Children of the Dawn

by Patricia Rowe

Genres: Christian Fiction

Synopsis

Nine thousand years ago, the horses died, leaving the band of people called the Shahala hungry. Their Moonkeeper, Ashan, led them across the Tabu land, but ahead waited a woman with secrets that would destroy the love between Ashan and her mate.

Release date: October 31, 2009

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 384

Sample

THE MOONKEEPER ASHAN TRUDGED ACROSS A WIND- SWEPT plain in the tabu land, with her mate Tor beside her. The Shahala people—eighty men, women, little ones, and grayhairs—followed
like a line of ants, carrying packs and pulling travel poles heaped with their belongings and a share of the tribe’s. Ashan
felt as if she were dragging the whole tribe behind her, instead of just her travel poles.


Thirty-nine days, she thought, looking at the notch she’d cut in her staff this morning. Autumn will soon be winter.

A howl wavered on the wind, trailing sharp yips, making the hair on her neck stand up. She reached for Tor’s arm.

“Listen!”

“It’s just a songdog.”

Ashan felt foolish: The Shahala chief, startled by a coyote.

“This stupid wind,” she grumbled. “It changes the sound of things.”

Her mate of six summers laughed.

“It’s a good thing your name means Whispering Wind. You can make friends with it; learn its language. The Creator sends more
than enough to this place.”


“This is not just ordinary wind, Tor. It’s so cold we shiver, so dry it drains us, so loud we can’t hear each other talk.
I wouldn’t want to make friends with such a beast.”


“It’s not always like this,” he said.

It had been like this for days. But she said, “Don’t tell me,
Tor. Tell our people… tonight, when the wind won’t let them sleep.”


“I’ll do whatever you say tonight, but now we should go on before they lay down their burdens. We should put many steps behind
us before the land swallows the sun.”


She looked at the late afternoon sky. He was right. The people were bunching up behind, waiting for their chief to tell them
what to do. Ashan raised her staff and thrust it forward. She leaned into the horsetail strap across her chest, into the wind,
into the future, and urged herself onward. She heard grumbling as people fell back into step behind her.


Tor said, “You will see, Ashan. The Great River is near.”

“You’d better be right. I don’t know how much longer they’ll follow us.”

“They have no choice, my love,” Tor said, smiling.

“Every creature has a choice—whether they know it or not is the question.”

As she walked, Ashan held a pebble in her mouth to quiet hunger.

This prairie, she thought. It gives up little water and less food. Sleep doesn’t even refresh us. What am I doing to my people?

The Shahala loved and feared Ashan. She healed, punished, and taught; settled arguments; remembered legends; knew what needed
to be known about animals, plants, seasons, rituals, and magic. Most important, she spoke with spirits so people would know
what to do. The tribe could not survive without a Moonkeeper. And so they had obeyed when Ashan said they must leave their
ancestral lands and move to a new home that only Tor had seen.


No one thought they’d still be wandering after thirty-nine days. It had been a terrible journey. They’d been lost in mountains.
A river had cut them off; Ashan carried the ashes of two who drowned in the crossing. And now these endless plains where they’d
been forced to stop many times while the warriors hunted. Ordinary things felt forbidding to weary, discouraged people. The
sun glared without warmth. The wind—with nothing to slow it but pale, flattened grass—moaned as if grieving; it searched out
every gap in the leathers and furs they wore.



Even a coyote, she thought, sounds like a lost, lonely spirit.

Everyone hated the tabu land, but Ashan knew they must cross it to reach their new home: Spirits had shown her in dreams.

A Moonkeeper was the only one strong enough to journey with spirits in the darktime world, and wise enough to understand what
they said. Dreaming was forbidden to ordinary people. Babies were most in danger, too often taken by evil spirits who tricked
them into the dreamworld before they’d been taught how to stay out of it. Any morning a mother could find a perfect little
baby shell—empty and cold. Until little ones were old enough to understand, mothers shook them many times each night.


Ashan’s mate, Tor, who obeyed no one, enjoyed how dreaming felt, and lied when asked about his sleep. By dreaming his way
to personal and tribal disasters, he proved to people why they shouldn’t dream. But when her son, Kai El, kept dreaming no
matter what she did, and didn’t seem to suffer, others wanted to try. Knowing she couldn’t prevent it, she had warned them.


