to destroy every other village in the world.”

“Then shouldn’t we pack up the village and move, just in case?” Greyhawk asked.

“I’ve already discussed that with our council of elders. There are too many people who do not agree with me. They’re frightened.”

Twig said, “But we need to move, Grandfather. Why are they frightened?”

Grandfather exhaled hard. “It’s springtime. The rivers and creeks are all flooded. Most of the trails are underwater. Not only that, bears have just started coming out of their dens. They’re starving, eager to hunt for food. If we move, there are those who believe many of our children and elders will die.”

Twig could feel the fear in the air.

She reached out and put her hand on Grandfather’s wrist. “Grandfather, maybe I can help. If I can just go see Cobia, she can help me understand my dreams, and then maybe I can
dream
the safest way for us to go.”

“Forget about Cobia. I’m not even sure she’s still alive. And the journey is extremely dangerous. There are raiders on the trails, and Grandfather Brown Bear’s people live all around her cave. We’d be torn apart and eaten before we got halfway there. Besides, Screech Owl taught Cobia to be a Spirit dreamer. He can teach you just as well as he did her.”

“But, Grandfather …” Twig almost couldn’t speak.
“I—I’m afraid to be a Spirit dreamer. Mother doesn’t want me to be, and she told me I could never go see Screech Owl again.”

Grandfather grabbed her hand and got to his feet. “Lead me to your mother. I’ll talk to her right now. She’ll let you study with Screech Owl, I promise.”

Their people, the People of the Dawnland, traced descent through the men. That meant that Grandfather was the leader of their family and had the last word. Whatever he told Mother to do, she had to, or the Blue Bear Clan elders would punish her severely.

As Twig led Grandfather back toward her lodge, she gave Greyhawk a terrified glance. She
needed
to understand her dreams, but she was afraid that Mother was right. If she became too powerful, her own people would be frightened of her, and might cast her out of Buffalobeard Village. Where would she go? Whom would she live with? Would she be alone for the rest of her life, as Screech Owl and Cobia were?

Twig suddenly felt lost and frightened, like her insides were melting.

CHAPTER 10

S
ITTING ALONE OUT on the treeless tundra, Chief Nightcrow heard steps pounding up the trail and opened his eyes. His Spirit vision died like mist on a hot day. War Chief Hook and a young warrior named Player trotted up the trail.

Nightcrow rose to his feet. The wind was cold on his face. He shivered. To the south, the forests had just started leafing out. A green haze whiskered the distances.

Images from his vision taunted him. He saw men screaming in fear, trying to protect their families; then he saw himself cleaning and preparing the bodies of the bravest of his warriors for the blessings of the afterlife.
The cowards, of course, would receive no such rites. On the contrary, he would send their souls spinning away into eternal darkness.

Nightcrow’s eyes narrowed. He was a man of spells and magical words, more feared than any other Spirit dreamer in the history of the Thornback People. He could kill with a look, or the lightest touch. When he’d been a boy, and his powers had first started to come, his own parents had tried to kill him. They had failed. Then the assassins sent by the chief had failed. Finally, an entire war party had vanished trying to track him through the snow.

Since then no one had dared try to harm him. He had seen thirty-three summers pass, married three wives, sired eleven children, and seen six grandchildren born in the past two summers. Life had been good. But the world was about to change.

The end was coming soon. In his visions, Nightcrow had seen the sky explode and the land burn. The dead scattered the charred ruins of villages like slaughtered animals, and hunger stalked the land. War broke out as people fought for the scraps from each other’s supper fires.

Nightcrow had already ordered Hook to start attacking their enemies first. His reasons were simple: If there were no other villages, there would be no fighting over scraps. His people would have everything.

Nightcrow inhaled a breath as Hook—a tall, muscular giant, with broken, yellow teeth—stopped before him
and bowed. Many scars cut across Hook’s face. He wore a knee-length black shirt, as did all Thornback warriors.

“Chief, forgive me for disturbing your visions, but important news has reached us.”

“What news?”

“Buffalobeard Village has sent out another war party. We think they are trying to find Cobia.”

A small thread of fear warmed Nightcrow’s veins. There was only one person in the world who frightened him. Cobia. “Cobia will not help them. She hates them. They stole her from her people and lied to her about it for nineteen summers. She wants the People of the Dawnland dead as much as I do.”

Young Player stepped forward. He was thin, with a long black braid dangling over his shoulder. His skin shone with sweat from his run across the tundra. “She may want the People of the Dawnland dead, my chief, but I have heard that there is one old man, the man who raised her, that she would die for. His name is Screech Owl. If he asked Cobia for help, she might agree.”

