Shadow Valley (33 page)

“No,” Fire Ant said. “We run as hunters.”

Frog peered into his brother’s face and suddenly understood. The empty right eye, the scars marring his beauty, twisting the lips that had kissed him so often … he seemed a ghost of the man he knew. “I see. You hope to win the tribe.”

“It is our way,” Ant said.

“What of you and me?”

Ant’s face was neutral. “We decide that later.”

“Where? Across the valley floor?” Down the slope, the tea bush chaparral and flowering cactus gave way to grasses, and that to acacia and date palms,
and glistening streams and ponds surrounded by lazy herds of buffalo and flocks of pink-backed pelicans. The morning clouds shaded the grasses, so beautiful. His eyes thirsted for the sight. So strange, how easy it was to take such wonder for granted.

“No,” Ant said. “This valley is a good place, a home for our people. It might be best not to poison it with our … sweat.”

Don’t you mean blood, Brother?

Frog studied Ant for a long time and then nodded. “I cannot say no.
My people!”

The other men began to gather around. If he asked, they would defend him. But that would cripple what little authority he had. That would destroy the myth of Ant, the man who had returned from the dead. Which would mean that Frog was a liar.

And that might begin the end of everything. The decision was simple. “We run together,” Frog said, and raised his voice. “Fire Ant challenges me.”

T’Cori abandoned her morning meal and went to find Frog. Her beloved was at the edge of camp. He lay facedown on the ground, tensed his gut and raised his hips, scooting his knees forward then allowing his body to ripple forward. One segment of his spine curled forward at a time, like cracking a whip. He twisted and turned to his limit, then relaxed a bit and went in the other direction. Frog rolled back over one shoulder and then another, then braced himself against a tree, raised his hips high and pushed his heels back against the ground.

So many times she had held Frog. So many times the strength and agility in his body had saved her life. So many times she had bathed it, soothed his wounds, kneaded his muscles, wrapped her legs around his hips to pull him more deeply into her.

No matter how she fought for control, tears welled in her eyes.

When Frog stopped, his fine young body gleamed with sweat. He smiled at her, but there was no real warmth or hope in it, only resignation.

“Frog,” she whispered, trying to remain strong for him, “can you win?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. Honest to the end, her Frog. “He hurt his leg, and that may be enough. But I think it won’t be. Could he have come all this way if the leg was weak? He does not limp.” Had Father Mountain actually given him new bones? Could Frog be so certain Ant had not died on the mountain?

“Why does that matter?”

“Because,” Frog said, “if he limped, if he thought his legs weak, he would have found another way. I think his leg is strong. I think I lose today, and die tomorrow.”

Oh, Frog. How could I have ever dreamed that there could have been another man for me? You, only you, see life as it is. Or see me, at all. Without you, I walk my life alone. “
No matter what happens,” T’Cori said, “I am your woman. Your children and I love you. Will always love you.”

He rested his forehead against hers, brushing their lips together. “As I love you. It is time.”

Fire Ant and Frog walked up the ridge, standing on the flattened top just as the sun was sung to life on their right, out to the east. The dream dancers and their ancient song rang in Frog’s ears. He glanced at his brother. Would Fire Ant hear the magic in their song? Certainly, no matter what had happened between them, Fire Ant remembered what they had been to each other. Certainly their shared and precious childhood still lived in his brother’s dreams.

Surely he would hear the voices and be swayed. He glanced over at his brother, hoping to see a smile or any flicker of softness on the beloved face.

Nothing. Only hard purpose lived in the eye that had once loved him. Frog’s heart cooled. He knew in that moment that his single hope was no hope at all.

“It is time,” Ant said, and Frog nodded.

Side by side, they trotted down the slope to the plain north of Shadow Valley, allowing their pace to accelerate naturally as the footing improved, until they were running comfortably side by side.

On other days, the thought of running with his beloved brother would have seemed a wonderful dream. But this …

“Do you see the tree?” Ant pointed at a horn-pod tree standing alone on the northern horizon.

“We run around and back?” Frog asked.

Ant nodded.

And with those words, talk ended. The brothers ran. At the beginning, each merely grooved their pace, not trying to best each other. This was the time for each to take the other’s measure. Ant’s stride seemed natural and strong, his shoulders relaxed, the rhythm of hip and heel a hunter’s song. Soon, they began to speed until the breath burned in their throats. Hyena running,
hun-huh-huh
, forcing each stride to push a little air out of their lungs.

Ant increased his pace, and Frog increased his in turn, drawing slightly
ahead of his brother. Was this where he wanted to be? In front, where his back might tempt Ant’s knife? Even now, could Ant’s hand be rising for the death stroke?

Frog turned his head to the right, intending to look back over his shoulder for a glimpse … when he saw something odd against the horizon, and skidded to a halt.

“Stop, Brother,” he said and then hunched down.

Fire Ant took several more steps, then stopped and walked back. “What is it?” He panted. “Do you yield the tribe?”

“Look,” Frog said, and pointed east.

At the horizon’s edge, silhouetted below the sun, five squat figures lumbered westward. He would not have seen them if the light had not been just
so.
He would have recognized that gait at twice the distance.

Mk*tk.

Frog heard his brother’s sudden intake of breath. The two of them turned and ran back south, grateful for the sheltering shadows.

By the time they had climbed back over Shadow Valley’s ridge, their throats burned and their sides ached. Frog felt as if every nightmare that had plagued him for a year and more had suddenly collided, exploded like Great Sky’s peak, spewing a vast pale cloud of raw, blinding terror.

“The Mk*tk come!” Frog screamed. The tribe was gathered across the slope, hands of hands of them scraping hides, curing meat, sharpening and repairing spears, building huts. When his calls echoed from the rocks, they put down their tasks and tools and gathered around him.

