The Sky People

by Terry Goodkind

  In a heartbeat, Raging River pulled her knife from the sheath at her waist and slammed the sharp blade into the warrior’s lower back, where she knew it would hurt him the most. She saw that he, too, already had bloody wounds on his arms.

  Before he was able to stab his spear into Tom’s face, he arched back toward the pain of her knife in his kidney. As he tried to counterattack, she had already stabbed him half a dozen more times. Her knife slammed into his lower back, into his ribs, into his side, and as he turned toward her it cut open his belly.

  His eyes opened wide, wild with the shock of the damage done by her blade. His right hand reached out for her throat. As he did, she plunged her knife into the left side of his neck twice, fast and hard. With blood flowing from the wounds on his neck, he staggered back a step. When he did, she slammed her knife into the center of his chest.

  With that, he finally went down.

  She had to put a foot on his chest to help pull her knife free. When she did, River saw only then that his arms had been ripped up. There were great open wounds where teeth had torn down through muscle. She knew it had to have been from Big Dog. What he had done to this man had slowed him enough that it had enabled River to take him down. Had he not been so severely injured, he might have been fast enough to kill Tom and her both.

  She looked around quickly, worried that there were other Wolf People warriors, but she didn’t see any. Tom was already back to his feet.

  River, still filled with the rage of the fight, jammed a finger into his chest.

  “This is the fault of your people! This is what the Sky People have brought us! They bring us those who would kill us! All because the Sky People poisoned the minds of my people with their laws! The laws the Sky People put on us have caused nothing but suffering and death! You must—”

  He grabbed her wrist to stop her jabbing him with a finger. “Thank you for protecting me,” he said in a calming voice. “I think he might have killed me had you not acted so fast. Thank you.”

  She cooled under his warm smile. She took her hand back as she regained control of herself. She suddenly felt foolish for blaming him. It had obviously happened long before his time, just as it had happened long before her time.

  “You saved me first,” she said, much calmer. “I was returning the favor.”

  “Only one problem.” He let out a frustrated sigh. “After I took out the one trying to kill you, I fell back and landed on my back. When I did, I lost my weapon.”

  She realized, then, that he had protected her life before his own. He could have died while protecting her. He could have protected himself and let her be killed, but he hadn’t.

  If the Wolf People warriors came into her village to capture her, or kill her, no one would ever lift a finger to protect her. Something about the Sky People law didn’t make sense. This man had just killed to protect her.

  The same as she had done trying to protect Morning Flower.

  River looked around. “I will help you find it.”

  Tom pointed. “It went down that fissure in the rock behind me where I fell back.”

  Together they got down on their hands and knees to look down into the dark crack. Tom pulled something from his belt and made light go far down into the crack. She was amazed at how he made light without fire, but she was more interested in finding the weapon he had lost—a weapon that could turn people to ash. With the way the split in the rock twisted down deep, they couldn’t see his hand weapon. It was somewhere far down in the ground, far, far out of sight.

  “I don’t think there is any way to get it back,” she said.

  Tom gritted his teeth silently for a moment.

  “I’m afraid you’re right,” he finally said.

  “Commander,” the voice in the mask crackled, “are you still there? I have more information.”

  “Yes. Sorry. I had a situation. What did you find out?”

  “I confirmed that sector was long ago designated as restricted because it was determined by remote sensors that it was populated. If Rebecca Collins lived among those people and played God, as you say, it was long before the restriction was put in place. That complicates things. You need to investigate and straighten out any issues she might have caused, either deliberately or inadvertently. You need to confirm that nothing even remotely serious resulted from her interactions with the indigenous people.”

  “I’m afraid the issue appears to be serious.” Commander Tom looked at River. “Quite serious.”

  “Understood, Commander. I’ve plugged it into the system. Pursuant to the reformation directive, until resolution you have level Q-seventeen authorization.”

  His glanced over at River. “Q-seventeen. Roger that.”

  Tom was starting to say something to River when the voice came back again.

  “Commander, it looks like we have another problem. Word is just coming in now that Over Command is on this Rebecca Collins discovery and they are not at all happy. The planet was classified as restricted and you’ve confirmed that there was a breach, but since the breach predates the restriction, they ordered an immediate quarantine of the planet.”

  “Do they really think that’s necessary?”

  “Apparently so. Deconfliction alerts were just sent out. We’re showing that you’re the only one in that sector, or even close. I’m sorry, but there is no time to send you any help to correct the damage. You’re on your own in fixing the situation.”

  “Understood.”

  “Oh, here we go… looks like this has them upset; they’ve put the quarantine on a short fuse. Sorry to put you in this spot, Commander, but you know the regulations.”

  Tom’s mouth twisted as he nodded. “I do indeed.”

  “I can only buy you a little time until quarantine is initiated. You know better than anyone what you need to do.”

  Commander Tom’s expression was grim as he nodded. “Understood. Analyze and correct any inadvertent damage to the indigenous population before the quarantine sterilizes the planet. Give me a mark on how much time I have.”

