Zadayi Red (10 page)

It flipped and dunked him.

He fought his way back to the surface, got his feet under himself, and was clobbered again.

Underwater he lost sense of direction for a moment and was sure he was going to die. When a drifting piece of ice slammed him against the bottom, he figured out where to plant his feet.

Coming up for the second time, he sucked in half a world of breath and looked desperately upstream. A berg as big as a hillock was bearing down on him.

He launched himself into the air, pricked the ice with his knife, and clung like a spider.

The berg rocked, crunched, and ground against other pieces of icefall. Panicky, Inaj scrambled to a better position on the top and used his knife tip as a flimsy anchor. He looked back at his sons and the others and got an impression of an arm here, a head there, but could identify no one. Imperiously, his chariot swept him downstream.

I
naj crept along the bank on his side of the river, the near side, through the darkness, crawling over and around and through downed trees, boulders, and eddies. He kept going. Moving kept him warmer than sleeping. He cursed with every step.

He found his sons and two others shivering around a fire on the riverbank. Apparently two were missing, and all the pack dogs were gone. Faces were glum. They’d lost all their food, all their gear, half their weapons, and a third of their man strength.

“Get whatever sleep you can,” he muttered. Like the others he stretched out close to the fire. All night he flip-flopped back and forth, like he was on a spit, broiling one side and freezing the other. He woke up feeling like he’d been hunted down, cut up, and roasted.

“Let’s find them,” he ordered. He crossed the river—easy now that an ill fate wasn’t striking at him—and started searching downstream.

The Galayi code was fixed. Warriors never left the bodies of their comrades to be mutilated by enemies or desecrated by wild animals. They buried them respectfully and moved on.

As Inaj found nothing and nothing and nothing, not even
the corpse of a dog, he turned grim. He told himself that his fellow soldiers were cursed with the fate his daughter had barely escaped. Under his breath he wailed his apologies to his two comrades for this unforgivable sin, sending them naked, empty-handed, even mutilated into the Darkening Land.

Late in the afternoon the four survivors gathered back at the fire. No one had seen any sign of the missing men. They were drowned or crushed by the ice.

“Maybe they are with Those Who Live in Flowing Waters,” said Wilu.

Inaj kept himself from giving a snort of disgust.

Galayi people told stories of these small creatures who lived in creeks and rivers, commonly called The Little People. They were said to be beautiful, shaped just like Galayis but only knee-high. Though often mischievous, they had magical powers and would help Galayis who got lost or into other trouble. Their special power was protecting Galayis who performed the purifying ceremony Going to Water. Sometimes these little people appeared in desperate battles and saved the Galayi from defeat. The Little People were tricky, though, and you had to be careful in your dealings with them. If you tasted their food, for instance, you would never be able to eat human food again.

As a boy Inaj used to look for the Little People near rivers, and he had spent an entire teenage summer hunting for springs where they might live, because the places water emerged from the earth were sacred. He still hoped to find one. But he had no patience with a man who appealed to them for help. His creed was that a warrior depended on his arms, legs, and heart, and those alone.

Before the men could get started on their tales of the Little People, he told them curtly, “Sleep while the sun is still up.”

Then he disappeared into the forest. Shortly after dark he came back with the hind leg of a deer in each hand. “I got these
without Little People helping,” he said. As his warriors ate, he could see their energy coming back and their spirits rising.

When the meat was gone, Inaj stood up, looked at the river, and said, “Let’s go.”

“Now?” said Zanda.

Inaj glared at him. He didn’t like having his decisions questioned, even by implication.

“They have a day’s head start on us,” he said, “and they’re getting near the village. We’ll make it up by walking through the night. And you won’t get so cold.”

Zanda took a step back.

Now Inaj grinned at his men recklessly, and his eyes glittered like ice. “Let’s run this murderer down.”

Just go
, said Su-Li.

Sunoya wasn’t sure. “It’s a full day away,” she said. “They might catch us.”

Get moving
, returned Su-Li.

She pursed her mouth. The Immortals had chosen her for the task of saving the child of prophecy, delivering him to his father. Why? What if she couldn’t do it? She flexed the fingers of her right hand, the one that bore the curse no one knew about, except herself.

You know the one thing Inaj says that’s true?
Su-Li went on.

“No.” Her voice sounded petty and resentful, even to her.

When your life is at stake, don’t dither.

He flashed that red-yellow eye at her.
Go!

“Okay, you listen to me,” she said. “Fly to the village. Go to the hut of the Red Chief.” That hut’s door would be outlined in red, for victory. “Make your rasp at Ninyu. He’ll know who you are—everybody knows. Tell him to bring help.”

She turned her back and got down to business, lashing their robes and remaining scraps of meat onto Dak. Without looking
at Su-Li, she planted one foot in front of the other and tramped the downstream trail.

