Shadows in the Cave (35 page)

Shonan said to Aku, “Take care of Salya.” Fuyl and Kumu volunteered to help him, and Iona insisted on carrying one corner of the hide.

Aku looked at the dead body—
body
was the awful reality. Somehow Salya had become the center point that his life circled around.
What I am doing is right, but will it ever end?

The four of them hoisted the hide bearing his sister. Aku looked at Iona holding a front corner.
I have a woman and child. I want a life.
Yet he could not picture a life without his twin, Salya.

They trundled out of the village and across the flats, then
staggered through the knee-deep braids of the stream. With Oghi’s help the move had been planned while the tide was ebbing, halfway out. As they approached the corner of the cliffs on the far side, Aku looked up and saw the sea turtle man standing on the rim, leaning forward into the wind and wrapped in a hide, looking out to sea. Aku followed Oghi’s gaze and saw dark, sick-looking clouds pushing across gray ocean, ever closer.

The four got better grips on the hide bearing Salya and made their way along the beach below the cliffs. At this tide the strip of sand beach was narrow, and occasional run-ups of seawater sloshed at their ankles.

Cave mouth. Into the mystic half-light. A hundred strides—it took the hide-bearers two hundred footsteps—along the sand to the emergence slit. They walked awkwardly up the steep, narrow uphill passage and then along a flat that seemed to go forever. “I like this place,” said Aku. That was a relief, because his fingers were at their bitter end.

“You’ll like this even better,” Iona. “Most of the people will camp here,” she said, indicating a great hall just ahead. She led them across the room, past a spot where Aku heard water trickling, and into a kind of alcove with a low ceiling. A small forest of slender stone pillars, like the trunks of birch trees, separated this space from the large space, as though holding the floor and ceiling apart. “Beautiful,” said Aku. Here Salya could rest deep in the cave, safe, and in a way honored.

After they set his twin down, Aku lifted her hand and kissed it. He’d gotten used to the awful coolness of her flesh.

Then the four of them set in to helping the refugees as much as they could. They carried frightened children through the river. Though most could have waded at this low tide, the children were terrified by the howling winds. Babies bawled, children wept, even adolescents quailed. Aku
could barely hear their plaints above the gale, even when they were right in his ear.

Aku didn’t try to understand anything, he just labored, carrying kids, calling comforting words over the gale, putting them in the arms of their relatives on the far side. This was his assignment from his father, and he was glad of it. A few men joined him and Iona, but most were still in their huts, making medicine. Aku wondered how many of the Amaso men had ever been in a fight. Not that he had much experience himself.

Finally, after too long a time, all the women and children had crossed the river. For some reason scores of them huddled on the far bank, beneath the cliffs, partly out of the wind. Aku herded them on toward the sea cave. People stumbled up the narrow beach, struggling to balance against the wind. Occasionally a gust knocked some of them down, or they splashed into the lapping sea. Most of them wandered slowly, in mute passivity. Children whimpered and wept, mothers carried them or shooed them along. Men and young women made ferries of belongings across the river.
Walk, walk,
thought Aku,
hurry, hurry.
“Not far!” he yelled over the wind. Five hundred paces along the narrow beach to the cave, a hundred steps penetrating the innards of the earth, and through the emergence slit to safety.

Though the cliffs protected the beach in part, Aku thought the winds would drive him mad. He and Iona made countless trips herding people, then carrying possessions. Finally Aku thought Iona had had enough. When they turned into the cave and out of the wind, he said to her, “It’s time. Take a load through the slit and don’t come back.”

“I can still help.”

“You are carrying our child!” He pointed toward the
emergence opening. “If I have to go back there and hold you down, I will.”

Iona went.

As Aku pushed back out into the wind, the rains hit—and
hit
was what they did. They pelted all the men packing the belongings to shelter. Aku bit his lip and shouldered goods across the braids of the stream, over and over and over. Stagger across the river, stagger along the sand, keep going somehow to the entrance of the sea cave and then the slit, and hand the goods into arms waiting in the limestone cave. Aku had never worked harder in his life.

He made his mind up. The people would have clothes, hides, dried food, cooking utensils, cloth, knives, awls, and other possessions to resume their lives when the troubles passed. If they passed.

All the adult women remembered well what it was like, having your town pillaged by an attacking army. The older ones remembered having Amaso torn to pieces by the rage of a hurricane. With both threatening, they were all a-babble. Aku heard tatters of their conversation when he handed goods through, but he paid no attention, just turned around and packed over another load. Every time he got back to the village and ducked into a hut to get belongings, he wondered whether he would find Maloch waiting in the shadows with an evil grin. He wondered if Maloch would transform himself into the shape of a hut. Aku hesitated before going in.

When he came out of the sea cave and across the beach to the river one more time, he saw his father signaling for him to come to the ledge that cut the cliffs halfway up. A quick scramble and Aku stood between his father and Oghi near a dozen fighting men. Another dozen squatted down on top, their backs to the wind.

“The enemy is almost to the village,” his father said.

“Father,” said Aku, “I want to fight.”

“You will,” Shonan said with a lopsided smile. He pointed straight up. “Can you fly in these winds?”

Aku felt a spritz of happiness. His father was acknowledging his value as an eagle. “Not a chance,” Aku said.

