People of the Nightland (North America's Forgotten Past) (7 page)

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

BOOK: People of the Nightland (North America's Forgotten Past)
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Windwolf said, “It will be dark soon. I have to cross the Lake River channels while I still have light.”
He thought of Headswift Village. Living in such a manner was a strange notion. His Sunpath People preferred hide-covered lodges in open meadows, or along rivers. In their lands, ten days’ run to the south, they had oaks, hickory trees, and walnuts. Here, at the edge of the Ice Giants, only pine and spruce seemed to flourish.
Silt said, “I’m fighting a losing battle, aren’t I? You’re not going to let me stay to guard your back.”
They stared at each other a moment, exchanging a silent communication.
Then Silt turned, face somber, and trotted back south, toward his people and a future Windwolf could no longer believe in.
O
ld Lookingbill, chief of the Lame Bull People, had once been blessed with a tall and robust body. In his old age, the muscle had faded, leaving only large bones and withered skin behind. What little hair he had left had gone silver-white, and his back had developed a slight hunch as the endless seasons wore him down. For this special night he wore a rich beaverhide cape over a beautifully tanned hunting shirt that hung to his knees. His feet were clad in high moccasins, the tops crafted from the neck hide of short-faced bear, tanned with the fur on.
He and his grandson, Silvertip, stood in the crowd that had gathered on one of the lower trails and gazed admiringly at the line of people carrying torches as they wound up the hill. The procession weaved through the boulders like a gleaming snake. On holy days the torches seemed to flare brighter, and the night smelled sweetly of burning spruce sap.
Headswift Village was an anomaly. He knew of no other place like it. In the hilly moraine country south of the Thunder Sea, it rose in a high prominence that gave a stunning vista of the Ice Giants to the
north. To the south the braided path of Lake River could be seen, and beyond it, the endless forests of the Sunpath People.
From the time he was a child, he had wandered through the maze of tunnels beneath the village, and wondered at the great rocks. Once he had even tried to make a smaller version of it, piling stones on top of each other and sifting dirt over the whole. The notion had lived with him since those boyhood days that just after the creation, giants had piled these huge rocks in the same fashion, though, as he aged, he’d come to the less-spectacular conclusion that the great pile of stone had been left behind by the retreating Ice Giants. He had seen similar formations melting out of the retreating ice.
For generations his people had lived here, seven days’ journey south of the Nightland camps that fringed the westernmost extent of the Thunder Sea. They had hunted and collected in the surrounding forests, bringing their catch, firewood, and other necessities back. Water was obtained from a spring just below the massive pile of rock.
The spring itself was a curious thing. In summer, as Loon Lake to the west rose, the spring’s flow increased, only to slow to a dribble by the end of winter. As a result, his people made offerings, dropping sprigs of evergreen into the pool as the flow diminished.
He, too, participated in making his offerings to the water even after he had surmised that it was the lake level rather than their need that determined the flow. Sometimes he wondered if his practical bent lessened the magic that others seemed so intent to enjoy.
“Wind Woman has a bite tonight. Are you warm enough, Silvertip?” He looked down at his grandson. The boy had seen ten and two summers, was slight of build, but tall and straight. Silvertip had always been a bit odd, introspective, and uninterested in the ways of the hunt. Nor had he shown much interest in the games other children played. Sometimes, when the boy was lost in his head, his eyes took on a distant sheen, as if picturing worlds beyond this one. When his aunt Mossy, the Storyteller, related the traditional tales, the boy literally seemed to glow, as if the words lived within his soul.
Silvertip looked up and smiled. “Grandfather, I’m always warm during the holy moon.”
A line of torches, carried by the warriors, was weaving through the boulders above them. Around them, people whispered, sharing the enchanting sight of the winding line of torches as they prepared to meet the equinox moon.
Lookingbill smiled. He wished he could be as filled with Power as his grandson. While he believed in the will of Wolf Dreamer, he had always been plagued by the practicality of leadership. “Come. Let us go and see the procession.”
They rounded a bend and looked up at the huge cavern formed by tens of toppled boulders. Soft golden light streamed from the entrance, dappling the rocks and throwing patchwork shadows across the landscape.
“Grandfather?”
“What is it, Silvertip?”
“Can I touch the Wolf Bundle?”
Lookingbill was aware of the amused people within earshot. “Someday, when you are a man and it becomes yours, you can touch it. Not yet.”
“But I’m almost a man now. Why can’t I just—”
“It was the gift of Wolf Dreamer himself to our people. It’s too Powerful for a boy to hold. It might kill you.”
Silvertip lowered his gaze to stare at the trail passing beneath his feet. “I remember, but—”
“I thought you did.”
“The Wolf Bundle is like the trail that leads to the skyworlds, isn’t it, Grandfather?”
“It’s more like tens of trails,” Lookingbill answered. “There are many paths to the One. The Wolf Bundle opens a different one to each person. Some lead to the future, others to the past.” He put a hand to his belt, where the bundle rested, warm and comforting in its protective pouch.
As they walked, Sister Moon rose over the ceremonial cave. Her light tarnished the drooping spruce branches and shadowed the trails. On this night, her light would gleam through an opening in the eastern side of their stone fortress and cast a thin white lance across the Council cavern.
So, too, did Father Sun as he pursued his path through the cycle of seasons, traveling north and then south, illuminating different parts of the rock warren.
Silvertip moved closer to Lookingbill, and fingered the worn leather of his sleeve. “Grandfather?”
Silvertip was persistent. Once he asked something, he never let it go.
“I’m listening.”
