“The fire is dead!” someone shouted. “Where are those stinking slavewomen?”
“Gone! The new-blood children, too!”
“How can they be gone?”
“Well they are! Look around!”
The loudest, angriest voice was Tsilka’s.
“Tor! Where are our slaves?”
The doorskin flew open.
“Come out, Tor!” Tsilka shrilled.
“Tor went hunting.”
“Our slaves are gone! You are the big chief! You tell us what happened!”
Ashan stalked toward her.
“Get away from my door.”
Tsilka didn’t move. Ugliness twisted her face. Ashan had to push by her, getting invisible poison on her hands.
“Rattlesnake’s daughter,” Ashan hissed.
By now, all the Tlikit were outside, milling around, angry and upset. Women cried. Men threatened agonizing death to whoever had taken the slaves. As soon as they saw the Moonkeeper, they started talking at once.
“The Lost People! Someone stole them! And the new-blood children! All of them—gone!”
Tsilka shouted, “Look in Shahala huts!”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Ashan said. “Why would we take them? We think keeping slaves is horrible.”
But some of the Tlikit started toward huts. Shahala men bristled, ready to stop them. The Tlikit might be happy sleeping together in one place, but no one entered a Shahala home unless invited.
The Tlikit hesitated.
“What’s the matter? Are you afraid of them?” Tsilka screeched, right behind Ashan’s ear.
Ashan whirled around.
Tsilka screamed in her face. “The Lost People don’t even belong to you, and you turned them loose!”
“Your slaves ran away, or the spirits took them. Now get out of my space, or I will boil your insides to mush!”
Tsilka didn’t move. Power rose in Ashan as she glared at her. She gathered it as heat and sent it shooting from her eyes.
Tsilka said, “I do not fear you, Ashan. You could not boil water for soup.” Then she shouted, “Look people! Look who else is missing! Tor and those bear-claws-around-the-neck, better-than-us Shahala First Warriors! That’s who took our slaves and our new-blood children!”
A man came running, yelling that he had found tracks. The stew Tsilka had been stirring came to a boil.
“Well?” she yelled. “Go get them!”
“I forbid you!” Ashan commanded.
But the Tlikit men stormed to their cave, came out with weapons, and headed down the river after the one who’d found the tracks.
Ashan could have had her people stop them… yes, they could have had a war right there at Teahra Village. And maybe that’s just what she should have done. But she let them go, hoping Tor and the slaves were far enough away that the Tlikit would never catch up with them. She hoped Tor would be looking behind as well as ahead.
After the Tlikit warriors left, Tsilka had no more words for Ashan, but plenty of evil, gloating looks.
“What are you standing around for?” the Moonkeeper said to her people. “If they want to chase the wind, let them, but we have work to do.”
Ashan went in her hut, hanging feathers by the door to tell people to leave her alone.
“Failure” was a word that did not apply to the Moonkeeper, but there was no other word that would work. Ashan had failed to stop the Tlikit from going after the Shahala. What would happen now?
All because of Rattlesnake Woman. I should have struck her dead the first time I saw her.
Indeed, Raga’s voice said in her mind.
Ashan answered out loud. “Do I hear your disapproval, Old Moonkeeper? Where were you and your spirit friends when I needed you out there?”
Raga said, Why did I bother teaching you magic if you are never going to use it?
“I tried, and it failed. I tried to boil her, but she did not feel the heat. Because she did not believe.”
Because you did not believe, Ashan. That’s why your magic failed.
CHAPTER 21
FASTER! HURRY!” TOR KEPT YELLING, AS THE BAND of slaves and rescuers traveled through the night and the next day.
The setting of Kai, the Sun, wouldn’t have stopped Shahala warriors: Alhaia, the Moon, would be bright again this night, and Haslo, the Star, would keep them going in the direction Colder. But Tor had more than just warriors to think about. Looking at the Forest Women didn’t tell him much; they had practice at hiding how they felt. But the little ones, so eager at the start, were visibly exhausted. At a marshy place edged with scattered alder trees, he decided to stop for the night, in spite of a prickling he’d felt at the back of his neck all day.
