Spiritwalkers: Hunter, Part One

[aithne]

Nascha couldn't sleep.

It had been like this for more days than she could count on her hands now, as summer cooled towards fall and she and the other new spiritwalkers began their training in earnest. She pushed herself during the day, pushed her aching muscles into feats of endurance she would have never imagined herself capable of, running for half a day, fighting the other half. Her joints hurt, her bones hurt, her head and heart hurt.

And still, though every night she hoped for release from wakefulness, it did not come until late. Sometimes, sheer exhaustion would overwhelm her in the evenings as they sat around a communal fire. But more often she would be awake until the long still of the night. She would go for walks, slipping into spiritworld and walking around the camp, tracking, ceaselessly vigilant.

"You look tired," Hania had said to her that evening, at the fire. "Are you doing all right?"

"I'm just sad about my family still, and not sleeping well," she'd told him.

"If you need something to help you sleep, let me know," he said. She had promised she would, but even though her knees were wobbly with fatigue she had not asked Hania for help. Instead, she had departed the wickiup silently, gone to walk out under the stars, listen for the yipping of coyotes and the shriek of distant owls.

She came out of spiritworld at a high point above the camp. She felt the presence before she saw or heard it and turned, one hand on the knife she was becoming far more handy with these days. She relaxed when she saw it was Cheveyo. "What are you doing up?" she asked.

"I was about to ask you the same question," he said. "Nascha, what's wrong?"

She looked at him for a moment, and then dropped her gaze. "I can't sleep," she muttered. "I hurt too much. I keep hoping that wearing out my body will settle my mind, but it keeps on running like a horse I can't stop." She took a sharp breath. "I'm still trying to work up the courage to find and talk to Tse's spirit."

There was compassion in his eyes. "Do you think he'll be angry?"

Nascha gave Cheveyo a bare nod. "I'm afraid he will be. I don't know for sure. But--I don't want to see the look in his eyes. I had to become this, and I had to make the decision I did."

"I can call him for you," Cheveyo said. "Right here. Tonight."

She swallowed, her throat gone dry. "Not right now--"

"How much longer are you going to let it go, Nascha? How much longer are you going to let this keep you from sleep?" His face had gone stern, hard as the rock they stood on.

That stung, and Nascha's shoulders stiffened. "I'm just not ready."

"And when will you be ready?"

Three heartbeats went by. Five. Ten. Then Nascha breathed out. "Do it," she said. "Call him. I need to get this over with."

Cheveyo nodded, and stepped into spiritworld. Nascha followed a moment later, and Tse was already there. "Good luck," Cheveyo said, and stepped out into the real world.

Her heart was pounding loud in her ears. "Tse," she said, and choked. "Tse, I'm sorry."

Tse's form was familiar, and he solidified as he stepped forward. "Nascha?" he said, looking confused. "You're--I keep seeing you and then you're gone, your mother told me you were still alive, but why--"

Nascha held up a hand. "I am spiritwalker," she said softly, her belly clenching painfully. "I was chosen before you died--"

Tse was staring at her. "It's true," he said flatly, confusion resolving into anger. "Spiritwalker. Warrior. My wife."

Words failed her, and she just looked at him, her hands spread wide. "Then the rest is true," Tse continued. "You left me to die, saved Ahiga instead of me. Your mother tried to tell me--I didn't believe her. I never believed you could be so cruel. Thoughtless, careless, but the woman I loved was never cruel."

"It wasn't!" she said, her voice sharp. "Tse, I had a choice to make. I chose to save Ahiga, because Sakhyo is going to need him when we rescue her."

"And you don't need me?" His voice held a rising pain.

She fought the urge to double over. She took a moment to breathe, clenching her jaw. "Tse..." How to explain? "Tse, those who attacked us that day were more than just Arapaho. They were skinwalkers. They intended to make the two of us wives of two of them. I escaped, but I couldn't take Sakhyo and Nastas with me. They are still there, and it has been almost a full season. I was chosen as spiritwalker, by some chance or will of the gods. I have eleven brothers and sisters, their voices in my mind. When they live I rejoice, when they die I grieve. Sakhyo does not have that. All she has is her self, her son, and Ahiga. I am afraid for her, Tse. I am very afraid of what her captivity might have done to her mind, what they might have made her do. She needs Ahiga. And yes, she needs him more than I need you."

