The Broken Land by W. Michael Gear Page B

the other to the human False Face who would don a cape of white clouds and ride the winds of destruction across the face of the world.
    Everyone felt the pendant’s Power, as evidenced by the fact that they could not take their eyes from it. When Atotarho noticed, he tucked it back into his cape, and Hiyawento’s gaze clung to the snake eyes tattooed on the chief’s fingertips. The man wore bracelets of human finger bones.
    The tallest, most heavily scarred man, Thona, a war chief renowned for his skill with a war ax, rose to his feet. “If it please the council, I would speak first.”
    Atotarho nodded. “War Chief Thona of Riverbank Village, please continue.”
    Hiyawento took a deep breath, preparing himself, and as he exhaled his breath hung before him in the cold air like a shimmering creature.
    Thona rubbed a hand over his scarred face before he said, “The fever has come to Riverbank Village, brought in the bodies of the captives we took after our last battle with the Flint People.”
    The mood of the group changed abruptly. Perhaps all of them, Hiyawento included, had assumed that today’s meeting would be about the destruction of Sedge Marsh Village, and the fearful prospect that the Standing Stone nation would continue to form more alliances with rogue Hills’ villages. That’s what had every clan matron enraged.
    Thona propped his hands on his hips, and his cape flared outward, then fell into soft firelit folds around him. “Our Healers have removed many witch pellets from the captives’ bodies, but the things are alive. Once removed they leap into another body, and another. Matron Kwahseti asks that, for the moment, we all forget about Sedge Marsh Village and their treachery, and agree to a new priority.”
    “And that is?”
    “Our people are dying like leaves in the first heavy frost. We must find the witches and force them to remove their spells or kill them. If we don’t, all of your villages are at risk, too.”
    A rumble of voices ran through the council house as people discussed this new development.
    Kallen leaned sideways to say, “War Chief, I think we should leave. What if a witch pellet jumped into Thona’s body, or another of his contingent? We could all run home carrying the fever with us. Is it worth the risk to remain? Atotarho will not listen to us anyway.”
    Hiyawento turned to her. Kallen had seen twenty-nine summers pass. Short black hair, cut in mourning, framed her triangular face, making her dark eyes appear huge, like polished mahogany moons riding over her thin nose. She shifted, and the soft fur of her cape, made from twisted strips of weasel hide, caught the sunlight falling through the smoke hole.
    Hiyawento replied softly, “No, but perhaps the matrons will care what we have to say.”
    He glanced at the six old women who sat like silent white-haired statues. Their wrinkled faces might have been carved from stone, but their eyes were alert, listening to every word, and he thought he saw fear on Tila’s face. Was she dying? Or was this just a ruse to get Zateri to return to Atotarho Village?
    “How many people have the fever?” Atotarho asked.
    “When we left Riverbank Village three days ago,” Thona said, and the white scars that crisscrossed his face tensed, “fifty-seven.”
    After a brief stunned silence, War Chief Joondoh of Turtleback Village stood to be recognized. Short, muscular, and loud, he said, “The Flint People did this on purpose. The cowards!”
    “What are you saying?” Thona asked.
    “I mean that when they heard that our warriors were on the trails, they witched their own people. They wanted us to attack and carry the sickness home.”
    Hiyawento opened his mouth to reply, but Thona cut him off. “They would not dare to do such a thing. They know we would slaughter them to the last person.”
    Atotarho rubbed his right knee and winced before saying, “I think they would dare. They would do anything to kill us.”
    “If I may comment?”