Standing half erect, he spread the brush. Six hissing snake heads sprung to his face. His heart exploded in his chest. Frozen in sudden terror, his instinct took hold and he reacted to jerk back. He couldn't move. The serpents' eyes were of a golden glow and he couldn't divert from them. The same initial shock that had paralyzed him for an instant when he first saw the snakes, as when he had ever been startled by the sudden hiss of a serpent, would not let go; his heart beat wildly and out of control. The six snake heads wavered from side to side in unison, just beyond his nose. He could feel their darting tongues flicking against his lips, but he could not move. Their cold, elliptical pupils were an eternity of darkness surrounded by a lure of glowing gold that resembled the warmth of the sun, though not so bright and more likening to a cold light.

A feeling of vertigo gripped him as the swaying heads danced hypnotically before him. If he focused on just one of them, he felt his whole lifeforce being drawn helplessly into the cold and eternal darkness of the serpent's deep, black pupils. Every part of his instinct warned of death. His struggle to fight from falling into the darkness left him frozen in fear; the world around him became hazy and indistinct. Every muscle in his body burned in rigidity and a numbness crept over him till he could no longer feel his arms and legs. His blurred vision slowly sharpened, but nothing was recognizable. He could no longer make out the serpents' features as they blended into the background of their surroundings. He felt imprisoned in a long and rigid tube.

Every sound became indistinguishable in a constant volley of never ending echoes. Coldness crept through his body and he sensed that only warm sunlight would dissipate the drowsiness that had stolen his strength. His arms seemed only a memory. He came across a strange phenomenon when he stuck out his tongue. An explosion of senses in the form of heat, smell, taste and touch filled his being with a familiar, yet very different perception of the world around him. With his strange and stunted vision, he could make out the swaying serpents in front of him, but his tongue told him the exact locations of their movements; the texture of everything in every direction; the degree of warmth or coolness. He could smell all of the different grasses, bushes, trees and insects. He could even smell the different components of the earth beneath him, all simultaneously, and all completely distinguishable. He could taste his surroundings and even the hissing of the serpent in front of him, but he could move nothing but the direction of his tongue.

He found himself darting his tongue in and out with increasing frequency as each separate flick gave him fresh knowledge. The ground began to rumble. A herd of huge and foul smelling creatures approached his direction. A primordial fear gripped him as he sensed the violent motion in front of him. His vision slowly returned. Warmth began to surge through his body and his rediscovered limbs. A violent jerk shocked him back to reality as his feet kicked about in the air. He was surrounded by six Snake warriors, one of them hoisting him by the hair. On the ground was a heap of thick, black snakes, headless and squirming.

The warriors whooped as they discovered Woltah a short distance away. Five of the Snake warriors headed off towards the south as the warrior gripping Sequannah's hair turned him away from the scene and forced his knee into the boy's back, causing him to arch with the taut pull on his long black hair. Sequannah heard the sounds of slapping and kicking, and the crying out in pain as the Snake warriors dragged and beat a wide-eyed Woltah through the thickets and brambles of the bushy terrain. In the short distance between Sequannah and Woltah, the painted warriors had found time to beat the Paccu from screaming agony to breathless murmuring for mercy. One of the warriors pulled out his snake whip to stifle the Paccu gibberish, but was stopped by the others with warnings about Quiktkoata. They threw Woltah to the ground and bound him by the hands and feet. The warrior holding Sequannah jerked him by the hair, face first to the ground, pinning him while one of the other Snake warriors tied his hands in back of him.

They whisked the two captives back to the procession. Sequannah felt a trickle of blood running into his ear as his scalp was tearing from his head. He wanted to scream out, but he had seen what happened to Woltah. His rage was intense; if he was untied and armed, he would have fought to the death. He tightened his jaw and stifled even the slightest groan as they jerked him along, his feet barely touching the ground. If I live, he thought to himself, one day I will treat them the same.

As they neared the procession, Sequannah caught sight of the elaborate litter, unable to conceive why four people would be carrying a lodge on their shoulders. Upon closer examination, he perceived the dark and sadistic face of Quiktkoata glaring down at him and Woltah from beneath the canopy. There was no mercy in the eyes of this powerful sorcerer. The cold and icy feeling returned to the pit of his stomach, much the same as he felt under the serpents' spell. He and Woltah were thrown to the ground at the foot of the litter. Sequannah looked up into Quiktkoata's icy stare; his eyes were forced back to the ground. A low muttering erupted from under the canopy, but Sequannah dared not look up. Quiktkoata's voice thundered down upon them, and two Snake warriors jerked the captives by the hair, forcing them to look up at the cruel man seated in the litter. His lips curled as he sneered at the two captives, contemplating the lessons he had in mind for them.

