People - People of the Wolf Part 26

"Let's go!"

Raven Hunter shrieked a war cry and leapt over the bluff, racing down into the Others' camp. The People's warriors boiled out behind him, screaming their wrath.

Singing Wolf followed Strikes Lightning into a dark lodge, watching in horror as the man raised his dart, using it like a spear to puncture the throats of huddled old people and newborn babies.

Unable to move, he allowed himself to be shoved brutally aside as Strikes Lightning ran from the lodge to duck into another. Singing Wolf's stomach rose into his throat as he stared at the carnage.

Sightless eyes stared back, the coppery smell of blood bathing him in horror.

"Come on!" Strikes Lightning screamed at him.

He backed unsteadily out into the cold morning, swallowing convulsively.

He caught movement from his right just as an Other thrust a dart at him from behind a meat rack, ripping his forearm. Instinctively, Singing Wolf jumped away and let his own dart fly, piercing the man's neck. A garbled bark of fear and hatred rang out as the man fell.

Singing Wolf ran wildly through the village, jumping over dead bodies, shoving aside terrified women and children who struggled to flee.

Wailing gashed the morning.

He spied Raven Hunter and stumbled in that direction, panting hoa.r.s.ely.

Their leader had caught a lodge still sleeping, skewering foggy-eyed men as they scrambled for weapons. It seemed that everyone in the world was screaming and crying.

A tiny boy, barely three, crawled madly from beneath the lodge cover, tears streaking his dirty face. Raven Hunter shouted, "Get him! He'll grow up to kill us!"

Strikes Lightning hurried, grabbing the boy by his hind foot and dragging him backward. The little one fought valiantly, bawling in terror, slamming his fists into his captor's face and arms. StrikesLightning grabbed a large rock and raised it high over the boy's tiny head.

"No!" Singing Wolf shrieked, tears filling his eyes as he watched the rock hurtle downward, smashing the boy's head.

Strikes Lightning got to his feet, casting a look of utter disdain at Singing Wolf before he trotted away. Survivors fled west, heedlessly abandoning their weapons, dragging the elders, carrying their children, stumbling away.

"Follow them!" Raven Hunter commanded, and several young men of the People lunged in pursuit of those fleeing over the hills. A gasping Other lay pitiously before Raven Hunter, a dart protruding from his gut.

Raven Hunter brutally jerked the dart loose and knelt, smiling in mock sympathy. "I won't kill you," he cooed.

"I'll die anyway," the man gasped, rolling agonizingly to his side. He had a triangular face with a large bulbous nose.

"Yes, but this way will be long and painful."

The Other smiled, hatred gleaming in his eyes. "You'd better run far and fast, Enemy man. Ice Fire will search the mists of time until he finds your hiding place. Then we'll wipe your filth from the face of the world."

Raven Hunter laughed and stood, glaring down. "Ice Fire. Who's that?

Some false shaman?"

"The greatest shaman in the world. He's seen your coming."

Raven Hunter snorted derisively. "Then why didn't he warn you so you could escape?" The Other kicked out with his legs, slamming them into Raven Hunter and knocking him off his feet.

Raven Hunter scrambled up, dodging to kick the man hard in the side.

Intestines spilled out through the gash in the man's abdomen. "We'll see how brave you are three days from now when the blood runs like a black river through your veins."

Singing Wolf held his breath, respect for the Other surfacing. This man knew what a horrible death he faced, yet he fought with his last strength. The wound would fester in a matter of hours, the gut juices boiling up like green slime, attracting the flies and animals. The odor would draw the scavengers who wait for death--or worse, Grandfather Brown Bear. But even if he managed, his death would be one of incomprehensible pain.

Raven Hunter spat in the man's eyes before turning arrogantly away.

Waving to his followers, he growled, "Come. We have to make sure no one in the lodges survives."

Singing Wolf watched them stride from shelter to shelter. A baby squealed somewhere; the cry stilled suddenly and eternally.

He walked weakly to where the dying Other lay. The man curled into a ball, pushing futilely at the ropes of intestine that lay on the ground, trying to tuck them back into his torn stomach."I'll kill you. If you want me to," Singing Wolf murmured in a strained voice.

The Other looked up, squinting in confusion. "Why? Why would you?"

"Because of your courage."

The Other frowned, then lowered his head, nodding tiredly. "We didn't think you knew of warrior's honor."

"How do your people ..." Singing Wolf fumbled for the words. "Is there a special way that sends you to Father Sun? To whatever your ..."

"Yes. The Great Mystery." The man blinked back tears, pointing a trembling finger to his chest. "Take my heart. Give it to the river.

She'll carry it to the ocean. The Sea Spirit will come and .. . take me home."

Singing Wolf knelt and tore back the man's hides to bare his flesh. The Other's breast rose and fell rapidly, his whole body shuddering.

"Hurry," the man muttered. "Before your friends return."

Singing Wolf cast a quick glance over his shoulder. Friends? Were these cousins even human anymore? Raven Hunter's contemptuous laughter wafted on the breeze, the whimpers of a woman mixing hauntingly with it.

