His smile was a challenge. She lifted a brow in response, refusing to be baited, not by his challenge and not by his sexuality. Still, it did her no harm to let him see she found him handsome. Some men, receiving women’s regard, puffed up until their vanity made them foolish. It would be interesting to see if Zuangua would succumb to that fault.
“He believes me unworthy of the Eagle Seat,” she said without dropping her gaze, yet the words were directed not at Zuangua but to Eldest Uncle and her faithful councillors.
In Zuangua, doubt held no purchase, but she recognized by the flicker of his eyes that he had not expected her to meet his challenge.
“Are you finished?” she asked him. The infant stirred, smacking and searching, and without breaking her gaze from his she helped it find the nipple. Its suck calmed her.
He said nothing.
“War will come soon,” she continued, still looking at Zuangua. “Today, it comes.”
“Have you seen this in a vision, Feather Cloak?” asked Eldest Uncle.
“I do not need sorcery to see what stands right before my eyes. Choose now, councillors. I can argue one way, but my voice will soon be drowned out.”
“Five,” said Zuangua.
Abruptly he broke the gaze, gestured to his followers, and vanished up the tunnel leading to the entrance.
“Five objections,” commented Green Skirt with the sardonic tone mastered only by women who have reached a certain age. “Did he speak ‘five’? And leave the words unsaid? Or were we meant to understand him by his actions?”
White Feather sighed as she rocked her baby in her arms, the child fussing, getting hungry. “I do not remember the days before, except in the stories told by the grandparents. Now it seems I am sick of hearing about them. The land in exile is the one I know. Yet I am glad we have come home.” She patted the child’s back, and it murmured baby syllables, content to be held. The older girl had opened her eyes, gaze fixed on the woman who was now her mother.
“Everything has changed,” said Feather Cloak. “It must, and it will. But the qualities and objects we valued in exile will not be valued here on Earth. As one strand straightens, so twists the other. That is the way of the world.”
They nodded. Eldest Uncle regarded her with a fond smile, Green Skirt with the savor of regret. White Feather wore an exasperated frown and Skull Earrings looked tired, jowls drooping in the fashion of men who have finally hit their decline. The others sighed and murmured soft words meant to cheer her, but no one sounded cheerful. Above, wind moaned through the hole, and roots stirred as dust danced in the changeable light.
“I have one more question,” she said as they looked at her. “What happened to the last of the blood knives?”
At first there was silence, a form of speaking measured only by gazes shifting between them, words left unspoken. At length White Feather’s lips twitched in that flutter smile that suggested a grim sort of laughter, or a laughing kind of anger, or maybe a joke.
“We were very hungry,” she said, “so we ate them.”
3
FIVE days only, hardly any time at all. The horn was blown to summon a council at which Feather Cloak must preside.
Kansi-a-lari entered the underground chamber accompanied by bells and by Zuangua and a dozen of his adherents. Behind them, remarkably, walked the joined forces of Cat Mask and Lizard Mask. Many, warriors and craftsmen, female and male alike, walked in via the tunnel to stand in the cavernous council grounds facing the Eagle Seat where Feather Cloak presided. Blood knives huddled in clusters. More people waited outside who had walked all the way from their scattered settlements and newly populated towns. The cavern was jammed to bursting and could fit no more than those standing shoulder to shoulder. All had, of course, left their weapons outside, according to the law.
All but one.
Kansi-a-lari strode forward with a stone-tipped spear in her right hand. She halted five paces from the Eagle Seat, set the haft against the ground, and raised her left hand toward the ceiling and the distant sky, visible through the jagged gap in the roof. Dust motes painted the air with a red-gold haze.
“Say what you have to say,” said Feather Cloak, repeating the ritual words.
“I challenge your right to sit on the Eagle Seat and preside over the councils of our people,” said The Impatient One. “In the past six turnings of the moon we have rested and made offerings of our own blood. We have planted our fields. We have built and repaired our houses. We have numbered our craftsmen and our warriors and made an accounting of spears and swords. We must strike while humankind struggles.”