“How does this look?” he asked the warriors with a wave of his arm.
“Anything looks good now,” one answered.
Picking their spots on the ground, they put down their spears and their packs, which were heavier than usual because of the many things they’d brought for the women, who’d have nothing at their home in the forest.
The women stood in a tight cluster around their little ones. Tor gave one of them a pack he’d been carrying.
“Food. You carry it. Make it last the whole trip.”
He repeated it in Tlikit, but he could never tell if they understood, because they never looked in his eyes. He handed another woman a water bladder and pointed to a shimmery orange spot out in the tall reedy grass—the reflection of the setting sun upon water. She walked off toward it.
The warriors took extra sleeping skins from their packs and tossed them on the ground, making signs to show that they were gifts. At first the women seemed afraid to touch the skins, but then they pulled them together at the base of a large tree and sat down.
Just like Teahra, Tor thought. They want to sleep by a tree, clumped together like mushrooms. Except now they have their little ones to huddle with.
Tor pawed through his food pouch and took out a piece of stringy, dry elk. At least in Teahra, they had better food to eat, he thought.
And what will they eat when you leave them in the forest? asked a voice in his mind.
Tor had thought about it, but he hadn’t told the First Warriors: They would have to stay for a while and hunt for the women.
The voice pestered him. And what will they eat when that is gone?
Tor was tired of the talking in his head.
Spirits said we must take them back, and that is what we ’re doing, he said to himself. Spirits can take care of them after that.
As soon as the sun was gone, the twilight air got cold. Fingers of fog lifted from the marsh and crept toward the trees. Tor heard scattered croaks—frogs whose deep-sounding voices said their legs were large enough to be eaten.
The woman returned with water, and everyone drank. Tor didn’t mind the mossy taste, glad to get the crust of dry meat washed out of his mouth.
In spite of how tired they must be, the woman took her sisters into the misty marsh. Tor thought they were going to catch frogs, but they pulled broad-leafed plants, stripped off roots, and brought them back.
A woman gave him a handful of knuckle-sized knobs.
“What are they?” he asked.
She stared at her bare feet.
“Keachak?” he asked in Tlikit. But she was silent. He shook his head, knowing why Ashan had been so frustrated by her attempts to talk with the Forest Women.
“Go and get your rest,” he muttered.
She must have understood that. She went back over to the others of her kind.
Tor ate the reddish brown roots, which were crunchy, and bland.
Higher-voiced frogs gave themselves to the song rising from the marsh, as if the oncoming dark were morning to them and they were glad they had lived to see it.
Lar said, “I don’t understand these women. They must know they’re going home, but they look as pathetic as ever.”
Kowich said, “I know. Doing what they’re told. Afraid to make someone mad.
Tor, you told us the Moonkeeper said they’d be happy.”
“I guess you don’t get over being a slave in one day.”
“Believe me, you do not,” said Takluit the Outsider, who’d been born one.
“Maybe they don’t understand that we are rescuing them. Maybe they think they belong to us now, instead of the Tlikit.” Deyon didn’t talk much, but what he said was usually worth hearing.
“By the looks on their faces, I think they liked the savages better,” Hamish said, insulted.
Tor was more disappointed than insulted. The Forest Women understood what was happening—he knew they did. He had thought they’d thank him for it and was hurt that they did not.
“Oh well,” he said, “at least they’re not trying to escape.”
The men could barely hear each other. There must be vast herds of frogs out there. The marsh throbbed with rhythmic sounds, from deep rumbles to high chirps.
The treetops were black against the dark gray sky.
“Enough talk,” Tor said. “Get rested. I’ll take first watch, then I’ll wake you, Deyon.”
The men rolled up in their sleeping skins, grunting and sighing.
