The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

Previously published in print, 1995

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher or author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. The characters, dialogue and events in this book are wholly fictional, and any resemblance to companies and actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Also by Tom Dietz and Untreed Reads Publishing

Windmaster's Bane

Fireshaper's Doom

Darkthunder's Way

Sunshaker's War

www.untreedreads.com

Ghostcountry's Wrath

Tom Dietz

This novel is especially, and obviously, for

Greg Keyes,

and also, and nearly as obviously, for Russell Cutts.

But it is likewise for the other great guys and gals of

the

University of Georgia Flying Rat Toli Club Na Hollo:

Tracy Abla and Chip Baker

Nick Banchero and Jamie Bishop

Grant Blankenship and Randy Brooks

John Burrows and Kristine Burrows

Billy Caldwell and John Chamblee

Eric Clanton and Gene Crawford

Jim Dana and Joel Dukes

Jason Edwards and Brittney Euliss

Frank Farrar and Mark Fowikes

Dee Fraker and Jessica French

Todd Frizzell and Kevin Gaston

Jeff Gwathney and Walter Gwathney

John Guy and Cary Hardwick

A. J. Hoge and Dan Iorio

Heather Jacobs and Kit Johnson

Kevin Jones and Scott Jones

Scott Keith and Ray Knapp

Hyla Lacefield and Vince Lang

Peter Leary and Reid Locklin

Matt Lusk and Greg Matthews

Kohl Matthews and Paul Matthews

Gina Matthieson and Dave McMichael

Scott McMillan and John Mincemoyar

Georgia Moore and Jason Moore

Lawson Moore and Ascha Newt

Kevin O'Neil and Mike Paul

Robert Philen and Gordon Respess

Joel Respess and Frank Reynolds

Justin Seufert and G'Anna Weissinger

Brian Willoughby and Mark Wise

and

Sandy Wompler

(also Kay, Roy, and Tom, whose last names have eluded meâand anyone I've misplaced altogether)â¦none of whom laughed at an old guy past his (physical) prime, who runs stiffly,shoots crooked, and all-too-frequently breaks.

Thanks, folks!

Acknowledgments

thanks to:

Davy Arch

Gordon Campbell

Charles Hudson

Scott Jones

Adele Leone

Reid Locklin

Buck Marchinton

Chris Miller

Klon Newell

Valerie Spratlin

Jean Starr

B. J. Steinhaus

and a special appreciation to:

Gordon Respess,

who played natural history consultant when he should have been

playing guitar and chasing bats

and to:

Russell Cutts and Greg Keyes,

who showed me that Galunlati

is not nearly as far away as I'd imagined!

Wado!

Oh Lord, my name is Calvin, an' Indian blood runs through my veins.

Yeah, my name is Calvin Fargo, an' Cherokee blood be pulsin' in my veins.

I've had some strange adventures; seen an awful lot o' wond'rous things.

I've been to Galunlati; I've been right near a place called Tir-Nan-Og.

Yeah, I've been to Galunlati, an' I've been pert nigh a place called Tir-Nan-Og.

They're both a kind of heaven; but the only way to go's through magic fog.

I've seen the great
uktena;
my friends an' me, we killed that monster dead.

Yeah, I saw that old uktena; three friends an' me, we shot that serpent dead.

There's a jewel grows in his forehead; that'll show you what's a-comin' up ahead.

I've also fought Spearfinger; she'll steal your liver gone before you know.

Yeah, I've fought that bitch Spearfinger, what eats your liver up afore you know.

I shot her, an' I drowned her; but 'fore I did she laid four good folks low.

Werepossum Blues

words: Calvin McIntosh

music: Darrell Buchanan

PART ONE

Rewards

and

Promises

Prologue: Hyuntikwala Usunhi and Asgaya Gigagei Discuss Nunda Igeyi, Edahi, and Other Enigmas

(Walhala, Galunlatiâhigh summerâdawn)

Hyuntikwala Usunhi was afraid to look at the sky.

