The Broken Land (22 page)

“Walk in the truth?”

His voice had affected her like a Spirit Plant in her veins. She felt lightheaded, her heart thundering. He’d never spoken to her this way. It was exhilarating. She leaned toward him, a sensual, instinctive movement, waiting for his next words, and his handsome face slackened. She could see desire in his eyes, but it was filled with such a deep aching sadness that it made her suddenly wish to weep.

“Who
was
she? You keep thinking about her!”

He blinked. “What?”

“The woman you loved. The one who left you? She’s always between us, especially when we are beneath the hides together. Who was she?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he took her hand and led her to their chamber in the longhouse. He undressed her roughly. After they’d both slipped between the hides, he tenderly kissed her face and neck, the touch of his lips as soft as falling leaves. He was obviously trying to distract her from the question. His mouth moved to her slight breast, his warm tongue encircling her nipple, and she shivered. She had never experienced such sensations in her life. Not even when she’d been with the young warrior Dadjo. A trembling undercurrent of something akin to fear went through her, but it was delicious.

“Tell me,” he said, “if I do anything that frightens you.”

She whispered back, “I
want
you to frighten me,” and arched her back against him.

Twenty-two

G
randmother Moon’s gleam filled the midnight forest. The stark branches, mostly leafless now, shone with a dove-colored brilliance. A black filigree of twig shadows shifted in the slight breeze.

As Chief Atotarho wound around the rocky outcrops that jutted into the trail, he said, “This is where he said to meet him? A curious choice.”

“Yes, my chief. I don’t like it either. It’s too far from the village.” Negano, the leader of Atotarho’s personal guards, had his war club clutched tightly in his fist. He was of medium height, muscular, wearing a black cape that blended with the darkness. He’d smeared his feral face with charcoal, as had the other four guards. It made them almost invisible on the trail behind Atotarho. “If he attacks you here—”

“I told him to come alone,” Atotarho informed him.

“Let us hope he does so.”

Atotarho looked at the dense oaks. Icicles hung from the branches. In the moonlight streaming across the forest, they resembled fangs, glimmering and still, waiting for careless prey to walk beneath them.

“He will. I pay him well.”

Negano squinted at the clearing ahead. A small grassy area surrounded by massive boulders, it spread barely twenty hands across. The young people of the village called it “Lovers’ Meadow.” They came here to court and talk, and do the things they couldn’t in the crowded longhouses.

“Let me go ahead, my chief, to make sure all is well.”

“Yes, thank you.” Atotarho propped his walking stick and leaned his crooked body against it while he watched Negano cautiously walk forward to search the moonlit meadow. The other guards moved up behind Atotarho to guard him while Negano was away.

The forest was utterly deserted, frigid, and smelled of fires long grown cold. Earlier in the evening, mist had curled across the ground. Hatho, the Frost Spirit, must have frozen it solid and sprinkled it over the piles of autumn leaves that leaned against every tree trunk, for they sparkled in the moonlight—which made the stillness seem all the more ominous.

Negano trotted back up the trail. “It’s safe—at least as safe as it can be, given the circumstances.”

“Good. Don’t follow me. I want you and your men to stand twenty paces away.”

“But, my chief, if he leaps for your throat, we’ll never be able to get there in time.”

“I will risk it.”
To keep you out of hearing range.

Negano bowed respectfully. “Of course. Qonde, you heard him. Circle the men around the meadow. Make sure each man can see the chief.”

“Yes, Deputy.”

The men silently moved away to take up their positions.

Atotarho’s feet crackled in the frosty leaves as he placed his walking stick and slowly plodded toward the meadow. The circlets of human skull that decorated his black cape flashed as he walked.

When he entered the meadow he saw the time-smoothed rocks arranged around the fire pit like benches. The flecks of mica in the stone shimmered. He went to the closest rock and gingerly sat down. Every twisted joint in his body ached. He had to be careful. If he fell he’d be in excruciating pain for days.

While he waited, he rubbed his sore knees. Chunks of charcoal filled the fire pit before him. No one had been here for a while. The only things around the pit were a shattered tea cup and a rabbit rib cage. Mice had been chewing on it, leaving their distinctive teeth marks in the bone.

A faint sound, like a twig cracking, made him go still. He had the chill sensation of being watched, spied upon by a deadly predator too smart to allow itself to be seen until the time was right.

Through the gaps between the boulders, he spotted Negano standing on the trail with his war club propped on his shoulder, his eyes fixed on Atotarho, but he didn’t see any of his other guards. Nonetheless, he knew they saw him, and that put him somewhat at ease.

Across the pit, directly in front of him, the darkness between two head-high boulders seemed to ripple. He stared at it. A cape blown by the wind? A hunting animal? A bar of pewter light lay across the ground like a polished sword carved from old rain-silvered wood. When the figure stepped into it, the bar slashed across his chest and flickered through the feathers of his cape as though they were aflame.

“You’re afraid,” a quiet voice said. “I can smell your fear sweat.” He had painted his face pure white. That paleness, contrasting so sharply with the darkness, gave him an eerie, corpselike appearance. “Be at ease. I have no intention of doing you harm. Tonight.”

“Did you come alone?”

“I abide by my agreements. Yes, I came alone.”

A Hills People accent, but tinged with elements from the People of the Mountain, and a slight Flint drawl, the vowels rounded a little too much. As a boy, he had been around many different peoples. He continued standing in the bar of light, letting Atotarho see him, as if it were a momentary gift before he vanished like smoke.

“Come and sit down.” Atotarho gestured to the stones around the dead fire pit.

“Sit? In your presence? Hardly.”

