Hunting the Ghost Dancer

by A. A. Attanasio

  The priestess rose and lifted the rock of fertility in greeting to Yaqut, the most famous of the Longtooth hunters. She was proud to see him again, though always before, among the wandering camps of her clan, she had feared his marred and deathly stare. No mangled pelts hung from his taut frame, only well-chewed leather and the chamois of the tundra gazelle. Among the shabby Panther people, here in the gloomy and treacherous Forest, he looked divine, like the wrath of her ancestors sent to avenge her.

  Yaqut accepted her greeting by touching the rock of fertility with the tip of his short lance. "The young ones have weird blood," he said, soft enough for her ears alone. "They have seen the ghost dancer in their dreams. He told them my name."

  The priestess' eyebrows flicked up. "Oh, they will be very useful then. But we must get them up into the Thundertree soon, where the crystal is hidden. I thought you would be here earlier."

  "But for that blind horse, which slowed us down."

  The branches on the fringes of the clearing rattled in a sudden wind, and then went silent. The panthers pacing before Blind Side of Life cringed. Their bellies pressed the ground, and the horse, which had been wagging his head with fear of the big cats, lifted quivering nostrils, smelling something new.

  A throb of thunder lifted everyone's gaze to the purpling sky. Stars glinted in a cloudless twilight.

  Yaqut and the priestess exchanged a knowing glance. "Quick," Yaqut ordered, "into the woods. Leave the strays here."

  A cold wind blew through the clearing, fluttering the spear-flames and the fire under the crown of roots and making everyone's small hairs bristle.

  "It is too late," the priestess gasped. "Look!"

  Overhead, against the last red streaks of day, a ball of blue fire swirled. Moans of fright escaped the Panther men, and they bunched, burning spears raised against the celestial fire.

  Hamr pulled Duru and Timov closer, wedged them between himself and Blind Side. He looked to Yaqut, but the old hunter had backed against the fallen elm, lance poised, mad face turning its fury to all sides, seeking his prey.

  Horrified shouts cut through the knot of Panther men, as they spread out and pointed their flame-tipped spears to one side. There, a fiery being raced among the trees, arms whirling, head shooting sparks and clots of flame.

  The hot silhouette flashed closer, and Hamr pulled Blind Side forward to block the approach. A spear in each hand, he leaped to the side of his horse and widened his stance, ready to heave his weapons at the advancing fire-creature.

  Timov, face drained of blood, pushed Duru behind the horse, rushing around the steed to join Hamr. His legs quavered at the sight of the blazing apparition rushing closer, flashing among the trees, and he had to use his spear as a staff to keep from tottering.

  The Panther men had formed a line facing the burning demon, spears held high. Only Yaqut looked the other way and shouted for them to turn. The fallen elm blocked him. The crouching priestess clutched his legs, and his cries vanished among the fearful shouts of the Panther men screaming for their cats to attack. The panthers crawled on the ground, hissing and raising their claws at the radiant shape hurtling toward them.

  Only Duru, peering out from behind Blind Side, glimpsed Yaqut as he broke free of the priestess and clambered atop the log. He pointed his spear the other way. Before she could turn to see what he gestured at, a marshy odor whelmed up. Gruff hands grabbed her. She screamed and was hoisted up.

  Blind Side startled and sprang aside, and Duru watched the faces of those nearest her falling away. Hamr and Timov, following her with their eyes, gasped and shouted. And then they were gone, blocked by trees that abruptly converged as she flew into the darkness.

  She twisted in the grip of what had seized her and confronted a big horrific face: the cruel visage from her nightmares, the beast-man—whose bone-hooded eyes stared down at her with vast clarity.

  The Invisibles

  Baat ran hard, with the small girl tucked under his right arm. Though she kicked and flailed, she could do nothing to slow his flight into the Forest. He leaped over fallen trees and splashed across creeks, crouching over the girl to protect her from thorns as he crashed through walls of bramble and vetch.

  He had no trouble carrying her light body. But her screaming bothered him. Though the smallheads would not pursue him now that night had fallen, they could hear from her piercing screams the direction he fled. Not wanting them to know he intended to go north, he hurried south, deeper into the Forest. Later, when he had somehow calmed her, he planned to backtrack.