Tse was silent, a stunned look entering his eyes. "I never gave up on you," he said, and there was almost an apology in his voice.

"I saw you cut down in front of me," she said. There were tears standing in her eyes. "I lost everything that day. You, my parents, my family. The only things I had to keep me going were the knowledge that Sakhyo and Nastas needed me, and the fact that I refused to die while they were still living. I came close to it, out in the desert. If the spiritwalkers hadn't found me, we would be having this conversation with me dead instead of me living."

There was silence then between the two of them. She wanted so badly to run forward, to throw her arms around him, breathe in his scent. But she knew if she touched him, he would be only so much mist. "Your mother is very proud of you," Tse said quietly. "I didn't want to believe it."

"I love you, Tse," Nascha said. I would have talked to you before, but I was afraid--"

"Afraid that I was going to blow up at you?" he said, giving her a half-smile.

"Yes."

He looked her over, and then drifted forward to touch one of her wrapped braids with an insubstantial hand. "Like a warrior," he said, his voice wondering.

Nascha stood very still, afraid to even breathe. He was so close to her, and she wanted so much to believe that the last season had been a dream, that here was her husband again, come to take her back to her real life.

But her shoulders ached, as did her knees, and it was that familiar pain more than anything else that centered her in the moment. She was spiritwalker now. "I'm sorry," she said. "I've made the decisions I needed to make. But I'm still sorry that you died, and I miss you every sunrise that I don't wake up next to you. I wish so much that you were still in the world."

Tse was still standing close, his eyes seeming almost to feast on her face. "Your mother also said something else," he said. "Something that I didn't believe until this moment. You're not done yet, my love. Not nearly done." He touched her braid again, then drew his hand back. "I need to go, Nascha." He stepped back and faded back into a misty shape.

Nascha, shaken, stepped back into the real world. Cheveyo was standing nearby, and gave her an inquiring look. She shook her head sharply and strode away, up into the hills that surrounded the camp. She stopped at the top of a ridge, her aching knees trembling from the climb, and threw rocks down the other side, releasing each with a silent scream that swelled in her chest that she knew far better than to let out.

She returned back to the wickiup that night and crawled into her blankets. She closed her eyes and listened to the others in the wickiup breathing. Hania and Ahiga were asleep. Cheveyo, she knew, was awake.

That was the last thing she knew that night as sleep rushed up and took her. She woke not at dawn the next morning, but much later, to an empty wickiup that was starting to heat up with the day's sunlight. "I missed the whole morning," she muttered as she rubbed the sleep away from her eyes.

"I thought I'd let you sleep," Cheveyo said silently. He stepped into the wickiup, letting the flap fall closed behind him. "You didn't wake when the rest of us got up."

"Oh," she said. "Is Zotum mad that I missed morning practice?"

"Only a little," he said. "I explained. Feeling better?"

She nodded. "He was angry," she said. "But I slept."

"Well, I saved some of the morning meal for you," he said. "Come and eat."

Movement helped, and falling into a routine with the others once again. Nascha slept long and hard that night and the next, finally coming out of the silence that had fallen on her, beginning to smile again.

A few days later, they paused in their training for the feast that marked the passage of summer to fall. The nights were starting to get colder now, and in the morning the wickiups were damp with dew. They all celebrated the passage, marking the change in their lives. Nascha was seventy-one seasons old, and by the time the snow fell her family was going to have been dead for an entire season.

After the feast, Otaktay was well enough to begin training them in earnest. The bruises started once more, and kept up for half a season, Otaktay teaching Nascha and the others things she'd had no idea she was capable of learning.