“Maybe you could just let me look at it?”
Every face in the crowd was fixed on the rising moon, but Silvertip only had eyes for the Wolf Bundle. “Later, during the Renewal ritual, all right?”
“Maybe now … and then I wouldn’t have to remember to ask later.”
“You think you might forget?”
Silvertip stared up at him, his eyes tight with longing. “Please, Grandfather?”
What is it about him and the Wolf Bundle? The boy is obsessed.
Lookingbill sighed, knelt in the ice-sheathed grass, and untied his belt pouch. As he pulled back the leather to reveal the sacred bundle, Silvertip came forward. The people who’d been walking behind them veered around, smiling. Children pointed and peeked at the bundle for as long as their parents would allow before moving on up the trail.
“Wolf Dreamer made it himself, didn’t he?” Silvertip asked.
“Yes, he did, after a fight with Grandfather White Bear.”
The bundle had originally been made of Grandfather White Bear’s hide and had held his claws. Lookingbill had never dared to open it; he had no idea what the bundle contained—though he frequently heard voices, soft and pleading, coming from within.
He said reverently, “Legends tell us that after Wolf Dreamer led the people up through the dark hole in the ice to this world of light, he placed other things in the bundle: a wolf’s tail and teeth, given to him by his Spirit Helper; a lock of hair from a woman he had loved with all his heart; and a stone point crafted by one of his friends. One story even says the bundle contains a fragment of a white mammoth hide—a very rare and precious thing.”
Mesmerized, Silvertip unconsciously reached out. Lookingbill grabbed his hand to keep it away. “Careful. You don’t want Wolf Dreamer to find you so soon.”
“He already knows where I am, Grandfather. You’ve told me so many times.”
“Yes, but he’d want to talk to you if you touched this.”
“I want to talk to Wolf Dreamer.”
“You just think you do. The things he tells you are not always good.” Lookingbill pulled the laces of his belt pouch tight again to hide the bundle. Silvertip watched intently.
“I know how to use the bundle. Did you know that, Grandfather?”
“Do you?”
“Yes,” Silvertip blurted excitedly. “You have to hold the Wolf Bundle to your heart and walk up the bright star trail to Wolf Dreamer’s Spirit Lodge in the skyworlds.”
“Usually, but sometimes Wolf Dreamer reaches out and grabs you by the throat when you least expect it. That’s why you can’t play with it. The Spirits always think you’re serious when you pick up the Wolf Bundle.”
Silvertip nodded. “Grandfather, tell me again about how the world used to be filled with sacred bundles? Raven Hunter’s bundle, and Dancing Fox’s bundle, and Ice Fire’s bundle. Tell me about how the Nightland clan Elders stole them all and put them in their ice caves—”
“You have more important stories to think about tonight. Like the fight between Wolf Dreamer and his evil brother Raven Hunter.”
Silvertip wet his lips. “Did the other bundles go to the skyworlds, too, Grandfather?”
Lookingbill sighed. “Since we have only the Wolf Bundle, no one knows where the others went. Now, you think about the battle between the Hero Twins.”
Silvertip took his hand. “Will you tell me the story?”
“What? Now? You can’t wait to hear it from your aunt Mossy?”
“No, please tell me. I want to hear the part about Wolf Dreamer fighting Grandfather White Bear.”
He smoothed the boy’s black hair and got to his feet with a grunt. His tired old legs ached as they resumed the climb toward the great cavern.
“I’ll tell you a little bit. I don’t want to spoil the ceremonial for you.”
“Thank you, Grandfather.” The boy beamed.
Lookingbill took a breath, and his voice grew deeper. “Long, long ago, our people lived on the edge of a great icy sea, a white world of immense beauty and danger. All was darkness. They called it the Long Dark. Then one day—”
“Wolf Dreamer and Raven Hunter were born!”
“I thought you wanted me to tell this story?”
“Don’t be difficult, Grandfather.” Silvertip mimed his mother’s voice, and it made Lookingbill laugh.
His youngest daughter, Dipper, had a gentle hand with children, too gentle perhaps, since Silvertip was growing up much too precocious.
“Grandfather, please, I want you to tell me about Wolf Dreamer. About how he fought the giant bear and rescued our Ancestors from their exile in the dark underworlds, then flew to the Creator, Old Man Above. Old Man Above gave Wolf Dreamer a huge pillar of fire to lead our people through the darkness—”
“I think you know the old stories better than I do. Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
“Grandfather,” Silvertip pleaded, eyes lingering on the pouch on Lookingbill’s belt. “You tell me. Like you do every winter.”
“I should be glad you want to know,” Lookingbill said half to himself. “Not very many people do anymore.”
While he had personal reasons to wish the Nightland Prophet dead, a sad reverie came over him. Since the coming of the Prophet, children were often stolen away. Those who managed to escape after several moons were never the same. While some returned to their beliefs, others who had met the Prophet remained skeptical. Raven Hunter had become their hero, and they longed to find the hole in the ice that led back to the Long Dark.
What Power does the Prophet wield that he can have such an effect on children, even after they have returned to their own?
Lookingbill longed to meet the man, to see for himself, but the Nightland People guarded their Prophet jealously. For good reason. Lookingbill, himself, would have loved nothing better than to drive a lance through the man’s evil heart. But for eyewitness accounts, Lookingbill could almost believe the alleged “Guide” was an overblown story.
He gazed up past the high boulders at the Blessed Star People. “That’s why we live here, isn’t it, Silvertip? To protect you.”
Before the coming of the Prophet, things had been easier. Now, no one trusted the Nightland People, or their thieving warriors who would pounce on an unattended child. Some had called for war in retribution for the kidnappings, but those cries had grown faint in the wake of Nightland victories among the always-scrappy Sunpath People. Now, for the most part, they waited, unsure of which course to pursue.
“You mean …” the boy asked in confusion, “you mean because Raven Hunter tried to kill Wolf Dreamer before he could lead our people up into the light of this world?”

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