Crown of Stars - Page 103/248

“Yes, larger than usual,” she said. “I wonder who is coming.”

From this vantage point, she surveyed the place humankind had once called Siliga-Eleven-Stones but which the Ashioi had named Seven-Days-Walk-Beyond-The-White-Road. Moctua, who was also called Big-Eating, was cooking lizard at the charcoal pit beside the bread oven, seasoning the good meat with salt and herbs. Some of the young warriors who protected the outpost were digging irrigation canals through the desiccated fields. A square field of beans and precious mahiz had been planted, nursed with water hauled from the stream. A pair of women were half hidden within the orchard of oil trees, but she wasn’t sure what they were up to.

There came the water haulers: a trio of emaciated adolescent humans who had shown up at the outpost two waxings of the moon ago and made it clear they would work in exchange for being fed. So they worked, and were fed the same gruel and honey as everyone else, and although they had at first refused lizard meat, soon they came to eat it.

Over at the western limit of her sight, at a slant to the road, lay the heaped soil of the grave site where the corpses of the human villagers—long dead before the Ashioi arrived here—had been buried and ringed with stones to keep unquiet spirits from roaming. It was an old superstition which the old ones had insisted on, but she had grown up in a different time, where death could not be sealed away even within a ring of stones dedicated to She-Who-Creates.

“Death and life are warp and weft,” she said to Sparrow Mask, who still stared at the dust cloud. “I think those stones are unnecessary.”

“It is the customary way.” He was a young man in appearance although centuries older than her, caught in the shadows for a time whose duration had little meaning to him—or to her. “We cannot cast away the old ways between one moon dark and the next. Look! Is that Feather Cloak’s wheel?”

It was.

Feather Cloak strode at the head of a substantial army. Sparrow Mask called down, and a pair of warriors opened the palisade gate. The water carriers paused in the middle of the fields to stare at the huge procession, and scuttled away toward the people working the fields, those they knew.

“Where will they camp?” asked Sparrow Mask. “The southern quarter is the best camping ground, but it hasn’t been cleansed yet by the blood knives.”

“Maybe they are not staying long.”

Secha climbed down and walked back through the village, past the chanting voices.

“Eighteen Bundles of days make one Year.

Thirteen years make One Long Year.

Four Long Years make one Great Year.

When the Great Years run their full count,

and the Six-Women-Who-Live-Upriver walk overhead,

We are come back to where we began.”

She walked out the gate and met Feather Cloak beyond the ditch, at the fork in the road. Here a path snaked up toward the stone crown, which was hidden from this vantage point by the irregular slope of the hill. She had heard tales of the great armies of the old days, marching on campaign, so numerous that it would take an entire day for the procession to pass any given spot, but these tales were legends to her, having little meaning in exile. The dust of their halting choked her. They were so many, wearing eager faces and bold bright clothing that made her chest squeeze tight with apprehension.

“What is this, Feather Cloak?” she asked. Counting on her fingers by bundles, she estimated there were twelve hundred as far back as she could see, and more beyond, whom she could not see. “Surely you have left our home lightly defended.”

“Even after our exile, we can field several strong armies. In these days, there are none close by us who can attack us. What is your report? We passed no war bands on our journey here.”

“All is quiet,” said Secha. “Since the dark of the moon I have sent two bands into the north, and received word from one that their hunt goes well. Of the rest, there are five bands of whom we have no word and sign. Perhaps they are lost.”

Feather Cloak nodded. If she worried about those who might be lost, Secha saw no more sign of it than her scouts had of the missing warriors. No doubt this was why Kansi-a-lari must lead in war. Secha hadn’t the stomach for it.

In the third rank walked Zuangua, fist tight on his spear. Its feather ornaments swayed as he walked. A tall girl dressed in warrior’s garb stood beside him, clutching a feathered shield and a quiver of arrows. She wore no mask—that had to be earned—and only a long woven shirt and knee-length breech clout without cape or ornamentation. Even so, Secha had to look twice to recognize the youth with her hair pulled back and trimmed to display the offering marks where her ears had been cut to draw the sacrificial blood.