She was too small to ever go against someone like Otaktay and survive. But she was strong in her own way now, her body taking on the kind of lean hardness that she had noted in all of the older spiritwalkers, even Pezi who was no taller than she was and even lighter. Otaktay taught her how to use her speed and agility to never have to outstrength an opponent.

"Come on, Delsin," she said, rolling away from a somewhat half-hearted blow he'd aimed at her one day in practice. "That was pathetic." They had been put against each other, to get a feel for the real strengths and weaknesses of the others. He stiffened, and then came after her with new resolve. She was still getting to know him and the other new ones, but at every turn Delsin was throwing up the same walls, drowning himself in silence. He was not keeping secrets, but he was even quieter than Pezi--even Pezi was talkative on the bond that kept them all together. He wasn't a bad spiritwalker, but he preferred to be alone for the moment.

Nascha gave him chance after chance to open up and join in, but so far, he was refusing. And now she was almost sorry that she's insulted his fighting prowess, because he was coming after her with what was turning out to be his greatest strength, a thoughtfulness born out of experience.

She was glad when Otaktay called for them to change partners, and this time she was put against Aquene. Aquene tried hard, but her heart, and consequently, the rest of her, wasn't really in it. She disliked weapons, and especially the idea of killing.

She was, however, beginning to become something more. She and Nascha sparred, turning what should have been a down and dirty practice bout into a kind of strange dance, the sort of thing that Otaktay always shouted at them about. Nascha found herself not caring very much right now, though. It was nice to be around Aquene, everything seemed easier with her there. The pauses between them going at each other got longer and longer, and they stopped to talk a little between bouts.

"You're doing it again," she said, and frowned. "Aquene, we talked about this."

"Your mind isn't in it today," Aquene told her. "I can't distract you if you're really interested in sparring. It's just that your mind's elsewhere at the moment."

Nascha made a face. "That's a little strange. But very useful. Especially since I know you're not really fond of training. Now, would you please at least attempt to spar with me before Otaktay notices we've stopped?"

It was too late, though, and Nascha hung her head as Otaktay stomped over and separated the two of them with a sharp word. Nascha's punishment was to be used as Otaktay's next demonstration. Aquene got off with a stern word and was sent to spar against Sahale, of all of them the least susceptible to Aquene's talent.

It was a few days after that when Wahcommo, making a mistake that all of them made at one point, transferred into spiritworld while sitting astride his horse. Usually, he would have fallen once the horse was no longer under him. Wahcommo, though, took his horse with him when he went into spiritworld.

Predictably, Wahcommo's stallion panicked but good, and took hours for even his rider to calm him down. After that, though, Wahcommo started training the horse not to panic while in spiritworld, and began to be able to ride him through the shifting mists of the other world.

Two could ride with him, though anyone not Wahcommo had to transfer into spiritworld first and then mount up behind Wahcommo. When the horse moved in spiritworld, the land slid by even quicker than it did when they were afoot. Nascha tried it exactly once, and after the land went by her at such a speed that she could hardly see, she declined to repeat the experience. She still occasionally had an unsettled stomach after walking in spiritworld for too long or too soon after eating; going that fast was far too much for her.

Okomi, on the other hand, started seeing things. Out of all of them he seemed to trust Otaktay the most, and went to him when he could no longer dismiss the flashes of sight as simply imagination. After working with Otaktay for a bit, he realized that he was seeing out of the eyes of coyotes, his mind jumping from coyote to coyote. He gained some ability to control the one he was in, but his body was wholly defenseless when he was doing so.

He had thought he was going mad, and finding out that it was merely a new talent making an appearance seemed to put his mind at ease. Nascha liked him; he was teaching her Arapaho, he was rapidly learning Apache, and it turned out that he had a sense of humor that showed itself in small, sly flashes.

Gosheven was taking his ability to hide even farther, and he was able now to hide even in spiritworld. He would disappear the moment Nascha glanced away, reappearing later without a sound. It was eerie, but Gosheven's presence, cheerfully, blissfully normal, was such an antidote to the rest of their strange crew that Nascha found herself quite liking him.

