A stray blast of wind set the fires to dancing, sending sparks toward the cavern ceiling with a whoosh and a roar—and the thought that came whispering in from the night with it set Chilaili’s beak to chattering. I do not want to worship creatures whose only desire is to see how well we die. I want friendship with those who delight in living.
Chilaili came to her feet, grief and indecision falling away in one blinding, clear-sighted instant, one that turned her entire world upside down. There were, indeed, devils among the stars. They had created Chilaili’s race. She moved purposefully through her living cavern, filled by a great calm she could not explain, particularly as she should have been shaking with mortal terror. She prepared her hunting pack, slung it onto her back, strapped on her weapons belt, donned heavy furs usually reserved for the deepest cold of winter, and considered whether or not to take the snow-webs. No, she decided, if I try to walk in heavy wind with snow-webs strapped to my feet, the wind will catch them and I will break a leg. Or both of them. Regretfully, she left them in their place against the wall.
Chilaili covered the pack and weapons belt with the sacred katori robe, handed from mother to daughter for generations. The small oil lamp in one corner cast terrifying shadows on the walls, for the katori ceremonial cloak, massively decorated for katori ritual work, carried a misshapen profile. It turned the wearer into an awe-inspiring apparition, one with great power to intercede with spirits and unseen forces. Chilaili still remembered her own fright as a new hatchling whenever her mother had donned it for some new ceremony. Chilaili understood very well its impact on an uninitiated Tersae’s mind. Tonight, she was counting on it.
It did wonders to disguise the hunting pack and weapons belt beneath it.
Satisfied, Chilaili turned to leave her semiprivate living cavern, only to find Sooleawa standing in the entrance. Her daughter’s eyes glittered in the lamplight.
“Respected Mother.”
Chilaili’s heart thundered painfully for a long moment. “Cherished Daughter?”
“I—” Sooleawa hesitated, glanced into the raucous Council Cavern. Then she said in a low voice, “I would accompany you on this holy ritual. I, too, must learn all the teachings of the katori.”
The rebellion in Sooleawa’s eyes flashed an unmistakable warning. Chilaili reached for words of persuasion, rather than a direct and confrontational order that Sooleawa would probably disregard, given the enormity of the girl’s life-debt. “You are old enough to know, Sooleawa, what I am about, this night. You are more precious to me than life itself. I will not rob you of your birthright and refuse you the right to go with me, but do so, child, with your eyes open and your claws sharp. It is dangerous ground I tread, far more dangerous than the fury of the blizzard I must walk through. If you go, there is a very terrible chance our bloodline will die out, in the female line. I need you here, Sooleawa—”
“To cower like a frightened child with the old ones and the newly hatched?”
She held her daughter’s angry gaze until Sooleawa dipped her head in shame. “Forgive me, Respected Mother.”
Chilaili gentled her voice. “When I have gone, yours will be the only voice of reason left to advise the Grandmothers. You and I are the only Tersae in all the world who have walked with humans and learned their tongue. If the battles go as disastrously as I believe they will, yours may be the only voice left to judge what the humans might do in retaliation. I need you to stay, Daughter, far more than I need your support in the task I have set myself. And if I do not return, the clan must still have a katori.”
Her precious daughter chittered softly, a sound of deep distress. So young, to face such a decision. Yet she was little older than Chilaili herself had been, when the katori mantle had fallen so unexpectedly onto her own shoulders with her mother’s untimely death. Sooleawa gulped air several times, then whispered, “I will obey your greater wisdom, honored katori. But . . .” Her voice shattered like a very young child’s. “Please, Mother, be careful!”
Chilaili hugged her trembling daughter close, smoothed her ruffled fur gently. “Hush, most precious one. What must come will come and we will meet it bravely, yes?”
Her daughter looked up, tilting her head to gaze one-eyed up into Chilaili’s face.
“Be careful?”
“Always.” Chilaili held back a sigh and touched her daughter’s face with one gentle hand, then headed swiftly through the bustling Council Cavern. Wide, shocked stares followed her progress. Even warriors hurried to step out of her way as she stalked past cookfires and piles of weapons. Her misshapen shadow danced across the fur of the little ones, who stared open-beaked at the katori in full ceremonial garb. A few of the Grandmothers—and Yiska—furrowed their brows in puzzlement, but remained silent. She was deeply thankful for that, since a single question would have endangered her plans before she could implement them. Perhaps they were merely granting her the right to die in the manner of her own choosing, rather than waiting to die with the other huntresses?
At the entrance to the Council Cavern, Chilaili pushed aside the woven screen lashed to a framework set snugly across the rocky opening and stepped out into a slashing wind. Driven snow stung her face. As bad as the wind was in the narrow ravine where their winter nest lay, it would be far worse in the forest above. She drew a fur hood around her face for added protection and was about to step into the howling storm when the akule appeared. He had been standing behind a huge tree close to the cavern entrance. His body pulsed with the colors of heat against the icy tones of the dark storm beyond.
“Where are you going?” Kestejoo asked, voice sharp with alarm.
“What are you doing outside the cavern?”
“Trying to get a feel for the storm, to predict when it might pass over us and allow us to march against the humans.”
Chilaili grunted. Kestejoo’s weather wisdom was legendary. His mother, it was said, had been Snowclaw Clan’s yepa—their snow woman—scenting the weather to protect the entire clan. Kestejoo had saved Icewing Clan more than once from killer storms, including deluges of rain that sparked flash floods through narrow gorges and the first blizzards of winter, which sometimes struck weeks too early, catching a clan still busy at the harvest.
“What do your senses tell you, Kestejoo?” she asked quietly.
“Two days, at most,” he said, cocking his head sideways as though listening to something only he could hear. “Two days and we can set out in clear weather. The worst of it has passed. But why are you out in such weather, Chilaili? You’re wearing hunting furs beneath the katori cloak. I don’t understand.”
He had little reason to suspect the truth, since he didn’t know of her liaisons with the human. Or did he? She narrowed her pupils thoughtfully, but there was no suspicion, no guile in his eyes, only puzzlement. Very well. Without evidence, she would give the gentle-souled akule the benefit of the doubt.
“You have declared altsoba, the all-war that sends every fighting adult into battle, jeopardizing the entire clan’s future. I must protect their souls with the proper holy rites. The Oracle may transmit the will of the Ones Above, but it knows nothing of the rituals my fore-mothers have used to keep the clan safe and prosperous for as long as there have been Tersae in the world.”
“But Chilaili—the storm! Can’t the rituals wait for clear weather?”
She shook her head. “They require a prescribed number of days in fasting, to prepare for the vision quest that will bring the help of powerful spirits, the animals and the winds and the waters, the spirits who guide the newly dead into the afterlife. It is exacting, exhausting ritual work. If the storm clears in only two days, there will barely be enough time.”
Worry darkened Kestejoo’s eyes. “Will you at least be able to perform the ritual in a safe shelter?” he asked as they shivered in an icy blast of wind. “I can arrange an escort to see you there.”
Chilaili shook her head. “Thank you, Kestejoo, but I must not reveal the location of the holy cavern. It is too sacred a place to profane it, even by those who mean only the best.”
Regret passed visibly through his eyes. “Then you must risk it. May the Ones Above watch over you, Chilaili.”
She repressed a shudder. That was exactly what terrified her most. She took perverse comfort in the brutal force of the storm. No matter how powerful their tools, Chilaili simply could not believe even the Ones Above would see her crawling along the ground through a savage blizzard.