Spiritwalkers

Ten: Warrior

For those three days, Nascha was nearly silent. It was not that she refused to talk, but that somewhere, the spring where all of her words had come from had dried up. She missed those who had died, as well as Ahiga and Aquene, immensely.

Cheveyo seemed to be the same way. He spoke when he needed to, but otherwise left Nascha to her own thoughts and himself to his. They still shared their blankets, but for the moment they simply held each other at night. Nascha's knee healed until it was only stiff, and Zotum managed to get the story of her knee out of her, as some of the few words she spoke during those days.

She was also working on the weaving about Delsin she had started after he died. It was the story of him as a spiritwalker, how he had been, why and how he had died. She intended to pass it along to the Navajo tribe he had died defending, when it was complete.

The fourth morning, the burning done, Cheveyo gathered them all. "Zotum and I have talked, he said, his voice slow. "We have thoughts for what is next but neither of us believes strongly in any of the plans we will state them and invite comment. We can continue to press on Chogan. He is incapable of getting more skinwalkers to join him, and we are currently even numbers. We can wait and see what happens because of the Spanish. Or wait in general until his guard goes down again. We can pursue the arch and see if there is more to be found before confronting him again, gaining any advantage we can over them. There could be no more from the arch though but it could be worth a try." He looked around the circle. "Comments?"

They all looked at each other. Nascha said, "I think we should try the arch again. Other than that, I'd like to see what happens with the Spanish. If they decide to come back and start shooting Arapaho, we might be able to help them along. Chogan will give us an opening, sooner or later."

Cheveyo nodded. "He will, he wants us just as much as we want him. And he will come looking."

"He will. If we know when he's coming, we may be able to lay traps for him and his people."

"Which we can do using the blanket of Spider Woman."

Nascha looked down. She hadn't had the heart to look into the blanket since the night Wahcommo and Shappa had died. "Yes. We should probably expect Adoeete to be with him, next we see him."

He shrugged. "Probably, and we will treat him as any other skinwalker. Kill him if you have the chance."

Slowly, she said, "My only worry would be that his presence in the skinwalkers does protect the Apache from the Arapaho."

"Yes it probably does but if we can kill them, I am sure the Apache will welcome us again to protect them from the Arapaho. But it is a chance we will have to take."

Nascha nodded. It was the arch, then. They were three handfuls of days away from the canyon by horse, and it would be worth going the long way around the great canyon, if only to get the horses away from the place where she would always remember the death and departure of four of their own. She saw Wahcommo and Shappa's spirits hanging around them when she stepped into spiritworld; Wahcommo looked very confused, Shappa resigned.

Travel was soothing to the soul, and once they were traveling, the grief began to lift a little. Cheveyo and she were lost in their thoughts at first, but the pain began to recede and their relationship returned, the two of them reconnecting. This didn't come as any surprise to the old ones, but Nascha saw a few raised eyebrows at the frequency of their strolls out into the landscape together, which were at least once and sometimes several times daily. There was still a sense of deep urgency between them, and they still avoided talking about the future.

Nascha finished her weaving, having learned a number of things along the way. She had nightmares for the first few nights they were traveling, seeing Cheveyo's and Chogan's faces intermixed, Cheveyo with Chogan's feverish eyes, Chogan pleading with her to listen, to understand. Fortunately, the nightmares diminished as they neared the arch.

They pulled up a little ways away, and Nascha and Cheveyo went for a walk. The pillar in front of the arch had changed again, this time looking like a buffalo, hump rising to the sky and craggy outcroppings suggesting shaggy fur.

Nascha thought she might know who this was, and the sight that greeted her when she and Cheveyo transferred in to spiritworld confirmed it. Where the pillar stood in the real world there was a white buffalo, shining and beautiful. This was White Buffalo Woman, the holiest of holy women.

"Greetings, holy one," Nascha said, stepping forward.

White Buffalo Woman's presence brought with it a vast sense of peace. "Children. You have come seeking knowledge."

Nascha nodded. "We have. We have enemies that we need to fight."

The god stared at them with her small, beautiful eyes. "What knowledge do you seek?"

She hesitated. There was so much she would know, but... "Anything that might give us an advantage over them."

"You seek the White Buffalo Calf pipe."

Nascha blinked; she had heard of it, but had never imagined she might be offered it. "Where should we look for it?"

"Tashunka knows. He will show you the way to it. If you smoke it, it will not harm you if you have no bad thoughts. Think evilly and death comes swiftly and painfully." Nascha found herself wishing she could be in the presence of this god forever. She recognized the feeling. It was the same feeling that she got when Aquene was using her talent on the rest of them.

"I think I understand," she said, quietly.

"Good. Anything else, children?"

"I don't think so, unless Cheveyo has a question. Thank you." Cheveyo shook his head and thanked the god, and she faded away.

Both of them stood silent for a moment as the sense of calm that the god had brought with her faded away. "Think we can get Aquene to talk to Tashunka for us?" Nascha asked quietly. Tashunka, the leader of the Sioux tribe that so many of their loved ones were staying with, had a soft spot for Aquene. It was partially for her sake, as someone who could calm the several hotheads in that tribe, that he had asked the spiritwalkers to stay when spring had come.

"I am sure Aquene can get it for us. That, I am not worried about. Care to tell me how we get them to smoke it?" He shook his head. "Chogan, we are here to make peace, please smoke this peace pipe, thanks."

Nascha snorted. "I didn't think that would work very well. I think this one we may have to wait for an opening for instead of forcing one." She frowned, thinking. "Adoeete, maybe? Would he ever believe that you wanted to come back?"

She could see Cheveyo thinking about it. "We could return and submit to him that we are willing to rejoin and accept his ways as leader. He would love for us to be under his thumb again, order us to do things. We could offer the pipe as a peace offering to him."

Adoeete wanted so very badly to believe that he was right, and he was used to Cheveyo never lying to him, even when the truth was difficult. It would work, especially if it appeared that Nascha was the one pushing for them to return. Adoeete knew about Nascha's affection for him, even now, even after everything. He would expect her to make one last attempt at reconciliation. It was probably what he had said to himself the day they had left: They'll be back.

And they would. "He might like the idea so much that he'll overlook the suspicion he really ought to have," she said, slowly.

"Something we captured from the Sioux."

She nodded. "Then we could count on him to take it to Chogan."

There was a look on Cheveyo's face that suggested that he liked this idea as much as he hated it; this would push Adoeete farther from the skinwalkers, but it was still a betrayal of a man he had once called brother, even if he had never liked him. "And they will smoke it out of spite. One of them dies, and we leave."

"I like it," she said, shifting. Her knee was bothering her today, and they had been standing still long enough for it to stiffen up. "It has few risks, other than of severe annoyance at Adoeete. He may try to make us do something we really don't want to do."

"He might, but Adoeete will be too excited by his coup that he will likely run to Chogan quickly," Cheveyo said.

She smiled briefly. "True enough. And if we can make sure we look adequately broken of spirit, he won't question it."

"I think it will work. How about you?"

