Season of Sacrifice Read Online Free PDF Page B

opened her mouth and filled her lungs, ready to cry out to the Guardians, ready to pray for the twins to be delivered safely to the Other World. Ready to admit that the twins were lost.
    Before she could speak, though, Goody Glenna hobbled to her side, hissing just loud enough for the woodsinger to hear: “There’ll be time enough to flatter the Guardians after the children are recovered.” When Alana turned to her in shock, Glenna continued saltily, “Earth and air, fire and water—we can worry about placating the Guardians after we have our children back.”
    Alana closed her mouth and opened it again, fumbling for words. For just a moment, she continued to cling to the web that the Spirit Councilors had spun, to the order and stability that they offered the People. Then, she realized the horror that had opened before her, the defeat that the People had been willing to accept.
    Before Alana could form words, before she could still the Spirit Council, Goody Glenna stumbled down to the very edge of the water. The old woman planted her gnarled walking stick in sand that had grown stiff after the last wave, as if she were claiming the beach in the name of the treacherous crown.
    Her action shocked the People into silence, and she called out in a natural break of the Spirit Council’s chant: “Three people, fisherman!”
    It took a moment for Sartain Fisherman to step forward. “Goody?” he asked, and Alana could tell that he thought the old woman had gone mad.
    “Order three people to follow the duke and win back the children.”
    “But the Spirit Council—”
    “The Spirit Council is rushing things, don’t you think? The children have not yet been sacrificed. They have not yet been called by the Guardians, by the Great Mother.”
    “But Goody Glenna, you saw the soldiers! The duke…he had dogs!”
    “And we have men! Men and women, strong fisherfolk.” Glenna glared at the Spirit Councilors, at the drenched Teresa. “We can get our children back.”
    “Get them back? But how?”
    “Three people,” the old woman repeated.
    “Three!” Sartain blustered, looking out at the five adults who stood in the ocean, as if he were weighing relative power. “Goody Glenna, you can’t be serious! The inlanders used dogs .”
    “I was here, fisherman.” Glenna ignored the people shivering in the swirling water, pointedly not acknowledging the callused hand that Sartain thrust toward them. “I saw what the inlanders did. They’re ruthless. They’re trained. We won’t defeat them by weapons. We must sneak after them and steal back our children.”
    Glenna timed her pronouncement to end with the crash of another wave. Alana could not help but realize that the Spirit Councilors looked silly standing in the shallows, shivering, stumbling as the ocean sucked away from the beach. Teresa lowered her hands to her sides, gathering her arms about her belly and hugging her streaming widow’s weeds closer to her frail form.
    Goody Glenna ladled out a healthy dose of her aged cynicism as she called out: “What are you doing there in the ocean? You’re going to catch your death of cold, all of you! Then we will need to sing the Song of Sacrifice.”
    Teresa’s lips were the color of slate. The councilors were chilled as well; all five people had begun to shiver uncontrollably, with tremors that might have been mistaken for religious fervor, if another wave had not chosen that moment to break above their heads.
    “Get out of there, fools!” Glenna snapped. The five soaked people stumbled meekly toward the shore. “Help them!” Glenna ordered the people nearest the water, and it took only a moment for warm cloaks to find their way around the councilors’ shoulders, around Teresa’s shivering form. “More cloaks! Build up the cooking fires! And bring them cups of apple wine! Now!”
    The People rushed to comply.
    Alana saw relief in the villagers’ faces as they followed orders, as they accomplished small tasks. Order