  “Done. Keep an eye on that countdown, Commander.” The female voice paused for a moment before going on. “It’s a hard deadline, Tom. I can’t buy you another second beyond that mark. You know that. You need to fix things and be out of there by quarantine initiation.”

  “Roger,” he said as he nodded. “Commander Tom out.”

  He sighed as he looked at River.

  Tom spoke her language, but she still didn’t understand much of what he and the voice in his helmet said.

  “What does that mean? ‘Before the quarantine sterilizes the planet’?”

  “It means that in your world any non-indigenous life-form, like me, is classified as an infection. Those in charge have mandated that any life encountered must be left alone. That is to make sure that no one interferes with your people”—he gestured into the cave—“the way she apparently did.

  “To do that, they quarantine the entire sector. The means they block it off. Any foreign entity inside that blockade—that means me and Rebecca Collins in there—will be burned out of the sector.” He gestured to the bits of ash that were all that was left of the Wolf warrior. “Like that.”

  River looked over at the black ashes. They were all that remained of the Wolf People warrior.

  “You mean if you stay too long, that is what will happen to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “That seems cruel,” she said.

  “It’s meant to protect people like you and prevent what seems to have happened to your people from happening again.”

  “You mean you could die helping us?”

  He gazed into her eyes for a long moment.

  “I signed up for this job. It’s my life. I knew it was dangerous, but I wanted to do it because I think it’s important and because I get to see the most remarkable things in the universe, things no one else ever has the chance to see.” He smiled. “Like you.”

  “Then we should hurry, both for my people,
and for you.”

  Chapter 16

  Not far down the mountain they found Big Dog lying beside a small stream. River cried out in anguish when she saw the blood on him. No wonder he hadn’t come when she had called him.

  “Your dog, I presume?” Tom asked as she ran to Big Dog and squatted down beside him, holding his head in her hands. He didn’t respond to her touch.

  “Big Dog, I’m so sorry,” she wept. “I told you to stay home. I didn’t want you to be hurt.”

  “Here,” Tom said as he knelt down beside her. “Let me see if I can help.”

  “It’s too late to help him,” she said, seeing the seeping blood, his shallow breathing, and his glassy eyes.

  “Maybe not,” he said as he quickly took a complex-looking container from his belt.

  He held his arm with his own armband over Big Dog. Although it was part of his dark outfit, it was something like the armband she still had on, but more complex. He pushed at rows of projections on the armband and turned small white knobs. Lights lit and danced around on the shiny surface. She saw lines light up and move in waves. He opened the box from his belt, then pressed something from inside against Big Dog’s neck.

  Big Dog’s eyes closed, and River could see him slump even more.

  “Did you put him out of his misery?” she asked, afraid of the answer.

  “No. I just put him into a deeper sleep so that I can try to help him. He was hit in the head with something hard. It cracked his skull.”

  “A war hammer.” She tapped the one in her belt. “Like this one.”

  He nodded as he glanced over at the weapon while holding something against the side of Big Dog; then he went back to what he was doing.

  “Fortunately,” he said, “it looks like it was a glancing blow. Still, it did damage. It put him down, which is what those men were after. They came to kill us and only wanted the dog out of the way.”

  “But he’s hurt bad?”

  “It cracked his skull, causing an intracranial hemorrhage.” He looked at the glowing symbols on his armband again. “Looks like it’s a subarachnoid hemorrhage involving a subdural hematoma.”

  Her head spun in confusion trying to understand him. “What does that mean? Is he dying?”

  “It means he is bleeding inside his skull from the damage of the blow. That bleeding puts pressure inside the braincase. That pressure will kill him if something isn’t done right away.”

  It sounded hopeless to River. “What can be done?”

  “Hush,” he said in a distracted voice as he used a small rod that made an intense line of light. She could smell burning fur. He had shaved away some of the fur in a round spot. Somehow, as he used it, the light made a little cut. He worked with strange objects from inside the box he’d taken from his belt, first one and then another. Some he put in through the cut he had made while he pressed others to different places on Big Dog’s head behind his ear.

  Pulling another device from the same box, he placed the long point into the wound. It made a hissing sound. White foam frothed up around the wound and then slowly began to melt away.

  “Now we have to wait just a little bit,” he told her.

  “What did you do?”

  “Stopped the bleeding, relieved the intracranial pressure by vaporizing the blood trapped inside, regenerated the damaged tissue, then sealed the crack in the bone and closed the incision.”

  River didn’t understand most of what he said, but she understood the general idea. “How long? How long do we need to wait?”

  Just then, Big Dog’s eyes opened. They looked clear. He blinked and lifted his head, then looked around as if waking from sleep. After a few more moments he got up on his feet.

  “About that long,” Tom said with a smile.

  Tail wagging, Big Dog started licking Tom’s face through the opening in his mask. Tom laughed and patted him on the shoulder as he tried to hold him back away.

  “I’ve never seen him react that way to a stranger,” River said.

  Tom laughed while trying to stop Big Dog from licking him. “We’re not strangers anymore.”