She thought about Adoeete, and about Chogan, and the assumptions both of them made about the world. Adoeete would play his part, she knew. They both knew him well. It would be up to Chogan, and whether the fact that they continued to play unpleasant tricks on him would make him cautious. "I think it'll work, and even if it doesn't it's worth trying. Let's go and tell the others, and talk to Aquene."

On the way back, the two of them talked to Aquene, making sure to tell her that there was a possibility that the skinwalkers would destroy the pipe. She said she would talk to Tashunka. When they widened the conversation, Zotum volunteered to tell Adoeete that he and his group had captured Cheveyo and those spiritwalkers who still followed him, and tell him they would come back if he could offer the protection of the Apache to them against Chogan.

"Tashunka says that the pipe is yours if you want it," Aquene said, a little while later. They had found a sheltered place and were putting a meal together.

Nascha had been picking ticks off of Una; with warmer weather came the tiny hungers, and Una always seemed grateful to have them removed. She straightened, putting a hand on Una's hide. The horse looked at her one-eyed, decided Nascha was done for the moment and therefore no longer interesting, and put her head down to nose at the rocks, looking for plant shoots. "And he knows what might happen to it?" Nascha asked Aquene.

"He says that the pipe will return to his people some day, and he has no concern that it won't." She could almost see Aquene tucking her hair behind her ear, a familiar and much-missed gesture. "Sioux legend states that the pipe broken or lost by an enemy will reform and return to the Sioux. Only a Sioux that breaks it will destroy its magic."

"Well. I'm glad, then. We'll come by for it," she told Aquene. She wanted to see Sakhyo, and so volunteered to go with Pezi to get the pipe. They ate and then Pezi and Nascha went to the Sioux camp. It was good to be in Pezi's silent presence once more; walking with him through spiritworld reminded her of many long days spent scouting together before they had split the old group and everything had changed. She had missed Pezi, and the other old ones; until they had returned, she hadn't realized how much.

Once they reached the Sioux camp, Tashunka handed the pipe, wrapped innocuously in tanned buffalo hide, over to them with little ceremony. Evidently, the fact that Aquene had known that he had the pipe, or could lay hands on it quickly, had been proof enough that White Buffalo Woman had wanted the spiritwalkers to have it.

Before they left, pipe tucked onto her bag, she went to see the loved ones they had left behind in the camp. Hania was as well as ever, and Ahiga's arm was healing as cleanly as could be hoped, though there was still a look in him that Nascha was unsure if she liked. Nastas had gone into the phase of boyhood where he never seemed to stop moving, and Sakhyo mentioned, with some amount of humor, that he was turning into his father in miniature.

She was smiling when she said it, and Nascha was busy looking her cousin over. Seeing her in the blanket was one thing; in person, her belly looked bigger, and she looked a bit happier. Nascha mostly thought the latter was because Ahiga was with her once more, and a burden of worry had been lifted from her cousin's shoulders.

There was still something wrong with how she moved, how she held herself, but there were things that would only heal with time. "I want to show you something," she told her cousin, and unfolded the weaving that she had brought with her.

In it was Delsin and his story as she knew it, as best she could show it. The weaving was clumsy in places, but here was Delsin and his wife, her round as the full moon with her unborn; then her again, both her and her child dead, Delsin bent over her body. Then a long twilight wandering, and the call, and the spiritwalkers. Delsin becoming one of them but still somehow separate, Gosheven stepping in front of an arrow meant for him.

Then Delsin choosing to give his life to protect the Navajo, the two opponents he had killed, the one that had killed him. The weaving was too small to even be a proper blanket, and the wool had suffered a bit with its long ride in Cheveyo's pack. But as Nascha sat with her cousin, touching the designs, she thought it was one of the finer things she had ever made in her life, and the first weaving she had ever truly cared about completing.

"I didn't know you'd taken up Shadi's work," Sakhyo said at last. "I wouldn't have thought you'd have time, or even a loom to work on. You're getting better."

"It's a story I'll put in a weaving one day," Nascha told her cousin. "I'm starting to understand my mother a bit better, now." She looked down at the weaving, and said quietly, "I miss her."

Sakhyo put her arm around Nascha's shoulders. "So do I, and my mother. I even miss them fighting, which is the strangest thing. Sometimes it takes death to understand life, and your path in it. Shadi may have taught you more by dying than you were willing to listen to in life."

"I think she did," Nascha said, and for a few heartbeats her whole body ached. "Though I don't think she ever anticipated that my life would have taken this course." She breathed out. "I wish I'd paid more attention when she was alive."

"I think you got the main lessons, and that is what counts," her cousin said.

Nascha remembered her mother's fine-fingered hands, working the wool on the loom, and nodded. "I hope so," she said, making the words a small prayer. "I'd like to come back here some day, or have you and Ahiga join us with the Apache. I don't know if I'll get the chance, but that's my hope."

She saw the abrupt hope on Sakhyo's face, and it stopped her breath. "I would too," she said quietly. "Thanks for bringing Ahiga back alive. I feared for him out there. Injury is bad enough, but his death would have killed me too."

Nascha did not tell her how many times she had looked at Sakhyo in the blanket, seen the terror in her eyes, seen her shed tears while feeding Nastas. "I know. And I know the feeling." We do not grow old. She pushed away the fear that rose like nausea in her. She and Cheveyo would live, or they would die, and it was useless to worry about what could not be known yet.

Sakhyo turned to give Nascha a full hug, her belly poking into Nascha's. "Good luck out there. Come back to me."

"I'll do my very best," she said, hugging her cousin back. Then it was time to roll up the weaving and go. They went back to the rest, and then it was time for Zotum to contact Adoeete. He went in spiritworld back to the Apache camp, and came back to them a little while later, saying that Adoeete had agreed.

It was some distance to the Apache camp by horse, and they spent a handful and a half days riding there. The weather was warming, and they avoided several hunting and scouting parties on the way there, but the time mostly passed without incident. They traveled by day, rested and sparred at night, and Nascha slowly got used to four of their members being gone.

Otaktay was pleased by the progress she had made in the time they had been apart, though he picked up her training now as if they'd never left. Nascha now more often went up against the old spiritwalkers, even occasionally against Cheveyo. She and Hakan sparred together most. Hakan had height and reach on her, but Nascha was faster and more determined. She won a bit more than half the time against him.

She dropped down next to him one night after they were done sparring, both of them sweating. They had come into the territory of another coyote pack, and the singing in the darkness reminded her so strongly of Okomi that she felt for a moment as if he were standing behind her, and almost glanced over her shoulder to look for him.

Hakan glanced over at her. "I miss him, too," he said, offering her a small smile. "The song dogs always remind me of him."

Nascha nodded, remembering how the Arapaho spiritwalker had looked the day he had found out what his talent was. On the heels of that memory came another: Okomi lying dead, during the raid that had liberated Sakhyo and Nastas and killed Okomi and his wife. She had made mistakes that day, but she could not fault her decision to leave Okomi's side and go to help defend Aquene from Chuslum. She turned her thoughts away from that moment, and from the mistake she had made by choosing to go after Skah. "He was a good man," she said quietly. "And a brother."

