The Librarian departed from the pit, leaving the workers to their sport. As he left he noticed that a bluecoat had entered the bar and was talking to the bartender. As he stepped outside, he saw that they were looking in his direction. He hurried into the smoggy night, thinking that he felt inhuman eyes watching him.
Cloud Runner looked at the faces round the fire. They were waiting for him to begin. He took three deep breaths. By long tradition, he must be the first to speak.
A Gathering of Warriors was not an argument in the formal sense, where words were used as weapons to count coup on the .enemy. It was a pooling of experience, a telling of stories. Words must have no sharp edges on which to snag anger. He chose his carefully.
"When I was twelve summers old." he began. 'I dwelled in the Yellow Lodge among the young bucks. It was my last summer there, for I was pledged to marry Running Deer, who was the fairest maiden of my clan.
"Often . the bucks would talk of the Warriors from the Sky. A hundred years had passed since their last visit, and the
red star was visible in the sky. The time was near for their return.
"Hawk Talon, my grandfather's grandfather, had been chosen and taken to the spirit realm to serve the Great Chief Beyond The Sky. My bloodline had acquired much honour because of it, although he had left his son fatherless and needing to found a new lodge.
Silver Elk was a buck with whom I had vied for Running Deer's hand. Because she had chosen me, he hated me. He boasted of how he would be chosen. His words were a taunt, aimed at belittling my kinsman's honour. Silver Elk's own line had no spirits who had ridden Deathwing and ventured beyond the sky.
"I was stung and responded to his taunt. I said that, if that were so, he wouldn't mind climbing Ghost Mountain and visiting the Abode of the Ancestors."
Cloud Runner paused to let his words sink in, to let the warriors imagine the scene. The memory seemed fresh and clear in his own mind. He could almost smell the acrid wood smoke filling the young men's lodge and see the fun hanging from its ceiling.
"That was what Silver Elk had wanted me to say. He sneered and replied that he would go to the mountain if someone would accompany him as a witness. He looked straight at me.
"So I was trapped. I could not back out without dishonour. I had to go, or he would have counted coup on me.
"When she heard, Running Deer begged me not to go, fearing that the spirits would take me. She was a Shaman's daughter and had the Witching Sight. But I was young. with a young man's pride and folly, so I refused her. Seeing that I could not be swayed, she cut a braid from her hair and wove it about with spells, making it a charm to return me safely home.
"It was a three-day trip at hunter's walk to Ghost Mountain. Fear was our constant companion. What had seemed possible in the warmth of the lodge seemed dreadful in the cold autumn nights when the moon was full and spirits flitted from tree to tree. I believe that if either of us had been alone, we would have turned back, for it is a terrible thing to approach the places of the restless dead at night as winter approaches.
"But we could show no fear, for the other was witness, and our rivalry drove us forward. Neither wanted to be the first to turn back.
"On the evening of the third day, we met the first warning totems, covered by the skulls of those the sky warriors had judged and found wanting. I felt like running then, but pride kept me moving on.
"We began to climb. The night was still and cold. Things rustled in the undergrowth, and the moon leered down like a Witching Spirit. Stunted trees hunched over the pathway like malign ghosts. We climbed till we came to the vast empty plateau marked by the sign of the winged skull.
"We were filled with a sense of achievement and our enmity was, for the moment, buried. We stood in a place few men had ever seen. We had defied the spirits and lived. Still, we were on edge.