He murmured several commands, then grinned contemptuously. Two Snake warriors wielded their whips, slashing at Woltah's legs until he curled up. As he attempted to defend himself, another warrior gave him five or six sharp kicks to the head and shoulders until his legs became vulnerable once again. The two warriors hurriedly slashed away at them, the filed down fangs of the snakeskins leaving long and deep scrapes along the Paccu's calves and thighs. As soon as he attempted to retract them once again, another volley of sharp kicks rendered him prostrate until he no longer moved. Quiktkoata waved his hand and dismissed the three warriors after Woltah ceased to groan.

His attention shifted to Sequannah. He stared the boy down as one of the Snake warriors kept his grip on the handful of hair that had forced Sequannah to witness Woltah's punishment as well as the icy glare of Quiktkoata. The cold feeling returned to his torso and his limbs began to numb until he averted his gaze. Sequannah trembled as Quiktkoata mumbled his punishment.

But the Snake warriors did nothing to him, whipping viciously at a line of Paccus, instead. Quiktkoata rumbled with vicious laughter as he threw taunts into the surrounding woodlands to draw out his enemies. Nothing moved. He seethed in frustration, then rained a torrent of curses, repeatedly and deliberately rapping his staff against the litter in a steady rhythm. A mass of snakes came boiling over the ridge from the east. Other snakes wriggled out of the undergrowth and trees, swelling the writhing heap. Sequannah flinched as they suddenly burst apart and raced out in every direction, most heading towards the Minnecou encampment. In the distance he witnessed a hint of movement along the ridge line. Soon, wisps of smoke drifted through the forest. A breeze from the northwest fanned the smoke into pockets of flame as Quiktkoata continued to curse and scream. The snakes poured themselves directly into the rapidly spreading blaze and the Snake chief couldn't stop them. His cold and contemptuous smile changed to a raging grimace as he roared at the procession to evacuate. In the midst of his anger, he spotted Sequannah and screamed at one of his soldiers while pointing towards the boy. The Snake warriors grabbed Sequannah's arms and held them outstretched as they tied them off tightly to each pole in back of the litter. They grabbed another bunch of his hair and tied that off to the top of the canopy so that he could neither fall nor lose pace. He was facing outward from the rear as the four attendants whisked off with their chief, forcing him to run backwards in a strain to keep up with his hair.

The captive Paccus who had been whipped were frantically lashed to the others and quickly marched out of the area. Quiktkoata's litter traveled off to the side, outrunning everyone else, much to Sequannah's dismay. He stumbled frequently at first, but the effeminate attendants had little stamina and the pace soon diminished.

Quiktkoata was more absorbed in securing his forces than in deriving any sadistic pleasure from Sequannah. Once out of danger, he brooded over the enemy he'd never seen, well aware that he was not merely facing another clan of Paccus, or the woodland tribes they had been raiding to the east.

The procession was beginning to outpace the litter, yet still Quiktkoata brooded over this insult to his ferocious army. Sequannah was getting very sore in the calves, but he was glad they were no longer racing from the fire. He turned around twice to see where they were headed. The Snake chief seemed to have forgotten about him: hunched in his litter, gazing ahead. Sequannah secretly reveled in the grief his small clan had inflicted upon this massive army, but he sensed that Quiktkoata would be merciless in his revenge if he learned Minnecou were responsible. Fear's biting grip sunk even deeper as he realized that eventually someone would discover he wasn't Paccu, if Quiktkoata didn't already know. There wasn't a tremendous amount of difference between the dress of the two tribes, but the moccasin prints were distinct. The darker color and the faint blue sheen to his hair also made him slightly conspicuous in this string of Paccus. Sequannah was certain he'd be discovered; he couldn't even communicate with anyone. The Paccus could at least console each other, but Sequannah was alone, unsure if he should even trust the Paccus. He thought to himself that he was probably better off separated from them and that Quiktkoata's decision to make an example of him was actually a blessing. He feared being placed directly among the Paccus. Snake warriors would torture him to death if they knew he was Minnecou. The thought occurred to him that had he run from the grizzly instead of fighting beside his father, he would have been traveling safely with the clan now.

