Alex waited as Sekun-ak worked through things.
“Someone took them, but they managed to sneak up on them and didn’t even alert the guards in either direction. We don’t know how long ago they were taken, or by who. I don’t think torches will do us any good. If whoever took them is still around, all the torches will do is make targets of us.”
“If I had been taken,” Alex said, “I would be hoping you would be looking for me.”
“If someone had tried to take you, there would be signs of a struggle, blood, and the bodies of our enemies here. We will return home, put search parties together, and return here just before dawn.”
It rankled Alex to think of his friends spending a night in captivity, held by people unknown, but he knew Sekun-ak was correct. In complete darkness, with nothing more than a torch to give visibility, they could easily walk right past an important piece of information.
Sekun-ak sent a runner in each direction to tell the guards to be extra alert that night, that it was possible they were under attack.
They returned to find much of the tribe gathered at the bottom of the cliff waiting for them. Torches burned cheerily, but the mood was somber.
Sekun-ak called a meeting of the entire tribe in the largest chamber.
When everyone was gathered, he said, “Someone has attacked our people working in the forest.” Like always in the cliffside, word of this had spread before Sekun-ak had a chance to announce it. Still, it caused a stir of conversation.
“We have to be smart about this. They may be hoping that we will send everyone out looking for them, leaving the cliffside undefended.”
Ganku-eh, who was no longer chief, but was still a respected elder, stood and said, “We made that mistake once. We will never do so again,” then sat down.
“We will take two dozen men to search for them,” Sekun-ak continued. “We will march together to the spot where they were taken, then we will divide ourselves into four teams. We will spread out in all four directions from there. If we discover who took our people and there are too many of them for our small group to overwhelm, we will come back here for reinforcements. To start, we will leave the bulk of our warriors back here to defend the cliffs. We will keep the children up high until we know what is happening.”
Sekun-ak walked around the room, laying a hand on one warrior, then passing many by before choosing another. When he was done, he had selected twenty warriors and appointed Alex, Senta-eh, and himself as leaders of a party. For the final group, he approached Ganku-eh. “Before you were our chief, you were one of our best hunters and trackers. I’d like you to lead the fourth group.”
Ganku-eh, who had been slowly sliding into oblivion in the upper chamber, straightened her spine and Alex could see the woman who had run the tribe for many years emerge.
Sekun-ak said, “Good,” and laid a hand on her shoulder. He turned to his daughter, who was still young, but had been shadowing her father since he had become chief. “Kinta-eh, come sit with Alex and me. We will want to make some changes to our defenses.”
There would be no sleep in Winten-ah that night. Alex, Sekun-ak, and Kinta-eh walked the perimeter of the cliffs, deciding what would work best if an all-out attack came. As they did, Alex cast a wary glance at his half-built home, wondering if it would be destroyed before it was even finished.
If so, there are many more trees in the forest. The only thing that matters is our lives. Everything else can be rebuilt.
Before the first light of dawn crept above the cliffside, the twenty-four warriors gathered at the open field and marched silently toward the forest.
Their initial journey was short. Before they reached the place where the trail branched north and south, Monda-ak took off at a run and stood over a lifeless form. He tipped his head back and gave a mournful howl. Alex and Senta-eh ran toward the form, with Senta-eh beating him there.
When Alex reached the form, he could see it was human, but only just barely.
It was a body, but it had been burned almost beyond recognition.
Sekun-ak arrived at the still-smoking, charred body. The head was thrown back and the mouth was permanently fixed in a rictus of endless pain. Gently, he turned the body over and saw that a small necklace with a sharp tooth was caught beneath the body.
“Tranta-ak wore a necklace like this. There’s no way to know if this is him, but it feels like it is.”
Alex took a deep breath, trying to suppress his anger.
“What do we do? I feel like mounting our horses and tearing off in every direction, looking for whoever did this to him, but that is not smart, is it?”
“No. That will only result in more bloodshed. We have to hunt who did this. And, they put this body in the most obvious place imaginable.” He turned and pointed at two of the warriors who had accompanied them. “Run to the guards in each direction and see if they saw anything.” The two men peeled off, one north, one south.
“We also have to remember,” Senta-eh said, “that they have three more of us, unless they’ve also killed them. We need to be smart about this and see if we can rescue them.”
Alex did his best to push his anger at how his friend had been treated down deep.
Both of the warriors Sekun-ak had sent to the guards came pounding back down the trail.
The runner from the south arrived first, gasping for breath. “There is another body, just the same.”
The runner from the north panted, “And two
