The People of the Black Sun (49 page)

Yenda calls, “Don't kill him!” and strides up to glare at me. “Yes, I know you, Deputy War Chief
Sky Messenger.
”

My name flits through the war party in gasps and blurts.

Yenda lifts a hand to his warriors. “Hear me! We have just captured the infamous Standing Stone Prophet! The one known as the human False Face!”

Like a flock of frightened grouses, warriors scuttle backward to get away from me, and a cacophony of hisses and disbelieving voices erupt, filling the air.

Yenda stalks around me, smiling in diabolical glee. “You have all been afraid of this”—he thrusts a hand at me—“
this
man! Look at him. He's pathetic! He can't even defend himself.”

His warriors apparently do not believe him. There is a rush of men and women retreating through the forest. Twigs and branches crack in their wakes as they flee.

Yenda roars, “You weak fools! Come back here!”

When they do not, he turns upon me like a ravening wolf. “Look at him! All of you. He has no Power. He's just a man!
”

At the edge of my vision, I glimpse Yenda's war club slicing the air. He brings it down on my skull with a crack that every warrior nearby seems to feel in his teeth. Men and women flinch. Then I am hauled to my feet again, half-conscious and disoriented, still struggling. A futile bellow rises from my lungs and echoes down the trail.

With a low chilling laugh, Yenda orders, “Let's drag him to Matron Jigonsaseh. She may wish to gaze one last time upon her dying son.”

 

Fifty

The sound of distant voices woke Negano from a dead sleep. As he blinked up at the glittering Path of Souls, he moved his stiff limbs. His exhausted body longed to return to slumber. If he just closed his eyes, he'd be asleep again in less than five heartbeats. He felt himself sinking back and down, his muscles relaxing.…

Then Chief Atotarho's voice carried: “I don't believe it! I sent two of my best warriors to kill him. Are you sure it's him? How would you…”

A man may have answered, but Negano didn't hear the response.

He exhaled tiredly and rolled to his side to look out across the dark vista where warriors slept wrapped in blankets and capes. Tree-filtered moonlight fell across their bodies in glowing streaks. When the siege had ended, his surviving warriors had fallen into their blankets like lumps of clay. Only a handful of campfires burned. The night had been so warm that fires had been allowed to die and hadn't been restoked. These were probably breakfast fires, which meant the warriors had been out hunting the darkness for owls and flying squirrels, and the mice that scampered through the piles of old leaves, anything to fill their bellies.

Thirty paces down the slope, in the very center of the camp, a ring of warriors surrounded Atotarho. He could make out Nesi, because he towered over everyone else, and Atotarho was unmistakable. The elderly Chief stood propped on his walking stick with his black cape flapping around him. The rattlesnake skins braided into his gray hair winked eerily in the moonlight.

Atotarho continued, “… and if your army arrived last night, where is it? These games are foolishness. Tell Chief Wenisa … speak with him … no more messengers.”

A short gaunt man, barely visible in the moonlight, bowed deeply and trotted away.

Negano forced himself to sit up. Gods, he longed to go back to sleep, but the mention of Wenisa's name meant the Mountain People had arrived. He didn't see them out there, but they must be close, perhaps bedded down in the valley of corpses to the west of Bur Oak Village. He shifted to look in that direction.

Two hundred paces away, down the hill, Bur Oak Village wavered in and out of sight, cloaked by the downy mist that rose from Reed Marsh and rolled across the valley bottom like moonlit clouds. The village was completely dark. Matron Jigonsaseh probably didn't want to fire-blind her warriors, just in case Negano decided to launch a night attack, or perhaps she was saving wood. Though that seemed unlikely. She must know that today would be the last day of the Standing Stone nation. Her people weren't going to need wood. By midmorning at the latest, they would be dead or slaves. It was a miracle, a testament to her skill, that they had managed to survive as long as they had. He was fairly certain he could lay the blame for the destruction of his food supplies at her feet. He shook his head as grudging respect filled him.

Nesi said, “I don't like this. Wenisa is a weasel, he can't be trust…”

Negano strained to hear more. When he couldn't, he dragged himself to his feet and straightened his cape. The unbelievable warmth of the night had made him sweat. His war shirt stuck to his chest in clammy folds. In a rumpled line on the eastern horizon, the faintest hint of blue gleamed. Soon, dawn would overwhelm the black pools of moon shadow that splotched the valley.

He reached down to pick up his weapons. While he'd slept in his weapons belt, he'd removed and placed his quiver and bow beside him, within reach. It took all of his strength to bend down, grab them, and sling them over his shoulder.

As he started down the slope for Atotarho's circle, he saw two warriors off to his right, moving through the camp, apparently kicking men and women awake. Even in the dim moonlight, he could see blankets flying when feet connected—probably warriors scrambling up and throwing off their blankets. It annoyed him. Everyone except the sentries should be allowed to sleep for as long as they could. Who had given the order to wake the army?

His gaze returned to Atotarho, and his brows drew together. Negano had lost another three-hundred-forty-two warriors yesterday. He wouldn't know for certain until dawn how many more had died from wounds during the night … but he suspected he had perhaps six hundred fighters left, and though severely damaged, the Bur Oak palisades still stood. Even with two thousand Mountain warriors as reinforcements, many more of his warriors would lose their lives today.

“War Chief?” a man called from his right.

Negano turned to see a young warrior, sixteen summers, trotting through the moonlight. The youth had a lean hungry face with shoulder-length black hair. His dark eyes looked huge. “What is it, Yekonis?”

The man slowed to a halt two paces away, as though he wanted some distance between them. “War Chief, I don't know how to tell you this. Tarha and I were walking across the camp when we noticed that many of the bundles of blankets on the ground were too small to be sleeping people. We started kicking them over.” The man spread his arms in a helpless gesture. “They're gone, War Chief.”