Her fellow spiritwalker nodded and fell silent. But he kept on glancing over at her, as if he were curious about something but wasn't sure he wanted to ask. "What?" she asked, finally. She ducked her head, wiped sweat off of her upper lip and forehead with the back of her hand.

"I was just wondering about Adoeete, is all," Hakan said. "I haven't met him, but you're the only one who seems to like him at all."

Nascha stared at the ground for a moment, then raised her head. "Adoeete is...well, he's Adoeete. He's stiff-necked and stubborn, but so is Cheveyo, in his own way. Adoeete was my brother, once. He's a skinwalker now, and I know that means one of us will probably kill the other some day. But." She let out a breath, and looked back down at the ground. "I wish I'd gotten a chance to make some peace between him and Cheveyo. I feel partially like I failed him. I know it's not rational."

"And you're still willing to go against him."

She looked at Hakan; he was more still than usual right now, fatigue weighing him down, but there was always that thoughtful look on his face. "I am," she said quietly. "I can't save him."

Hakan nodded. "And he will kill us, given a chance."

It was a heavy, bitter thought. So much fighting...and for what? She nodded, and didn't speak again. Hakan let her and her thoughts be, though she caught him looking at her more often in the days that followed. She didn't ask what conclusions he was coming to.

The last day before they arrived at the Apache camp was spent mostly in silence, even the chatter along their bond stilling. The sun was high in the sky when they saw the tents, and Pezi, Otaktay, Zotum, and Sahale taking positions around Nascha, Cheveyo, and Hakan as if they were almost prisoners.

Adoeete met them at the edge of the camp, and Nascha tried not to flinch at the openly gloating look she saw on her former spiritwalker brother's face. They dismounted silently, and Nascha kept one hand on Una's mane. "Couldn't make it on your own, Cheveyo. I had thought as much," Adoeete said.

Nascha glanced around. Eight spiritwalkers had left the Apache camp before the winter. Of those that had left, two had returned, and Cheveyo at least was looking the worse for wear. Nascha had to assume that she was, as well. She felt Adoeete's critical glance pass over her, and thought that they looked exactly as Adoeete expected them to look--tired, heartsick, beaten down by life away from the tribe. Hakan, too, looked as if he had been ridden hard recently, though Nascha knew it was mostly training that had worn him down.

So much death, and there would not be any new ones to replace them when they fell. Cheveyo was eyeing Adoeete with distaste. Adoeete, after looking them over, continued, "For now you can remain spiritwalker but you will not be the leader anymore. One that shamed cannot lead. You will be last again. Zotum will take the leadership, as he done so since you have lost your way."

"I understand," Cheveyo said, though he looked as though he'd really rather strangle Adoeete with his bare hands.

Because Adoeete was who he was, he paid no attention to Cheveyo's tone. Quietly, Nascha said, "All that really matters is that we're back, Adoeete. We brought you something we captured from the Sioux."

"You did," he said, and though she looked she could see no softening of his expression. "What did you capture?"

She held out the wrapped package with the pipe in it to Adoeete. He took it from her, unwrapped it, and then his eyebrows shot up as he turned the pipe over in his hands. It was made of bone and stone, with white feathers tied to the stem. It was a thing of beauty, and of power. Adoeete clearly knew what it was he held, as he turned it over in his hands. "You captured the white buffalo pipe? That's very impressive. Thank you for the gift." He almost smiled at her, and Nascha for a second thought this might be the Adoeete she had known. But then his face went hard once more. "Zotum, take Cheveyo to a solitary tent and don't allow him visitors. He needs to think about what he has done."

"Does no visitors include me?" Nascha asked.

"I think for now. I can't stop you from talking to him silently but I think a little solitude from everyone will do him good," Adoeete said. Nascha dared not protest, though she desperately wanted to.

Cheveyo said silently, "That's a trap if I ever heard one. He will go to Chogan and they will suddenly be in my wickiup."

"That's what I was thinking. I think I'll stay nearby," Nascha told him as Zotum led him away. She set up her tent near the wickiup that Cheveyo was led to, guarded by Zotum, who was not shy about letting his unhappiness with the current circumstances show. Nascha looked over at the tent, and then to the crowd of people who were starting to gather nearby. Among them were a man and a woman she recognized as Wahcommo's parents, their faces strained and their shoulders stiff.

Cheveyo wasn't allowed out of the tent, and nobody was allowed in to see him, and as his second it fell to her now to tell the young spiritwalker's parents what had happened to their son. She set her shoulders and went to see them. Adoeete hadn't left yet; Pezi was keeping an eye on him, and he was going in to tell the other elders what had just happened before presumably--hopefully--going to see Chogan.

She squared her shoulders and went to pull Wahcommo's parents aside. His mother, at the news, dissolved into tears, and even his father seemed to be having trouble either speaking or looking Nascha in the eye when she told them Wahcommo was dead, killed in battle. He held his wife and was silent, and Nascha sat awkwardly, not knowing what to do, where to look, what to do with her hands. Finally, she told them that if they wanted to talk to her more, she would be nearby, and departed for her tent.

Once inside, she sat heavily and dropped her head to her knees for the space of a few breaths. She felt as though the grief of losing two spiritwalkers to death and two to departure in one night had been reopened, a badly-healed wound within her. She had wanted so badly to bring Wahcommo back, for him to be one of those that lived.

We do not grow old.

"And in some cases, we don't even get the chance to grow up all the way," she said quietly, aloud.

"I know," she heard Cheveyo's silent voice say. "I hate telling the families worst of all."

Nascha, in that moment, wanted Cheveyo's physical presence more than anything, his warmth and solidity next to her. But she straightened her shoulders, pushing them back. "It is a part of this," she said to Cheveyo. "We live, we die, and those who are left go on. It's just..." She paused, uncertain. "It seems strange that there won't be any new ones until long after we're dead. That this cycle could stop. My decision, I know."

They fell into silence then, and Nascha spread out the blanket, falling into it. Pezi's voice came to her. "Adoeete just left," Pezi said. "Talked to the elders and then stepped into spiritworld."

Nascha nodded and sent her questing mind after Adoeete, seeing him walking in the shape of a leggy, adolescent wolf through spiritworld. He arrived in Chogan's tent, shaking off the skin. He was grinning, and his eyes were bright with a fever much like the one that had always burned in Chogan's. He is becoming so much like him, Nascha thought in dismay.

Adoeete started telling Chogan about Cheveyo returning, showing him the pipe. The other skinwalkers began to appear one by one, and they sat down to paint each other's faces and get ready for battle. Nascha watched, stomach churning.

Chunta was the first to have his pattern finished, and he grabbed the pipe, digging up a pouch of tobacco from under a pile of skins. He stuffed the pipe full and lit it from the low fire that burned in the central pit. He looked very pleased with himself as he sat leaning against the largest pile of skins, sucking on the pipe, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs.

Then he started to bleed.

Blood came from everywhere, from his eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and Chunta was screaming. His face was a mask of blood, and then, under the blood...

Chunta's face seemed to cave in and the flesh melted from his bones, all the skinwalkers staring in shocked silence as he became nothing but a skeleton. Then the bones themselves melted and crumbled into dust, and nothing was left of Chunta but the echo of a scream.

