Norseman Chief (25 page)

He howled a shrill cry as his grip weakened.  I pushed him backward so that he fell to his back, rolling in agony, blood instantly covering the pine needles around him.  Neither he nor his comrade was dead, but they were incapacitated and so I turned just in time to see a flash heading toward me.  The third man had made his way to the battle zone and hurled a spear in my direction.  Instinctively, I dropped to one knee, tipping a bit to one side.  The spear would have caught me in the back or chest as the case may be, but now went directly over head.  It skidded harmlessly into the earth behind me.  I rose to my full height, now full of the rage of battle.  I barked as I did in my Berserker days and took a single step to close on the man.

He fled.  He shouted a warning across the river.  “Run!  To the village.  Run!  There’s a wild giant!”  I looked to where he cried and saw two frightened young warriors, heads poking out of the undergrowth staring wide-eyed in my direction, holding short cords lashed around Makkito’s and Alsoomse’s necks.  The fleeing man ignored the stepping stones and jumped into the river, waving his arms wildly.  “Run!” he called again to his frozen comrades.  They bolted.

I spun around, retrieving the man’s lost spear.  A quick set of my feet and I hurled the missile at the man’s back.  However, his plodding up and down in the river caused me to miss the big target.  Instead, the sharpened rock head caught his scalp, the spear glanced up and away to the opposite side, and the man fell into the river.  The head wound bled badly, but he was quickly on his feet again, fleeing up the other bank.

“Bitch tits!” I yelled.  My saex found its way into my belt.  I kicked at the man whose leg held my sword and retrieved the blade, slammed it home into my old fleece-lined scabbard without wiping it clean, and went in pursuit of my prey.  Water splashed around me as I slipped once or twice on moss covered rocks in the shallower parts of the stream.  If the coward who fled had any sense, he would have set himself on the other side of the stream with a bow and shot me down while I was exposed.  But obviously he wasn’t smart enough as the fright of flight took a hold of him.  I watched him disappear into the woods along the path the other two had taken as they dragged away the Algonkin girls.

My mind turned on what to do as I crawled onto the rocks on the other side of the ford.  I may be able to run down the two Fish who dragged the girls, but the other was young.  No matter how much better my warrior legs were at this point, his wind would last days longer than mine.  My hand fell onto the spear once again, so I claimed it as my own and headed up the slope after them.

The gear I carried bounced on my back so I tugged at the knot, letting it drop free behind me, lightening my load.  Then gaining sense, I stopped and grabbed my bow and string, before continuing on.  By the time I crested the ridge, panting, and sweating with my heart pounding into my throat, I heard them running along the top to my left.  The path they were on seemed wider here, well used.  The Fish village must be very close.

After a mere ten paces, I caught sight of the man who dragged Makkito.  The girl was likely frightened out of her mind and fled so that she nearly passed her captor.  Seeing my quarry sent a burst of energy to my limbs and I closed on them more quickly than I thought possible.  Clumsily, I switched the spear and un-strung bow between hands and without slowing, heaved the spear a short distance into the warrior’s back.  He accelerated forward, still clutching Makkito’s leash and dragged her to the ground with him.

I jumped over them both, locked eyes with the terrified girl and shouted, “Wait for me here.”  She seemed confused behind her dirty, sweat-streaked face and so I shouted over my shoulder.  “Makkito, I am your father’s brother, Enkoodabooaoo.  You have nothing to fear.  Wait for me there.”

I did not have time to verify she obeyed, but plunged ahead over a broad rock and began to descend the other side of the ridge.  I cursed again when I saw that in the valley below sat a large quiet village, smoke curling up from countless cooking fires.  At the pace we all ran we would be there in short order.  It was less than an English mile away.

Refocusing on my task, I now saw that Alsoomse was over the shoulder of her captor.  The coward with the bleeding scalp was several paces in front of them.  I would never catch them before they reached their people.  Another curse.

In a fluid motion, I looped one end of the bow cord onto the notch at the end of the bow.  I slammed that end into the ground and leaned all of my weight onto the stave so that the belly swelled like a woman who is ready to freshen.  I looped the string on the second end, grabbed the first arrow my fingers fell upon and nocked it into place.

My little Skjoldmo’s head bobbed in and out of my target area.  I could not stop.  I could not think.  In a single heartbeat my eye focused, my mind focused, my breathing calmed.  After offering several curses this very day, I then prayed mightily to the One God and let the cord snap.

In what seemed an eternity, the arrow’s path rose only slightly before falling into the man’s ass.  Both the warrior and Alsoomse plummeted to the ground.  My daughter smacked the back of her head hard then skidded several feet off the path.  I was already running toward them when I saw the man attempt to climb back to his knees.

A kick to his ear from my boot sent him back to the ground as I passed them both.  I could not bear to look at my daughter for fear of what I would see.  I ran to drop the coward before he reached his people.  My hands fiddled another arrow in place while my legs thundered beneath me.  It was no use.  With every step the fleeing man pulled further and further ahead.  Soon he would raise the alarm of an entire people and I would be a single, exhausted old man with two girls trudging through the wilderness.  I might as well begin torturing myself on the path.

I padded to a stop, breathed in and out twice, and raised the bow.  My muscles quivered while I drew the cord back, leveling the bow to aim.  The arrow flew.  It missed its mark – high.  I calmed myself again.  My eyes blinked, squinting tightly to shoo away the stinging sweat that burned them so.  Another arrow found its place on the cord and bow’s belly.  The man grew smaller and smaller as he receded into the trees.  This would be my last chance.  My right hand came back to my mouth, then my cheek, then my ear as I strained against the power held within the bow.  I felt that the bow called out at that moment.  The bow and I were one, a single instrument of death and mayhem.