“Dream if you must, but you might not come back. Your dreams are a game you play with yourself. Do not think they are like
mine. Spirits speak only to the Moonkeeper. Evil speaks to all others.”


No matter what others might see in the darktime world, or what use they made of it, the Moonkeeper’s dreams must be heeded
as spirit messages. Otherwise, why would people obey her?


When Ashan had dreamed about a better life on the shore of a huge river, the Shahala had abandoned their homeland. Most of
them had set out in hope, except grayhairs who grieved from the first. But day by day, winter’s tightening grip had turned
hope sour. Even the breath of the tribe’s guardian, Shala the Wind Spirit, had become their enemy—tearing at the tabu land
as if to push the intruders back, as if to push the sun and moon back.


Ashan spat out the pebble. Ihate this place.

She remembered Shahala land and swallowed, for she would never see it again. The summer home on Takoma’s forested flank, where
Coyote made the First People in the
Misty Time. The winter home in the Valley of Grandmothers, where many horses once roamed, where trees kept the wind from going
wild. Ancestor Cave. Anutash. Never again…


Though many wanted to go home, they could not. All the horses had died. The people would starve without their winter food.
The Moonkeeper didn’t doubt her vision of the future, but on this late autumn day in this comfortless place, she worried about
the strength of the tribe. Hungry, worn-out people, who believed they were lost. How to keep them going? How to keep herself
going?


Tears rose behind her eyes, but she knew how to stop them. Look at the ground, keep moving your feet Don’t let them see what’s inside.

Two little girls ran up to Ashan.

“May we walk with you, Moonkeeper?” Kyli asked.

“You are welcome,” Ashan said, smiling. Little ones could raise a weary soul just by being around.

They carried light packs, but were too young to pull travel poles. Only hands and faces peeked out from the warm skins that
covered them from head to foot. Matching Ashan’s stride, the little girls whispered to each other.


The one named Kyli liked to talk. The other was shy, with a shy name Ashan couldn’t think of.

Kyli said, “Wista wants to know if we are going home soon.”

Wista—Ashan remembered now—daughter of Keeta and Kowkish. Just five summers. Some people, especially the young, had to be
told more than once. Hope died harder in them.


The Moonkeeper’s voice was kind, but firm.

“We are not going home, Wista. Not ever. We had no winter food because the horses died out. We were getting hungry, remember?”

“I told you,” Kyli said.

“But I’m still hungry.” Wista’s bottom lip stuck out.


Ashan put her hand on the little girl’s shoulder.

“You won’t be hungry much longer. I dreamed of a new home with plenty of food. Spirits Who Love People showed me the way.
Always remember, Wista, the Shahala are Amotkan’s favorite tribe.”



Kyli said, “My brother says we are the Creator’s forgotten tribe.”


Hamish, the Moonkeeper thought. Imust watch him.

“You know how boys are,” she said, giving them a look that showed how much better it was to be a girl.

Ashan remembered last night. Kyli’s brother, Hamish, and two of his friends had left the camp, a strange thing to do—on this
windswept plain, people liked to stay near the nightfire. With the trained ears of a Moonkeeper, she had followed them into
the dark, and heard what they said.


“There’s no Great River in this tabu land. No sheltering cliffs, no food forever.”

“If it’s this bad now, what will we do when it’s covered with snow?”

“If I’m going to die, I’d rather starve at home than walk myself to death through this place. At least my ashes would be with
the ancestors.”


“But the Moonkeeper dreamed the new home. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

“The Moonkeeper—phhht! All that time, she was fat in the mountains, while we starved. Then she walks out of the woods one
day and old Raga tells us to follow her? Tenka should have been chief. What’s wrong with her? She wouldn’t have made us leave
the home of our ancestors.”


“And what about Tor? Remember when Moonkeepers were forbidden to mate? And that boy of theirs? Where did he come from?”


“All that time, we couldn’t even say Tor’s name, had to call him the Evil One, and now… ”

Then the wind had shifted, carrying their words away. Ashan reminded herself that the three almost-warriors were too young
to have power in the tribe. But there were others who felt the same. How much longer would she be able to control them?