"Let's go," Nascha said to the rest, and in one motion she gathered up the blanket, stepped into spiritworld, and began to run. Sahale had taken the horses and was hours away by now, and they joined him, riding hard until darkness made it too dangerous to stay ahorse. They settled into a cold camp, setting watches. It was unlikely that the skinwalkers would find them, but after what had happened after they had attacked the Spanish, unlikely was not a good enough guard.

"Less painful than I thought," Cheveyo murmured to her silently, when they were wrapped together in the blankets they shared. "Think we might have angered Adoeete a bit."

Nascha made a sound that was halfway between a chuckle and a snort. "We knew we were going to do that. Besides, just how much angrier can Adoeete get before he does something stupid?"

"Not much sooner but that is going to get to him. He just got fooled, and that really hurts his pride."

She grimaced. "By me, no less. At this point, he probably likes me just as well as he does you."

"I think I still outrank you in the hate scale but you have to be a close second," Cheveyo said.

"He's had longer to hate you. Did you see how he was gloating when he demoted you?" That Adoeete had once been her brother seemed such a strange thing right now. He had changed, and Nascha had seen the change, and did not like it one bit.

"I did. Thankfully he didn't delay for days until he took the pipe to Chogan." Cheveyo kissed the top of her head, and she curled closer into him, making an inarticulate sound. "I don't think I could go that long without seeing you."

"I'd have snuck in and gotten us both in trouble." Nascha smiled, then had a thought. "Well, and there's always the blanket."

"True. And you know, for the first time in a long time we have more people than he does." He sounded thoughtful. "That has to worry him."

Nascha blinked, and then realized it was true. "He may waste some time trying to recruit more before figuring out that he can't."

"He might. I think it's time to let him think about things."

"Give him some time and space." She sighed, shifting in Cheveyo's arms. "Honestly, I think we need it as well."

"Unless you think differently, a place close to the arch like the mountains we found the coyote in seems a good place. Unknown to Chogan and Adoeete. Away from the Sioux so they don't get attacked."

Those hills had been sere, but they had also been rich in game and places that might offer shelter from the sun. Nascha nodded. "I remember a few places close to water that would make for good camps, as well."

They talked about it some more, and then with the group, and the next day they started towards those hills, riding hard. They reached it four handfuls of sunrises later, then spent three days looking for a place to camp. They found a sheltered place with a small spring and set up there.

The weather was warming towards summer, and for the first time in a while they relaxed a little. The smiles returned to Cheveyo's face, and all of their brothers seemed to loosen the tension in their bodies, hunting and riding and training and resting. It rained some, but more often the sky at night was an upended bowl of stars. They heard the song dogs on occasion, but did not see them.

Nascha spent much of her time weaving when she wasn't training or helping with the hunt. Oddly enough, Otaktay took an interest in what she was doing with the weaving, and occasionally watched her for a bit and asked questions. Sometimes, when Nascha got stuck, she would spend some time talking over the problem with Otaktay. That helped, but when she could not figure out a solution, she would ask Cheveyo to call her mother.

She spent time talking with Shadi, never long enough for her but enough time to discuss the weaving, what was going well and what was not. Shadi asked a great many questions about Cheveyo, and Nascha finally brought him along a few times to let her mother talk to her husband.

In the end, Shadi told Nascha that she had done as well in her choice as could be hoped, as well as Shadi might have done given the chance. "Though he's still an Apache," she said, musing.

Nascha laughed at that. "So am I by adoption and marriage," she said.

"True enough, and your heart's gotten as fierce as his," Shadi said. "But your spirit will always be Navajo, Nascha. You know our ways. Remember them."

"Always," Nascha said, her throat full of feelings she couldn't name.

It was a day or so after that conversation that she caught sight of another familiar form in spiritworld. She stopped, considered, and then stepped toward the figure.

Tse turned, his eyes widening. His misty form became abruptly solid-looking. He didn't speak, but there was hope on his face, in how his mouth was set.

Nascha smiled at him. "Tse," she said quietly. "Tse, I'm so sorry."

"So am I," he said, the words coming out of him in a rush. "I've had time now, too..." He trailed off, then straightened his shoulders. "To get used to being here. I've been watching you when I can, Nascha."

"Then you know about Cheveyo," she said.

"I know that you love him," Tse said. "I'm sorry he isn't me, but he is alive. I'm not."

"For the moment," she said, and felt the pressure of pain inside of her as she thought about Adoeete, and about Chogan. "Tse, I don't know how much longer it'll be until I join you here. I think that this fight is going to kill me."

"It's all right," he said. "Live as long as you can. Keep him alive, too." He paused, looked uncertain. "Nascha, I miss you..."

The breath came out of her in a rush. "I was afraid you hated me. The last time we spoke--"

"I was half mad!" he interrupted. "Still not really accepting that I was dead. I've talked a lot with your grandfather since, and I've been watching when I can find you. Yas knew about being a spiritwalker, Nascha. His brother was one. He died before he was a hundred seasons old, but he talked a lot to Yas. Yas was only fifty-seven seasons old when he died."

Nascha was dumbfounded. "Why isn't that story passed down? I never knew."

Tse looked troubled. "Yas's brother died in a battle that took the lives of all of the spiritwalkers of our tribe. You'd think that sort of thing would be spoken of, passed down, learned from. But all of them dying seemed to leave some sort of wound behind, and there were no old spiritwalkers to call the new ones..." He faltered. "It was left to the Apache to finally find new Navajo spiritwalkers. Yas hopes that you and Ahiga will come back, find and train some more spiritwalkers. There's trouble coming. Worse than we have now. Much worse."

She swallowed. "Except that there aren't going to be any more spiritwalkers. We gave that up, to stop the skinwalkers."

He stared at her. Finally, he said, "Will you tell me how it happened?"

So Nascha did. She told him the story until he lost the strength to keep his form, and then continued the story to a gently coalesced ball of mist. While the spiritwalkers stayed in the hills, she returned every day to talk to her mother, and to Tse.

The days lengthened, and the summer solstice was drawing close. "We should go to the arch," Cheveyo told her one evening. They had taken a walk past where the horses were gathered in a makeshift corral that was more to keep creatures that might startle the horses out than it was to keep the horses in. The moon was waxing towards full, and the moonlight made all the shadows soft around the edges.

"Is that a call, or just a feeling?" Nascha asked.

"A feeling," he admitted. "It feels like our time here's getting short."

"It's close by," Nascha told him. "We knew that we couldn't stay here forever."

Cheveyo glanced up at the lopsided moon. "I could hope, and pray," he said. "In the morning?"

"One more night of peace," Nascha said with a smile. She looped an arm around his neck and pulled his mouth down to hers, kissing him. "Let's use it wisely."

In the morning, they left their brothers at the camp and walked through spiritworld to the arch. The pillar had changed again. It was low to the ground, with a shape that suggested an insect, straight back and powerful hind legs, hidden wings under a stone carapace.