“Do you think so?”

“I think we must consider it, because if she agrees …”

“If she agrees … what?”

Player closed his mouth. He seemed to realize his mistake. The young warrior had just suggested that Cobia was more powerful than Nightcrow, that she might be able to defeat him and destroy the Thornback People.

Nightcrow’s gaze slid to Hook, seeing if his war chief understood the insult. Hook showed no emotion at all.
He was a wise man. That’s why he had ascended to the position of war chief.

Nightcrow walked to stand very close to Player. The warrior stiffened, and Nightcrow could smell his fear sweat. “You didn’t mean to suggest that Cobia was the most powerful Spirit dreamer alive, did you?”

Player nervously licked his lips. “No, my ch-chief, of course not. I would never—”

“Good.” He turned back to Hook. “What did you find at Starhorse Village?”

Hook frowned for an instant, then reached into his belt pouch and drew out a beautifully carved deer-bone stiletto. Nightcrow grabbed it, and power prickled across his palm. “This was their most powerful sacred object?”

“Yes, that’s what the survivors told us just before we killed them.”

Nightcrow studied the magical stiletto. Images of buffalo, mammoths, and birds covered the bone surface. It was a truly beautiful thing. Their Spirit dreamer must have cherished it.

Player leaned forward to stare at it, and Nightcrow plunged it into the young man’s throat. As blood shot from Player’s wounded artery, he fell onto Nightcrow with open arms. Nightcrow grunted and shoved him away. Player’s body thumped hard on the ground. Nightcrow watched him writhe for one hundred heartbeats, until the life went out of his eyes; then he turned back to face Hook.

“Was there anything else you wanted to tell me, War Chief?”

Hook clenched his fists at his sides and shook his head. “No.”

“Good. Find the Buffalobeard war party. Kill them. Then come back.”

“Yes, my chief.” Hook bowed, then trotted back down the trail toward the village.

Player’s blood soaked the carvings in the bone stiletto, making them appear to be alive. The prickling sensation of Spirit power grew.

Nightcrow exhaled a deep breath and closed his eyes. The wind on his cheek felt especially pleasant, the fragrance of the tundra wildflowers especially sweet.

He kicked Player’s dead body, sat down, and returned to his vision quest.

CHAPTER 11

T
WIG PANTED AS she scrambled up the massive pile of boulders on the eastern edge of Buffalobeard Village. Greyhawk, Grizzly, and Muskrat climbed above her. The dirt cascading from beneath their moccasins kept rolling down over her head. Twig spat gravel from her mouth and climbed faster.

After Grandfather Halfmoon had spoken with Mother, Mother had been very quiet for a while; then in a cold voice she’d ordered Twig to start carrying rocks for the defensive wall being built around the western side of village. Twig had carried rocks all afternoon, until her arms and back ached so badly she could barely straighten up. It
was only when Mother had to begin the preparations for the Buffalo Way ceremony that she’d released Twig to go and play. And Twig had the feeling that carrying rocks was only a small part of the punishment to come for telling Grandfather about her dreams.

In the village below, people laughed and walked around the central plaza. While quarters of buffalo roasted, suspended from heavy poles over the main bonfire, there were many smaller fires where racks covered with strips of goose meat and fish stood. The racks had been arranged over low fires. Then wet wood was added, causing a lot of smoke to rise and smoke the sweet meats to a golden brown.

“Hurry up, Twig!” Greyhawk called from the top of the rocks. His chin-length black hair glistened with sweat. He waved impatiently, and Yipper barked at her. “We’re going over!”

Grizzly propped his fists on his hips and sneered over the edge at Twig. “Come on, girl!” Grizzly yelled, and turned to the other boys to say, “Let’s leave her. She’s been hauling rocks all day. She’s too tired to keep up.”

“I’m coming!” Twig cried as she watched the boys charge over the rocks and out of sight. At the top of her lungs, she added, “I’m the oldest. I should be the leader!”

No one answered.

She slid her knee onto the next ledge and dug her fingers into the crevices to pull herself up, but the rocks gave way, and she slipped and fell, landing hard on a lower ledge. Blood trickled warmly from a scraped knee. She
bit her lip to drive back the hurt and tackled the rock face again, climbing until she could crawl over the top ledge.

The boys were huddled together, shoulder to shoulder, behind a rock thirty paces away. They butted each other playfully as they fought for the best position.