“Why? Why do they follow us here?” Ember asked, staring at Fire Ant as she said it. Ant couldn’t meet her eyes.
She knew.

“I killed their women,” Ant said. “Their children.”

“Their … children?” Ember whispered, holding her own babe tightly to her breast. “How could you do such a thing?”

Fire Ant’s mouth worked, but he spoke no words.

Frog screamed into that void. “Brothers and sisters! The day we feared has come. Today we must fight or die!”

T’Cori gathered the women and children together and guided them to the center of a circle surrounded by hunters, even as the baboons had once protected their own softness. So many lives. So many children. Would all be lost? Was there no way at all to survive this?

Most hunters stood between their women and the ridge above. Mk*tk could swarm down from the top far quicker than they could cross the valley floor. How long would they be able to resist the onslaught? T’Cori’s breath would not come. Ember came to her, bringing her unnamed child.

“I will keep Medicine Mouse with me,” Ember said, “but the new child …” She looked away. “If it goes wrong, it may be best for you to name her and send her home.”

Yes. Any name at all would be better than none. With a name, Great Mother would know her daughter and welcome her. With a name, Father Mountain might spare a set of bones for the child, that T’Cori might hold her girl again, in the next world.

Perhaps.

Oh, Mother, that it had come to this.

Would their enemy find them? Was it at all possible that those Mk*tk hunters had come upon them merely by accident?

And … how many were there?

The wind shifted, carrying with it a song such as Frog had never heard. No Ibandi throat had ever wailed so. The voices were deeper, stronger, less musical, more like toneless chants than music.

“Death song,” Sister Quiet Water said.

“What is that?” Uncle Snake asked her.

She spit eastward, toward Great Sky. “It is what they do when they wish to die killing their enemies. When they think that there is nothing that they wish so much as to die killing. How many hunters do we have?”

“Four tens old enough to fight.”

“Not enough,” Frog said, and rubbed his hand over his face. He tried to think of another answer, and failed.

Another thought crossed his mind. He wanted to banish it, but could not, and the more he thought about it the more certain he became.

He had to either recruit the Vokka to his cause or else give their new friends the chance to flee.

Her unnamed, newborn infant girl suckling at her breast, T’Cori followed Frog and Leopard Paw to the base of the valley’s eastern rim. Every small pull of the precious mouth against her nipple was like the tug of life itself.

Beneath a sheltering of palm trees, some hands of hands of their thick-faced, slow-moving friends were encamped. At first Kiya welcomed her with a gap-toothed smile and open arms. Then her husband saw Frog’s face.

“I come to you for help,” Frog said.

One hand clutching her infant to her breast, T’Cori translated Frog’s words with gestures and dancing hips. She slipped into a trance, floating up above her body, watching her own actions.

Once, upon the mountain, she had stood on ice above a lake of fire. That was where and what she was now: a woman standing above a lake of burning emotion, feeling only ice.

But the mouth against her breast. Urgent. So alive. She tried to fly above the fear, and the small brown lips brought her back.

“Over the last moons we have shared much,” Tall One said when Frog had finished. “Hunted together. Birthed each other’s children. What do you wish of us?”

“Help us against our enemies,” Frog said.

Tall One seemed more curious than startled. “How many of them are there?”

“We do not know.”

“When do they come?”

“Now,” Frog said.

Tall One’s odd, pale eyes seemed to pierce Frog’s skin, to see his heart. T’Cori knew that Frog was afraid. Could Tall One see it? He spoke, and her heart fell.

She translated the Vokka’s words for Frog. “He says that our enemies are not his. Why should their sons and fathers die for us?”

“We have no right to ask you to bleed with us,” Frog said, voice flat with defeat. “You have been good friends. Stay away from us. From everything that is about to happen. Live.”

Her heart broke as she translated. Hope itself had fled. Why had they not remained in the shadow? Better to die there, for their bones to rest in familiar earth, than to travel so far, in a terrible unclosed circle, and die in a strange place.

But if there was no hope for her, perhaps one good thing could come from all of this.

She blinked back her tears. “Your wife lost a child,” she said, and cradled her infant in her arms. She kissed the sleeping girl’s brow. “I would give her mine, to replace the one lost.” To lose a child was almost beyond bearing. But to keep her girl only to cause her death … that would be beyond endurance.

Silently, she begged Kiya to agree. While another part of her begged her to refuse. Even a few more moments. Even if it cost both their lives …

“What did you say?” Frog asked.

She felt something collapse within her. “I asked her to take our child.” She expected anger, hurt, bluster.

Instead, he softly said: “We should have brought Medicine Mouse as well.”

Kiya looked at her husband. Tall One’s expression remained unchanged as he gave his head the slightest of nods. Kiya stepped forward, and took the baby.

T’Cori made a single strangled cry and turned, walking away into the shadows, Frog and Leopard Paw at her side, broken heart flooded with joy and pain.

Just before dawn, their lookouts gave a brief cry of alarm, followed by screams of shock and pain.

“Mk*tk!”

Frog had slept lightly, his spear jammed against his ribs. He grabbed it and leapt to his feet.

The dusk sky had cast deep, dark shadows, and Frog could see little. The men threw wood on the fire, seeking to increase the light. The sight nearly made him wish for darkness once again: there in the shadows and amid the low fires, three hands of Mk*tk prowled the camp, killing all they could. Man-shaped shadows already hunched and crouched among them, cracking skulls and breaking limbs

“Lion dance!” he screamed. Swiftly, their men paired in the manner they had practiced for the last moon. The women and children ran to the center of a loose circle, surrounding the twin campfires, as the men faced out into the darkness.