The Dawn Country Read Free Page B

shaved on the sides, leaving a black roach in the center and a long braid hanging down his back. He had seen twenty-nine summers pass. His wife had once told him he had the burning eyes of a Spirit-possessed shaman. In the summers after her death, however, he knew he radiated only a glacial cold. As if his souls and this frigid night were perfectly matched.
    He carefully studied the dark slash of trail.
    How far to the summit? He and his men would only find safety on the other side of the pass. Or would they? All night long they had been pursued by a small group of enemy warriors, survivors of the Bog Willow Village fight. Their leader was cunning, instructing his men to show themselves for fleeting instants to tempt Cord’s warriors to waste arrows. But long before the arrows struck, their targets had vanished into the darkness.
    Cord shook his head. His men were growing careless, desperate. They’d lost friends and loved ones in the battle. Each feared he would be next.
    Gravel crunched. He turned.
    Strung out behind him, his four men climbed with their heads down. Shoulders and hoods glittered with frost crystals. They did not speak, needing every morsel of strength to sustain the climb.
    How long since any of them had slept? Each man was exhausted. Cord could see it in the occasional trembling of a leg, or a head suddenly snapping up from where a man had fallen asleep as he walked. As if the horrors of battle were not enough, the great blind forest—brutally cold and unnaturally still—had rousted every shred of arrogance from their souls. Where once they had preened and paraded in their finest quillwork capes and shell jewelry, now they struggled just to place one foot in front of the other.
    When his men drew nearer, he motioned for them to keep going. One by one, they stepped past him with barely a glance.
    They wore knee-high moccasins, long war shirts, and wolfhide coats with the hair turned in for warmth. Gray-furred hoods encircled their faces. Each time a man exhaled, his breath settled upon his bristly hood, creating a thick rime of frost. Unstrung bows and quivers rode on top of packs stuffed with loot. Belts clattered with hafted chert knives, sharpened deerbone stilettos, stone-headed war clubs, a food pouch, and water bag.
    When the last man walked by, Cord lifted his hand to the sky and measured how far the constellations had moved since his last stop: two hand-widths, the distance across his palm twice. Dawn was another six hands of time away.
    He fell into line behind Neyaw and continued up the steep rocky trail. The darkness and cold pressed down, as though to smother that last warm spark in his body.
    A cry—half howl, half wail—sounded on the trail below them and echoed through the night. Almost inhuman, it sent a shiver down Cord’s spine as he stopped short, staring back down the dark trail.
    Dzadi—now in the lead—stopped dead in his tracks and lifted his nose to scent the wind. A tall and muscular warrior, his face was dominated by an enormous jaw that protruded outward and down until it almost seemed to rest upon his bearlike chest. Dzadi had seen thirty-four summers, most of them at war. He wore the puckered burn scars that discolored his face and arms like badges of honor. Last summer, Dzadi had been captured by the People of the Landing. Through indomitable will and cunning he’d managed to escape his captivity; the scars would be with him forever as a reminder.
    The howling cry came again, piercing the darkness like a knife. Hollow, wolfish, it sliced upward to a final shrill note that seemed to hang in the night and shook a man to his souls.
    Cord tilted his head, determined the direction. Directly beneath them, down the mountain, through the maples. Was it the same group of survivors? Or another? Perhaps several had merged.
    “Was that a … a wolf?” Young Wado asked, locking his knees to keep his legs from trembling.
    Cord’s men shifted, glancing uneasily at each other. No