But many men looked like strangers, townsmen, with full heads of hair grown out and scruffy beards soiling their faces. Yet all were familiar. Sunbright recognized Thornwing, the other sword instructor, and his cousin Rattlewater; and Leafrebel, Forestvictory, Archloft, Rightdove, Goodbell, Mightylaugh, Magichunger, and Starrabbit.
Emotions churned within Sunbright. A wave of homesickness and relief made him want to embrace the lot, laughing and crying. Yet their stony faces chilled his heart. Some wouldn't even look at him, as if he brought shame to the village.
Blinddrum stated, "You were pronounced dead when banished, Sunbright. Leave this place of the living. None here commune with the dead."
"You are the dead!" Of all Sunbright's thundering emotions, anger won out, and he practically screamed, "You shuffle around this hellhole like zombies! You forsake the old ways, let them trickle through your fingers! You abandon pride to cower here like mongrels! Half of you don't even look like Rengarth! What say you to that?"
But not even insults stirred them. Blinddrum and Thornwing marched off. Magichunger and Starrabbit spat. Others looked at the rocky ground or turned away. Curious children were cuffed around and dragged off. Monkberry and Knucklebones crept forth, agonizing at how Sunbright was ignored. For a moment the barbarian wished he were dead, rather than see his people like this, and be unable to help them. But why talk if they wouldn't listen?
"Mother!" cried the shaman in desperation. "What do I do?"
Tears fell from Monkberry's chin as she said, "Nothing I know. We've no wisdom left."
"There must be something!" Knucklebones spoke up. "Some way to make them listen, and pay attention. I don't know your ways, Sunbright. What is sacred to them? What honor must they obey?"
"Nothing. I don't know…" he said. The warrior-shaman scanned the scabby village with slumped shoulders. Returned to his tribe, sought for so long, he saw only their backs. "What can you take from people that have lost all?"
Then his eyes fell on the round common house, and the trickle of smoke rising from it.
"Unless…"
"Unless what?" asked the thief.
But Sunbright ran like a child for the common house. Wondering, Knucklebones caught Monkberry's hand and they tripped after him.
Sunbright shoved through the retreating crowd, jogged to the common house, and ducked inside to the smoke and haze. Despite themselves, the Raven Clan crowded the entrance to see what transpired.
Madness, it seemed. Sunbright took old Iceborn and Tulipgrace by the shoulders, begging their pardon, and towed them away from the sacred council fire. Then, shouting, the young shaman drew back a boot and kicked the smoldering embers. Ashes and smoke flew in a cloud. He stamped and stomped the fire pit until his moosehide boots were scorched and sparks dappled his skin. In a minute, the fire was out.
Stepping from the fire pit, coughing in smoke, Sunbright pushed past stunned barbarians into sunlight. Sneezing, he crowed in mad glee, "There! If the sacred fire is the heart of my tribe, then my tribe is now truly dead! And since only a shaman can kindle a council fire, it will stay dead! So am I, a dead man, returned to a tribe of dead people!"
This idea, both new and old, sank in slowly. Sunbright saw confusion and shock on their faces. And for the first time, the animation of hard thinking, something they'd been denied.
Sunbright gave them more to chew on. "Think! Do the dead hear? Let me test. Hear this?" People fell back as he drew the long, fearsome, hooked blade Harvester of Blood over his shoulder. Inverting the blade, he used the leather-wrapped pommel to thump Blinddrum on the breastbone, then continued, "I, Sunbright Steelshanks, dead or alive, challenge you, Blinddrum, to combat! Else I name you a stinking, dung-eating, bastard, mongrel dog! Do you hear that?"
"I hear," Blinddrum murmured. His broad, simple face was uneasy. "I accept."
"Good!" Turning, Sunbright thumped Thornwing on her skinny chest, and said, "I challenge you! Would you be a barb-lipped, bottom-feeding sculpin picked clean by gulls, or a free and proud barbarian? Do you accept, or be named coward?"
"I accept," she said drily. "But like it not."
"I care not if you like or dislike, only that you hear! You, Archloft! Was your mother a maggot, and your father a pusworm, or will you fight me? Good! You, hold still! I name you nest-robber, and egg-breaker! Fight me? Fine!"
With a madman's delight, he poked Archloft, Goodbell, Magichunger, Forestvictory, others: anyone who'd ever wielded a sword, saying, "I challenge you all, and anyone I forgot! And why? Because I cannot leave the village until the duels are done! This custom would I have levied on Owldark had I been a warrior and shaman, but at the time I was only a boy. Well, that boy is dead, and a man returned! Blinddrum, when shall we fight?"
"Whenever you wish," replied the swordmaster. "No, wait. An hour. T'will give you time to visit your mother, and commend your soul. For after an hour, you visit the gods." With that, Blinddrum turned away, as did the rest.
Sunbright was left alone, inverted sword in hand. Knucklebones and Monkberry came forward, having lingered at the back of the crowd. The thief wept from her one good eye. "Why did you do that, Sunbright?" she sobbed. "Why come back just to die?"
Huffing with exhaustion, as if he'd run twenty miles, Sunbright sheathed his sword, and said, "In part, it was your idea."
"My idea?" Knucklebones shook small fists in his face. "You really are mad! You'll be killed! And I'll be left alone. What's the point anyway?"
Surprisingly gentle, Sunbright enfolded the small woman to his chest, kissed her tousled dark curls, and said, "Oh, Knuckle', if only life held simple answers… Come, I'll try to explain, not that I understand it well myself."
Seated in Monkberry's hut, Sunbright shared rations and sipped water from a canteen.
"You asked what tradition I could invoke that would make them listen. Killing the council fire was one. Yet I'm still banished-unless I have promised a duel to satisfy an insult. It's the only way I can remain with the tribe.
"And I can't leave, for they need me. They need someone-the gods must believe-and I'm the only one who's come. If nothing else, I must make them think, and return to themselves. I must rekindle the fire in their minds. Keeping alive customs, habits, and traditions-even mishmashing them when necessary-is a shaman's job. By challenging everyone, I can stay a long time and work."
"And get killed!" objected the thief. Angrily she thrust his canteen away. "You're a fine swordsman, a wonderful fighter, but even you can't fight nine dozen duels! You'll be hacked to pieces all at once, or a little at a time!"
"But in between, I can talk to folks, and think how to save us."
"Until you're dead," Knucklebones spat.
"Until a miracle occurs."
In their short hour, Sunbright talked to his mother about the old ways. Monkberry knew them all, for her husband had been the tribe's shaman for decades. Knucklebones listened raptly to a new world of tradition and legends and superstitions. When Monkberry finally asked Sunbright where he'd been in the years past, the shaman only smiled and shrugged.