Twig got up and trotted toward them, but her steps faltered when she realized where they were. They must be looking down on the dressing area of the masked dancers. The dancers would conjure the Spirits of the buffalo in tonight’s ceremony. If they did everything right, with reverence, the buffalo would smile upon them, and bring their herds north where Twig’s people could hunt them and use their meat to feed their families.

She bent low and sneaked up on cougar-silent feet to see what occupied them so thoroughly. On the grassy flat below the rocks, two women stood painting each other’s faces with bright red spirals.

Twig called, “You turkey brains! Do you want to ruin the ceremony? You know nobody’s supposed to see the dancers until they come into the plaza tonight. You’re bringing bad luck. Do you want the buffalo to go away forever, like the mammoths have?”

Shamed, Greyhawk slid backward on his hands and knees, but Grizzly grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him back up.

Greyhawk let out a yowl while he chopped at the bigger boy’s meaty hands. “Quit that, Grizzly! Let me go!”

When Grizzly laughed, Yipper went into a barking,
snarling frenzy and leaped for Grizzly’s hand where it held Greyhawk.

Grizzly shrieked, let go of Greyhawk in the nick of time, and ran backward to get away. Yipper positioned himself between the boys and stood with his teeth bared, growling at Grizzly. The hair on his back stood straight up in a black bristly line.

“What are you doing listening to a girl?” Grizzly shouted, and looked at his hand to make sure he still had all of his fingers. “What does she know?”

Twig narrowed her eyes. “A lot more than you do, ugly boy, at least about our sacred ceremonies. My mother is the village Spirit dreamer and the keeper of the Wolf Bundle.”

“So what?” Grizzly shouted. “She doesn’t have any power.”

“Yes, she does!” Twig yelled back.

Grizzly threw his huge shoulders back and stalked toward Twig like Grandfather Brown Bear walking on his hind legs.

She let out a yell and ran.

Grizzly was right behind her, chasing her down like Wolf does Mouse. When she jumped a bush to reach the trail that led back to the village, her hurt knee gave way, and she fell against a pile of boulders, a little dizzy.

Grizzly bawled in triumph as he dove for her, but Twig somehow scooted out of his way, rolled to her feet, and stood with her jaw thrust out and her fists up. “Stop it, Grizzly, or I’ll break your nose again!”

Greyhawk and young Muskrat raced up as Grizzly kicked Twig in her sore knee. When she screamed, he grabbed her hand and growled, “Now I’ve got you!”

He swung his clenched fist at her cheek. Twig ducked and rammed her head into his stomach, then sank her teeth into his hand before flinging herself backward to break his grip.

Grizzly roared in pain, stared at his bloody hand, and shouted to his friends, “Come on! Let’s get her!”

Greyhawk glanced at Twig, then at Grizzly, trying to decide whose side to take. Muskrat, who had seen only eight summers, didn’t have much courage yet, so he jumped from foot to foot as though totally confused. His long black braid dangled in a fuzzy mass over his left shoulder.

Twig braced herself for the battle. “Greyhawk! Help me. You’re my best friend!”

“I know it!” he said, but he made no move to run to her side.

“Your best friend is a girl!” Grizzly taunted. “You’ve got the brain of a tree stump! Come on, Muskrat, help me get her!”

Muskrat gritted his teeth so hard in indecision that his head shook. Finally, he ran to Grizzly’s side.

Twig almost wet herself. She glared at Greyhawk, trying to look fierce but knowing that her expression quickly changed to pleading. “Greyhawk? Your grandfather was my great uncle’s third cousin!”

It meant that Twig and Greyhawk were only very distantly
related, but she was still praying that kinship might work.

Greyhawk blinked, apparently trying to remember if that was right; then he grudgingly nodded and trotted to stand beside her. Throwing out his chest, he declared, “Leave my cousin alone!”

Twig grinned at Grizzly, but he didn’t seem to appreciate her accomplishment. He hunkered down, spread his arms like Falcon ready to soar into the sky, and roared, “All right. We’re coming!”

Grizzly and Muskrat lunged for them. Greyhawk kicked out, catching Grizzly in the knee, but Grizzly only stumbled. When he regained his balance, he whirled around and slammed a fist into Greyhawk’s back that sent him sprawling across the ground like a dead spider.

Twig planted her feet, preparing for Muskrat’s attack. He ran straight at her, yelling with his mouth wide open, so she took her fist and jammed it down his throat. His teeth made a crunching sound at the same time that her hand split in agony.

“Ach!” Muskrat screamed and backed off to wipe his bloody mouth on his sleeve. “You broke one of my front teeth!”