She was sitting by Gosheven the day that Ahiga's talent showed itself. They were taking a break, and Ahiga had done something or other to deserve being used as a demonstration by Otaktay. He had always been a good fighter, one of the best the tribe had, but now every move he made was grace itself, and he did not dodge as much as merely arrange to be where the blows were not falling. Watching him, Nascha was put in mind of her grandfather, who'd done much the same thing on the several occasions she'd seen him fight. There was something new in Ahiga now; he was fighting like a man in the presence of the gods.

Otaktay was pressing Ahiga, trying to take him off-balance. It wasn't working. Ahiga fell back, surged forward, and was in the exact location that Otaktay did not expect him to be. The move was quick, so much so that Nascha missed almost all of it but the aftermath, when Otaktay fell face-down in the dirt and Ahiga planted a knee in the small of his back and laid a hatchet on the back of his neck.

All of them held their breaths, and Ahiga himself seemed almost surprised to find himself there. He got up, straightening, backing up a step or two.

Otaktay picked himself up, brushing off his front, and his face broke into a wide grin. "Now there is a fight!" All of them let out the breaths that they were holding. From then on, Otaktay let Ahiga pursue his own course of study when it came to fighting. Unfortunately, that meant that he had a little bit more attention to distribute among the rest of them, and he occasionally set several of them against Ahiga, who doled out almost as many bruises as Otaktay did.

Delsin, on the other hand, was a good fighter but little else. As autumn slipped by, he was still withdrawn from the rest of them, rarely speaking unless he was spoken to. Any progress he was making was so small as to not be visible, but Nascha thought that it was there. It had to be.

And as they trained, as they began to work more and more closely, the new ones mostly stopped being the new ones. They were simply all spiritwalkers. Nascha's grief was beginning to lighten, though she still worried about Sakhyo and Nastas, and knew that they were never far from Ahiga's mind either. Okomi's wife Isi was also a worry; scratch the surface of the Arapaho spiritwalker, and he bled worry and grief for her. They were sent out in quartets to scout sometimes, and Nascha often led these expeditions. Okomi was almost always along with her, and at night, when they made cold camp some distance away from where the Apache were settled, he sometimes told stories about her.

About halfway through fall, there was a murmur that spread through the camp, and in response the entire camp gathered near the wickiup that Adoeete lived in with his family. The words that Adoeete had to say to them, at least the first ones, came as no surprise. "Sharitarish, my father, has died," he said. Sharitarish had been slowing down recently, and the mutters running through the crowd were saddened but not startled.

The next words out of his mouth were a surprise, though. "It has been decided that I am to lead the elders."

Nascha glanced at Cheveyo. "Leadership is decided by battles won and kills," Cheveyo said silently, projecting to all of them. "Spiritwalkers have an advantage."

There was nothing else from Adoeete, so the crowd broke up and drifted away, except for a knot of men who stayed to discuss building a platform for Sharitarish's body. Cheveyo's eyes were dark and worried, and the rest of the older spiritwalkers, whose who had experience with Adoeete, all wore approximately the same look.

She wandered away from them as they headed back to what they had been doing, and walked towards Adoeete. He was briefly alone, watching a spirited argument that had just broken out among those who were trying to help.

"I'm sorry," she said to Adoeete. "About your father, not about you leading the elders."

He almost smiled, and the slight movement of his face almost seemed as if it would crack. "There are those who are sorry about one, and angry about the other," he said. "But thank you, Nascha."

She nodded and retreated.

The next day, Cheveyo came to Nascha as she sat in front of the wickiup, making some new arrows. He dropped down to his heels next to her. "I feared as much," he said. "We have new orders, which for now is fine, but I don't like the tone of them."

She smoothed down the feather she was using for fletching. Her hair was unbraided; she'd just combed it out and was letting the wind blow through it. "What are they?"

"Adoeete doesn't like where are food stores are for now. He doesn't think we have enough. He might be right so far. We are going raiding and buffalo hunting."

"That doesn't seem so bad," she said. "What don't you like about the tone?"

Cheveyo shook his head. "The tone is more to come, and you will obey me."