  How to calm her? Or even yet, how to calm himself? His raid of the smallheads' camp had drawn the Dark Traces down on him. Aroused by the fear and fury of the smallheads, the ul udi swarmed through him, expecting violence, needing bloodsmoke.

  Kill the smallhead runt!

  "No!" he barked. "She is my companion."

  She is a smallhead! She is the runt of those who killed your children! Spill her blood! Break her bones! Rip out her entrails! Leave her carcass for the smallheads to find! Make the small-heads weep—as you wept!

  Baat could not ignore the Dark Traces. They inhabited his flesh. Their voices reverberated in his skull with such insistence that he lost his concentration and ran hard into a tree. He fell on his back, sharp points of light spinning before him.

  Duru twisted free, scrambled to her feet, and burst away. She ran through the darkness, pulling herself past trees in her way, squeezing through tangled branches of a hedge, and skidding down the embankment of a brook into utter blackness and a chill of mist.

  She wanted to scream, but there was only enough breath in her to run. Groping blindly, she splashed among rocks, found her way to the other side and crawled furiously up the muddy slope.

  Behind her, she heard the monster's roar, bellowing like a bear as he crashed through the hedge above the brook and lunged into the descending darkness.

  Baat yelled, "Come back! I will not hurt you! I will not let the Dark Traces hurt you!"

  To Duru, he sounded like a ferocious beast.

  When she reached the top of the bank, she heaved herself forward, grateful for the dim illumination of the auroras surging above the trees. Terror clotted her chest. Her breath pounded so loud she could no longer hear the monster's chase. Yet she felt him gaining on her.

  Her foot snagged on a root and sent her sprawling. As she staggered back to her feet, she cast a fearful glance over her shoulder and sighted him, huge against a gap in the leafy branches, spike-haired and swollen-shouldered under the fiery fog of the borealis.

  Duru screamed, and Baat lunged for her, snagging her by her arm, and jerked her off her feet as she bucked and kicked.

  Smash her head! Rip off her arms! Kill the smallhead runt!

  "No!" he shouted at the ul udi. "Go away! Leave me alone!"

  Kill her! The smallheads killed your children! Kill her!

  "No!"

  They're coming for you! Kill her now! Look! The smallhead comes! Kill the runt!

  Baat held Duru above his head, to see past her. She thought he intended to dash her to the ground, and her screams doubled. Then she caught what the monster had already noticed: Something moved directly ahead. A shadow broke from the darkness. A human figure approached.

  "Duru!" Hamr's voice called.

  Baat gaped in amazement. The smallheads never hunted by night. Who is this one? He tucked the girl securely under his arm and squinted. The beardless one, without his horse.

  He came through the trees with spear raised, uncertainly aiming the weapon, forward and back, afraid to throw, afraid of hitting the girl.

  The Dark Traces' wrath swelled up in Baat from his core as they rallied for the kill, and the air brightened with the cold fire that limned his body.

  Hamr fell back a step at the sight of blue flames crawling over the giant, sparkling green from every pore of his body.

  Duru had stopped squirming when the fire swept over her. Vision widened, and a chill pervaded and soothed her. With pe
rfect clarity, as though the full moon had broken through the clouds and she were suspended in the air with it, she gazed down at the giant, saw herself under his arm and Hamr standing there, gawking.

  Burn the smallhead! Quickly—quickly! His spear is tipped with poison! One cut and you will die! We will eat your soul! We will eat you, Baat! Kill the smallhead!

  Hamr edged closer, spear poised.

  Baat could feel lightning taking shape, burning, yet he would not throw it. The Dark Traces would not master him: If he killed this one before the girl, she would never be his companion. The Dark Traces would defeat the Bright Ones, who had led him to her.

  Burn him! Burn him now—before he strikes!

  "No!" Baat yelled and, with an effort, painfully pulled the blue lightning back, deeper into himself.

  Hamr's whole body shook. Meeting the ghost dancer's blockbrow stare, he was not sure what he met there—rage, and yet something else. "Let her go!" he shouted back.