Negano tried to focus his foggy thoughts. “Who's gone?”

“The warriors. Our warriors. Some time in the night they formed their blankets into human-shaped bundles, probably hoping to fool us long enough that they could get far away before we discovered their ruse. They—”

Negano lurched forward to grip his shoulder hard. “How many fled?”

Yekonis nervously licked his lips. “I don't know. We've only just begun searching. We've discovered about seventy so far. I thought I should come and tell you before we continued.”

Negano's fingers dug into Yekonis' shoulder. Did they have enough of an army left to defend itself? The ramifications could be deadly. “Does anyone else know about this?”

“I don't think so, but I can't be cer—”

“
Tell no one.
Do you understand? No one! When you've finished your count, report to me.”

“Yes, War Chief.”

Negano released him and Yekonis trotted back to join Tarha. Their faint upset voices carried through the moonlight. A short while later they returned to kicking over empty blankets.

Dear gods, I should have known. After I put down the food riot yesterday, the disgruntled warriors gathered into a knot and talked long into the night. They planned this well.…

Negano lifted his eyes heavenward for several stunned moments. As the blue of dawn seeped across the sky, the campfires of the dead began to fade to soft twinkles, and the Path of Souls dimmed.

Gods, this was too terrible to think about. He felt light-headed as he turned and plodded down the hill.

Before he entered Atotarho's circle, he heard Nesi say, “Blessed Ancestors, is that the Mountain army?”

Negano swung around. As he squinted, trying to make out the movements he saw along the tree line, a premonition of calamity filled him. From three sides, Mountain warriors with nocked bows slid from the trees and slowly started forward, hemming in Atotarho's camp. The only side left open was the eastern edge of their camp which stretched along a wavy line just out of bow range of the warriors on the Bur Oak catwalks.

Blood surged in Negano's veins as the Mountain warriors closed in. He shouted, “Rise and grab your weapons! We are surrounded! Get up! But loose no arrows!”

All across the meadow a flurry of shouts, groans, and breathless grunts erupted as men and women lunged for weapons and struggled to their feet to face the enemy. Negano repeated, “Loose no arrows! We don't know their intentions yet!”

They're supposed to be our new friends … but why would Wenisa surround us if he planned to honor our agreement?

A group of ten or so warriors detached from the line to the east and marched down the slope. Two men dragged an unconscious warrior between them. They had his arms stretched over their shoulders. His head flopped while his feet dragged behind him, generating a scraping sound.

“Negano?” Chief Atotarho called. “Join us.”

Negano broke into a trot, hurrying to stand in Atotarho's circle. The mad chief glanced at him, then his gaze slid back to the man walking out front of the ten Mountain warriors. He might have been dressed in thin rags, but he wore a magnificent wolfhide headdress with the ears pricked. Negano had heard that Wenisa's long-dead evil brother, Manidos, had favored similar wear during battle. For much of Negano's childhood the two men had terrorized the world. Stories of their merciless cruelty had plagued his nightmares until he'd finally become a man and somewhat outgrown them.

“Chief Wenisa,” Atotarho greeted when the man arrived.

Negano studied him. Grisly scars sliced Wenisa's face and his right eye was missing. Whoever had sewn it up had done a poor job. The big irregular stitches had created a shrunken pucker in his repulsive face.

“Chief Atotarho. My messenger says you doubted my word.” Wenisa flicked his hand, gesturing to the warriors hauling the unconscious man between them. “Bring him here and drop him.”

The warriors dragged the man forward and let his limp body fall on the ground at Atotarho's feet. “Take a good look. This is the dreaded Standing Stone Prophet.”

Atotarho scoffed. “It can't be. I sent two warriors to kill him in case one failed.” The Chief squinted down at the limp form. The man was unusually tall, broad-shouldered, but his face was so battered it was impossible in the moonlight to identify him. One of his eyes had swollen closed. His jaw bulged, as though several teeth had been knocked out. Atotarho used his walking stick to prod the man, trying to wake him. “What makes you think this is Sky Messenger?”

Wenisa's mouth twisted into a smile that could at best be described as a ghastly grimace. “I saw him before my warriors got to him. It's definitely Sky Messenger.”

“Well, I can't verify that claim in this light.”

As though to taunt Atotarho, Wenisa lifted both fists into the air and shouted to his warriors, “The great and powerful Standing Stone Prophet who terrifies every warrior on this field lies at my feet with barely the strength to keep breathing. He has
not
called a storm from the sky! None of the Faces of the Forest have slipped from the trees to free him! Elder Brother Sun has not come to his aid! He is a pathetic fool. I could swat him like a fly because my Power is greater than his!” To emphasize his point, Wenisa leveled a bone-breaking kick at Sky Messenger's ribs. The man didn't even groan.

Is he alive?

Whispers of awe and fear ran through both armies. These warriors were clearly terrified of what the Prophet might do to them … as Negano was. Just a few days ago, Negano had seen Sky Messenger lift his hands and call the monstrous whirling blackness that had swept down over the battlefield.

But … as he stared down at the Prophet lying helpless and alone, completely surrounded by his enemies, it seemed somehow unreal, like a made-up dream from another time.

Atotarho's wrinkled face hardened as he watched Wenisa's theatrics. “Why did you bring him to me? As a gift?”

“A
gift
?” Wenisa laughed. “Of course not. He is mine to do with as I please. At dawn, I'm going to drag him—”

A soft voice sounded behind Negano, “War Chief? Forgive me?”

Negano turned to see Yekonis standing with his fists clenched. Negano bowed, said, “Forgive me, I mean no disrespect,” and stepped away from Atotarho's circle to grip Yekonis' sleeve and escort him a few paces away where they could speak privately. “What did you find?”