"Ah. He wants to make sure you know who's in charge," she said, and set the arrow aside. She wrapped the arrowheads she had been using in a piece of leather.

Cheveyo twitched his mouth. "Yes. So Pezi is going to go search for buffalo, and tomorrow we ride out. I don't think the killing cliff would be wise tomorrow, but another day. We need to bring down one apiece."

"A lot of work for a day," she said, thinking about the hunt she had been on with Adoeete. They had only brought one down, and that had been enough work.

"It will be. I see something darker working here, but I don't know what. It's just a feeling." He shook his head, his voice taking on the edge that meant that he was a lot more worried than he let on.

Nascha thought about Adoeete, about the fear that underlied everything he did, how alone he must feel right now with his father just died and the responsibility he had longed for and feared at the same time for years. She found it hard to doubt Adoeete like Cheveyo did, but Cheveyo's feelings were difficult to dismiss. "I can still hope that Adoeete is going to be reasonable," she said.

Cheveyo looked over at her, doubting. "Do you really think he will be?"

She shook her head. "Probably not. When he still had the others to overrule him, he might have been. But he doesn't like you, and he wants to make it very clear who's in charge."

"Yes, and that is the way it's going to be. There will come a time soon when we are going to have to make a choice, and it's going to be a tough one."

She thought about the things that Adoeete might order them to do--or to not do. "So what happens when spiritwalkers don't follow their orders?" she asked, even her silent voice quiet.

He inclined his head slightly. "When that happens we will be assumed to be skinwalkers, and hunted. The other thing that usually happens is that the tribe dies."

Nascha picked up the arrow next to her, and ran her thumb over the fletching again. "Even if Adoeete knows we're no such thing?" There were people here she cared about here, men and women and children.

"Yes, we have abandoned our charge," he said.

She shook her head. "Bitter choice. Especially if he tells us not to go after Chogan."

"Which I think will come." Cheveyo glanced over at her again, and then smiled briefly. "Do you think a little buffalo hunt will scare our new spiritwalkers?"

She considered the new ones, turning them over in her mind. "Wahcommo, it will, but he'll try not to admit it. Aquene probably isn't going to like it much. I know Ahiga will probably be excited to go, and I think Okomi as well, and I don't think Delsin will care one way or the other. Gosheven, not sure either way."

Cheveyo nodded. "Let them know. I think I am going to walk the spiritworld. I think something more is coming."

"I will," she said. "Call if you need help."

"I will. How are you doing?" he asked.

She took a breath, and her chin dropped a bit. "Worried. I was hoping to start after Sakhyo soon. Otherwise, all right."

"We will see how they do tomorrow," he said.

Her thumb stilled on the feather. "I think they'll mostly be fine. The only way to tell is to be there, though."

He reached out to her unexpectedly, brushing her hair back and tucking it behind her ear. She tensed, a little. "I am glad you are one of us. And I am glad you are here," he said, looking her in the eye. He stood swiftly, and then disappeared into spiritworld.

Nascha blinked, staring at the space he had occupied a moment before, and then relaxed, a small smile touching her lips. She felt warm, flushed. Cheveyo had not hidden his feelings for her, but neither had he pressed her in any way. He had simply been there, patient, waiting to see if she was going to ever return those feelings.

Part of her was still an open wound, grieving Tse's death. But another part of her had been spending more and more time lately thinking about Cheveyo. And that part of her was connected to parts of her that definitely liked the idea of at least kissing him and seeing where things went from there.

She shook her head and slid the arrow she was holding into her quiver. "We're going on a buffalo hunt," she said, broadcasting to the new ones.

"Us?" she heard Aquene say, her silent voice almost squeaking. "But--"

"Adoeete doesn't like where the food stores stand," she told them. "We ride out tomorrow morning."

Aquene came around the wickiup; she'd evidently been nearby. There were excited murmurs from the rest of the new ones; Wahcommo sounded like he was nearly exploding with excitement. Even Delsin's voice held some interest in the prospect. Aquene, however, was not nearly so excited. "Nascha, I hate this idea," she said, keeping her voice low.