"Hurry."

Their eyes held for a desperate moment, and Singing Wolf sensed the man's distrust and fear. He raised his dart, watching the Other close his eyes tightly. Then he plunged the dart down, ripping the flesh of the chest and pulling it back to reveal the still-beating heart. A soft cry welled up his own throat as he slashed the arteries, blood splattering his face and clothing. He carefully cut the heart sac and drew the precious contents out, holding it hot, wet, and quivering in his hands.

The Other's face slackened peacefully, eyes staring into eternity.

Singing Wolf stood on feeble legs and strode quickly to the river, wading into the Chilling water up to his knees. Waves lapped around him.

Laying the heart in the water, he watched it sink, saying softly, "Take him home, Sea Spirit. He died bravely."

He watched the heart blood swirl on the surface, mixing with the green of the water until it disappeared, then he reached up to clasp the leather over his own heart, holding it tightly as tears welled.

They headed north, driving down the Big River, pushing the Others before them. Raven Hunter swaggered arrogantly now, smiling his pride at those he felt deserved his approval, glowering at the cowards like Singing Wolf, who stumbled relentlessly behind, killing only to save his own life, pleading with the warriors to remember the ways of the People.

They camped one night in the bottoms, the ever lengthening night making such camps necessary. At the same time, they had tired from the long trail. As night lengthened, none could forget the Long Dark that rested just over the eastern horizon. More and more, Singing Wolf looked back over his shoulder, to the south, longing for home.This night they camped in a narrow cove of a valley, the shoulders of the hills rising to either side to provide shelter from the winds. Below them to the east, the Big River rumbled and roared, white water marking its path despite the darkness.

Singing Wolf--who no longer shared Raven Hunter's favor --built a small fire to one side, burning old leaves and dry dung as he dried willow twigs for a hotter fire later. Overhead, the Blessed Star People stared down at his tiny eye of fire. Soberly, he wondered what they thought--if they closed their eyes at the sight of the People and the trail of blood they left behind. He reflected on that as he looked around at the other small fires where men huddled laughing, gesturing in the flickering light as they told of their war triumphs.

"Why do you defy me?" Raven Hunter asked, coming to squat before Singing Wolf's fire. His vigorous young face caught the reflection of the flames, glowing eerily red as his black eyes probed Singing Wolf's.

"What have we become, Raven Hunter? I've seen you do things which will haunt my sleep forever. Bashing babies, lancing old men and women to watch their guts roll out of their bodies. I've seen you reach, grab their intestines and pull while they shrieked. Why? What purpose does that serve?"

Raven Hunter nodded soberly, lines forming on his brow. "I understand your hesitation .. . and I truly feel disgusted at what I do. But there are so many Others. I have seen. Here." He pointed to his head. "I have seen." His earnest eyes studied Singing Wolf's. "Do you understand?

Visions have come to me."

"No, I don't understand." Singing Wolf frowned, poking at the fire before him. "What use is torture? Atrocity, no matter how many--"

"If I make them fear, they'll leave us alone. That's why I leave their bodies looking so grotesque. If we chill their hearts, Singing Wolf, they'll avoid us, leave our land."

"There must be another way."

Raven Hunter settled himself, drawing his knees up to his chest.

Sincerely he asked, "How? We have to kill these people, make them cry and scream .. ." He tapped his chest. "Here. It makes my very heart crawl and my soul shrieks in my dreams. These Others, they're not so different from us. They do many things the same way. But they've pushed us back, taken the sea, taken the gra.s.sy plains to the west, pushed us for generations until we've nothing left. You've heard the stories--about how once we had all the land west of the Ice Mountains.

There was an abundance of game there. Our ancestors hunted all through that territory.

"And now? The farther south we go up the Big River, the drier the land is, the colder. You've seen that yourself. You've been farther south than any of the rest of us. From your own lips, you say the Big Ice narrows, blocks the Big River--the high mountains rise to the west.

Endless ice to the east."

"Yes ..."

Raven Hunter nodded sympathetically. "And what's left for us?"

"But to cause anything to suffer is--""Necessary." His face worked with the effort. "Consider. People make themselves share things. When you kill an animal, lance a mammoth in the gut and follow it for days, you feel its pain, don't you?" Singing Wolf nodded. "Any hunter feels the pain of the animal he kills."

"That's our only weapon against the Others. Don't you see? Make them imagine themselves as the b.l.o.o.d.y corpses we leave on the ground. Make them see through our eyes. Make them feel that pain."

"Just as we feel it ourselves?" Singing Wolf considered.

"You're beginning to understand. When you look at an infant, its skull crushed, it twists your soul if you think your own child might look like that, doesn't it? Think what it does to theirs." The black eyes pinned him, the power of his certainty humming in the air.

"Your soul screams in your dreams?"

Raven Hunter's impa.s.sioned eyes didn't waver. "Their screams fill my sleep. It's .. . it's torture."

"Then why?" Singing Wolf demanded. "Why do you do it to yourself?"