He turned around once again. A black curtain had been drawn around the litter, secluding Quiktkoata from watchful eyes. Spinning back, he watched the scene in front of him unfolding in reverse as he jaunted backwards; there was no chance for escape. A sudden movement overhead caused him to stumble as he quickly ducked, nearly pulling his hair out in the process. He thought one of Quiktkoata's snakes had ambushed him from a tree, but it was a peculiar hawk, of unnatural proportions, that had swooped down close to the litter. Shortly after, another huge hawk swished by his head, its wing clipping the rope that fastened his hair to the canopy. It followed the first hawk in a northwesterly direction. Sequannah suspected that it had come from inside the litter, but he had seen Quiktkoata before the curtain was drawn. There was nothing around him, especially not two hawks. He heard a flutter behind him, and turned in time to see a third hawk struggling its way out from in back of the curtain, only to fly off in the same direction as the other two--towards the clan.

Immediately the air became very thick and stifled. The din of the Snake warriors' shouts and snarling took on a hollow tone. The sky grew dark to his left, strangely menacing through the trees. Swarms of mosquitoes appeared. Horseflies bit into his flesh, but he could do nothing to shoo them with his arms tied tightly to the litter. A loud booming to the southeast announced the imminent storm. Sequannah welcomed it, anticipating the rain that would cool him down and rid him of these bloodthirsty insects; no matter the lightning. He would probably do better to die that way than suffer in the sadistic hands of Snake warriors.

The still and humid air caused even the most languid of the Paccus to swing out maddeningly at the swarms of horseflies and mosquitoes, their tightly bound arms meeting with resistance from captives to their front and rear. Sequannah sweltered. Several Paccus fainted, forcing the others to tow them along, further increasing their loads, and causing their bonds to become even tighter with the drag of limp bodies. Even the Snake warriors became weary. Their mud-caked hair and faces ran rivulets of sweat, blurring and covering the once sharply-defined, jagged, yellow patterns. Two of the Paccus became convulsive. The painted warriors cut them loose, beat them limp, and kicked them into the underbrush.

The group to which one of the convulsing Paccus was attached erupted into a frothing and red-eyed mass. The whole line swerved suddenly, bowling down their captors. Five Snake warriors went down. The Paccu captives used their knees to lash out at them; their feet and hands still tied to the captives to their front and rear. Two of the painted warriors had the life snuffed out of them by heavy Paccu knees that crushed their windpipes. The other three Snake warriors managed to roll away from the trampling Paccus, though badly bruised and beaten.

The two Snake warriors guarding on the right ran into the midst of them, swinging their snakeskin whips and cursing. The Paccus scrambled to their feet again and turned on them, ignoring the violent whipping. Death was as welcome as any other means of escape. The three trampled and dazed Snake warriors attempted to escape, but suddenly went down in rapid succession as a large hatchet wielding Minnecou raced out of the underbrush and leveled them with crushing blows to the skull. Karnack slipped through the turmoil and began hacking away at the thick ropes lashing the captives together. The freed Paccus grabbed onto the other two guards and Mokotak pummeled them. The Paccus were in a frenzy as they tore away at their shackling ropes. The other groups, witnessing the commotion, began to cheer and scream, begging the freed Paccus to untie them as well.

The procession came to a sudden halt as dozens of Snake warriors streamed down the sides of the column. The freed Paccus had picked up the weapons of the dead Snake warriors and attacked the guards of the groups to their front and rear, jabbing with the Snake warriors' own copper-tipped spears. Mokotak could see they were about to be overwhelmed and took out the first four advancing Snake warriors with his bow before slipping back into the underbrush. There was no time to help or even warn Karnack. Shortly after he'd made his escape, seventy-five Snake warriors surrounded the freed Paccus, squashing the rebellion.

But they didn't kill a single Paccu. They led them away singly and spread them out among the other groups of captives instead. Quiktkoata knew they'd exceeded the Paccus' limits, and that further brutality could jeopardize the entire operation, leaving them with nothing but corpses to show for their arduous journey. His object was to bring as many slaves as possible back to the city. The procession halted as the Paccus were given rest and allowed to remain in relative peace.

Sequannah was caught up in all the screaming and cheering and the frantic bellowing of orders being shouted out all around him. A group of high ranking warriors had quickly assembled around the litter. Messengers darted back and forth into the tumultuous scene in the distance, enabling Sequannah to witness much of the rebellion. The sky remained dark and swirling to the south and the approaching storm seemed to be standing still as the Paccu rebels were led to other groups. A young Paccu was placed in front of the Paccus directly behind him. Sequannah found himself face to face with Karnack, the one he'd encountered with Petawahin and the grizzly. Something inside him lit up as he saw the first person he recognized since being captured, but he wondered what had become of Mokotak. He hadn't even seen Woltah since he'd first been tied to the litter.

