The Dawn Country by W. Michael Gear Page A

our village.”
    As Grandmother Moon rose higher into the night sky, the deep wrinkles that lined the elders’ faces resembled thick black spiderwebs. They muttered softly to each other for a time.
    Koracoo said, “She still has one Yellowtail Village boy, a child named Wrass—and many other children from a variety of villages. We mean to find them. We’ll be leaving at dawn.”
    “Maybe you will. Maybe you won’t,” Shara said. “You said your children were being held in the warriors’ camp last night?”
    “Just outside. In the forest. I suspect Gannajero is too smart to ply her Trade openly. That’s why she wore a disguise. If the warriors had known who she was, they would have killed her instantly.”
    “Except for her despicable clients, you mean,” Maunbisek said.
    “Yes.”
    Kinna and Winooski leaned sideways to speak softly; then Kinna asked, “There were children from other villages with her, more than just Yellowtail children?
    “Yes. I know for certain that Chief Atotarho’s daughter, Zateri, was there, and—”
    “Atotarho?” Kinna half shouted. “He is evil! A Tsi-noo. How do you know his daughter was there?”
    Koracoo frowned and glanced curiously around at the elders. “What does Tsi-noo mean? I don’t know that word.”
    “A Tsi-noo has no soul. He lives by eating the souls of others. His heart is made of ice. Are you helping him? ”
    Koracoo replied, “We will rescue his daughter, Zateri, if we can. We will also rescue any other child who happens to be in Gannajero’s possession when we attack. Including yours.”
    Nervous whispers filtered through the elders. While they talked, Wakdanek knelt beside Koracoo and quietly asked, “Did your children see any of the girls she bought last night?”
    Koracoo turned to Odion. “Can you answer that, Odion?”
    He nodded. “I think she bought five children. Three were girls. But I only saw them from far away. They were roped together.”
    Wakdanek softly said, “My daughter, Conkesema, has seen ten summers. She has long black hair—it hangs to her waist—and a small scar on her forehead.” He lifted a hand and drew it across his left temple. “Did you see her?”
    Odion tilted his head uncertainly, and the moonlight reflected from his round face, turning it a pale sickly color. “Maybe. There was a girl about ten summers with waist-length black hair, but I wasn’t close enough to see the scar.”
    “Are you sure she was in Gannajero’s group? The group she’d just purchased from our village?” Pain tightened his eyes, and he clearly hoped that Odion would say that she hadn’t been in that group, but elsewhere in the warriors’ camp.
    “She was roped with Gannajero’s children.”
    Wakdanek lightly squeezed Odion’s shoulder. “Thank you. You’re a brave boy.”
    Shara waited until Wakdanek rose before asking, “You said you rescued several children last night. Who were they?”
    “We freed our two children, plus one girl from the Flint People, named Baji, and a boy named Hehaka, whose people we do not know.”
    Suspicious, Winooski said, “Why don’t you know? Have you asked him?”
    “He says he can’t remember his people.”
    “Was he that young when he was captured?”
    Koracoo looked at Odion, who said, “Hehaka was captured when he was four. He’s been Gannajero’s slave for seven summers.”
    Maunbisek pinned Koracoo with hard glistening eyes. “Do you know our tradition of the Ghost Fire, War Chief?”
    “No.”
    “Among our people the dead are always buried, because the Spirits of the unburied dead remain around the bones as living fire that can destroy anything they touch. Many of our children are now Ghost Fires. Because of Gannajero. I didn’t tell you earlier, but my own son was taken by her twenty-two summers ago. I watched her buy him, and I never saw him again.”
    Sorrow filled his eyes, and she suspected he had mourned that child for most of his life.
    “Then you do not wish to delay us for