Nascha looked at the pillar uneasily. Locust. Locust was a god of hunger and of destruction. It was numberless, and it had never volunteered to help anyone that she could recall in the stories.

"You thinking the same thing I am?" Cheveyo asked quietly.

She glanced at her husband. "That whatever this god gives us, it's going to come with a very high price?"

"Yes, in some manner it will destroy something. More than we wanted."

Nascha's mouth was dry. "I'm not even sure we can refuse a gift of the gods, once given. I suppose we could go see what it wants."

"I think so," he said, taking her hand. They stepped into spiritworld together, and walked forward.

The pillar unfolded, shimmered, and then Locust crouched before them, dusty gray and gold. It turned its head and looked at them with eyes that were a hard brown. Its mouth-parts worked, infinitely more disturbing at this size than its smaller cousins. "Greetings, Locust," Nascha said.

Locust nodded, and somehow that motion made the presence of the god even more skin-crawling. "On the eve of the summer solstice, we will come to the Arapaho camp," it said, its many-jointed mouth working. "We will hide you from their eyes by the numbers we create. You may kill all who stand in your path, their warriors, their skinwalkers. They will fight back, of course, but the chaos we will create will cover a great many deaths. You will not be harmed by us, but they will."

Nascha tried desperately to keep her composure. "And those we do not kill will starve to death, afterwards."

"That band will have to walk many days to find food, many will die." Locust did not seemed to be upset by this, or happy. It was simply how things were.

"I understand," she said. She glanced at Cheveyo, saddened. That was a lot of people who were going to die because their spiritwalkers were skinwalkers.

"Can you not come?" Cheveyo asked.

One clawed back foot lifted from the stone and set down again. "It is in motion, the only thing you can change is how many skinwalkers die that night."

Silently to Cheveyo, she said, "If any of us live, we may be able to help the survivors."

"Our choices are limited, and it is coming no matter what we do. We have seven days to get enough food to save who we can," Cheveyo said. Nascha nodded, and Cheveyo said aloud, "Thank you, Locust."

Locust turned to stone, and Nascha stepped out of spiritworld, feeling as if there was some part of her that was all turned around and upside-down. "Do we go?" Cheveyo asked as he stepped out right beside her.

Nascha breathed out, and her hand went to one of her leather-wrapped braids. Time to be the warrior once more. "I think it's an opening we can't really afford to lose. As much as I hate to say it."

"If we can whittle them down by one or two when they scatter, so much the better," he said. "We are going to need to collect a lot of food someplace safe and lead them to it."

She thought about it. "You know, the Spanish travel with a lot of food."

Cheveyo wrinkled his nose. "They do, it's nasty tasting but edible."

"Well, it's either that, raid another tribe, or do a bison hunt and spend the rest of our time preserving meat." She smiled briefly. "Personally, I'd rather take it from the Spanish. Might discourage them from coming back."

"Sahale will like the Spanish idea," he said.

She stepped close to Cheveyo and slid an arm around his waist. He draped his arm over her shoulders. "Another point in its favor."

"Let's go find a Spanish scouting party, or bit of an army," he said, and kissed her. While she would have loved to have lingered, time was short, and on the way back to camp they explained what was going on and what they were doing.

By this time, a bunch of Spanish soldiers were easy targets. They appeared around them and then men died, bleeding out their lives. Only a few lived long enough to get their guns, and even those did not live long enough to fire a shot. They repeated the scene twice, and in the end had a tidy stockpile of food, enough to get at least a portion of the Arapaho through the next season and maybe the fall. The weapons of the Spanish were also left in the pile--guns, bullets, powder, knives.

And so it came to the afternoon before the shortest night of the year, watching the Arapaho camp from the west. There were more than a hundred Arapaho there now, many women and children. Nascha could hear a wailing child being comforted by a woman singing, the squeal and snort of horses picketed towards the center of the camp. The skinwalkers were there, everywhere they walked greeted like the heroes these people thought they were.

They did not see Adoeete, but Nascha had been watching him in the blanket. He was rarely alone any more; right now, she thought he was probably on his way back to the Apache from here. The Apache camp had moved recently, to be closer to the Arapaho. Nascha and her brothers had painted their faces with their patterns--Zotum's fangs, Otaktay's blood spatters, Pezi's stripes, Sahale's falcon eyes, Hakan's yellow and red flames, Cheveyo's white face with the red line, her own feathers. The painting had been done in grim silence. None of them liked what was about to happen.

All there was to do now was wait.

The first warning was the noise, a low humming from the west. They glanced over their shoulders and saw a dark cloud rolling over the landscape, coming toward them. The noise swiftly grew until it was deafening, as the first of the locusts flew past them.

Cheveyo stood as the sun was swallowed by the cloud, and a river of locusts washed around them. Hidden in the main cloud, they moved into the camp. They saw everything being eaten--food, clothing, the hide walls of the tents, the locusts landing on people and biting them. Horses, dogs, children, adults were screaming, the horses panicking and the people not far behind them.

Nobody was paying attention to the possibility of enemy warriors in their midst, as the people went to grab things only to find they had already been fouled by insects and drop them. People were scattering in all directions, picking up children and running. Skinwalkers came out of the tents, looking around wildly, and silently the spiritwalkers divided up targets between them. "Ituha," Nascha said. "Hakan, with me."

She had seen Ituha retreating, and followed. Hakan and she caught up with him at the center of the cloud; he had just stepped into spiritworld and was slapping at his face, not watching around him. Nascha and Hakan came at him from right angles, Nascha hitting him hard enough to knock him out of spiritworld and back into the cloud of locusts, Hakan following that up with a vicious hatchet to his side.

The locusts landed on and bumped into Nascha, but they did not bite her or her clothing, and her world narrowed down to nothing more than her ally and her opponent. Ituha was seasoned, far more than either Nascha or Hakan, and though both of them fought viciously, he was probably a match for the two of them under any circumstance but this.

But the man's scarred face was twisted in pain and panic, and as they opened up cuts on him and he returned the favor, Nascha saw with horror that the locusts were burrowing into the cuts, eating into him. Eating him alive. Lumps moved under his skin, wriggling.

Nascha was bleeding from numerous cuts, but the locusts ignored her. She and Hakan consulted silently with each other, looking for an opening. They found one, Hakan attacking low. Ituha lost track of Nascha for a moment, exposing his neck to her. Her knife swung, and bit deep.

The locusts followed her knife, and Ituha dropped to the ground, convulsing. Before the cloud of locusts hid him entirely, she saw the despair in his eyes flicker and die, and bloody foam on his lips. Hakan was grinning. "Done," Nascha said, triumphant. "Now, are there any more--"

Chogan's knife slashed across Hakan's throat.

Nascha almost screamed as she felt her connection to Hakan falter and then silence as shock dropped him next to Ituha's body. "As Cheveyo once said, blood for blood," Chogan said, his voice almost swallowed by the roar of the locusts. Without another pause, he swung into the attack.

Nascha was immediately in trouble. Chogan was good, almost as good as Ahiga, and more ruthless. She was on the defensive, Chogan not allowing even the smallest opening, slashing at her with relentlessly controlled motion. Nascha was not exactly at her best at the close.

