The Broken Land Read Free Page A

pulled up. Inside, where his face should be, it is blacker than black, like a bottomless chasm.
    Gitchi whimpers.
    The figure looks one last time at the destroyed village, then turns away so gracefully I swear it is not tethered to the ground. It glides northward, toward the worst part of the battlefield.
    My gaze tracks it.
    The figure stops at the edge of the clearing where the cries of the wounded are unbearable. Soon, after my warriors have had suppers and drunk their fill of water, they will return here to dispatch those still alive and strip their corpses of valuables. For now, the field appears to be alive with gigantic beetles. Humped shapes crawl, topple, struggle up again. Probably trying to reach injured loved ones.
    The figure turns to stare at me expectantly. What is it he wants me to … ?
    Flashes catch my eye. Curious, I walk away from the fires to see better.
    When I stand alone in the blackness, the blood seems to drain out of my body, leaving me ice cold and staring fixedly at the battlefield littered with dead. Lights rise from the corpses, hundreds of them. Some shoot away into the heavens and blend with the Path of Souls, the star road that the Flint People call the Road of Light. That shining path leads to the Land of the Dead. Others bounce around as though not sure where they are or what has happened.
    For a timeless moment, I cannot move.
    Exhausted men who’ve been living horror for moons often see things that are not there. I back away and shake myself. It’s the exhaustion, war fatigue.
    Four bucks appear at the far edge of the clearing. As though they’ve absorbed the firelight, their thick coats flicker and their antler tips shine like points of flame.
    When the bucks trot out onto the battlefield and begin tossing their heads as they chase the lights, everything in me longs to cry out.
    The People of the Standing Stone believe that the souls of the dead must travel the sky road to reach the afterlife, but sometimes, especially after a long illness, souls become lost. The Spirit lights roam about in confusion, weeping. When the deer hear them, they run at them, catch them in their antlers, and throw them up into the heavens where the Spirits can see the Path of Souls and begin their journey to the Land of the Dead.
    A child sobs, jerking my attention back to the captives. I glance from them to the wandering souls of the dead and back. My veins are on fire.
    My Spirit Helper once told me that before a man crosses the bridge to the afterlife, he must discover what he’s running from and why. My gaze rivets on a boy of perhaps eleven summers. His face is terror. It might as well be my own face—twelve summers ago. I know that’s what I’m running from, and have been for more than half my life. I’ve never truly been able to come to terms with what happened to me. The only one who ever understood was Baji. She stood guard over my pain like Hadui, Wind Woman’s angry son who controls the violent winds. Any man who dared to criticize me had to face her wrath, and few were brave enough.
    My feet begin to walk of their own accord. Without realizing it, I find myself loping through the trees with Spirit lights bobbing around me. Are they following me? When the two guards in front of the captives see me coming, they tip their heads.
    I lift a hand and casually kneel by the oldest woman to test her ropes. A moan escapes her lips. She has a wrinkled oval face with graying black hair and the hateful eyes of a caged she-wolf.
    Barely audible, I say, “Every man here is dead tired.”
    This is a dream. I’m not really betraying my people.
    She stares at me with her jaw clenched.
    I pull a hafted chert knife from my belt and slip it into her fingers. “Wait for the right moment.”
    My clan will hunt me down and kill me for this.
    A soft gleam swells in the darkness around me, and I realize the Spirit lights have gathered like fireflies to watch me. They blink and twinkle.
    Am I dead? Was I killed in