The fingers of my right hand straightened, the cord skipped away, tearing at the elbow and forearm of my left arm as it always did.  This time I felt no pain as the motion and scraping were nothing but the most natural thing in the world at that moment.  The arrow flew higher than I wished it would and my eyes collapsed in frustration, my shoulders sagged.  All my effort was going to be for naught.  I would be killed and my daughter and the daughter of Etleloo would be wives and slaves to Fish.

But a piercing crack echoed through the forest just then.  When my eyes popped open I saw that the coward was crumpling to the ground with only the arrow flighting protruding from the back of his skull.

Time.  I bought myself just a little time.

. . .

I ran back to the Fish warrior I had shot in the back side.  He was groggily coming to his senses.  As he saw me walking toward him, the man felt in his belt, retrieving a short bone knife.  With the arrow still protruding from his ass, he hopped onto one leg to defend himself.  I had neither the time nor energy for such nonsense as engaging the man in hand to hand combat so without hesitation I nocked, drew, and planted an arrow into his chest.  The frightened look on his face disappeared to one of peace before his back hit the path’s floor.

Alsoomse was still unconscious.  Her breathing said she lived.  The girl’s face had the distinct red imprint where a hand had smacked her sometime on the journey.  I wanted more time to tend to her and the massive lump on the back of her head, but did not have such a luxury.  The little creature soon found herself on my shoulder bouncing her way back to pick up Makkito.  Skjoldmo’s arms swayed as I walked, brushing my back, as if she patted me in welcome.  I told myself that I just needed a few more steps before I would break into a run again.

My muscles were spent.  There would be no running, especially with Alsoomse’s weight, even as small as it was.  Makkito sat next to the path when I found her.  She stared at the fallen soldier in front of her, her knees pulled up and held tightly with her forearms.  The man’s blood darkened the path and she was transfixed by it.  I was surprised to see that she too had blood on her legs and dress, but she must have been splattered by the Fish warrior when his blood spilled.  The leash was still wrapped tightly around Makkito’s neck.  Raw, red abrasions were painfully visible under the leash and even on her wrists.  The girl was traumatized by the ordeal.

We had no time for sorrow.  I tried to speak with kindness, though I think my panting tone did not help.  “Makkito.”  The girl stared ahead, not looking at me.  “Makkito!”  Her face, blank like an afternoon summer sky, turned toward me.  “Makkito, you are your father’s daughter.  We have no time for weakness.  Be as Etleloo would.”

The mention of Etleloo seemed to awaken her somewhat.  “Etleloo?  Did my father send you?”

I thought of my friend, but shoved the ideas deep into the bile of my belly before any emotion could show.  “Yes.  Etleloo sent me to retrieve you.  Now he commands that you move with me now.”

She nodded, though absent-mindedly.  Makkito stirred and stood.  I did not bother to remove the leash as I wanted nothing more than to place distance between us and the nearby Fish village.  I figured the girl could remove it herself when her mind returned.

We walked up to the ridge and then back down to the rushing stream, picking my pack up along the way.  I carried the luggage and Alsoomse over to the other side, setting them next to the two fallen Fish men.  One of them, the man whose shin I had hacked into with my sword yet lived.  He was ashen with no strength and so I had no particular worry when I left to carry the confused Makkito across the ford.

I set the girl on the rock that hid me only moments before next to the hobblebush.  I pushed some food into her hand which she ate without thinking.  Good, I thought.  Then I turned to put the Fish warrior out of his misery.  My saex blade slipped across his throat and that was his ending.

As I wiped the blade clean, I decided I should confuse the hunt for us as much as possible.  Soon Pohomoosh arrows stuck out from both dead men.  As much as I’ve never liked the practice, I then scalped each man, carefully tying the skin and hair bloody mess to my belt.  The three men on the other side of the hill would have to remain as they were, for I was not about to go back.

I lumbered up the slope to shoot the already dead man – the first I had killed after he shit in the corner of the rocks – with a Pohomoosh arrow and scalp him.  With each step back down to the girls, I began to dream of curling up under that hobblebush and napping.  My muscles felt wilted.  They were too exhausted to scream.

Alsoomse still slept.  I set her across both shoulders like I carried a lambkin and tied her feet and hands together so my limbs were free.  At first I was going to have Makkito carry my pack because she was older, likely thirteen, and strong, but her mind was incapable of understanding even the most basic task so I gave up and, like a pack horse, carried everything myself.

And so began our long trek home.

After we crested the first ridge from the river, I was certain I began to hear echoing calls behind us.  The bodies of the young warriors nearest the village of the Fish were likely found.  Soon the others would be located and shortly thereafter, a war party sent out to follow the tracks of a single man carrying a heavy load and a girl.

We walked the way we had come, except now whenever we could cut across a shortcut of difficult terrain we did so.  It was not long before darkness fell upon the land, but we dared not stop.  The sky was clear so the land quickly lost its heat.  My feet, soggy from the stream, became cold and I craved a fire.  Still we marched.

What plan did I have?  None really, except to move constantly.  I knew that my muscles were dead, but I also knew from experience that my body could be asked to perform extraordinary tasks and it would rise to the occasion.  I was not so sure about Makkito.  Yet she was one-half Etleloo and no doubt carried his fire for life somewhere behind her dark eyes.  We walked in silence.

Sometime just before the sun rose, we plopped down on a rotting log to eat and rest.  I gently laid Alsoomse onto the ground with a soft portion of my pack supporting her head.  She seemed to rest peacefully.  I did worry for the girl, lest you think I was acting cold.  But I knew that my wits were to be the only protection for our tiny band.  I further knew that if Hurit were with me or if she ever found out that the girl was unconscious for many hours, I would never hear the end of her worry.  A mother worries.  This is a good thing, I suppose.  We should all act in the manner that God intends of us.