“You deserved it!” Twig stared at her bloody knuckles, shook them to fight the pain, and spun to face Grizzly, who had managed to drive Greyhawk ten paces up the slope and was coming back for her.

“Don’t do it, Grizzly!” she threatened. In a stroke of genius, she pointed at the sky. “Eagle-Man is my Spirit
Helper. If you hurt me, I’ll call out to him and he’ll come and carry you all the way up to the Cloud People before he drops you on Buffalobeard Village! There will be nothing left of you but a pile of bony mush with a tongue sticking out!”

Grizzly laughed—a low, disbelieving laugh—and kept coming. “You’re only twelve. You’re too young to have a Spirit Helper.”

“I am not too young. Cobia had Spirit Helpers when she had seen two summers!” Twig called, and refused to give ground. She grabbed up a rock and stood with her knees trembling, thinking it was probably a good day to die.

As his shadow fell over her, a large rock plunged out of the blue and smacked Grizzly in the ear.

He screamed, “Ow!” and staggered backward.

A tall figure wearing a kestrel mask rose with ghostly stealth from behind one of the rocks up the slope. Grey and white feathers sleeked down over the thing’s face and formed a ruff around its neck. Twig’s eyes went wide. She knew it wasn’t Eagle-Man, but she doubted Grizzly did.

Grizzly backed up and shouted, “Get away from me, Spirit!”

The figure crept down the hill, and his huge wooden beak slowly creaked open, showing glimpses of a puckered mouth beneath. Then a high-pitched shriek flooded out, sounding so real that Grizzly stood petrified.

In a flash, the figure swooped down the slope, holding
out the woven edges of its rabbit-fur cape like wings, screaming something nobody could understand.

Grizzly clutched at his heart with one hand and his wounded ear with the other before dashing down the path toward the village with Muskrat wailing behind him.

Greyhawk slipped his spear into the hooked end of his atlatl and lifted it as he ran back to defend Twig against the masked Spirit creature. “Stay back!” he shouted, ready to cast.

Twig couldn’t believe it. Greyhawk had never done anything like this before. He must be learning a lot in his clan warriors’ school.

The Spirit creature propped age-spotted hands on bony hips and said, “Twig. Greyhawk. You should stay away from Grizzly. He has a twisted soul. Did you know his grandmother used to suck fish eyes for fun? She kept a batch rolling around in her cheeks all day long. I never did like her.” He reached up and tugged off the mask, revealing Screech Owl’s white-painted face. Black streaks ran below his eyes, just like they did Kestrel’s. A single gray spot covered the middle of his forehead.

“Screech Owl!” Twig shouted in glee and ran to grab him around the waist. “When did you get here? I thought you would wait until nightfall, when people couldn’t see you so well.”

Screech Owl grinned. “No, no. This way if people chase me out of the village, I can still make it back to my cave before midnight.”

“No one is going to chase you. It took Grandfather
most of the afternoon to convince Chief Gill that it was all right for you to come, but he finally agreed. You’re safe here.”

The lines at the corners of his eyes crinkled. “It was kind of Halfmoon to ask him. And kind of you, Twig, to ask him for me.”

She patted his arm affectionately. “I wanted you here.”

Screech Owl put a hand on top of her head, paused for several moments, and asked, “Who is Eagle-Man?”

A shiver climbed Twig’s spine. “He told me he’s my Spirit Helper.”

“He came to you in a dream?”

“Yes. Last night.”

Screech Owl’s bushy white brows drew together. “What did he look like?”

“He was very strange. He had a bird’s wings and beak, but a human body with snakeskin.”

Screech Owl’s gaze searched the horizon, as though thinking about that. Finally, he looked down at her. A somber expression lined his elderly face. “You have a very powerful Spirit Helper, Twig. Remember that. The most powerful Helpers combine many worlds in themselves: human, reptile, bird. The more worlds they combine, the more powerful they are. You are very fortunate.”

Twig nodded. “I’ll remember.”

The crimson face of Father Sun hung a hand’s breadth from the horizon. In the stillness, she could hear voices climbing the slope—soft voices, as if the approach of the
ceremony turned the world as frail as a blossom, so that it had to be treated gently.

Twig said, “We should be going. The ceremony starts at nightfall. We don’t want to be late. Mother is already mad at me.”

“Why?”

“I told Grandfather about my dreams. As punishment Mother made me carry rocks all afternoon.”

Screech Owl frowned, but he didn’t say anything. They took the trail down to Buffalobeard Village.

BOOK: Children of the Dawnland (North America's Forgotten Past Series)

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