“Yes,” Ashan said absently. “You know how boys are.” But Kyli and Wista had fallen back with the tribe.

The wind brought a new scent.

Ashan sucked deep breaths of clean, moist air—

“We made it!” Tor yelled.


“Water!” Ashan yelled, thrusting her hands in the air. “I smell it!”


People threw off their packs and ran toward her.

“Water to drink, and walk in!” Ashan licked her lips. “Water to taste and listen to!”

“Tomorrow you will see the Great River,” Tor said in his proudest voice.

Laughing, crying, hugging, people thanked the Moonkeeper for her dream, and her mate for knowing the way. They praised each
other for faith and courage.


“Don’t forget. Thank the spirits,” Ashan told them. “Get this place ready for sleep. Talk in whispers and make no fire. We
are the strangers here.”


AS THE SHAHALA PEOPLE MADE THEIR CAMP READY for the night, the Moonkeeper went off by herself to offer thanks.


Ashan was twenty-two summers in age, and shorter than most women, but by carrying herself as a chief, she seemed taller, and
older. She held a staff with magic powers. She wore a browband with two eagle feathers taken from an old proud bird who’d
lived and died in the ancestral homeland. Her black hair separated in back and blew long and thick around her shoulders. She
wore a fox cape over a doeskin shirt, pieces of leather as a skirt, and knee-high moccasins.


Standing on a low mound, she dropped her staff and cape, and lifted her slender arms. Her sleeves slid up. The light of the
setting sun gave her dark amber skin an unworldly glow.


The Moonkeeper faced Where Day Begins, tipped her face to the sky, and began an ancient song.

“Spirits Who Love People, the Shahala thank you… ”

The wind whipped at her skirt and stung the backs of her legs.

“Spirits Who Love People,” she began again. But her thoughts drifted. She sat on the fox fur cape, and let them go where they
would.


The Great River… in dreams I soared above it, but Tor is the only one who has tasted its water… .


Ashan didn’t like to think about how he’d found the Great
River—so much bad on the way to something good. She remembered how it began, six winters ago…


While she had sat deep in prayers, Tor had kidnapped her—the only way he could have the Chosen One. He’d stuffed her in a bearskin sack, and run, and when he’d stopped in snow up to her knees,
she hadn’t known where she was.


Why had Tor wrenched her from her life like a sapling from the ground? Why not simply ask her to be his mate?

Because Ashan, chosen to lead the tribe after the Old Moon-keeper’s last death, was forbidden by ancient law to have a mate.

After a time in the wildplace, Ashan got over hating Tor, because she loved him. She had always loved him. They were soulmates
after all. The hardest thing had been to accept that she would never see her people again. She could have found the tribe,
but the risk to Tor, and to Kai El, the son she had borne, was too great. There was no way to know what the Shahala would
do to them.


Ashan had been happy with her little family, thriving in friendly mountains, living in a cave she herself had found… the Home
Cave. Then Tor had brought it all crashing down. How like a man to get what he had to have, then find out it wasn’t what he wanted.


She had known he was dreaming again when he talked about new places and people, about belonging to something larger than just
a family. He got all his crazy ideas from dreams. She had tried to make him stop, but in the wildplace, she was nobody’s chief.


Tor was unhappy without a tribe. Ashan found out how unhappy when he stole away one night—just left them—a woman and a baby of only two summers. She had waited at the Home Cave until their food ran out. It broke her heart
to leave, but she had to find the Shahala, or she and Kai El would have died.


Maybe she would have found the tribe. But savages stole Kai El, and she broke her leg, and got him back, then they fell in
that pit—


Even now, Ashan shuddered to think of that time in her life. One of the things she learned was that a mother would suffer
any pain for her child, would even give her life—
indeed she nearly had. “Be strong, be smart, or your child will die.” Words that kept a woman going, that taught what she
must know. And when her child lived, she believed in herself.


From terror, pain, and the struggle to survive had also come good: the grandfather Ehr, with his love and wisdom. Seasons
alone with Kai El in the cave hidden behind the waterfall—to teach, love, and know her son as no Shahala mother ever had.