Su-Li lifted off. He would do his job.

“I’m worn out,” Sunoya crabbed out loud.

From the height of the mountain Su-Li told her,
You are a medicine woman on a sacred mission.

She padded faster.

Inaj’s power was more than strength and endurance. It was the ability to inspire other men to them.

He and his four warriors ran all night, slept for a little while in the first warmth of the morning sun, and ran again. Stride, easy stride, long-legged stride, stride forever. Inaj believed he had strength enough to turn a seven-day trek into three days. The Soco village was a two-day walk down the river from the ford. He thought he and his men could catch any woman, even after a day’s head start. He pictured the village. If she got there first, she would poison everyone against him.

Every couple of hours he called a pause to drink out of the river. At these times he said very little.

“Today we do it.”

“We’re going to get them.”

“I never wanted anything so much.”

Stride, stride, stride.

Damn this mortal realm!
Su-Li flapped hard downriver and cruised to Ninyu’s house. He was not only the Red Chief, Su-Li knew, but Tensa’s father and the Hungry One’s grandfather. The buzzard was anxious—fear, the cursed drumbeat of life on Earth, made him want to wring his own neck.

In the middle of winter the family would be sitting close to the warmth of their fire. Sunoya said Ninyu had pale hair
and white skin. Some of his fellow villagers were leery of him. But in a fight he was a dervish. The warriors of his village had made him Red Chief because he awed them, and half-frightened them.

The buzzard saw the hut with the red-framed door and landed on the mud roof. The curs scurried over and yapped at him. Su-Li hated dogs. He knew it was unbecoming for a spirit animal to hate any Earth creatures, but dogs were pests.

Su-Li a-a-arked at the smoke hole and blew the smoke away with his wings. It would probably be the strangest halloo Ninyu had ever heard. The albino lifted the flap, looked at the buzzard with ironic eyes, and conjured up a half smile. “Sunoya’s spirit animal,” he said, nodding to himself. He carried his club. If that didn’t kill you, his sickly white skin would scare you to death.

Su-Li couldn’t think what to say.
How the devil am I going to get this done fast?

He nodded his head up the river several times, the way the people did when they wanted to point. Ninyu came into the open, looking puzzled. A good start. But the Red Chief searched all around with his eyes.
No, no, follow me
. Even good human beings were slow to catch on. Su-Li pecked the door flap.

Red Chief Ninyu held out his arm, Su-Li landed on it, and they ducked inside.

Ninyu’s wives and children chattered and shrieked and retreated to the back wall.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” said Ninyu, “but this has to be Sunoya’s new spirit animal. He’s trying to tell us something.”

Tensa regarded Su-Li suspiciously. Spirit animals were oddities, sometimes useful, but in the view of practical men not to be trusted.

Su-Li sailed to the ground and hopped around the center fire to Tensa. He stood sideways to the young father and fixed
him with an eye.
Pay attention!
Unfortunately, Tensa couldn’t read the buzzard’s thoughts.

He pecked Tensa’s belt knife. The young man jerked it out and threatened Su-Li with the edge.

“No!” said Ninyu.

Su-Li nodded his head to the knife several times. He felt like an idiot, like he was bowing to war, the greatest curse human beings had invented.

The two men, two wives, and all the children looked at the buzzard with frightened eyes and open mouths.

Su-Li hopped to where a spear hung from a wall on thongs. Not caring whose it was, he flapped up and pecked it. He looked at the two men. He flapped up and nudged it again.

Ninyu got an idea. “Su-Li, where is Sunoya?”

You’re catching on!

The buzzard hopped to the door flap, nudged it open with his beak, and looked back at the two men. His eye was baleful.

They followed him out.

A dog charged Su-Li from the back of the house. The bird skittered up the wall hissing and clucking. Two dogs scratched at the wall as if they could climb. Su-Li screeched at them and launched himself into the air.
This place is maddening.

He hurled a reminder at himself—
Sunoya!
He made a raggedy turn back to fly over the heads of Ninyu and Tensa. When he knew he had their attention, he flew to where the river trail merged into the village, flapped back to the two watchers, swooped low over them, and winged back to the trail head again.

“He’s telling us Sunoya is up the trail,” said Ninyu.

“And in trouble!” said Tensa.

Now Ninyu let out a war cry that hurt every ear in the village. Tensa ducked back into the house to get his other weapons, and his father’s.

Men popped out of their houses pulling on their moccasins,
grabbing a club or a spear in each hand. Ninyu and Tensa whirled their war clubs over their heads and led the charge up the river.

S
unoya felt like she was running on legs that were twigs, bending and about to break. She’d always been fast, able to outrun all the girls and half the boys. She told her body to remember now how it felt, gliding over the grass . . .