Raven Hunter's eyes seemed to expand, his very soul exposed and twisting in the light of the low fire. "Because I love the People. I bear this burden, not because I want to be a monster .. . but to save the People.

I have nothing more precious to give than myself."

The encompa.s.sing eyes seemed to suck him up--not the eyes of a monster, but of a man in hideous misery. Honest, open, Raven Hunter's soul pulsated.

A cold chill shook Singing Wolf. He looked around at the dark camp.

Bodies wrapped in hides were only lumps in the crushed tussocks. Before him, the fire lay dead, a few tiny embers gleaming.

Raven Hunter put a hand on Singing Wolf's shoulder, patting softly. "War is hideous. But we must fight." He stood and stepped lightly over sleepers, going to his own robes.

Singing Wolf shook his head, staring off into the darkness.

Just after nightfall three days later, they peered through a series of jagged boulders at an unsuspecting camp of Others. Women roasted fish around a half-dozen low fires, laughing quietly, patting the children who played a game nearby. Men sat in a distant circle, talking in hushed tones, eyes vigilantly scanning the growing darkness. Rapids on the river glimmered silver in the moonlight.

"Nock your darts," Raven Hunter instructed, and men rushed to comply.

Singing Wolf gripped his atlatl fiercely, one finger roaming the grooves along the shaft. He'd cut a line for each man that died, so that now his weapon undulated like the bones of the spine. Strikes Lightning had died first, a dart catching him in the leg, severing the big artery that ran along the thighbone. Singing Wolf hadn't been able to find it in his heart to weep. A day later, Two Darts was lanced in the gut. He failed slowly, an oozing pus forming in the wound to fever him. Carried by other young men, he babbled and died horribly amid fearful dreams. MossStalker, Loon Voice, Blows With Snow, and many others fell. Some perished in the heat of the fray, others later, from infected wounds.

Raven Hunter's stature grew, the young men listening carefully, bowing to his expanding Power. Singing Wolf felt haunted--a foreboding eating at him. Where was truth? The memory of the pain and horror in Raven Hunter's eyes stayed with him. The logic of the butchery had proved so right. At one camp, they needed only to appear and the Others ran, horrified, into the darkness. It worked, the terror of the People proved as effective as their darts.

I should leave! Run home to Laughing Sunshine, Singing Wolf told himself repeatedly. But some horrible fascination kept him there, watching as though his very life depended upon the outcome. He peered at the warriors crouching around him. A hardness lay in the eyes of the People that he'd never seen.

Something is happening to us. What? Life is changing. See the set of the young men's mouths ? See the way they look over their shoulders, wary, lean, and dangerous. The women they take, they take by force. They 'we grown brutal. Where is the laughter, the old humor we used to share ?

"Ready?" Raven Hunter whispered eagerly. Nods went round through the boulders. "Now!"

At his command, men swept around the rocks, screaming viciously, striking down anyone they pa.s.sed. Singing Wolf ran behind, weaving through the clashing crowd. A woman scuttled from a lodge to his left.

He gasped, recognizing his cousin who'd been abducted so many years ago.

"Blueberry? Blueberry!" he called, and lurched to block her flight.

Wide-eyed with fear, she huddled down before him, trembling as she cuddled her baby protectively. "Don't kill my baby," she pleaded. "He'll make you a good son. Don't--"

"I'm your cousin, Singing Wolf. Son of Two Stones and Brown Duck. Your cousin. Remember?"

She looked up, frightened, the baby, upset, attempting to nurse at the hides covering her breast.

"The People," she murmured, barely audible. He bent to hear her low-voiced words. "The People have come for me?" Swallowing hard, she burst into tears and threw an arm around his neck.

"Yes, we've come for you," he a.s.sured quietly, patting her back.

As the last of the Others ran from their village, he held her close, keeping her from harm as other young women were rounded up by hungry-eyed warriors. They would have many new brides in the camps this year.

Around the campfires that night, Raven Hunter cornered Blueberry, smiling warmly to ease her fears. "When were you captured?"

Blueberry looked at him askance, fear in her eyes. "It's been six Long Darks since I was taken. A young man Sheep's Tail--caught me and my sister, Onion, digging roots. He made us go west. Onion ran once and he killed her with one long dart throw. I was scared. I didn't run."Raven Hunter nodded thoughtfully. "Then you've been with the Others long enough to know them. Tell us about them. How powerful are they?"

"Powerful. They call themselves the Mammoth People, but they're like a single snowflake compared to the blizzard of the Glacier People."

Raven Hunter frowned. "The Glacier People? Who are they?"

"The Mammoth People are being pushed up from the south and the west by the Glacier People who follow the game. The animals are moving north because the land many days to the far west is hot, 'drying out, and they can no longer survive there. Between the White Tusk Clan and the Glacier People are the Round Hoof Clan, the Buffalo Clan, and finally, the Tiger Belly Clan. The Tiger Belly Clan are the most honored. They fight to keep the western Enemy from crossing the narrows where the salt waters are less than five days' journey apart."

"How many Mammoth People are there?" Singing Wolf asked, leaning forward, anxious to hear from her own lips.