"I thought you might," she said. "Orders are orders, though. I've been on a hunt, it wasn't so bad."

The other woman looked at her in dismay. "You're as wild as a boy, though. I don't like the killing..."

Nascha sighed. "Aquene. We are spiritwalkers. One of our duties is to find food for the tribe when normal hunting fails. Think of it as practice for killing skinwalkers one of these days."

Aquene closed her eyes, and an expression of pain crossed her face. Nascha felt a surge of compassion for her fellow spiritwalker, such a gentle soul with a core of granite, a hidden strength that she wasn't sure Aquene really believed she owned. "You can do this," she said to her. "I'll be there, and the rest of us. You don't have to do this on your own."

"I know." Aquene opened her eyes and smiled briefly, and then retreated, leaving Nascha feeling as if there was something more she could have said or done, but unsure of what. She ducked into the wickiup, to gather what she would need for the morning.

Pezi had located a herd about a day's ride away. They left as soon as it was light enough for the horses, and rode the entire day. It had been some time since Nascha had spent so much time at once on Una, and though she was tougher physically now than she ever had been, she still ached when they stopped for the night. They made a cold camp and slept, and the next morning left the horses in a hidden hollow and walked to where Pezi had seen the herd.

The ground under their feet was vibrating from the pounding of thousands of hooves. The herd was currently moving through a shallow, wide valley, and they watched it for a moment from the low ridge above it. There must be several thousand animals here.

Cheveyo said, "Pezi and Nascha, please scout the area. I want to know if we are alone or other tribes are here too. Don't worry about killing your quota, we will pick up the extra. Aquene go with Otaktay and Zotum. The rest with me."

Nascha and Pezi nodded. "I go this way, you go that way," he said, pointing. She pushed into spiritworld and he did the same, and they circled around the herd in opposite directions.

At first, there was nothing out of the ordinary, only buffalo tracks, trampled and cropped plants, dung fragrant with whatever grasses the buffalo had recently been eating. Then there were other tracks, human ones. From the fringe-marks on the prints, she thought they were probably made by a group of Utes.

She came across a place where slaughtering had happened; this hunting group had taken down at least two large bison. She followed the trail a bit, and saw the hunting party leave, hauling butchered animals with them. They were gone and had been for two days, now.

Still, something wasn't quite right. Nascha didn't know what it was, but there was something unsettling her. She followed the tracks of the Ute a little farther, and her eyes narrowed. There was part of a print outside of the line of Ute warriors, a shoe in a different style. Before her eyes, an image sprang up--a faceless Arapaho warrior.

There was what had been unsettling Nascha. Now that she knew what she was looking for, she found it--places where the Ute prints were blurred more than the two days they had been here would have done. The Arapaho had walked in, and used the Ute trail to cover their tracks. "I've got something," she reported back to the rest. "Arapaho trail, fresh. I'm going to go look."

One Arapaho had become two, and two had become twenty, a way out from the herd. They had abandoned the trail and circled around behind a ridge on the other side of the valley, and it was there that she found them, stalking the herd. "We're not the only ones who thought these looked good," she said dryly, watching the hunters.

"What do you have?" Cheveyo asked.

"Twenty or so Arapaho, hunters, moving in on this herd. No spiritwalkers I can see."

The sound of Cheveyo's voice narrowed, and she knew he was speaking only to the old team. "Think they can handle it?"

Nascha thought about the new ones, their capabilities and strengths and weaknesses. "I think so, except maybe Aquene," she said, to the same audience that Cheveyo had addressed.

"We do this, we are going to start a bigger war," he said, warning.

Her eyes returned to the men moving in on the herd. "Could just go find another herd that doesn't have Arapaho stalking it."

"Probably, but the less Arapaho we have when we go into their camp, the better to rescue your cousin."

It was a point, and though these men would not make a serious dent in the strength of the Arapaho, every warrior killed was one less that might kill them. "True. And we have a chance to surprise them."

Cheveyo's voice held a gravity in it. "We are spiritwalkers. No survivors. One gets back, and it will really be war."