Karnack signed a greeting to him. Sequannah nodded in return, amazed the Snake people didn't even seem to notice the new face among their captives. He couldn't understand why they didn't punish the rebel Paccus. After all the punishment they had inflicted upon the captives for seemingly trivial reasons, why do they allow them to get away with murder? But the Snake people had lost many warriors, and while they were in control for the moment, if the Paccus continued to rebel, the Snake warriors would eventually be worn down as well. He sensed their sudden change of heart was only a trick after reasoning what would happen once they got close enough to their village to send for help.

The humid air hadn't stirred in the slightest and the storm to their south continued to brew and swirl. It still hadn't moved any closer to them since it first blackened the southern horizon. Through the trees, the sky was an ominous blue-gray wall; occasional flashes of pink and blue lightning issued threatening echoes of crashing thunder. The storm seemed to parallel them as they traveled to the east. In fact, while the Paccus were engaged in their quickly subdued rebellion, the thunder was roaring and the treetops fluttered helplessly over the ridge directly to their south. But the storm seemed to lose strength immediately after the commotion was quelled and was now swirling in place as they rested the Paccu captives. There were no birds or any other signs of wildlife about them since Sequannah had first been captured; only the irritating hum of mosquitoes and the droning buzz of horseflies interrupted the steady chorus of crickets and cicadas in the stifling, late summer heat. The whisperings of Paccus and the low grumbles of Snake warriors were occasionally punctuated with rumblings and booms of distant thunder.

Sequannah was drifting off into a standing sleep when a messenger raced by, a handful of bloodied sticks in his hand. He stopped at the front of the litter. Sequannah's blood curdled as Quiktkoata suddenly broke the silence with a deafening roar. He heard the sticks being snapped and tossed out of the enclosed litter on the ground to his left. Looking down, he immediately recognized Kwoita's handicraft in the blood-stained Minnecou arrows. Fear crept over him, once again, that discovery of his Minnecou ancestry was imminent, especially in such close proximity to Quiktkoata.

Several high-ranking warriors came running to the litter to offer their assistance, and Quiktkoata boomed out the orders to get the Paccus back on their feet again and get the procession moving. Thunder from the swirling storm in the distance seemed to echo his every statement.

The sudden activity once again stirred up mosquitoes and gnats from the underbrush. A swirl of black flies formed a funnel over Sequannah's head and though they were not landing on him, they heightened the onslaught of mosquitoes and horseflies. He tried to blow them away, with little effect. But it was not until they started moving again that the gnats were finally left behind. The Snake warriors cracked their whips to get the Paccus back on their feet, but this time, the snakes' fangs did not find their way to Paccu flesh.

Sequannah stiffened considerably during their brief rest and every backwards movement became awkward and painful, especially when they went up or down hills. He recalled carrying the grizzly meat a few days earlier and thought to himself how the Snake people considered walking backwards to be a punishment. Even with the strain on his scalp, the pain was more bearable than the carrying poles were on his shoulders. He remembered how his father had told him that by carrying the food and hides, he would become stronger. The Snake people were trying to punish him, but they were making him stronger.

Behind him, Karnack was more energetic than the other Paccus and had no trouble in keeping pace. The others stumbled in their efforts to keep up. They hadn't slept since they'd first been captured. With this heat, Sequannah deduced that if they didn't rest soon, there would be very few Paccus who would see this journey through to the end. The women and children were losing their footing already, and with no food or water, sickness would come.

Quiktkoata fully intended to feed them, but not until he was sure they were sufficiently weakened to prevent another rebellion. At the same time, he had to make sure they remained strong enough to survive the entire journey or all would have been wasted; he would have lost much valuable time with few workers to add to his vast and rapidly growing stock of slaves. Quiktkoata had suffered more setbacks in this expedition than any other, and his main objective now was to get these captives back alive.

When the Paccus were first attacked, swarms of snakes invaded their village. As they attempted to beat them off, they were cut down in a hail of arrows. Immediately afterward, hundreds of heavily armed black and yellow painted warriors inundated them. Most of the Paccu arrows glanced off of the thick, hard leather of the Snake warriors' armor. It was likened to a massive swarm of huge bees. The Paccu defense was futile, and within a very short time, the cruelest looking man they'd ever seen stood leering down at them, smiling in sadistic ecstasy as his underlings carved the fallen Paccu warriors and the entire village to shreds. But after the forced march began, things went awry for Quiktkoata. Early on, he had an inexplicable convulsion that caused him to lose the use of his legs. Soon after, a large group of his new slave stock had escaped. Several of his scouts were missing, and his weary army now had to deal with rebellion among the captives; apparently with outside help. Revenge against his unseen enemy was inevitable, but his anger had to be put aside if he was going to get these workers back to the city. The land was empty with the exception of a few nomadic tribes and farming villages. After being driven from the magnificent cities in the south, Quiktkoata was determined to build the greatest empire the world had ever seen. Even the prophecies foretold of a nation of immeasurable wealth that would one day spring forth out of the vast and undeveloped land to the north.

