Free Raven's Choice by Harper Swan Page B

lower her eyes to cut off his scrutiny. He turned away from her without saying anything more, and everyone followed him back to the trail.
    But the freshness of those footprints could not be ignored, nor could the smell of smoke floating on the breeze. After huddling with the men, Bear halted their advance. He led them all, Raven included, up a large, wide outcropping of rock that sloped down toward a dry canyon on the other side.
    They crouched on the ridge behind boulders while Leaf, the young scout, eased his way down a projecting ledge for a better look around a curve in the canyon walls. He froze suddenly with his head tilted forward.
    Blue and clear though the sky was, Raven heard rumbling like the muttering of a distant storm. Suddenly, nearby rocks began to tremble. Birds flapped into the sky, and several rabbits bolted out of cover, running in confused circles on the canyon floor below as the rumbling became thunder.
    The scout scurried back and leapt into the gap beside her. “Bison,” he said.
    A dark, shaggy flood poured down the old riverbed below them. Humps rose and fell behind bearded, horned heads as they stampeded through the rift, leaving—when they’d finally passed—a sudden, dusty silence pierced only by the distant howl of a wolf.
    Everyone remained in place for so many heartbeats that Raven slipped her pouch strap over a shoulder, impatiently preparing to move down. She felt a light touch on her arm.
    “There will be stragglers,” the scout murmured. He’d no sooner said the words than a small group of bison rounded the bend in the canyon.
    Another wolf howl ripped the morning air from close by, startling Raven, and she jerked her hand across a sharp rock. A narrow red streak welled across her fawn-colored skin. Before she could tend to it, several of the men grunted loudly, and she looked up.
    What had howled apparently wasn’t a wolf. Several burly figures, their bare chests and backs drenched in what appeared to be blood, waved spears and burning branches as they chased the bison, the beasts tossing their heads and kicking with their back legs. Raven drew a sharp breath and momentarily ducked lower before curiosity made her peer over the rocks and focus on the approaching runners.
    An odd clicking started beside her ear, and the hair on her arms rose. She realized that the sound was young Leaf’s teeth chattering. But before she could take a look at him, the gaps between boulders on the ravine’s other side spewed three more brawny shapes onto the canyon floor.
    Raven had difficulty understanding what her eyes were seeing. Stories she’d heard about the Longheads hadn’t prepared her to expect that the forms below would look so much like actual men. Their bodies were broader, and something was odd about their arms and legs, a difference she couldn’t quite grasp at the moment, but clearly they were men. Those last three weren’t bloody, and the bloodied ones, nearing rapidly, confused her. She thought they might be injured before remembering how hunters sometimes covered themselves with blood from a boar or some other animal so the smell would panic large, hoofed game.
    Two of the Longheads who’d just burst from the rocks darted out in front of a bison, isolating it. Confounded by suddenly facing two screaming figures waving spears, the bison’s gait slowed considerably. This gave the third Longhead an opportunity to slip in closer from the side and bring his enormous wooden club down on the beast’s back. Its hind legs bowed, and it stumbled, struggling to regain balance. The bloodied Longheads joined the others in jabbing their spears and screaming, but only one spear was dangling from a shoulder when the bison gave a loud bellow and began to fight back. With head lowered and horns hooking, it wheeled around so its back and flanks were protected by an indentation in the canyon wall.
    The Longheads scattered, except for the one who’d swung the club. He dropped the wooden chunk