I need help.

Silently, she cried, "I have Chogan here--he just killed Hakan, he's working on me!" She ducked another blow and received a stinging cut on her shoulder, a blow that had been aimed at her heart. She tumbled out of the way, but stumbled over an unseen obstacle and fell hard to the packed earth. She rolled as Chogan followed her down, and gasped as Otaktay and Zotum appeared in the same heartbeat, Zotum with teeth bared, looking feral. Cheveyo was just behind them now, and Chogan glanced over his shoulder, pulled the wolf skin up over his head, and disappeared into spiritworld.

She scrambled to her feet, seeing that Cheveyo was bleeding from a long gash on his right arm. "Do we follow? Who's left?" she asked.

"We have wounded, so do they," Cheveyo told her.

She took a sharp breath, and flinched as a locust landed briefly on her face. "Withdraw and regroup, then. I'd like to go looking and see where they gather."

He nodded. "Use the blanket, it's safer."

"True. Let's go." Pezi and Sahale arrived as Nascha bent to pick up Hakan's arms, feeling little but a stunned sort of rage. Sahale picked up Hakan's legs, and together they stepped into spiritworld. They had lost only Hakan. "How many of them did we kill?" Nascha asked Cheveyo as they walked a little way away and stepped back into the real, the place they had agreed to meet at if they had gotten separated. The blanket had been left here, and Nascha went to get it.

Cheveyo said, "Ituha, you killed, Kohana was killed by Otaktay. Nashashuk, I let live."

She glanced sharply at him. "Because I called?"

"In part, but Halian showed up right after Zotum left. Nashashuk, I thought I could finish, but Halian came too quickly."

"Ah. So they're down two, we're down one."

"Four of them to six of us." There wasn't the sense of triumph that Nascha almost expected in Cheveyo's voice. The day's work had killed far more than just skinwalkers. It had killed those who were innocent of anything but being deceived, and would probably kill more before the snow flew. "Find where the skinwalkers regrouped, and the rest of the band."

Nascha nodded, feeling suddenly tired, and turned her attention to the blanket. She looked at the camp, seeing that the locusts were beginning to move on. They left naked wickiups, skeletons of tent and human and horse, everything that had once held water hopelessly fouled. The fire at the center of the camp had died, smothered by the bodies of locusts. Anything that could be eaten had been.

The skinwalkers had gone to the great canyon, gathering in a cave. Adoeete was not with them, so it was merely three angry, grieving men, Chogan with his brow drawn and dark. The Arapaho had regrouped north of their former camp, wailing for the dead. They were less than half of their former numbers.

She emerged from the blanket, and let out a long breath. "Safe enough for the moment," she said. "Come here, Cheveyo, let me look at that cut on your arm." The slice was long and had bitten deeply in one place, but he would heal. She washed out the wound and bound it, hoping it would stop bleeding soon.

Both spiritwalkers and skinwalkers settled down for the evening, licking their wounds. The next morning, Nascha and her brothers went looking for materials to build a platform to post Hakan's body to the stars. When they were finished and had hauled Hakan's body up, Nascha stood under the platform, looking up. She didn't weep for Hakan, not yet. It wasn't time.

After, they went to deposit part of the store of food and weapons in the path of the Arapaho, who were now walking east. There were no signs of the skinwalkers; they had abandoned their own tribe. From the broken-hearted murmurs Nascha heard as she passed close by the tribe in spiritworld, they assumed they had all been killed by the locusts, an enemy that could not be fought, only fled from. It was unthinkable that they could have abandoned their own.

When the tribe came across the cache left for them, there were thanks raised to the great spirit for gifts in their trials. They left two more caches, watching over this tribe from spiritworld, making sure that nothing further happened to them, at least for the next few days. They couldn't keep an eye on them longer than that, but they could at least make sure that they didn't come to any more harm for a little while.

Nascha kept an eye on the skinwalkers with the blanket, seeing many silent and furious conversations between them, without a guess as to what they might be planning. And when the crows and vultures had picked Hakan's body clean, when it was time to burn the platform and what remained, then Nascha cried for Hakan.

He'd had a life to go back to, one day. If he hadn't become a spiritwalker, he would have become a shaman like his father. So Nascha grieved not only the man she had known, Hakan who had kept all of his words tightly guarded for fear of letting his rage get the better of him, but the man he might have been one day.

Four skinwalkers. Six active spiritwalkers.

This ends soon.

*****

Nascha woke to find that Cheveyo was not next to her.

She rolled over and sat up, rubbing her eyes. There he was, visible as the sky began to lighten, at the edge of their small camp. She murmured and got up, yawning and pulling on her shoes. It was the day after they had done Hakan's death ceremony.

Cheveyo heard her and turned, holding out one arm. She stepped into his embrace, leaning in to his warm body. Despite the fact it was summer now, the nights were still cold. "One more time to the arch, love," Cheveyo said. "Last time."

Fear slid cold fingers into her belly, but she smiled still, wryly. "After last time, I almost don't want to go."

"I hope it goes better than that." His arm tightened around her.

"Me, too." She turned and kissed him, lingeringly. "Well, let's go."

"Wish we had time for more," he said, but stepped into spiritworld. Nascha was close on his heels.

The arch was close in spiritworld, and when they stepped out before it, they saw that the stone pillar was gone. Nascha frowned. "That's new."

Cheveyo looked as if he couldn't decide whether or not this boded good or ill. "It is. I think someone is there." He inclined his head, and together they stepped into spiritworld.

It was not the spiritworld they were used to. It was somewhere else entirely.

There was nothing, nothing but white. The ground, the sky, even their clothing was a uniform, bleached white, an emptiness that was at the same time the most full place Nascha had ever been. Nascha felt disoriented, as if she were floating in space, and reached out for Cheveyo's hand. "Is anyone here?" she asked, uncertain.

"I am always here."

The voice came from all around them, one great voice emanating from everywhere. Cheveyo's hand tightened on hers. "The spirit of all," she said, breathing out. The full emptiness radiated agreement. "You know why we're here, then."

"I do. We have helped to stop the skinwalkers, and killed so many, but only one more will we help, the last three you kill on your own. It is the way of things, and the people."

Nascha felt small, very small indeed. "The last steps must be our own. I understand," she said. "So how will you help?"

"Knowledge. At sunset tonight, Adoeete will return to the Apache for the last time. Told by Chogan to come to their aid, he will heed the call. He will not want to, and be angry. He will throw his skins in pouch to carry and in frustration toss the pouch from his wickiup." The voice paused. "Do you see?"

"He'll be vulnerable," she said.

"He will not enter spiritworld without the skins. With his skins parted from him, he becomes an easy target to six that appear beside him."

"True," she said, thinking about Adoeete. As much as he had betrayed them, as much as their quarrel was well-deserved on both sides...it seemed a wretched wrong that it had come to this. She bowed her head slightly. "Then the last three, we find and kill on our own."

"The rest is up to you," the great voice agreed.

Cheveyo's hand was almost painfully tight on Nascha's. She looked up, into blinding whiteness. "As it was always meant to be. Thank you."