It all seemed marked with Destiny’s handprint.

Still, it was hard to forgive Tor for what he’d done to them. But Ashan loved her soulmate enough to forgive him; he was young,
and just a man. Tor had meant to return to the Home Cave by winter. But by autumn, he was a slave. Three summers had passed
before she’d seen him again.


See what dreaming did for him, Ashan thought.


While they were apart, Tor had found the “Great River” of his dreams. After they were reunited with the tribe, he would praise
it to anyone who’d listen:


“Chiawana… Mother of Water. Wider than the flat top of Kalish Ridge. Choked with fish. On its shore, a new home for the People
of the Wind, Amotkan’s favorite tribe, whose old home has died with the dying of horses. A home that does not know hunger,
where sunshine and rain are in balance… ”


If anyone asked about the tribe who already lived there, he would say, “Don’t worry. I know these Tlikit. They are simple
drylanders. They fear me. I am a god to them.”


Ashan pulled a grass stem from a clump beside her and chewed its end. Though it was autumn, there was still a crisp bit of
moisture in its fiber. She noticed the wind again.


Tlikit, she thought, shaking her head. What an odd name for a tribe, the sound a tree locust makes. But two bugs caught in the spiderweb of Destiny will share the
same future.

Tor had talked on and on about the Great River, but not much about the Tlikit people. Now Ashan wished she had made him tell
her more—maybe she would feel prepared to meet them.


Raga would know what to do, she thought. The Old Moon-keeper had a plan for everything, plans for things that might never happen.


But Raga died for the last time before this journey began. Her ashes rested in the ancestral burial ground near Anutash. Ashan,
the old woman’s successor, sometimes felt too young—even at twenty-two summers—to wear the Moon-keeper’s robe, and the responsibility
that went with it.


I should be able to talk to Tenka about this. She is the Other Moonkeeper.

With a sigh, Ashan remembered coming home to Anutash after all that time… finding Raga near death, and Tor’s sister Tenka
ready to lead the tribe… as if Tenka could lead a child.


The Old Moonkeeper had lived long enough to tell the people:

“In the changing world, a tribe needs two Moonkeepers, not one. Listen to Tenka. She is the shaman who speaks with spirits. Follow Ashan. She is your chief.”


After Raga died, Ashan became “the Moonkeeper,” and the tribe followed their new chief. Tenka became “the Other Moonkeeper,”
but they didn’t ask anything of their new shaman. Tenka did her best, but the girl was weak in many ways.


Ashan looked to the darkening sky.

“Raga, we are here at the Great River. What now?”

She waited for an answer. A star appeared, then another. She heard silence, felt cold wind, tasted water in the air. But no
answer came. Sometimes, the Old Moonkeeper’s spirit would visit her, but on this twilight at the edge of the new beginning,
Raga chose to be somewhere else.


The Moonkeeper Ashan returned to the desolate spot on the plains where her people would spend the night, and walked among
them to see that all was well. Women were doing the work of evening. Tor sat with a group of men, talking about the end of
the journey, the Great River, the tribe called Tlikit—new land, new life, new brothers and sisters—what would it all be like?
Ashan heard relief, anticipation, and fear in their voices.


In the center of the camp, where they would sleep together, the little ones played a quiet guessing game with Tenka.

Yes, Ashan thought, there’s my boy.

The best-looking child ever, his mother was sure. Kai El was five summers—hard to believe—little ones grew so fast.
His sturdy body reminded her of a little oak tree. His face was still baby-pudgy, but he could get a determined look in his
dark eyes and the set of his mouth. Or he could melt her with baby love eyes and flower bud lips.


Mother and son smiled at each other as she walked by. She would have liked a hug, but he was too old for that in front of
his friends.


Tor had put their packs and travel poles a short distance from the others. Ashan took sleeping skins from the packs—a huge
grizzled bear from his for the bottom, a smaller black bear from hers for the top. It would be good to nestle between the
furs and rest. But the load on her travel poles had come unbalanced. There would be enough to do in the morning without having
to repack them.