The man had a starved face with upturned batlike nostrils and big ears. Oddly luminous, his obsidian eyes never blinked, or at least Atotarho had never seen it. Long black hair draped the front of his feathered cape. Ohsinoh lived off darkness like a nectar moth, moving from flower to flower, sucking it dry. On the rare occasions when they’d met in daylight, the bluebird feathers of his cape had gleamed an unearthly color. Tonight, however, they appeared washed with silver dust, each feather casting a tiny arc of shadow.

Ohsinoh must have moved, stepped closer, for the bar of light had moved from his chest to his face, where it glowed brilliantly off the white paint. The terrifying thing was that Atotarho had not seen him move. Shock froze his blood. To hide it, he clenched his fist on his walking stick. “If you will not sit, then let’s get on with our discussion. You accomplished the task well.”

“Have I ever failed?”

Atotarho reached beneath his cape, pulled open the ties on his belt pouch, and drew out a small bag of pearls. “Here is the remainder.” He held it out.

Atotarho had the momentary impression of amusement dancing behind Ohsinoh’s eyes. The man made no move to take the bag and was strangely immobile. Atotarho noticed for the first time the shell ring on one of Ohsinoh’s thick fingers, and the fact that the man’s earlobes had been stretched for earspools—though he wore none tonight.

Atotarho threw the bag at his feet. “There. I’ve kept my part of the bargain. Now, I wish to speak with you about another matter.”

Ohsinoh looked down at the bag, as though some brief moral struggle was going on inside him. Then he bent to retrieve it and tucked it into his belt pouch. “What matter?”

“There is a war chief who’s becoming a problem. Actually, he’s been a problem for some time. I need the problem to go away.”

The strange eyes held his. There was no movement in them, no expression at all, as though they were shiny obsidian beads. He regarded Atotarho with his head to one side. “Go away?”

“Yes.”

“You want him dead?”

“Not necessarily, just … compliant.”

The man’s soft laughter was little more than the pushing of air. “But you have not ruled out murder.”

“Not if he continues to be a problem, no. But
I
decide when that moment has arrived.”

The long hair over Ohsinoh’s cape snagged the bluebird feathers as he faintly shook his head, the gesture almost not there. “Then you just wish me to kill his heart, is that it? Take the fire from his words?”

“That would be acceptable.”

“Killing a man’s heart is more dangerous than destroying a village, and more difficult. What are you offering?”

“What do you want?”

The white painted lips smiled, but nothing else moved. “Who is this man?”

Atotarho shifted on the ice-cold rock, pulling his cape closed beneath his chin. He swore the air had grown colder. “War Chief Hiyawento. He’s currently vulnerable, alone, out on the trail headed for Bur Oak Village. So you must act quickly.”

Ohsinoh chucked. He didn’t say anything for a time. “Do you care how I kill his heart?”

Atotarho waved a hand. “Just make certain it cannot be tied to me.”

Ohsinoh walked forward, his stride oddly weightless. When less than two paces distant, he bent down, his white face glowing in the moonlight, and peered directly into Atotarho’s eyes. His gaze was snakelike, almost hypnotic. Atotarho couldn’t look away.

“The last Trader who was here, that filthy little beast from the Flint People, Tagosah, told me you Traded with him for many sheets of pounded copper from the Islanders’ Confederacy. I want them all.”

The Islanders lived north of Skanodario Lake. Their country was surrounded on three sides by huge lakes. The Islanders believed their world was an island floating in a vast primordial sea. Their confederacy was made up of four powerful nations, and they had Trade networks that spanned far greater distances than those of the People of the Hills. One of their networks brought them precious beautiful copper, which when properly worked, became magnificent pendants, bracelets, or breastplates. Each piece was worth a fortune.

“If you do the job well, what you ask is possible.”

Ohsinoh’s eyes narrowed. When he finally straightened up and turned away to gaze out into the dark trees, Atotarho subtly vented the breath he’d been holding.

“He is a skilled warrior. A very dangerous man. Getting close enough to shoot a charm into him will not be easy. I want half the plates in advance.”

Atotarho propped a hand on the rock and used his walking stick to shove to his feet. Ohsinoh seemed to be studying his hunched back and crooked body; then his gaze shifted to where Atotarho’s fingers clutched the head of his walking stick, perhaps studying the eyes tattooed on his fingertips … perhaps thinking they resembled knotted rawhide. “Shall I have it delivered to the usual place?”

Ohsinoh’s head dipped in a nod. “And soon.”

“Tomorrow morning?”

“Yes, before Elder Brother Sun wakes.”

Atotarho lightly pounded his walking stick on the ground before he asked, “One last thing. What have you heard about Sky Messenger?”

“Why?”

“Do you know where he is?”

“Do you wish me to find him?”

Atotarho hated it when Ohsinoh answered a question with a question. It was irksome. “If you can, I will reward you well.”

“Ah, I see. You’ve always been jealous of him. For most of your life the Hills People have believed that you were the human False Face, the Spirit-Man who would save them at the end of time. But now people are starting to whisper that Sky Messenger …”

Atotarho bravely turned his back on the man, and hobbled toward Negano. The warrior’s sharp gaze remained focused behind Atotarho, on the Bluebird Witch, apparently cataloging the man’s every movement until certain he wasn’t going to attempt any evil tricks.

Finally, Negano said, “He’s gone. Are you all right, my chief?”

“Yes. Call to your men. Let’s get home. I have a task for you, and it will take you most of the night to complete it.”

Negano, accustomed to such orders, nodded obediently. “Where am I going?”

“The same place.”

Negano pursed his lips and made a sound like a pygmy owl. The call echoed softly through the trees, barely audible, but Qonde and the other guards immediately appeared out of the darkness and surrounded Atotarho.

The trail was slick. It took him time to find firm places to prop his walking stick. Getting back to the village in the streaming moonlight seemed to take forever.