"Goodbye, spiritwalkers."

Nascha pulled on Cheveyo's hand, and together they stepped from spiritworld. Before them, the arch shimmered slightly and then fell silent, leaving an absence behind them. It feels like the gods have gone from this place, Nascha thought, looking around. It no longer felt sacred. "Well, we know where we need to be," she said.

"And what we have to do. Let's go back," Cheveyo said.

They did, and told the rest what was to happen. Then they waited, watching the sun drift across the sky. They spoke among themselves in short bursts, and as the afternoon wore on, they painted each other's faces.

Just before sunset, they gathered in the Apache camp. They saw Adoeete's wife leave their wickiup, his son trailing in her wake, looking angry. Adoeete's wife held her body stiffly. She looked as if she were trying not to cry.

And then, as the sun touched the horizon, a hide bag soared out of the open flap of the wickiup, to land with a scuffing sound in the dirt, rolling a little before it came to a stop. Nascha breathed in.

Time.

It had been agreed that Nascha would be the one to flicker in, grab the bag, and step back into spiritworld. She did so, and then in response to a word from Cheveyo all of them stepped forward and out.

They were ringing Adoeete in the wickiup, all of them, Cheveyo in front of the flap, Nascha to his right. Adoeete started when he saw them, and then Nascha saw the anger begin to burn in his eyes, bright as fever. He looked at Nascha, and saw her holding his bag. He glowered.

Cheveyo said, "We offer you honor. Step into spiritworld and none will know your betrayal."

"Betrayal," Adoeete said, his voice flat. "You nearly killed the tribe, everything we stand for. You gave me no choice. You could never see what's around you, just what was honorable." His voice had taken on a vicious edge. "Honor doesn't feed children."

"Neither does becoming something like Chogan, Adoeete," Nascha said.

The lean man turned to face her, and she saw the fever in his eyes flaring. "I would have thought you might understand why. But you are lost, just like them. What honor is there in watching a man die, his flesh melt from his bones? You didn't take his life, you tricked it out of him. There is no honor in that."

Nascha shook her head. "The white buffalo calf pipe knows who smokes it. If someone with no evil thoughts had smoked it, it would have done the opposite of harming him. You were too eager to take your prize to those who had no idea what its power was, and never stopped to ask."

"You are without honor too," Adoeete said. "I am sad for you, and your place in the world."

As Adoeete spoke, she saw a flicker of something other than anger on his face. Pity. "At least I do not have to take on the skin of a beast to walk spiritworld without those who reside there tearing me apart," she told him, shaking her head. "I've become what I needed to, done what was asked of me." Nascha paused, frowned. "I'm sorry, Adoeete. I never wanted to come into conflict with you."

Adoeete blinked, and it was as if the fever in him abruptly broke. "And I you." He looked around, seeing the faces of those who had once been his brothers. "My family?"

Cheveyo said, "You will have died in battle with Chogan, a spiritwalker to the end."

"We won't harm them," Nascha added.

The lean man's shoulders bowed, and he nodded. "You win, Cheveyo." He stepped forward, and into spiritworld.

"Follow him," Cheveyo said, and Nascha wasted no time in pushing through the barrier into spiritworld. She saw Adoeete standing, arms spread wide, his eyes closed. Misty forms flashed by her, and Adoeete was surrounded.

He did not cry out, not even when the spirits pulled him apart. Adoeete died silently, in a cloud of blood and mist.

Nascha's eyes were full of tears. "Do we go, or do we stay long enough to explain what's happened?" she asked Cheveyo.

"I think it won't be long until Chogan appears," he said, and glanced over his shoulder. "It is time."

A flicker to their right, and they turned. A wolf, an eagle, and a fox appeared before them. Nascha focused her eyes, saw the real men beneath the animal forms. "Chogan, Halian, and Nashashuk," she said quietly. A long moment of silence passed then, as the spiritwalkers and the skinwalkers looked at each other.

Then the skinwalkers dropped to the real world, and the spiritwalkers followed. Chogan shrugged the wolf skin back from his head and straightened. "It's time, you can sense it too," Chogan said without preamble. "We are three, you are six. We ask what Delsin received."

Death by combat. Nascha's mouth went dry. "If we give him that, they're all going to choose to fight me first," she said to Cheveyo.

Cheveyo gave Chogan a dark look. "No."

The skinwalker's eyes narrowed. "You fear for your woman. Only I will call her, neither of the other two will unless she is last left."

Nascha bristled at that, but she forced words past teeth that wanted only to grit together. "Do I have your word on that?"

His flat gaze flickered over her. "You do."

"I say we take it," she said silently, glancing at Cheveyo.

"I don't want to," he said. "But you have your own mind. I will agree only if the rest do."

Nascha glanced around, at her brothers. "He'll probably call me first, and he'll probably kill me. But I'll try to disable him before I die. I know you don't want to do this, but I think it may be our best chance at killing all of them."

"I know, but I don't want to lose you when I just found you." His voice was low and anguished.

She took a breath. "I know, and I don't want to lose you, either. But we knew our time together might be limited," she reminded him. Then she smiled. "I will do my best to survive him. You do your best, too."

"I will," he said. "So, all of you--do you agree?"

There were murmurs of assent all the way around, Otaktay's low rumble, Pezi's quiet but clear voice, Sahale's focused rage. Zotum looked at Cheveyo, and there was no laughter in his eyes. "She is spiritwalker. She knows what can happen. We don't grow old."

A look of deep sorrow crossed Cheveyo's face, and cold was threading Nascha's spine. He nodded to Chogan. "We agree."

Chogan nodded. "To the great canyon, away from here. You can choose the exact location."

"Nascha, somewhere they haven't been, if you would." Nascha nodded and stepped into spiritworld and away.

She reached the canyon and walked the edge of it for a little while, settling on a place where nobody but deer and wolves had been for some time. It was a good place, flat for some ways away from the canyon's edge, with little vegetation for cover. Where she was standing was about three spiritworld steps away from the rim. "Be sure to return Spider Woman's blanket before the winter comes," she told the rest. "I owe my birth tribe that much. Now, here. This is the place."

A moment later, spiritwalkers and skinwalkers arrived. Nashashuk was the first to walk to the center of the flat place. This was the one that had killed Delsin, a big man with a nose that looked like it had been smashed a few times in his life. He limped heavily; he was not yet recovered from the wounds that Zotum and Cheveyo had given him a few days before.

Nashashuk's eyes lingered on Nascha, but he pointed at last at Sahale. Whether he thought he had a chance against Sahale, Nascha had no idea, but to be sure the light-boned Sahale didn't look nearly as strong as he was. The battle was short; Sahale received a shallow blow across his stomach, but in return Nashashuk was hit in the chest and neck, almost at once, and fell with a bellow that was the last sound he ever made.

Two left.

Halian stepped forward. He cast appraising glances over the spiritwalkers, as if he were choosing which buffalo to cut from a herd. He was a man of middling height, and Nascha remembered the images Cheveyo had given her of how he fought. He was not the fastest of them, but he thought and calculated and never made a wasted move. He paused, now, and pointed at Pezi.