Travel poles were made from two long, slender trunks of light, flexible alder. Short pieces held them apart. Leather straps
spanned the open space. A person’s belongings and a share of the tribe’s were heaped on the straps and tied down. Once only
warriors pulled travel poles, but on this journey, there was so much to carry that all but the youngest and the oldest pulled
them.


Ashan’s travel poles—lighter than some, more important than any—carried the tribe’s sacred things.

She untied the knots in the leather ropes. It felt good to hold familiar treasures in her hands. They gave her strength. The
white tail of Kusi, the Horse Spirit, given to the First People in the Misty Time. The ceremonial robe of furs and feathers
in its painted horseskin cover. A bear skull with the time balls of long-dead Moonkeepers. Rattles of deer hoof and turtle
shell; bird wings, throwing bones, and other pieces of magic. Many kinds of medicine; not knowing what this land would provide,
she’d brought all she could. She also had the tools of a woman: baskets, bowls, plates, cups, blades, grinding and scraping
stones.


She finished repacking and lay back on the bearskin, snuggling into softness.

It was almost dark when Tor came. He stood over her, hands on hips, smiling like a man who had found a herd of mammoths long
after people thought they died out. Here he
was, right at the edge of his dream. Had Ashan ever seen him look happier?


“Hello, my love,” he said in a lustful voice.

“Hello, Sweetmate,” she answered in the same tone. She was tired, but that special energy stirred in her.

“You look like a flameflower to a hummingbird,” he said. “I’m the hummingbird, and I’m starving.”

“You don’t look like a bird to me. You look like a man.” She said man as if there was nothing better. And was there?


Tor slowly untied the laces of his shirt and shrugged it off. After all this time, Ashan still loved looking at his body.

“Mmm,” she said. “That broad chest, all curves and shadows and lines. Those shoulders, those muscles. Those arms.”

She loved saying these things, and he loved hearing them. Bending over to show his firm rear, he took off his leggings, and
flexed his thighs. The wind played with his loinskin.


“Had enough watching, woman?”

“I will never have enough.”

He lay beside her, and pulled the bearskin over them so only their heads were showing. She felt his body heat through her
leathers. His hands crept over her skirt until they found a way inside. He stroked her thigh. The tingling energy in her lower
belly turned to heat. His hand moved up and touched her with the practice of a longtime mate.


“Turn on your side,” he whispered.

“It isn’t dark yet.”

“Close your eyes. Then it’s dark.”

“People will see us.”

“Danger makes it even better.”

She turned on her side, pulled up her knees. Tor snuggled close behind, holding her tight, fondling her breasts. He entered
her, moving slowly, deeply, until the silent explosion came.


Waves were running through her body and her head was spinning, when she heard a voice.

“Moonkeeper?”

She sat up, cleared her throat.

“Mosscakes, Moonkeeper?” Tashi asked. “There’s meat from yesterday’s kill, but you said no fire. And these grass stems? I
picked them for you.”



“Thank you, Tashi,” Ashan said. “You are kind.”


When the woman left, Ashan said to Tor: “All that water, so close, and my people have to chew grass for their thirst.”

“It’s almost over, my love. I promise.”

He had said those words before. But this time she did smell water in the air.

DEFORE IT WAS COMPLETELY DARK, ALHAIA THE MOON arose—huge and glowing, dusty golden, in the way of a full autumn moon—soon after Kai, the Sun, descended, taking with him
what little warmth he’d given.


Close to Tor under furs, leaning against travel poles, gazing at the wide sky filling up with stars, Ashan didn’t mind the
cold.


“This Great River,” she said. “How far is it?”

“What does your nose say, oh chief who understands the languages of nature?”

“Be serious, Tor. How far?”

“You cross a few more hills. Then there it is, down in a gorge.” His voice softened with memory. “A trail takes you down to
the place where we’ll live. I named it Together Teahra. I wonder if the Tlikit still call it that?”


“Maybe they don’t live there anymore,” Ashan said, thinking that would be fine with her.

“Teahra has everything. They wouldn’t leave.”

“Maybe we should wait. Or go up the river, or down the river. Settle somewhere else. Leave the Tlikit alone.”

