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A pair of brawny mask warriors walked past, going toward the village, and the young woman tilted her chin and canted her shoulders and twitched a hip so that they flushed dark and pulled on their ears and hurried on, too intimidated to look back after her.
“Why do you do that?” Secha asked.
“Because I can.” Then she started, like a young hare. “Best they not see me with you,” she murmured, and shied off into the camp as swiftly as she could without running and drawing more attention to herself.
The blood knives were preparing to depart the camp in the company of Feather Cloak and a number of mask warriors, so Secha fell in at the end of the procession, unnoticed and undisturbed. Just beyond the encampment a path split off from the main road and curled up over a slope. Within a cradle of shallow hills stood the eleven stones that marked this circle. Ten stood as though newly raised while the eleventh had fallen off to one side where the hillside had caved in under it. The brambles and vines that had covered it had been cleared away in the last few days.
They waited somewhat back from the circle, since no one wanted to get too close. No one knew quite what to expect, even though the dawns and dusks of the last six days had passed uneventfully. The young serpent skirt sidled out of the gathering shadows to join the other sky counters. She did not look once at Secha; her gaze was fixed on the dark stones.
The wind died. Twilight settled. Out here beyond the White Road, they rarely saw the sun, and tonight the entire sky was covered with a mantle of pale cloud. It was chilly. A pair of warriors breathed into their hands. Feather Cloak was tapping her foot, looking irritated and impatient. She had brought Little Beast with her—the rest of the hostages had been left behind in a pen—and her granddaughter stood perfectly still. The contrast was almost amusing. She was waiting. They all were waiting. Each in their own way.
It was entirely quiet. Distant sounds drifted on the wind: a goat’s complaint, chiming laughter, a snatch of song.
A faint melody ringing as out of the heavens tingled through her, seeping into flesh and bone. She gasped.
The crown flowered into a blossom of brilliant light, threads weaving and crossing, caught in the warp of the unseen stars and wefted through the stones. Led by Fox Mask, the mask warriors burst out of the gateway. They were laughing and howling and chattering and singing, burdened with tools and sacks and an iron kettle and a pair of cows and four horses and a herd of terrified sheep and one interested dog that everyone seemed to ignore although the animal was busily keeping the sheep in a tight group.
The blood knives cried out a brief poem, a song of praise, because there were six prisoners as well, bound and under close guard, one woman in long robes and five men, all struggling against the ropes that restrained them.
Last came Zuangua. He held an iron sword drawn behind the Pale Sun Dog, whose face was pale with weariness. Threads dissolved into a shower of sparks. These flares died, and suddenly it was dark.
“Silence!” cried Feather Cloak.
“Success!” barked Fox Mask in answer, and in reply they heard the weeping and curses of the prisoners.
Sparks bit, and oil lamps and reed tapers were lit. Light and shadow wove through the assembly.
Zuangua said, “Where is my Little Beast?”
Little Beast sprang forward and barreled into him. He patted her on the head as he might a favored dog. “Can I go with you next time, Uncle?” she demanded. “I’m old enough to be a shield bearer.”
Her speech was fluid and fluent, shockingly so, but they had gotten used to it; everyone agreed it was some gift of the blood or the taint of sorcery, inherited from her mother. Maybe she had been bitten by snakes.
“Old enough,” he agreed carelessly, and he looked at the blood knives as if daring them to try to wrest her from him.
But the priests stared avidly at the prisoners. The woman in long robes had begun chanting in a singsong voice that reminded Secha of the sky counters’ praying. It seemed she had power, because the other prisoners calmed and steadied, although by their flaring eyes and gritted teeth they were still as terrified as the bleating sheep. There was a short man with thick arms and massive shoulders; there was a youth little older than her own son; there was a man with blood on his tunic and another who limped from a wound, and the last was white-faced with shock although he was the tallest and plumpest among them.
“You can’t have all of them,” said Zuangua to the priests. “Those two—” He indicated the burly man and the youth. “—we took from their forging house. They’re blacksmiths.”
The priest-woman in her long robes looked toward the stone circle. The Pale Dog was leaning against one of the stones as though exhausted, his eyes closed and his breathing shallow. His mouth was parted, and his chin and jaw and lips moved ever so slightly, as if he were talking to himself in an undertone. Everything was pale in him, fair hair, fair skin, undyed linen tunic pallid against the night, and a gold circle hung on a necklace at his fair throat. The dark stone framed him, highlighting his beauty and his cunning power, his strength and his shine.
The priest-woman cursed him. You didn’t need to understand the words to hear the power of her speech.
But if he heard her, he gave no sign. His eyes remained closed. He might have been sleeping, mumbling as dreamers do, except for the twitching of one little finger.
Zuangua had a mask after all, one tipped up on his head: he wore the visage of a dragon, proud and golden, just as he was.
“I have something to say,” he began, and Feather Cloak raised a hand to allow him to continue.
“He is a very evil man,” observed Zuangua as his warriors waved their hands in agreement. “He has lost even the love and loyalty for kinfolk that every person ought to have! He betrayed them all, without mercy.”
“Thus will humankind fall,” said Feather Cloak. “They are faithless each to the other.”
Secha spoke up. “Not all of them are. Liathano kept faith with your son, Sanglant.”
At the mention of those names, the Pale Dog’s jaw tightened, but he did not open his eyes. He had very good hearing.
“Your son kept faith with his father,” said Zuangua to Feather Cloak, “which I saw with my own eyes.” He grinned wickedly. “Even this ‘little beast’ who stands at my side seems to love me.”
