People of the Nightland (North America's Forgotten Past) by W. Michael Gear, Kathleen O'Neal Gear Read Free Book Online Page A

not follow our path. They are not to bring their pollution into our world.”
    She glanced out at the slaves, seeing the bowed heads of the women and older children. These had been taken from the Nine Pipes band. For some reason, the Guide had sent them specifically to take the camp. The orders were to bring back all of the women. Nashat had insisted that the Guide wanted a Nine Pipes woman. Kakala had ensured that they captured every female in the camp.
    Normally they only took those who could work.
    After a raid, the warriors withdrew with their captives, traveling far enough to ensure that Windwolf’s ragged warriors were not in pursuit. Then they went hunting. The slaves carried the kill back to the Nightland caverns along with precious wood.
    What had been surprising was the amount of game that had moved into the territories abandoned by the nomadic Sunpath bands. Hunting had definitely improved over the last two winters.
    Her people relied on the ice caves. There they carried the summer’s catch, placing it on ice to freeze for the winter. Since the beginning of the war, bellies had been full like they’d never been in the past. Back when she was little, summer had been spent hunting the snow geese, ducks, and loons. In hide-covered boats her people netted fish from among the floating bergs in the Thunder Sea. They hunted seals, walrus, and occasional pilot whales and narwhals, rendering the meat and blubber. Throughout the summer, the largess was carried back for freezing in the ice caves, stored for winter. Now her people had grown lazy, letting the slaves carry their burden for them.
    “You’d think Raven Hunter really does smile on us.” She watched a branch break in the fire.
    Kakala was watching her curiously. “What do you really believe? Do you think the Idiot actually had a vision?”
    She cocked her head. “Have you looked into his eyes?”
    Kakala nodded. “He believes it.” He knocked the dottle out of his pipe. “But then, he always believed something. I remember when he was a boy.” He studied the end of his pipe. “How does a onetime fool become a sacred Guide?”
    “When people believe.” She took a deep breath, drawing in the clean scent of the trees. “In answer to your question, I don’t know what I believe anymore. I’m lost, Kakala. Nothing has turned out to be what I thought it was.”
    He grunted. “The Council is swollen with itself. They act like gods themselves.”
    She raised an eyebrow. “Is that doubt I hear in your voice?”
    His great shoulders gave a slight shrug. “I serve my people. No more, no less.”
    “If you were a Karigi, I would have nothing to do with you.”
    He barely smiled. “Karigi serves only himself.”
    “And his passions,” she added.
    “I noticed he had his eye on you last time we had Council.”
    “I would rather be Windwolf’s prisoner for the rest of my life than Karigi’s for a single night.” She paused. “He hates you, you know.”
    “I know.” Kakala barely smiled. “It even goes back to before Walking Seal Village. I remember him parading before my cage when I was disgraced. His souls ooze at the notion that I am the high war chief.”
    “We are Night Clan.” She shifted to relieve her cramped legs. “Nashat leads the Council, and you are the clan war chief. There’s nothing Karigi can do about it until Wolverine Clan unseats Nashat.”
    “For that, at least, I can thank Nashat.”
    She looked up. “But you know that someday, sometime, he’s going to repay you for striking him at Walking Seal Village. Karigi doesn’t forget.”
    Kakala was silent for a while. “No, he doesn’t.”
    She frowned, eyes on the fire again as she remembered Walking Seal Village. The look in Bramble’s eyes haunted her. She could still hear Windwolf’s panicked cry from the other side of the lodge.
    “What are you thinking?”
    “About Walking Seal Village.” She reached for another stick of wood and tossed it onto the flames. “Have