The Broken Land (6 page)

Five

W
ar Chief Hiyawento’s gaze drifted over the Wolf Clan longhouse in Coldspring Village. Four hundred hands long, the house spread forty hands wide, and forty-four tall. Twenty families lived here, their personal space arranged in ten compartments on either side of the house. Longhouses were basically one gigantic room with each family’s compartment screened from its neighbor’s by a bark wall on each side, and a curtain in front that could be drawn closed. However, for warmth, the curtain was generally left open facing the fire pit. That meant that Hiyawento could see across the house to the compartment on the opposite side. They shared the fire that stood between their compartments. Pedeza and her husband lay beneath thick hides on the wide sleeping bench attached to the wall and suspended six hands off the floor. Just like his own family’s compartment, a long storage shelf hung above them, filled with pots of dried herbs, folded clothing, hides, tools, and several bark baskets containing dried corn kernels, beans, and nuts. A bundle of arrows was propped upright, the sharp chert points aimed at the roof. He thought that young Pedeza might be watching them, perhaps listening in the hope of learning his wife’s plans. He’d heard that the council meeting today had been long and intense. So far, his wife, Matron Zateri, had told him nothing of what had happened, but he knew from her tone that the meeting had been deathly important.

“He needs me,” Hiyawento murmured, lying in the warm nest of bearskins with his arms around Zateri. He gently stroked her long black hair. She felt so fragile, her bones small and thin. “I may be the only man in the world who truly understands what Sky Messenger did and why.”

“Then you believe the Trader’s story that he freed Flint captives and fled into the forest?”

“Yes.”

Zateri shifted to look up at him. There were people who would say she was not a great beauty. Her two front teeth stuck out slightly, and she had a flat face with a wide nose and brown eyes that could melt a man’s soul … at least his soul. He considered her to be the most amazing and beautiful woman in the world. But he saw more than others. Or perhaps it was that he’d known her since she’d seen ten summers, and understood her better than they ever could.

“What makes you think he’s alive?” She always spoke slowly, as though considering each word before she uttered it.

“A feeling. And if he is, he needs a refuge and a friend.”

Ordinarily she would have hugged him and wished him well, perhaps even decided to go with him. Instead, Zateri seemed to be staring at the dried cornstalks, bean vines, and sunflowers. They hung from the roof poles, drying in the warm sooty air that rose from the fire pits. Her breathing had gone shallow. Whatever she was tracking in her thoughts, it was dangerous.

He said, “Rumor says the council meeting in Atotarho Village this morning was grim. What happened?”

She shook her head lightly. “I need to think more on the consequences before I speak of it.”

“What consequences?”

She reached out to twine her fingers with his, but did not answer.

Someone coughed at the far end of the longhouse; then a baby started crying. It seemed to awaken Zateri from her thoughts. “When are you going after him?”

“After tomorrow’s War Council.”

For a time, the silence was broken only by the whistling of Wind Mother as she scurried around the house chasing her two wayward twins, Gaha and Hadui. Even if he had not known his wife would be upset by his intentions, he could feel her muscles go tight with the uneasy knowledge that enemy warriors filled the trails.

“I love him, too,” she said. “You know I do. But if you are killed while searching for Sky Messenger, what of our daughters then?”

He propped himself up on one elbow to gaze down into her eyes. His shoulder-length black hair caught a thread of light from the fire and gleamed with an amber brilliance. “I could be killed by your father tomorrow or War Chief Yenda from the Mountain People the day after. I could even be stupid enough to fall into the icy river and be swept downstream so that you’d never find me.” He added, “I am not so easily killed, my wife. I’ll be back. I give you my oath.”

Beneath his hand, he felt her suck in a deep breath. “Who will serve as war chief while you are away?”

“Kallen has been an excellent deputy to me. She will guard our people well.” He tenderly kissed her forehead and saw lines of worry etch the skin at the corners of her dark eyes. “Why won’t you tell me what happened in the council meeting today? Was it that bad?”

She rolled away from him onto her back and stared up at the thick smoke that eddied along the ceiling. Drawn to the smokeholes above the fire pits, it would be sucked out into the night. “Grandmother is ill.”

Her grandmother, High Matron Tila, had ruled the nation for thirty-three summers. “How ill?”