A short distance away, the scattering of alders thinned into grassland. Leaning back against a trunk, holding his spear in both hands with its butt on the ground, Tor stood facing the way they had come. He could see open prairie on one side. On the other, he could see his sleeping friends and the marsh. It was a difficult time for guarding: almost dark, except for the fog, which held on to a trace of light as it drifted just above the ground. Since his eyes were almost useless, Tor told his ears to listen hard, but frog noise was all he heard. He asked Alhaia, the Moon, to hurry. After Alhaia arose, watching was easier, until sleepiness sat on his eyelids, and the thought of lying down became irresistible.
Tor was about to go and wake Deyon, when he saw movement in the trees along the edge of the marsh. He blinked.
A line of men, coming right toward his sleeping people! Two for every Shahala!
“Get up!” he yelled, racing to his men. “It’s the Tlikit!”
The First Warriors sprang to their feet and stood with Tor, spears held across their chests in both hands.
The Tlikit stopped, just as surprised.
“Don’t do it!” Tor warned, with a menacing thrust of his weapon.
For a moment the Tlikit seemed confused. But their greater numbers made them bold.
“Get them!” one yelled.
Screaming like savages, they ran at the Shahala with spears and branches from the ground.
As they came, Tor gripped the end of his spear in both hands and swung it back and forth in front of him. Wood cracked against wood and flesh and bone. Hollering, grunting, men went down and came back up. Wielding his spear like a club, Tor stayed on his feet, while all around him, men punched, kicked, and scuffled, tearing up the ground and each other, feeling no pain in the heat of battle.
Cra-a-a-ck!
Tor’s head filled with stars. He pitched forward, his shoulder digging into the ground. He pushed himself up, and felt warm blood running down his arm.
“Now you’ve made me mad!” he yelled. He struggled to his feet, swinging his spear wildly in the night air.
Thump!
Kicked in the back, Tor whirled around. Wyecat went down under the butt of his spear. Wyecat! A thought flashed in Tor’s mind to help his old friend get up. But he kept swinging, bringing down another one coming at him with a blade.
He heard someone yell, “The slaves are getting away!”
Tlikit men went after them.
A scream rose over the clamor—a scream of mortal injury.
Tor’s blood froze.
“Elia!” he cried, running.
Tlikit men knelt around the boy. Tor shoved them away.
Chest to the ground, butt in the air, Elia thrashed, shrieking loud enough to deafen the Spirit of Thunder.
“Hold him down!” Tor said.
A thin spear protruded from his back below the shoulder. Tor pulled it out. Elia wouldn’t die from such a wound, but that wasn’t how he sounded.
Filled with rage, Tor broke the spear over his knee and flung the pieces away.
“Look what we’ve done!” he said, first in Tlikit, then in Shahala, for all were to blame. “We have killed a boy because we cannot agree!”
Elia’s cries had ruined the fighting mood. Such a thing wouldn’t have stopped a battle of strangers, but these men had lived together for six moons. Perhaps they were becoming brothers.
The slavewomen and the little ones had vanished.
Tor spoke to Wyecat, who was holding his head.
“We need sleep. How about you?”
Wyecat nodded. “We’ll decide what to do in the morning.”
Tor carried Elia, who had finally stopped screaming, back to the place where they had been attacked, to find some skins and get some sleep.
He whispered, “That was a good show, Elia.”
“Best ever. But shoulder does hurt.
“I’m just glad it only tore up flesh,” Tor said. Elia could never know how glad he was.
“What were you doing?” Tor asked.
“Crazy men scare little ones. I take them away. Women want come too. We running, I get hit, go down screaming.” The boy smiled. “Slaves know what I doing. They get away.”
“The Moonkeeper will be proud of you.”
“She who I do it for.” Elia’s voice was full of love. “She beautiful. I grow up, take away from you.”
Tor cuffed him lightly on the head.
Just before Tor drifted off to sleep, he noticed the frogs starting up again. He hadn’t realized that the battle of men had silenced them.