“I’m going to the village to fight now,” said Shonan. His voice gleamed with pleasure. Before Aku could protest, he said, “Your turn will come, and it will be the big fight. Stay with Fuyl and Kumu.” Aku hadn’t seen them on the ledge until now. “They know what to do. Anything you can add, do it.”

Aku was relieved that his father didn’t say his son was no good with weapons.

“Everybody,” called Shonan. Only the dozen men nearby could hear him. “We’ve caught some luck. You know about Maloch’s diamond eye that blinds attackers. In this rain it may not work, or it won’t be so bright.”

“Hooray!” said Kumu.

“Damn well hooray!” said Fuyl.

“
Still!
We take precautions. See this cloth.” He held up a big strip of mulberry fabric dyed red, about enough to make a dress. He tore it in half. “Rip off a piece big enough to tie around your head. If the Uktena shows up, use it as a blindfold. You’ll be able to see him through the weave, but the diamond eye won’t blind you.” He said to himself,
Maybe.
“Do it!”

Shonan handed the cloth to Fuyl, who tore some off and passed it on.

Father stepped up to son, embraced him hard, and turned to the cliffs. To Aku’s amazement, he climbed up, even buffeted by the gale. In a moment Aku could hear him giving the same speech to the men hunkered down on top. Shonan stood tall, leaning into the wind, defying it. Aku had never seen his father look so alive.

The Brown Leaf army marched down the trail to the edge of Amaso openly, with no attempt at subterfuge. Shonan peered out through the crack at the top of the hide door in the nearest hut. He wanted to size the army up and see how it was standing—in a mob? In a long line? But he couldn’t see much except for a long pole carried by a tall man with a crooked nose. He wondered why anyone would carry something so pointless into battle.

The Brown Leaves didn’t even pause, but strode between buildings and into the common. Passing between huts, they were forced to walk in a line, which was what Shonan wanted. He shook his head. He couldn’t even see the warriors in the middle of the common. Never had he experienced rain so heavy. According to Oghi, the last time they didn’t search the village—they just assumed the people had fled. Shonan was counting on that.

He waited until the last warrior had passed, eased out of the hut, and peered through the slashing rain. Since he could hardly see, he’d have to hope the other men had done as instructed. Leaning into the wind for balance, not a bit concerned about making noise, he walked to the back of the last soldier, set his feet, swung his war club, and bashed the man’s head in.

One of the Brown Leaves saw Shonan standing over the fallen enemy. The man charged. Shonan got off the best spear throw he could manage. It hit the enemy’s hip, ripped a jagged hole, and bounced onto the grass. Shonan sprinted forward. The man was trying to get his balance with one leg. Shonan put all his hips and shoulders into a swing of his club that caught the fellow in the temple. He collapsed.

Shonan sized up the situation—three Brown Leaves were rushing him. He threw a regretful look at his spear and ran. He grinned. He glimpsed others of his hand-picked men making their attacks. Though he couldn’t hear over the wind, he could imagine dozens of outcries. He hoped all of them came from Brown Leaf throats, or nearly all. He’d told his men to fight until faced with two enemies, and then to hightail it. They would make their way to the river, letting the enemy see that they were heading for the beach. At the last moment they were to climb up the cliffs instead. For now, if his forty men put forty enemies out of the battle, that would swing the odds a little. And on the cliffs they would have the high ground.

A gust slapped him hard, and he splatted into the mud. Before he got near the river, he was knocked down twice more. Walking in this wind and rain—he’d never done anything harder.

On the ledge, Aku asked Oghi, “Do you think we have a chance?”

Oghi answered, “The hurricane will win.”

The Brown Leaves ran into the river. The Amaso men, lying flat on top of the cliffs, chuckled as they watched the warriors
wobble as they used their spears for poles to keep them upright, or just pratfalled into the water.

Then the wind decided to show more of its muscle. It unleashed a fury Aku would have thought impossible. The Amasos crawled behind rocks where they could. They held onto their totems, eagle feathers or ermine tails in their hair, whatever they wore for medicine. They lay flat on spears, spear throwers, darts, and especially blow guns, which were made of cane. They prayed that they wouldn’t be blown away like mosquitos.

The Brown Leaves were lower and the trees along the river provided some shelter. Still, they went down hard and got up slowly.

On the cliffs only Oghi and Shonan, lying behind the same boulder, occasionally shuttered their eyes with fingers, stuck their heads out, and looked at the enemy. They were watching for Maloch. Both of them had the same thought.
He’s around somewhere, and close.

No one knew how long the gale blasted them. It abraded like a corncob rubbing skin, it hit like a hand slapping hard. As in all such times, it lasted forever. Minds drifted through timelessness. Pain racked each body for an eternity. After two or three eternities, it slacked off, and time clicked back in.

Men looked around, disbelieving. The wind hadn’t just eased. Bizarrely, it had quit altogether. Though the sun was behind the hills in the west, the temperature along the river, the beach, and the cliffs tranformed from cold to warm. Amaso men who had been clenching their teeth against the chill blast felt languid, lazy in the balmy stillness. They smiled indolently as they watched the Brown Leaves gather themselves, file lightly and easily across the river, and trot along the beach. The warriors talked, laughed, and held their arms up into the glow of the sun.

Shonan was ready. He ran among his men, now more than three score of them. He touched them, he whispered to them. The warriors crept to the edge of the cliffs but stayed low, out of sight. Those with blow guns, more than half of them, rested their weapons on the lip of the cliffs, pointing downward.