“Father says she will cross the bridge to the afterlife soon.” She paused as though not wishing to say the next sentence. “Grandmother asked me to return to Atotarho Village and fulfill my responsibilities to the Wolf Clan.”

Hiyawento’s shoulder muscles hardened. He waited a full sixty heartbeats before he asked, “Will you?”

The day she’d become a woman at the age of fourteen summers, she’d left her father’s village and moved a short distance away to establish this village, Coldspring Village. Many people had followed her, depleting Atotarho’s ranks of warriors, potters, hunters, and builders, as well as the most powerful holy people, the shamans who called the rains from clear blue skies, and Healed the sick. While the Wolf Clan had refused to condemn her, the ruling matrons had relegated Zateri to the lowest status possible in the Women’s Council. She was the matron of Coldspring Village, deserving of respect, but her words were always ignored. This would change everything. If she accepted the high matron’s offer, she would step into the role of her dead mother and become the next woman in line for the position of high matron of the Wolf Clan, the most powerful woman in the Hills nation.

“Do you think Father is telling the truth?” she asked. “Do you think Grandmother is that ill?”

Hiyawento tightened his arms around her. “I think your father is a liar and a murderer. But my opinion doesn’t matter. What do you think?”

She swiveled her head to gaze at their sleeping daughters, and her long black hair drew across his muscular arm like an ermine blanket. Aged three, five, and eight, the girls slept beneath one large elkhide, their sweet firelit faces in a row, breathing deep. Above their bedding, attached to the longhouse wall, yellow pond lily roots hung like the legs of a gigantic spider. In the flickering light, they seemed to wiggle and jerk. Yellow pond lily was a powerful Spirit plant. It blinded witches. If a witch looked toward this house, they would see only a pond. The roots kept their precious daughters safe. “I’m not sure I wish to lay such a burden upon our eldest daughter. Kahn-Tineta has a gentle soul.”

Hiyawento’s eyes were abruptly drawn to the opposite side of the house. Blessed Spirits, now he understood Pedeza’s attention. If Zateri refused to return to Atotarho Village, then Pedeza’s mother might be in line for the rulership, and after her, Pedeza herself.

He whispered in Zateri’s ear, “Don’t take too long. Pedeza’s mother might decide to take fate into her own hands by getting rid of you.”

Zateri did not laugh. “That possibility has already occurred to me, my war chief. Perhaps you should remain here, close at hand, to protect me.”

“You can take care of yourself. I’ve seen you swing a war club.” When her brow furrowed, he drew her closer and kissed her hair. “Forgive me. I know how serious this is.”

The idea of moving his family to Atotarho Village left him in shock. He’d always hated her father. The high chief of the People of the Hills was a twisted monster. He acted only for his own gain—which was the definition of witchery. No one in the nation dared call him a witch, though, for fear his entire family would disappear mysteriously.

Alarm must have been clear on his lean face, for Zateri whispered, “I am the only daughter of my dead mother, the heir to the rulership of Atotarho Village and the entire nation. I cannot just refuse. Such selfishness and apparent disregard for the well-being of my People might cause them to accuse me of witchcraft.”

He fumbled with a lock of her long hair. “You will be young for that position—twenty-two summers. Will the older women listen to you?”

Zateri wet her lips, and her protruding front teeth flashed with firelight. “They’ll have to. As the leader of the Matrons’ Council, I could directly influence the outcome of decisions. Now I am but one very small voice in the din.”

He hesitated, afraid to ask the question that was making his throat ache. “Then, you’re leaning toward agreeing to the high matron’s request?”

After a long time, she said, “Maybe.”

She turned her face away to stare at their daughters again, and her eyes tightened with the weight of the decision. “When is the War Council tomorrow?”

“Just after dawn.”

“Dawn,” she repeated in a forlorn voice and squeezed her eyes closed. “You’re leaving tomorrow afternoon. No one has seen Sky Messenger in over one-half moon. What makes you think you can find him?”

“If he truly wants to hide, I won’t. I’m just hoping he needs a friend.”

“Well,” she said with authority, “you know he does. The news has been running the trails like wildfire. Every Trader who enters our village says that Matron Kittle has accused him of treason and made him Outcast. Do you think he really helped the Flint captives escape?”