  Though Baat did not understand what the smallhead yelled, he knew what he meant. He swung the girl around so she dangled in front of him, shielding him from the spear. He looked deeply into the smallhead hunter before him, recognizing the fear in his tight face, and felt a glimmer of wonder at the courage it took for this one to have run through the night Forest to stand here at the brink of his death.

  "Let her go," Hamr pleaded, and lowered his spear.

  Baat hugged Duru to his chest with one arm. He raised his other arm, palm forward, no killing fire in his hand now. "I will not hurt her," he said. "I will die before I allow hurt to touch her." He backed away, turned, and sprinted into the trees.

  "Wait!" Hamr bawled and ran after them. The ghost dancer moved too swiftly, somehow seeing his way in the dark. What had he said? The gruff voice had sounded almost gentle.

  Despair mounted in Hamr as he realized the ghost dancer had taken Duru for his own. "Come back, you bonesucker! Damn your blood! Come back! She is my wife!"

  Duru heard Hamr's cries dimming away. Fear skirled again in her. What has happened? For a while, she had been stunned, somehow freed of her fright, even of her body. Now, she fit again firmly locked in the grip of the monster. His swamp-stench sickened her, his outbursts of grunting speech filled her with animal dread.

  Was he carrying her off to kill her, to shuck her brain and suck on her marrow as Yaqut had warned? She remembered the beheaded bodies she had seen in the Forest, and struggled to break free, but he only tightened his grip until she could barely breathe.

  Now Baat fled more cautiously through the woods, ignoring the commands of the ul udi. Since he had pulled back their killing fire, they had somehow become less frantic. His insides cramped around the knot of resistance lodged somewhere near his heart. He did not care. Let the Dark Traces hurt him. Let them rend him inside-out with their anger.

  He had not killed to take the girl. The Bright Ones would be pleased. "Oh, but where are you, Bright Ones?"

  The Dark Traces answered him.

  You belong to us, Baat. You are bones of the earth, flesh risen from mud. You will die for what you have done this night. The smallheads will hunt you down and kill you with their poisons—and we will eat your soul—oh, yes, Baat, we will eat your pain in a darkness where light never comes.

  He could not ignore those voices.

  Kill the runt! Kill her!

  He might endure them until they faded. And they would fade if he could get far enough away from the smallheads. With each creek that he splashed across, with each black wall of undergrowth he shouldered through, with each rocky ridge he mounted and crested, the smallhead hunters fell farther behind.

  The dark took him in. The cold fire lit the night flamboyantly—and the lichen on the trees glowed for his eyes, mushrooms gleamed, rocks breathed with the last heat of day. Owl eyes sparked from a high branch, fireflies flickered. Like a piece of ice hung in the sky, the evening star flashed, low among the trees.

  Once Baat felt confident that he had traversed a greater distance than any smallhead could track in the dark, he stopped. He stamped the ground to clear off snakes, and lowered the girl to a mound of leaf debris. She twisted off on all fours, and he had to scramble to catch her.

  Smash her head!

  "No!" he screamed. The girl thought he yelled at her, and hung perfectly still in his grasp. He placed her on the leaf mound again though he could see, even in the dark, the skittish look in her eyes. She would bolt as soon as he stepped back.

  Break her legs!

  "Good idea," he muttered. He reached up and snagged a fistful of crawling ivy. He wound the vines about her ankles and tied the other end to his wrist. He squatted over her and scrutinized his catch. She appeared older than the girl-child he had fathered and lost—so long ago. In her seventh winter, his child had convulsed to death in his arms, banging her head against his chest.

  Kill this runt! Kill her for the young you lost!

  "Bright Ones—help me!"

  The girl cringed under his loud voice, not hearing words, only gruff animal noise. Tears channeled her cheeks.

  He pulled away from her but could not stop looking. Is this truly my companion? Have I evilly deceived myself? This is a child. Of course: If she had been a woman, the Dark Traces would want to wreak their lust on her.

  He had wanted to take the boy, but the girl had been easier to grab. And now? She would be hungry, thirsty.

  Baat rubbed his face, looked up through the branches at the vaporous fire. What have I done? How can I hope to feed her, to gentle the terror that owns her now that I have ripped her from her own people? He moaned, and she curled up into a ball and shivered with sobs.

