Read Online War Path by Kerry Newcomb - Free Book Online

come to me again.”
    â€œBecause your spirit walked in mine. So I have come to you.”
    The sachem crouched on his haunches and, with a twig, traced in the dirt for a few moments as he collected his thoughts. The sound of his people, chanting, singing songs of conquest and brave deeds carried to him from the valley.
    â€œIt is good, Grandfather. I speak the words that are in my heart. Tell me. What will become of my people?”
    â€œThey will live, they will die, it is the way of things.”
    â€œToday we have defeated the English. They flee before us like rabbits.”
    â€œBut there will be other days.” The owl stretched its neck and craned its head from left to right. It dipped its head and preened yet it was always watchful, always hunting. Beware of Kiwaskwek, the beast. For tomorrow he is born.”
    â€œShould I fear an infant?”
    â€œA storm is born. It rages. And the people tremble. How old is the first flood? Yet it washes you away.”
    Atoan did not like the sound of this. There were hidden caves and lonely hilltops where superstition prevented the People of the White Pines from ever venturing. It was never a good thing to walk in the footsteps of the gods. “How will I know this Kiwaskwek?”
    â€œYou have seen him, though he is not yet born. But he will be. And then you will know. For his father is fury, and his mother, blood.”
    â€œMan or monster, how shall I find him?”
    The owl shot from the branches and disappeared into the night, dropping out of sight into the depths of the forest where it sank onto its prey. A small animal uttered a pitiful cry as the night stalker made its kill. And in the distant dying echo, Atoan thought he heard the spirit creature reply.
    â€œHe will find you.”

7
    F ort William Henry, a once seemingly impregnable outpost, had been reduced to a shapeless pile of charred blockhouses, crumbled redoubts and cabins, collapsed walls, and shoveled-in trenches on the grassy banks of a startling blue lake. If it hadn’t been for the shambles of the fort and the grisly discovery Stark made outside the fortifications, the site might have seemed pristine, with the morning sun climbing above the hills to his right and the cloud-swept sky and forested shoreline mirrored on the surface of the waters.
    Yes, idyllic, Stark thought, a veritable Eden, but for the hellish scenes of destruction among the swaying oaks and sturdy pines, and the stench from the butchered remains of the garrison’s former defenders who littered a field more than a hundred yards from where the fort once stood.
    Johnny Stark had no formal military training but what had befallen the defenders was plain to see. One only had to read the sign, like tracking a deer, to find the truth as to what had happened here.
    The troops and the families who made the garrison their home were arrayed along and to either side of the road leading out from the soot-blackened remains of the front gate that opened toward the lake. The corpses in the lead, like all the rest of the soldiers in tattered red uniforms and torn breeches, were unarmed. There was not a single musket or pistol to be found. He might have surmised the troops were looted but there was not even a cartridge case to indicate the men had left the battered walls carrying their weapons. And several of the lead soldiers still clung to makeshift flags of truce, the white banners blood-spattered and affixed to axe handles and lance shafts most of which were strewn about, shattered in most cases but still clutched by those grimed fingers now frozen in death.
    The garrison must have surrendered and was probably paroled to Fort Edward, for that was where this road would take them. The English defenders would never have marched out from their beleaguered bastion and through the French redoubts unless they had been assured of safe passage. Their trust was obviously ill-placed.
    Apparently, once the column of soldiers and