  “How did you know what to do?”

  “I’ve done it many times in training. It helps to have the correct instruments and of course that no disease was involved.”

  River had never thought anyone could do such a thing. Finally, Big Dog shook himself and then leaned up against her. She hugged him, which he generally didn’t like, but he tolerated it now. She thought he understood that he had been in trouble and Tom had saved him. He was a little wobbly on his feet at first, but he quickly seemed back to his old self.

  She cupped his head in her hands. “Thank you, my friend, for what you did to stop those bad men. It saved my life.”

  Once Tom had replaced all of his gear on his belt, Big Dog started out down the trail. River and Tom followed him and together they made their way down off Spirit Mountain. It was a lot faster going down than it had been going up. And, of course, she didn’t stop to inspect the caves and the remains of ancestors.

  Once they finally reached the bottom of the mountain, River led Tom through the thick brush and gloomy forest on the same game trails she had used on her way in. All the time she kept a wary eye for more of the Wolf People warriors. She didn’t know if those two had been alone, or if they had brought many other warriors with them. It could be they left some behind. She knew that the warrior with the feathers in his headband had wanted revenge for her arrow through his arm. It had cost him his life.

  Big Dog didn’t wander off. He seemed to know that his job was to smell the way ahead as well as listen for any signs of trouble that only he could smell or hear. If there were other warriors, River felt sure that Big Dog would warn them.

  “There,” River said as she pointed. “That’s the Bitterroot River. We have to cross back over.”

  They found the canoe and quickly shoved off out into the swiftly moving water.

  She smiled then, as she looked back past Big Dog at Tom paddling with long, strong strokes. “I was named after this river. When I was born, this river was raging, and my mother couldn’t get back across to return to her people.”

  “You mean to say you were born back there? On that mountain?”

  “Yes. Because of the storm keeping my mother from crossing the river and taking me home right away, the priestess named me Raging River. While there, before she died, she also named me priestess of our people.”

  “What’s a priestess? What does a priestess do?”

  River’s smile widened. “A priestess is supposed to call the Sky People if they are needed.” River lifted her head with pride as she looked out at the opposite bank. “But I am the first to succeed.”

  His muscles paddling against the water carried them across easier than her own crossing. As soon as they reached the opposite bank, Big Dog jumped out into the shallow water and started barking. River finally saw, then, what he was barking at. Nearly hidden off in the marsh grass were two war ponies left by the Wolf People warriors before they swam across.

  She could tell that they belonged to the Wolf People because there were three fingers painted on their flanks. That stood for Chief Three Fingers, the chief of the Wolf People.

  “We can take those horses and make much better time,” Tom said.

  “They are Wolf People war ponies. They won’t let us ride them.”

  “Is that so?” Tom said as he started through the marsh grass toward them.

  River hurried to catch up with him. When he reached the war ponies, they were skittish and danced around. One reared up on its hind legs. They wanted nothing to do with him because he was a stranger. More than being a stranger, he was a stranger in strange dress. The thing that really seemed to scare them, though, was the big round mask.

  Tom untied the rope of one and gently pulled it, then released the pressure. He pulled again while whispering to the horse, and again released the pressure. Finally, after he’d encouraged the animal a few times, when he r
eleased the pressure again the horse took a couple of steps toward him. He kept doing it, getting the horse to come to him, until he was walking backward, leading the horse along.

  “River, take the rope on the other horse and do the same as I’m doing. Tug gently and release. Tug and release. Talk gently to him to calm him.”

  She followed his example, gently tugging and then releasing. After a short time, the first horse had taken steps all the way to Tom. Once it was up close he cooed softly to it as he rubbed its nose and forehead. When it finally nuzzled its head against him, he stroked behind the horse’s ears. River followed his example and was shocked to see her horse do the same with her. It felt good stroking the strong neck of the animal. The horse seemed to like it just as much as she did.

  “How do you know to make a war pony respond to you?” she asked in astonishment.

  Tom smiled at her. “My job is to interact with people and creatures I meet. It’s my calling in life. People tell me that I’m a species whisperer.”

  He grabbed hold of the mane and jumped up, throwing a leg over the horse. It walked about in surprise a little but then settled down under his reassuring touch. When River mounted the other horse, it, too, responded well.

  “We had better get going,” Tom said. “These will save precious time.”

  River nodded her agreement and with her heels urged the horse quickly ahead. Big Dog ran with them, barking his enjoyment of this new kind of fun.

  Rather than head to her village, River headed straight for the place where the Wolf People lived.

  Chapter 17

  River stroked the side of her horse’s neck as they slowed to a halt. The horse had proven a willing mount once shown a gentle hand the way Tom had taught her. The Sun People had horses, too, and she liked to ride them, but the men rode them most of the time on hunts, so it was rare for her to be given the privilege. Tom’s horse, even carrying a man in a frightening black outfit with a big round mask around his head, had been eager to please him.

  It amazed her the way the horse saw the man, not the mask. She, too, was beginning to see beyond the mask.