“Ashan, our dreams were different, but they had the same end: people of both tribes living together at the Great River.”

“I know, Tor. But how will we get them to want to live together?”


“That I don’t know.”


Ashan shook her head, annoyed. “Where are your promises now? How much help are you going to be? You lived with them. I thought
you’d know more.”


“I haven’t told you everything,” he warned.

Without ever speaking of it, both knew there were things Ashan wouldn’t want to hear. So she asked questions carefully, learning
enough to make a plan, while not learning anything that would hurt her heart.


“How many are there?”

He had to think. “About ten hands.”

“What about guards?”

Tor shook his head. “They think they’re the only people in the world. Even if they wanted to, the place is impossible to guard.
There’s more than one way through the cliffs.”


Good for now, Ashan thought. Bad for later. If the Tlikit couldn’t guard Teahra, how could the Shahala?


“These Tlikit people… are they good, or bad?”

“A hard question. I have seen kindness and savagery.”

“What makes the difference?”

Tor shrugged. “There was much about them I never understood. At first they treated me like a god, even called me by the name
of one: Wahawkin, the Water Giver, a trickster, like Coyote Spirit. They believe this Wahawkin stole the water from the lake
where they lived.”


Ashan said, “I always thought it was strange that anyone could look at you and see a god.”


“I don’t think it’s so strange,” he said. “But later, they turned mean and used me as a slave. I would have died if one of
their little ones hadn’t helped me escape.”


Ashan doubted it. “People might argue and fight, but they don’t kill each other… except for man-eaters… ”

“You don’t know them.”

“I’m trying. But you only told me good things. You never said they were killers.”

“I’m telling you now: I would have died at their hands. That’s why I took the boy with me when I got away.”

“How many did they kill when you were there?”

“None. But I think they would have killed him for letting me go.”

She still had trouble believing such a thing.


“I wonder if they still want to kill him?” she said. “It was two summers ago.”


“I hope not, but I don’t know. Once you make people that angry, it might take more than time to forget. That’s why we have
to be careful about how we do this.”


Ashan nodded. “So. Our new brothers and sisters, with their mix of good and bad—”

Tor interrupted in a firm voice.

“Listen, Ashan: This is what we must do. I know a way down into the canyon, so they won’t hear us coming. We’ll wait until
they’re full from eating, then walk right up on them. Can you imagine how shocked they’ll be to see the whole Shahala tribe?
With our warriors in front, fierce with paint, showing our weapons? We are sixteen hands; they are fewer than ten. They’re
smart enough to fear us.”


“That’s a terrible idea. One hand should not be made to fear the other.”

“You don’t understand how simple they are. How different from us. You never know what they’ll do. We must use the strength
of how many we are, until they accept our ways.”


“But the spirits say we must work together, like bees in a nest, or geese in a flock.”

“You may understand this, my love, but no one has told the Tlikit.”

“I am the Moonkeeper of Amotkan’s favorite tribe. I refuse to lead my people down there like a tribe of man-eaters. What about
Elia? He could go first and tell them about us. He’d do anything for you.”


Tor sighed. “I know.”

Elia was the boy who had helped Tor escape from the Tlikit tribe. The Shahala thought he was just a lost boy who wandered
into Anutash one day, but Tor had told Ashan the real story.


The Tlikit called one child the “kicking child,” and treated him almost as a slave. His name was Chimnik, their word for “spoiled
food.” When he and Tor were free, he changed his name to Elia, Shahala word for “friend.” He and Tor became close as they
searched for Ashan and Kai El. When Tor lost hope, he left Elia near Anutash for the Shahala to find.



Never loved by his own people, Elia was loved by his new people as if he’d been bora to them. Most of all by the one who took
him to raise: Tor’s father, Arth. Elia helped fill the hole in Arth gouged out by the death of his second son Beo at the hands
of man-eaters, and deepened when his mate, Luka, had chosen to stop living.


Elia loved Tor and would do anything for him.

“Well,” Ashan said, “what about sending the boy?”

“I can’t. They still might want to kill him.”

“What kind of people would kill children?”

“Tlikit people.”

Ashan sighed. “Oh, Tor… how will this ever work?”

“I know another way,” he