The Broken Land (24 page)

“I’d like that myself. Kittle is reputed to—”

“
Wrass!”
Tutelo called when she reached the edge of the meadow and recognized him. She broke into a run, her long black hair flying out behind her as she thrashed through the leaves and threw her arms around him. “Wrass, blessed gods, what are you doing here? It’s good to see you!”

Hiyawento clutched Tutelo to his chest, as though he never wished to let her go. “You’re beautiful, Tutelo. I always knew you would be. Are you well? You have two children, yes?”

Tutelo pushed back with tears streaming down her cheeks. “Two girls. Little terrors.”

Hiyawento laughed. “You married a man of the Hawk Clan, if the stories the Traders tell can be trusted.”

“Yes, Idos. He’s a good man.”

“And a fine warrior,” Koracoo praised with a smile. “Now, enough pleasantries. We are standing out in the open with an Outcast who has been assessed a traitor to our nation. We are all risking our lives. Tutelo, return to your longhouse and tell no one, not even Idos, that War Chief Hiyawento is here. Later, if there is time, we will all have a chance to speak together again.”

“Yes, Mother.” But she paused and gave Hiyawento a heartbreaking smile. “Just in case I don’t see you before you go, I love you, Wrass. I always have. I want you to know that I’ll never care what my people call you or Zateri. You’ll always be two of my greatest heroes.” She turned and walked away.

As she rounded the palisade wall, Wrass turned away, but not before Koracoo saw the sheen in his dark eyes. He stood for a moment with his head down, collecting himself, before he said, “I miss them so much.”

It touched Koracoo’s heart. “As they do you. I do not think a day has gone by in the past twelve summers that one of them hasn’t mentioned your name. Yours or Zateri’s.”

The lines at the corners of his eyes deepened, as though wishing for things that could not be. “Where do you want me to wait while you speak with High Matron Kittle?”

“I’ll leave that decision to my war chief.” Koracoo turned. Through the weave of branches, she could see Deru standing on the catwalk, staring down at them. The crushed bones of his face cast odd shadows. She lifted a hand to him, then turned back to Hiyawento.

“As of this moment, you are under my protection. War Chief Deru will guard you until I return.”

“Thank you, Speaker.”

When Deru strode around the palisade and headed toward them, Koracoo started back for the village. As they met on the trail, she told Deru, “He bears a message from the Ruling Council of the Hills nation. I’ve given him my word that no one will harm him. Protect him.”

Deru nodded. “With my life, Speaker.”

Twenty-five

T
he forest had gone silent. Snow fell out of the dusk sky, spiraling down, flecking the bare tips of the oak branches and frosting the pines. Out across the Forks River, the white veil wavered like a scarf blowing in the light breeze.

Taya winced, bent over, and cracked another branch from the base of a pine. As she placed the branch on the growing pile in her left arm, her shoulders ached with fiery intensity. For four days, they’d been paddling from before dawn until well after Elder Brother Sun journeyed into the underworlds to sleep—or rather, he’d been paddling. She’d paddled some, mostly when it seemed certain they’d overturn in the rapids if she didn’t.

A foot rustled in the dry ferns to her right. She stole glances at her companions. Gitchi lay curled up a short distance from where Sky Messenger fished. The old white-faced wolf had covered his nose with his bushy tail and appeared to be sleeping, but every time she made a tiny sound the wolf opened his eyes and stared at her.

Sky Messenger cast out his net again. Every now and then, he’d pull it in, remove any fish he’d caught and drop them on the bank, then toss it back into the current. Their canoe rested four paces away from him, its white birch hull almost invisible in the snow. Her gaze returned to Sky Messenger. His eyes had gone dark and brooding. He’d barely touched her since that night in the longhouse when he’d loved her with such tenderness and passion, and she didn’t understand why. Perhaps it was just that he was as tired as she at the end of the day, but it felt like more. Though she had little experience with such things, it felt like his souls were occupied with that other woman, the one he had loved and lost. That bothered her more than the fact that she was traveling through enemy country with a man who refused to carry weapons. After all,
she
was his betrothed.