For as long as he could rememberâwhich was nigh as long as the Ani-Yunwiya had dwelt in the underlapping Land he had at last conceded should be called the Lying Worldâhe had been fearless. But where the wise among The Principle People might wonder what a god could find to fear, Hyuntikwala Usunhi knew that he was no god, or less so than was his father, Kanati, the Lucky Hunter. And he likewise knew that when last he had gazed at the heavens, yesterday at sunset, they had held something terrible indeed.

As for this morningâ¦ Well, either that which disturbed him would remain or it would not; and loitering on the cool, dim threshold of his cliffside home would tell him neither. And yet he lingered, shoulders against the splatter-damp granite of the man-wide ledge that fronted his dwelling, feeling Ugunyi's song thrum and rumble up through his bare feet as he stared at the ever-falling veil that filled his ears with its thunderous roar, even as it flicked tiny darts of cold the whole tall length of his body.

Water,
it was: a river's worth of it. The Long-Man, the Ani-Yunwiya called it; but he had always considered it an endless blue-brown serpent that coiled among the ancient forests of Walhala before plunging down the face of the granite cliff called Hyuntikwalayi, at whose base it smashed apart, only to ooze together again and slither on to the fire-laced seas at the edge of the world. An arm's reach before his face it fell, and ten times their span to either side. And by the paleness awakening in it, and the sparks of red and orange that lurked and laced among the gray and green, he knew that beyond it lay dawn.

“It would seem, Uki,” a voice hissed from beside his left ankle, giving him the familiar form of the name that in the tongue of the Ani-Yunwiya meant
Darkthunder,
“it would seem, oh Weathering-One, that you have learned, these last few weeks, that even one such as you may be afraid.”

“It is a good thing
to
know,” Uki answered calmly, sparing the most disparaging of downward glances at the fat black-and-gold diamondback that blinked slit-eyes at him from the arching cave mouth that was gateway to his home. “âBut when the vermin of the Underworld seek to counsel me, Walhala must surely fare ill indeed.”

And with that he turned right and followed the ledge into the light of first day. Not until he had traversed the tight trail to the top of the cliff, however, did he dare look at the sky, masked as most of it had been, first by steep stone ledges, then by the towering beeches, hickories, and chestnuts that crowned them.

And even then he shrank from seeking Nunda Igeyi, the Day-Dweller: the sun.

It found him, though, relentless as he was not; and sent its breath to stain his chalk-white flesh the color of fading fire. It gleamed off long legs and strong arms, off a flat-muscled torso and a narrow hard-lined face that wore the cast of the Ani-Yunwiya, if not their rusty hue. It struck skin that was bare save for a white knee-length loincloth painted with serpents and quilled with lightning, and armbands in the shape of
uktenas
that coiled like quickened gold about his biceps. Finally, it found his hair and bound bloody highlights into the waist-long braids that by noon-light were black as ravens.

But, to his vast surprise, Nunda Igeyi's breath was cool! Cooler, far, than when last he had sampled it, yesterday at sunset. Uki sighed his relief, andâfinallyâdared let his eyes seek eastward, to the dawn.

The last of his tension faded with a second sigh.

Where yesterday, as for days before, Nunda Igeyi had flared and flickered, and at times had bloated so huge as to blot out all the heavens, so that the rains he sang up dried before they reached the earth, and he could hear leaves crisping where they hung; now it shook no longer. Now it was back in its proper place, with its proper light and heat.

And Uki no longer had cause to fear the sky.

“Edahi!”
he cried, his voice like a clap of joyous thunder in the misty air. “Edahi: Calvin Fargo McIntosh! You who are my apprentice and like a sister's son to me, know that I see what you and your friends in the Lying World have done, and it is very well done indeed!”

“Indeed it is!” a voice boomed behind him: a thunder of bronze, where his was brass. And with that Uki snapped his head around and beheld a man walking from the woods to the east.

He was exactly as tall as Uki and precisely as well formed; his face as hard and handsome and lined. But his skin was red as bloodâredder far than the tint sunrise had smeared across Uki's flesh. His loincloth was blood-hued, too, and bore a likeness of the rising sun and birds that might have been gulls.

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