join the rolling, orange grass-covered plain that stretched towards the
rim of the world. Beyond that lay the hidden door through which the
sun entered each morning. The pale blue that had quenched the golden
fireclouds of the dawn was deepening as the sun climbed higher; small
widely-spaced clouds, like a distant slow-grazing herd of white
buffalo, were beginning to form over the far edge of the plains.
Cadillac lay back against the warm rock face and let his eyes roam
across the unbroken stretch of blue, searching for the tell-tale flash
of silver light that he had been told would signal the presence of a
cloud warrior. As Mr Snow's chosen successor, Cadillac had no need to
act as a sentinel. Over a hundred of his clan-brothers were perched on
the hilltops that lay around the settlement; young warriors - known as
Bears - were on guard, day and night; some watching the sky for cloud
warriors; others, the ground, for any marauding bands from rival Mute
clans seeking to invade the M'Call's summer turf. Some manned hidden
look-out posts on the high ground, others patrolled the area around the
settlement in small mobile packs that doubled as hunting parties.
Cadillac continued his search of the sky. Not because he felt
threatened but because he was consumed with curiosity.
As a Mute, he had every reason to fear the sand-burrowers; the
mysterious people who lived beneath the earth and killed everything
upon it whenever they emerged from the darkness; yet in spite of their
awesome reputation - or perhaps because of it - he yearned to confront
them; to challenge them.
So far, they had not ventured into the lands of the Plainfolk. But the
Sky Voices had told Mr Snow that the time of their coming was near.
The first sign would be arrowheads in the sky; the birdwings that
carried the cloud warriors on their journeys. They were the far-seeing
eyes of the iron snake which followed, bearing more sand-burrowers in
its belly. When they came, there would be a great dying. The world
would weep but all the tears in the sky would not wash the blood of the
Plainfolk from the earth.
When Mr Snow had finished telling his story to the children, he walked
down to where Cadillac sat with his face turned up to the sky and
squatted cross-legged on an adjoining rock. His long white hair was
drawn up into atop-knot, tied and threaded with ribbon; the aging skin
covering his lean, hard body was patterned with random swirls, patches
and spots of black, three shades of brown - from dark to light and an
even lighter olive-pink.
Mr Snow had said that the bodies of the sand-burrowers were the same
colour all over. Olive-pink from the top of their heads to the soles
of their feet. Like worms.