Worse, perhaps, was the fact that he’d been treating her like a child on her first war walk. He insisted she learn the skills of stealth, how to make an almost invisible camp in the forest, how to hunt on the run. And he spent a good deal of time correcting her when she grew careless and made a mistake. Which was often. She’d never been away from her family for any length of time, and she was desperate to see her mother and sisters, even—Spirits forbid—Grandmother.

Taya carried her heavy load to their camp and thoughtlessly let it fall beside the firepit. At the clattering of branches, Gitchi’s head shot up. Sky Messenger gave her an exasperated look.

She ignored him and wiped her forehead on her sleeve before she pulled her pack over and untied the laces. Inside, she found her firebox, a small stone container where she kept coals from the morning fire. It warmed her hand. First she made a bed of dry pine needles in the pit; then she opened the firebox, poured the coals on top of it, and added small twigs. When she leaned over to gently blow on the coals, she saw fish flopping in Sky Messenger’s net as he dragged it to shore. He crouched and patiently disentangled them, placing them with the others he’d caught. Afterward, he just stared out at the falling snow, or perhaps the darkening river. He seemed to be thinking. He sat so still for so long that snow mounded on the shoulders of his cape and hood. When he finally rose to his feet, he had to brush them off. Gitchi stretched and stared up at him with loving, devoted eyes. Sky Messenger patted the wolf’s head, collected the fish, and walked toward her.

She kept blowing on the coals, but her heart sank. Seeing the look in his eyes, she yearned to be home scooping up the moldering leaves that had collected against the palisade, or cleaning the fire pits and hauling ashes to the midden outside the village, even carrying water until she thought her arms would break. Of course, she’d never actually been forced to perform such menial duties, but she’d rather be a slave at home, than here with him!

When flames leaped through the tinder in the fire pit, she turned her attention to the tiny blaze, alternating more blowing with feeding it twigs until she had a decent fire going.

Sky Messenger plucked sticks from the woodpile, skewered each of their six fish, and propped them at the edge of the fire to cook. For a long time, he seemed to be watching the snow fall. She kept adding branches to build up the blaze. The longer he refused to look at her, the more difficult it was for Taya to catch her breath. She felt like she was smothering.

“I hate this,” she said in a tight voice. “I want to go home.” She stuffed another branch in the fire, and a cascade of sparks flitted into the air.

He gazed at her intently. “Then go.”

“Alone? Someone will kill me!” She threw out her arms, as though to defend herself. “I don’t know how any of this happened. One moment I was a happy child and the next I was betrothed to a crazy man.” The last words turned into sobs.

Most men would have melted at the sight of her tears—at least that had been her experience—but not Sky Messenger.

Instead, he came around the fire, knelt in front of her, and unsympathetically said, “I can’t take you home. Not now. We’re too far from the village. I have to complete this task first. But after that, I will. If that’s what you want.”

It didn’t matter in the slightest what she wanted. Grandmother had made it perfectly clear that the ancestors had personally spoken to Old Bahna. Taya had to accompany Sky Messenger on this Spirit journey. “But why do we have to do this? I know Bahna said—”

“Taya,” he said sternly, “I’m going to explain this to you one more time, but that’s all. So, listen. Something happened to me in the Dawnland country when I was a boy. I must face it … face him … before I can help our people.”

She assessed his stony expression. “We’re going to see a man? Who is he? Where does he live?”

Sky Messenger exhaled hard. “He’s dead.”

“What do you mean, dead?”

He stood up and went over to throw more branches on the fire. Snow had melted on his round face, making it shine.

“We’re going to see a dead man?” she asked, confused. “You mean his burial place?”

His head waffled, as though trying to decide whether or not that was a good description. “That’s a tougher question than you might suspect. He was never buried. You see, his severed head was burned, and his body was cut apart, and the pieces scattered far and wide—”

She sucked in a breath. “To immobilize his evil Spirit?”