"Understood," she said.

Cheveyo's focus widened to include all of the spiritwalkers. "We have Arapaho at Nascha's location. We are going to kill them all. No survivors. Go to Nascha, and then we will form a ring around them. Fire into them first, hand to hand only if you have to."

Her brothers and sister began arriving next to her in spiritworld. It was still eerie, to have them simply appear silently beside her, but Nascha took heart from their presence. She started getting herself set, looking over the new ones for signs of panic.

Aquene was looking scared, swallowing nervously, fumbling with her bow. Nascha went to her, set her hand on the woman's shoulder. "It's all right, you'll do fine. If you get into trouble, jump behind Otaktay. I have on occasion."

She looked up at Nascha, and her brow was knotted. "I will. Thanks."

And then they spread out, stepped out of spiritworld, and began battle.

Almost half of the Arapaho were killed or seriously wounded in the first volley of arrows. It was more or less a slaughter; the hunters had not been expecting them, and they were surrounded. Most of the new spiritwalkers acquitted themselves well. Even Aquene managed to fire a few arrows, though Nascha didn't think she hit anything. She was pleased that Aquene had tried, at least.

Nascha was standing next to Delsin, and though he did hit several of the enemy, she noticed that he wasn't bothering to dodge the arrows sent back his way. He never ducked, just stood there, a target plain as sunrise. He wasn't hit, though a couple of arrows did come close.

"Pick up the arrows," Cheveyo said. "Good job, all. Time for the hunt. We are going to drive the buffalo over the corpses. That will make them think for awhile."

They all headed to gather up their arrows. Nascha made her way over to Delsin, who was pulling an arrow from the shoulder of a dead Arapaho. "You know, getting yourself killed isn't really going to help anything," she said silently to him.

He straightened, looked at her. There was a look on his face, a sort of wistful sorrow, that Nascha recognized as being the look he got when he was thinking about his wife. "Might help me in the end."

Her breath hissed out between her teeth. She liked Delsin, but right now she was irritated with him. "Like it or not, Delsin, you're a spiritwalker. There are eleven people depending on you and your skills, as the tribe as a whole depends on us. Getting killed is a hazard of being who we are, but it's not something we should invite."

Delsin's expression cleared abruptly, and he blinked at her, looking a little cowed. "I understand. I will try to find cover next time."

"Good," she said, and walked away to start pulling arrows. She wondered if Delsin would remember, next time, what she'd said, and wondered if there were any precedent for a spiritwalker having to be held back from his own self-destructive impulses. The thought of what she knew of Cheveyo, and decided that there was precedent enough. She would keep a closer eye on Delsin.

Then it was time for the hunt. They used a different strategy than horseback hunters would use, staying afoot, using their spiritwalking to outmaneuver the buffalo. Cheveyo, Nascha, and Pezi stayed out of the killing, keeping watch, directing the others to drive the herd over the bodies of the dead Arapaho. Otaktay brought down four buffalo by himself, and in the end even Aquene got one. It took her almost all of her arrows and a good long time, but she was determined and as far as Nascha could tell she didn't even think about giving up.

When the buffalo came crashing down and Aquene spilled its life out on the ground, Nascha whooped for her, waving and grinning. Aquene, abruptly covered in buffalo blood, looked up at her and grinned back.

Then it was work for all of them to slaughter and prepare the beasts for transport. Pezi went to fetch the horses. Because there were so many of them, certain parts of the buffalo would be left behind. It was a long day's ride back, and they arrived at the camp just before they would have had to stop and rest the horses for the night.

They were surrounded by Apache, and all but the youngest lent a hand to carry and hang the meat. That night they danced the buffalo dances, thanking the gods and the land, celebrating the lives of the animals who had died so this tribe would live through the winter. Nascha kept an eye on Adoeete. He was smiling some, but every time he glanced at Cheveyo his eyes narrowed and his mouth tightened. It could have been that the weight of the world was on his shoulders, but there was suspicion in Nascha that wasn't quite it.