In the morning, groaning from pain they hadn’t felt the night before, the bloody, grimy men staggered to the water to clean their wounds. When they returned to the place where they’d fought as enemies, then slept together as brothers, Tor thought they looked ashamed.
Gashes and scrapes; swellings and bruises; missing teeth; a nose or two that seemed to have moved; an arm that needed a sling—the injuries were more ugly than serious.
Elia, who had taken no part in the battle, had received its worst. The flesh below his shoulder had been pierced all the way through. But he hadn’t bled much; the wounds in his back and chest must have closed as soon as Tor pulled out the spear. He had good color, was alert and showing off the first battle wounds he’d received to any who would look.
Elia said to Tor, “Want spear. Where is?”
Tor shook his head. “It’s an evil thing that brought you down. Not something you want to save.”
Elia nodded. “Want kill spear. Where is?”
“I killed it and threw it away.”
“Mine to kill.”
Tor shrugged. “Too late.”
The men of Teahra were sorry the boy got hurt, but glad that his howls had brought them to their senses.
Tor said to them, “Men get angry because they are men. But there must be a better way to fix it than by killing each other. Think about it. Say I killed you, Tlok—”
“You almost did,” Tlok said, rubbing an ugly red smash on his forehead.
“What if I had? Who would feed your mate and little ones? I’d have to. I’m sure I’d come to wish I had found another way.”
They laughed. Tlok was cursed with a demanding mate who liked to keep herself and four little ones fat.
Tor continued: “Forget about ancient laws. Forget about what Moonkeepers say. See if you agree with this: It doesn’t make sense for men of the same tribe to kill each other, no matter how angry we are—because the tribe needs all its men. The death of one hurts the tribe and everyone in it, including the man who killed him.”
They nodded. It made sense.
“This is how Shahala warriors agree,” Tor said, thrusting out his hand. It was met by six others.
Tor looked at the Tlikit. “Join us.”
Twenty hands slapped. The lo
ud noise said that no Teahra warrior would kill another, no matter what kind of blood flowed in him.
“Let’s go home,” Tor said.
“What about the slaves?” Wyecat asked.
“They’re gone.”
“But we know where they live. There’s more to this than agreeing not to kill each other, Tor. Are you going to leave our slaves alone?”
The answer was no. Ashan would not give up. Tor knew that, but he couldn’t say it.
“I don’t know, Wyecat. For now I’m asking: Do you want to die over them?”
“Not really.”
“Neither do I. I think we should go home and let our mates fuss over our wounds. And then we should talk about it. Everyone in both tribes—I mean—”
“I know what you mean, Tor. Slapping hands doesn’t make our blood the same.”
“I’m trying, Wyecat. I’m not a god.”
“Not since you found out how much work it was.”
The men from Teahra Village went home.
For now, there was no problem to be solved. The slaves had run while they were being fought over. But not toward the faraway forest—the home Ashan was so certain they must crave. No. They ran back to Teahra Village.
Like the Shahala, like the Tlikit… their old home wasn’t home anymore.
Ashan said, “Finally, Tor, one of them talked to me, in a mix of Shahala and Tlikit. Her name is Weechul. I asked why they came back here when they could have gone anywhere. Do you know what she said?”
“What?”
“Being a slave is not the worst thing. Not being able to feed your little ones is. I realized she’s right. I would have done the same thing they did.” Ashan shook her head. “I can be so stupid, Tor. I’m a mother. Why didn’t I look at it through a mother’s eyes?”
“You may be a Moonkeeper, my love, but you are human.”
Ashan didn’t like excuses, especially for herself.
“But I caused all that trouble for nothing. Everything is the same as it was. No matter what people say, I have to listen to spirits, and I’ve never known one to change its mind. Having slaves is against the Balance.”
“Ashan, you need to relax a little… be easier on yourself and others.”
Tor knelt behind her and massaged her shoulders, speaking in a soothing voice.
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