“Partly, but mostly so no one could ever recognize him and Sing his afterlife soul to the Land of the Dead. Which, apparently, is what I must do.”

Taya wiped her nose. Sky Messenger looked as though he resented being on this journey. She wondered if that gave her some kind of leverage. “But … if he was evil, why do you have to Sing him to afterlife? None of our ancestors will wish to have him there. He deserves to roam the earth alone forever. That is just.”

He actually bowed his head and laughed. “Yes, well, apparently that changes nothing. I must do this.”

She let her gaze drift over the river, watching the snow fall, before she said, “When will we arrive?”

“In two days. We’ve been making good time.”

“And afterward, you’ll take me home?”

“Yes.”

“Thank the Spirits,” she said through a long exhalation. “If I’d gone home alone, Grandmother would have killed me.”

His brow furrowed. “I doubt—”

“No, believe me. I know her far better than you do. Once, when I’d seen seven summers, she told me to go find a pot of sunflower oil and oil the dinner bowls, which I hated to do. I sneaked off to play with my friends. One hand of time later, she appeared in the plaza, grabbed me by the hair, and dragged me into the forest, where she tied me to a tree.” She sniffed at her clogged nose. “She left me there all night. I was certain I was going to be eaten by a Flying Head or a bear.”

“But you survived.”

“Barely.”

He reached for the skewers and turned the fish around to cook on the other side. “I’ve never really liked your Grandmother … until now.”

“What are you talking about? It was awful!”

“Yes, but she saw your weakness, and she took action. You’re lucky.”

She thought about that. Before that night, she’d been terrified of the dark. Afterward, she wasn’t afraid of anything … well, except being away from home. Suddenly, she thought of all the things newly betrothed women did in Bur Oak Village, the new clothing they received, the jewelry, the things for their firstborn child, and harshly accused, “You’re not going to give me a child, are you?”

“What?” He blurted. “Yes, of course, Taya.”

“We cannot marry until I’m carrying your child. Is that why you won’t touch me? You know it’s your only way out?” Actually, she was hoping for that. She wanted to marry him less and less every day.

“Taya.” The lines at the corners of his eyes were filled with soot and seemed to be etched there. “I know my duties to your clan. And to my own. I’ve been distracted. That’s all.”

Snowflakes stuck to her wet eyelashes, making it difficult to see him. “Tell me about her. Do it now. I can’t stand wondering any longer.”

His shoulder muscles contracted beneath his cape. When he half turned toward her, his hood shadowed most of his expression. “I don’t wish to speak of her.”

“What was her clan?”

Reluctantly, he replied, “She is Turtle Clan now.”

“Now? That means she was adopted. And she’s still alive.”

His gaze, that could be so powerful, had taken on the alert brilliance of a wolf on a blood trail. “Were you hoping she wasn’t?”

“Yes. Dead lovers are easier to fight than living ones. Did you love her very much?”

He stared at her. “I did.”

“Why don’t you go back to her? Didn’t she wish to marry you? Or did your clan disapprove of her?”

“I never asked the Bear Clan to arrange a marriage with her.”

Taya drew up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. “Well, if you never asked your clan’s permission, you couldn’t have loved her that much.”

He didn’t respond. Instead, he used a stick to scrape red coals up beneath the trout. As they heated, steam seeped from each fish and spiraled into the cold air. “Don’t ask me anything else about her.”

“But Sky Messenger, it’s hard to trust you when you tell me so little about your life.”

The howling of wolves filled the silence that followed. Their chorus drifted through the trees as though his old lover’s relatives were calling to him, trying to convince him to come back to her. Gitchi lifted his head to listen and let out a low growl. Among their people, when a man married he moved to his wife’s village, into her clan’s longhouse, and was subject to the orders of her clan council. She wondered where he would be now if he’d married her. And if he’d still be afflicted with Dreams.