  Kill her and be done with it. Do it for your dead children.

  Hands to his head, Baat rose to his toe-tips and screamed at the sky: "I will not kill! I will not! Not now! Never again! Go away!"

  Duru peered through her fingers at the ranting monster. His incomprehensible noise battered her. His hulking shape glowed like the sky above. The gloom had darkened, and a scatter of rain raked the treetops.

  The ghost dancer stamped furiously, luminous arms upheld, face wracked with grief, grunting and gnashing, slapping his head. Sparks flew. Then he turned and looked at her again. His huge face sorrowful, angry, tormented, gazed down at her through unfathomable suffering.

  )|(

  Hamr returned to the clearing, where the Panther men had built a raging bonfire. Timov waited for him beside Blind Side of Life, and rushed over when he came through the trees.

  "Did you find her?" he asked frantically, but Hamr strode past him. He ignored the spitting panthers and went directly to where Yaqut squatted before the flames, gnawing at the deer haunch they had cooked the day before.

  "Why didn't you come with me?" Hamr asked.

  Yaqut looked up, nonchalantly, and placed a thumb against the scalded side of his face. "It is night. The bonesuckers will burn you at night."

  "He didn't burn me."

  "You found him?"

  Hamr threw his spear down in disgust. "Duru broke away. He had just caught her again when I found them. If you'd been there, we could have saved her."

  Yaqut cocked his head with surprise. "He saw you, and he didn't burn you?"

  "She's alive then?" Timov blurted. "He could have killed her on the spot—but she's alive?"

  "The girl," the priestess said, looking up at Hamr. "He spared you for her sake."

  "What do you mean?" Hamr's face still showed the exhilaration of his confrontation with the ghost dancer. His eyes now darted from the priestess to the hunters hunched about the fire, angry at their cowardice, angrier yet at his own ignorance.

  "She means her dreams." Yaqut nodded wisely. "Yes, that is how she knew my name. She said that the ghost dancer told her in a dream. She and the boy saw him dancing last night. Those were not dreams. Her spirit was already with the bonesucker."

  "Aye, she has the spirit of a ghost dancer herself," the priestess added. "He did not kill you for the sake o
f the girl. She is one of his own."

  Timov exchanged alarmed glances with Hamr.

  Hamr scowled incredulously. "Are you two crazy? She's no monster. She's a girl from my tribe. There are no ghost dancers in my tribe. We'd never even heard of them until yesterday."

  "Look at me." The priestess put her hands to her enlarged belly. "There are no monsters in my tribe, either. Yet I carry one. The ghost dancer raped me at winter's end. Now our bloods are forever mixed."

  Timov crept closer. "What does that say about me? You mean—one of my ancestors is a ... a ..."

  "Maybe." The priestess smiled ironically. "Remember—we are the intruders. The ghost dancers have lived in these woods, and all these lands, from long before our first ancestors came here. When the Ways of Wandering led the Grandfathers out of the grasslands, the ghost dancers were already ancient in these places. What has happened to me has happened before to other women."

  Timov sat down under the weight of all that had been said. "But why? What does he want with her?"

  The priestess' haughty face spoke to the fire, "A wife."

  "She's a child!" Hamr snapped.

  "For now." The priestess sighed. "Almost all the ghost dancers have been killed in the Forest. I was surprised when this one attacked us on the tundra. Clearly, he is alone. He has no tribe, no clan, no one. Now, he has the child."

  Hamr squatted beside Yaqut. "You hunt these monsters. Why is this one here?"

  Yaqut threw the gnawed haunch-bone to one of the attendant panthers, wiped his fingers on a dried leaf. "It has been eight winters since I killed a bonesucker in these woods. And even then I had been summoned here by clansmen, who had traded with tribes in this region for years and never seen one before. On the tundra and in the mountains to the east, I have led the Longtooth on many a poison foray. But the mountains always seem to hide more than we can kill. Maybe this one drifted down from there. Last winter was harsher than most. Big storms from the south clashed with the cold of the north and many of the red deer died. I have seen packs of wolves and hyenas prowling rib-shrunk through the summer woods. Why should it be different for a bonesucker?"