Quiktkoata's most pressing problem, however, was that no matter how many slaves he acquired, he could find none that were knowledgeable in the art of working stone. While he could match the size and splendor of the ancient cities to the south with wooden structures and mounds of earth, everything would eventually rot and become overrun with vegetation; leaving no lasting monuments as testimony to his grandeur. He was envious of the giant stone pyramids in the city known as the "Place of the Creator", and its streets and avenues lined with dwellings and buildings of stone. But he was also aware that he would never be welcome there again; this being the third and final time he was exiled for attempting to overwhelm the priestly hierarchy and take possession of Teyotewakan.

Soon after he'd begun the monumental task of building his own empire, he made a discovery that gave him a certain amount of leverage with the merchants of Teyotewakan; a discovery that he determined to keep secret. While exploring the areas well to the north in search of more slaves to build his empire, a scouting party had run across a curious looking group of strange men with hairy faces and a pinkish hue to their skin. They were a ferocious lot and it took several battles for Quiktkoata and his warriors to overwhelm them, as his army was still not quite developed.

He was fascinated with their strange village. They had erected several stone furnaces on the hills, facing into the prevailing winds. On clear days, when the wind was strong enough, they fed these furnaces with wood and large quantities of coal. On top of each furnace was a vat of stone into which the hairy men would pile copper ore. The stone vat would become completely red in the intense heat, but would always hold together. Inside, however, the ore melted into a hot and bright liquid which they would then ladle out into different molds to make objects for many uses. They would add certain other stones or sands to the molten liquid to make different strengths in the objects they manufactured. Quiktkoata recognized the value in his discovery and kept the surviving hairy men as his slaves. He fed them well, gave them slaves of their own, and even had more comfortable quarters built for them. Many of the wooden structures in his growing empire were copies of the structures of the hairy men, though on a much larger scale. But, most of the strange men were kept in the area surrounding the furnaces. They weren't even allowed to go as far as mining the copper; Quiktkoata had slaves brought in to keep the strange men occupied with their idle time. And when they tired of the women and yearned to return home, he would tie one of them up in an outstretched position to four trees and leave him suspended there, just above the ground, without food or water. It didn't matter who did the most complaining or the most work; one of them would be chosen at random and left there until those who had tried to escape were returned, or until those who were slow in their work moved faster. Every punishment was doled out matter-of-factly until the strange men understood that they were merely glorified slaves and not Quiktkoata's temporary guests.

With these strange and new marvels, Quiktkoata made many more inroads into the Teyotewakan markets and was once again rebuilding his influence in the huge religious community. But he no longer hungered to dominate the southern cities for the time being. He was convinced that he was to fulfill the prophecies and build the wealthiest and most powerful empire in this new land. It was foretold that the Snake would dominate the Hawk, and Quiktkoata was the most powerful of Snake Washans ever known, as well as a Washan of the hawk. Fear of him caused many to follow rather than suffer, but this same fear resulted in his many years of exile through the constant and united pressure of rivals. He determined to build his empire and as he dominated more and more territory, the southern cities would eventually fall under his domain.

Now, Quiktkoata hunched in his enclosed litter, partially paralyzed from his Snake spirit's encounter with a Minnecou warrior. He was well aware that the Paccus, though capable of Minnecou strengths, were not entirely responsible for his recent setbacks. He held them responsible for the great losses that had occurred to his ranks, even though the battle to overrun them had been brief. But the wily and unpredictable events that had upset his normally smooth slave drives were reminiscent of the same tactics he'd encountered earlier in the summer when he overran a small band of Minnecou. He surrounded them four times before he finally prevented their tricky escapes. But in the end, he captured only a very few of them for use as slaves. Most had, at one point or another, sacrificed their own lives in order to protect the whole. Even those he'd captured proved to be useless because he had to torture them to the point of being permanently maimed. Still, they would not carry out the work commands given them. They wouldn't even eat after being denied for days at a time. They were like certain wild animals that would always die in captivity, no matter what steps were taken to promote their continued good health. Whether he tortured them or left them alone, they all faded away in the same listless manner.