“War is better.” Fox Mask’s statement ran like an echo back through those assembled. Only in the trees behind Secha was there silence, where waited her mate and her son and her infant daughters.
“War,” said the others.
“War!” they cried.
She looked toward the fence, feeling that they were being watched. Indeed, the man with sun hair had walked without fear up to the rock wall. He stood there, listening and watching and able, most likely, to understand the meat of the debate without understanding the skin that was its surface of words. Secha admired him for his exotic beauty, but also for a self-possession untroubled by any ripple of uncertainty. It meant a lot to hold firm in the face of the unknown.
For this reason, she knew she must speak, as was her right.
“Listen,” she said. “I have something to say. Why should we trust this golden one? He means to betray his own kind. Why not betray us in turn? He is brave and bold, it is true. Is he brave and bold enough to pretend to be our ally while leading us into death?”
“It’s true that all he claims to want is that woman,” said Feather Cloak. She did not bother to hide her disgust. “It doesn’t seem like much.”
“‘That’ woman is a great deal,” said Eldest Uncle. “She will be hard to defeat, and difficult to capture and hold.”
“But a fine armful to hold, so they say!” said Zuangua with a laugh.
Feather Cloak pulled a mighty grimace. Her indignation made her young uncle laugh again.
“Jealousy is a sharp spear,” Zuangua retorted, and Secha supposed it was so. He was cleverer than he acted, that one.
“I am not jealous!”
“You may not be, if you say so, but the Pale Sun Dog is. He is jealous of your son for having what he wants for himself.”
Feather Cloak seemed ready to burst with anger, so Secha cut in. “What man can help himself when faced with a creature born half of fire? Moths will die in flames. So might men, unable to resist that brilliance.”
“That is true, at least,” said Feather Cloak, mollified, “for I traveled for a time with my son in human lands. There was some head butting as men will do, over that woman. Yet even so, as Secha says, why should we trust this Pale Dog? Even my own son has turned against us and cast his loyalty in with his father’s people.”
“Is it certain your son means to fight us?” asked Secha. “When was this news known? The Bright One did not harm us. She aided our cause.”
“If any can convince him, it would be his wife,” said Eldest Uncle, taking hold of Secha’s line of argument. “She is not against us. She is not our enemy.”
Feather Cloak shook her head decisively. “She is too powerful and must be killed. That judgment was passed on her in exile, was it not? By the one who wore the feathered cloak before me?”
“Since your words are true, there is no answer to them,” said Eldest Uncle. “But we no longer live in exile. Everything has changed. Our strategy must change as well.”
“She walked the spheres!”
“As did you, Daughter! Think of this: the rope that bound us to the aether is severed. No one can ascend that ladder again. She is not our enemy.”
“Who is blinded by brilliance now?” demanded Feather Cloak. “I say, capture her, and give her to the blood knives.”
The priests nodded eagerly.
“Let us defeat all of humankind and then I’ll eat the Pale Sun Dog for supper,” said Fox Mask with a coarse laugh that made half of her companions chortle and slap the backs of their hands together to show their appreciation for her wit.
Secha did not find her amusing. “Revenge, like jealousy, makes slaves of those who cling to it.”
Zuangua stepped forward to cut off the eruption of commentary. “Then what do we bargain with, since she is the only thing this Pale Dog wants?”
“Is it worth bargaining at all?” asked the blood knives. “How can this spell he speaks of be used as a weapon?”
The warriors laughed. They already knew.
Zuangua shook his head, frowning at the blood knives as if he could not understand their ignorance. “If it is true that he knows how to move where he wills and when he wills, this is a sword as powerful as the mystery of iron.”
Cat Mask stepped forward. “Strike quickly and decisively! I said so all along!”
“Strike in small groups!” said Lizard Mask as he stepped up alongside his rival. “I said so all along”!
“My question is not answered,” said Secha, watching the pale sun man watch his enemies and thereby learn. She thought that he was probably learning far more about them than they had so far learned about him. “How can we trust him? He might send our war bands to the bottom of the sea or into the heart of a mountain to be entombed in stone.”