Pezi went out, stepping lightly. His strength, like Nascha's, lay in his speed. It had been enough to let him survive seasons and seasons as a spiritwalker.

It was not enough here.

From the moment the two started moving, it was evident that Pezi was not nearly as good on the close as Halian. The two of them came together in clash, broke apart, came together again. Neither man spoke, or made a sound other than breathing and grunts as blows connected.

Halian stretched out his body in an attack, and Pezi dodged, rolling, coming up behind Halian and swinging his hatchet into the other man's lower back, into the kidney area. It was a mortal wound, from the look of the blood, but Halian was not done yet. He stumbled, went to one knee, and as Pezi straightened Halian came up and around with a knife that had not been in his hand a moment before.

That knife opened Pezi's abdomen, and the spiritwalker's eyes went wide as blood spilled, his insides spilling out. He stopped. Glanced around sightlessly.

Fell to the ground, curled around the wound in his belly, fruitlessly trying to keep his intestines in with bloody hands.

Nascha's hands clenched, her nails digging into her palms, as she felt Pezi's connection to her falter and then die, as blood bubbled out of his mouth. He sighed and was still.

Halian was still standing, and his skin had taken on a gray tinge, the color of shock and approaching death. He raised his hand and pointed at Otaktay, who with silent fury took up his hatchet and dealt Halian a blow that almost cleaved his torso in two. The skinwalker fell with a cracking thud.

One left. Nascha tried to calm her heart, but it was beating so hard that she felt as though her whole body were ringing with it.

Chogan stepped forward, and the fever in his eyes burned bright as ever. There was a smile twisting his lips as he looked at Nascha. He raised one hand and pointed at her.

She swallowed, and stepped forward. Now in the moment, fear fell away. "I love you," she said silently to Cheveyo, bringing out her favorite knife.

"I love you," he told her, his silent voice urgent. "Listen to me."

She took a breath. "I will."

There was a moment before it began when everything was still, the space between heartbeats. Chogan was wielding a dagger, and with a flash drew it across his chest, from under the left breast to under the right. Nascha tried not to bristle; it was a ritual called first cut, meant to dishonor one's opponent by taking first blood away from them. The blood welled up in the cut, and Chogan smiled.

Nascha's eyes narrowed. Do not let him make you angry, she told herself fiercely. He knows it's a weakness. He probably saw the battle with Skah. Her knee twinged at the memory.

And then Chogan was in motion, and so was she.

He did not close with her right away, and when he did she immediately knew he was playing with her. He stalked her, lashing out and opening small cuts in her skin. She made a move to dodge and he anticipated, but instead of hitting her with the knife he cuffed her with his free hand, snorting.

Her pride prickled and she gritted her teeth as she recovered. She could see how Chogan wanted the battle to go. He would play with her until anger overpowered her good sense, and then he would kill her. Not swiftly. He wanted it to be slow and painful, and he wanted Cheveyo to watch.

Nascha took a tight grip on her anger and continued to circle.

Chogan came forward, in a position where it was impossible to tell where he was about to go next. "He will strike left, go under," Cheveyo's voice came, and without thought Nascha obeyed. Anticipating the strike put her in the possession of a small opening as she passed by the skinwalker's unprotected side, and she stabbed, her knife biting deeply. The blow missed the heart-opening but punctured between the two ribs below. Chogan grunted, more in surprise than in pain, and then spat blood.

She jumped away, seeing Chogan's face darken with anger. He came at her now, pressing her. There was no time for fear, only time enough to listen to Cheveyo as he called block points and openings for her, keeping her alive, keeping her up and fighting. Her quickness was her strength, and Chogan was tiring. The wound in his ribs was hurting him, she could tell.

Heartbeats went by.

"Block up, right forearm." "One step right, one back, and roll." "He'll come up with the blade in his left hand, be ready."

Every heartbeat she claimed was a victory.

At least I wore you down. At least my death will mean life for the others.

Chogan surged forward and vanished into spiritworld.

Cheveyo called, "Spiritworld, one right!" Nascha obeyed, pushing into spiritworld, taking a step to the right, and pushing back out.

Her opponent was standing with his back to her, and Nascha's body was committed to the blow before her mind even comprehended the opening. She came in with her knife, aiming for the place where his ribs ended, dropping low to place her body behind the blow. It connected, and she drove the blade upward into Chogan's back.

This time, the blade hit something vital, and Chogan gave a sharp cry that was partly of pain, partly of rage. She released the hilt as he dropped to his knees, freeing the hatchet that always rode at her hip. She stepped around the skinwalker, seeing the man before her, remembering the day when he had stolen everything from her.

Chogan choked. "You should not be able to win. What are you?"

Nascha was already in motion, her weapon moving in a practiced motion. "An Apache," she said, and her hatchet came down.

*****

about two hundred years later

"That's all?"

The boy's mouth was open, and he stared at his grandfather. "That's where it ends? What happened next?"

The older man shrugged slightly. "That's where the weave ends. I assume Nascha wasn't interested in weaving the story of the rest of her and the other spiritwalkers' lives. It was a teaching weave, after all. Once she had put into it everything about what it means to be a spiritwalker, she was done."

"There has to be more," the boy insisted. "What happened after that? Were there other battles?"

Grandfather chuckled. "There are always battles, grandson. The Spanish came back, and the US Army got involved, and things went from bad to worse. There were no more spiritwalkers for a hundred years, and by the time new ones started being born, it was too late. The choice Nascha made did change everything, but not in ways any of them anticipated." He shifted, tightening his grip on his cane. "Many died, and the world changed."

The boy pressed his lips together, pondering. Finally, he asked, "What do you think happened?" He looked down at the weave that was lying spread out on the smooth wood floor in front of them.

"What might have happened...hm." Grandfather smiled. "Well, it might have been that Cheveyo and Nascha took some time to recover, after the last of the skinwalkers died. Maybe they took the time to have a child or three. But I think they remained spiritwalkers until their dying days, and the life of a spiritwalker is battle. They had three tribes to protect, after all, and there were only seven left including Aquene and Ahiga. My guess is the two of them died in battle, probably against odds that only a spiritwalker would take on. Then again, it's not much of a guess. It's how almost all spiritwalkers die."

His grandson turned this over in his mind, thinking about it. "That seems about right," he said.

"Good." Grandfather sat back, and smiled. "Now. Didn't you promise you'd bring in the horses if I told you the rest of the weave?"

The boy took a quick glance out the window and jumped to his feet. Without another word, he ran out of the room, and a moment later the screen door banged shut. "Always in such a rush," Grandfather muttered, and leaned forward to gather up the weave and fold it once again, this copy of a copy of a copy of a blanket made by the first female spiritwalker.

He paused as he felt something like a presence brush by him, and for a moment he could almost see her, a small woman with a fierce presence, her hair bound in braids, a stone-headed hatchet worn easily at her hip and a bow in her hand, her face painted with owl feathers. He almost saw her reach down to touch the weave, a look of concentration on her face.

Then he felt her smile, and brush by him as she turned and moved on.

Here ends Spiritwalkers.