“I do … and you and I both know why. None of us can tolerate taking child captives.”

“Yes, but declaring him Outcast without hearing his side of the story seems extreme to me.”

“He also abandoned his war party, Zateri. That’s not in question. He was deputy. No high matron could condone such a breach.”

“I pray he went back to Baji. Perhaps they married, as they intended, and all is well.”

“Perhaps, but I think such news would have reached us by now. His desertion of the Standing Stone nation would be a great coup for the Flint People. They would be paying every passing Trader to carry the news far and wide.”

She filled her lungs and expelled the words, “If anything happens to him, it will crush my heart, too.”

Hadui thrashed the leather curtain that covered the longhouse entry and blasted his way down the central corridor, throwing ashes high into the smoky air. Dogs leaped up barking, searching for the intruder, while people cursed and rolled over to go back to sleep.

“What if you don’t find him?”

Hiyawento tilted his head and shrugged. “I’ll return home.”

“How long?”

“You mean how long will I give myself to search? One moon. No more.”

She flipped over, threw her arms around his neck, and hugged him fiercely. “One moon. One entire moon. So much can happen in that amount of time. Be careful. Promise me you’ll take no foolish chances. You are my heart and my strength. I couldn’t stand to lose you.”

“I will be careful. Now,” he said and pulled slightly away from her to face her, “promise me something.”

“What is it?”

“Promise me you will not make your decision about the high matron’s offer until I return.”

Her delicate brows drew together over her wide nose. “Grandmother has scheduled another Wolf Clan meeting three days from now. I promise you I will try to stall them, but I may not be able to. Why did you ask that?”

Barely above a whisper, he said, “Your father.”

Zateri rolled onto her elbows, her dark hair hanging in a torrent to the bedding hides. Her voice was thoughtful, but not surprised. “So you think he’s behind this, too?”

“Chief Atotarho always has hidden motives.” Across the fire, he saw Pedeza cock an ear. Had he spoken so loudly? He lowered his voice, “I suspect he wants you in his village for another reason.”

“Perhaps because if grandmother dies, and I do not return home to take up my rightful position as high matron, our clan may lose its right to rule, and the next clan, undoubtedly the Bear Clan, will replace him as chief?”

A hard smile edged his lips. That was something few people noticed about Zateri. Beneath her slow words lurked a stiletto-sharp mind with an almost supernatural sensitivity to tones of voice or the slightest shift of posture. There was not much she missed.
That’s why, may my daughters and granddaughters forgive me, she will make a truly great high matron of the People of the Hills.

He touched her cheek. “If you need help while I am away, you can go to Sindak. You know that, don’t you?”

“He is my father’s war chief, Hiyawento.” She reached up, took his hand, and pressed it to her lips for a long moment before answering, “But, yes, I know I can trust him. I have trusted him since I was ten summers.”

M
any hands of time later, lying awake listening to the wind shiver the bones of the longhouse, memories taunted Hiyawento. They were not the thoughts of daylight, but the nagging images that come only in the dead of night and will not leave a man in peace. Jumbled, events out of order, he heard the distant chaos of screams and shouts, glimpsed the old woman’s wrinkled face, and found himself lying hurt in a long-ago meadow so afraid he couldn’t stop shivering. Snowflakes fell from the moonlit sky and perched upon the bare branches like fallen stars. The black bulk of the evil warrior Dakion loomed over him like Grandfather Bear standing on his hind legs. As the man lifted his war club to crush Hiyawento’s skull, a hoarse shriek broke from the lips of Hiyawento’s best friend, Odion, barely eleven summers. Then Odion stepped into the space below Dakion’s uplifted arms, and the stiletto flashed in his hands. Odion repeatedly plunged it into the man’s chest, belly, arms, anything he could reach.

He saved me.

An odd silence descended over the memory. Dakion’s cries drifted slowly away in icy puffs. Odion’s wavering scream faded like a dancing slip of foxfire.

Why had the sound died? Was it because he could no longer bear those voices? Or because he had relived this moment so many times that the shrieks had disfigured his souls? Like thick scars they wormed through his entire life. He could trace them with his hands; he didn’t need to hear them.