The Dawn Country by W. Michael Gear Read Free Book Online Page A

Stone, divorced him. He walked to stand at her shoulder and whispered, “Odion heard something. Did you?”
    The tiny lines around her black eyes deepened. After the devastating attack on their own village, Yellowtail Village, they’d both cut their hair short in mourning. Chopped-off black locks framed her beautiful oval face. At the age of twenty-seven, she stood twelve hands tall—very tall for a woman—and had a straight nose with full lips and a wide mouth. “No. Earlier, I thought I heard wolves, perhaps human wolves, near the pass, but …”
    They both stood absolutely still and listened. During the attack, several of the Yellowtail Village children had been stolen by the enemy. Last night, they’d rescued their own children—Odion, and their eight-summers-old daughter, Tutelo—plus a Flint girl named Baji and another boy, Hehaka, whose people they did not yet know.
    Koracoo’s head tilted to the right. Gonda held his breath. Bitter cold gripped the forest; it had driven the sap out of the trees, freezing them solid and leaving their mighty hearts dreaming of spring. They were too cold even to pop and snap with minor temperature variations.
    Yet Gonda heard snapping in the distance. And it was rhythmic.
    “Men. Running.”
    “Yes,” Koracoo whispered. She spun around to survey the camp. Her gaze lingered on the children. “One of us should remain by the fire while the rest of us hide.”
    “I’ll be the bait. Go. Get the others up and packed.”
    Koracoo trotted away, rousted everyone from his or her blankets, and ordered them to pack. Hands flew, rolling blankets, stuffing belongings into packs. Then Koracoo sent Sindak and Towa out into the northern sumac thicket with the four children. She lightly trotted to hide in the plum grove to the south of the fire.
    A herd of deer thrashed through the plums, startling Gonda into instinctively grabbing for his war club, but they trotted past and disappeared into the forest.
    Gonda walked back and crouched before the fire. Reluctantly, he placed his war club to the side, near the tripod where the boiling bag hung, and pretended to be warming his hands before the tiny blaze. Far off, branches cracked as men staggered into brush and trees, then curses erupted, and finally feet stumbled down the mountain trail. Thirty heartbeats later, they arrived.
    Gonda subtly gazed at the vague forms that moved at the edges of the firelight. They stood just beyond the weave of leafless plum trees. Gonda calmly added another branch to the flames and mentally noted the location of his war club. He could have it quickly, but not as quickly as they could shoot an arrow through his heart. Sitting clearly visible in the fire’s gleam, he made an easy target.
    “Since my heart is still beating,” he softly called, “I assume you’ve decided not to kill me. Why don’t you come in and get warm.” He looked straight out at their dark forms and gestured to the logs pulled up around the little blaze. “You’re welcome to the stew that’s left in the boiling bag.”
    A hissed conversation ensued beyond the trees. From the corner of his eye, he saw Koracoo shift, getting ready.
    Full into the firelight, his legs shaking, walked a tall man wearing a finely tailored wolfhide coat with the hood pulled up. He had a long pointed nose and cold eyes. Serpents were tattooed on his cheeks, and he had an ugly knife scar across his square jaw. The man moved with a mixture of mistrust and careless desperation. His legs were shaking as though he’d been running flat-out for days. “You’re from the Standing Stone People,” he noted in a deep voice as he took in Gonda’s accent and the distinctive rectangular cut of his buckskin cape. “What are you doing here?”
    Again, Gonda gestured to the logs situated at angles around the fire. “Please sit down and call in your friends. I mean you no harm. You look like you can use some rest.”
    The man swallowed hard and said, “There’s no