The Broken Land (50 page)

Fifty-seven

“
Y
ou may go.” Atotarho waved an impatient hand at the messenger who had just returned and gazed to the south, to the hilltop where the Wolf Clan matrons stood around a small fire. A chuckle rumbled his chest. They must be furious, plotting against him, but it didn’t matter. It was almost over. After he’d destroyed the Standing Stone people, there’d be nothing to stop him from conquering every other paltry contender. Within two or three summers there would be only the People of the Hills. All other nations would have been conquered, their women and children absorbed into new Hills villages, their men killed or enslaved.

Negano’s long black hair swayed wetly as he strode up to Atotarho and subtly jerked his head toward the war lodge. “While you were busy with battle … ,” he said cryptically.

Atotarho turned to look. The lodge stood fourteen hands tall and spread twenty hands in diameter. Painted deer hides, decorated with symbols from each of the six clans, covered the pole structure. “Thank you, Negano.”

He careened to his feet, wobbled, and had to brace his walking stick to keep standing. “Inform me when the battle begins again. I need to rest.”

“Yes, Chief.” Negano bowed.

Atotarho slowly, painfully, made his way to his war lodge, drew back the hide over the door, and stepped into the darkness. In the rear, shapes moved. The blackness seemed to fold in upon itself, then unfold.

“So,” he said as he let the door curtain drop. “You finally got here. I was beginning to wonder.”

The man didn’t answer. Instead, like oil oozing from a midnight ocean, Ohsinoh arose. His bluebird-feather hood had been pulled so far forward it was difficult to make out any of his features, though he’d painted his triangular face; the lower half was red, the top half white.

As Atotarho’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he saw an eight-summers-old girl on her knees in the rear. Eyes huge and wet. Tiny whimpers eddied through her gag. Though she was not struggling now, she had been. Blood caked the cords that bound her hands and feet.

Ohsinoh leaned forward. When his face was less than one hand’s-breadth from Atotarho’s, he whispered, “Kahn-Tineta has seen the Crow. She will be ready when the time comes.” As he straightened, he began making soft cawing sounds. He danced like a demented stork around Kahn-Tineta. The girl tried to scream through her gag.

Atotarho lowered himself to the stack of hides that had been prepared for him, and replied, “Good.”

Fifty-eight

Sky Messenger

W
hen I deliver warm bowls of cornmeal mush to the exhausted warriors leaning against the palisade, they murmur soft thanks. I move on. There’s no need to rush; everyone who was hungry has been fed. Every wound has been tended. I have seen to that. My cape is soaked with the tears of the dying, but they did not die alone. I thank the Spirits for the lull in the battle, but the calm is almost over. Far out in the dense fog, clan yells erupt. Orders are shouted. Deputy war chiefs are moving their people into position. War clubs smack against palms. Laughter trails away. We’ll be hit again at any moment.

I have not seen Taya since just after dawn. I’m worried about her. Where is she? She must be safe. She has to be safe.

I wipe my sweating brow on my sleeve and gaze down into the plaza. The council house was long ago filled to bursting. There is no choice now but to place the injured outside in the cold. As space is opened in the council house, the injured will be moved in. The dead rest in mounds along the walls. Loved ones refuse to leave them. They bring blankets to keep their husbands and daughters warm. They hug them and whisper in their ears. The wails are terrible.

I turn. Out to the east, thousands of feet crunch snow. Voices call. Too much fog. They are translucent ghosts swimming in a vast gray ocean, ceaselessly moving, riding waves up and down as they dip into the main trail and soar up the bank, coming on. Flat out.

An arrow slams my arm, spinning me sideways. I look down at the blood seeping from the torn muscle of my upper arm. It’s nothing. Keep moving. A man sags, almost falls over the palisade, catches himself. He sinks to the catwalk with agonizing slowness. I hurry toward him. He has blood all over his chest, blood bubbling from around the arrow shaft. I kneel beside him.

“You’re not dying, Idos,” I say confidently as I snap off the tip of the arrow and hurl it away. “The arrow struck too high. You will get well.”

He stares up at me fixedly, straining to see my face. As he slides toward the dark, I must be fading. I can’t imagine what he’s thinking. He gasps a breath and with difficulty says, “Tell … Tutelo I love her.”

My souls go numb. I hesitate, not sure of the best course; then I grip the slick shaft and jerk it from his chest. I’m sure it struck his heart, but maybe … maybe. He writhes, cries out. When the enemy hits the palisade, the misty world shatters and becomes one long scream.

Down in the plaza, people run in all directions.

Idos stops struggling. I feel his body relax beneath my hands. He’s still staring at me, but he doesn’t see me now. Sodowego has leaned over him. I whisper, “I’ll tell her, Idos.”

I rise to my feet. The smell of pine pitch is strong, rising from the base of the palisade. Skenandoah marches along the catwalk with arrows flying all around him, giving orders, always steady. And lucky. Lucky.

I throw up an arm to shield my face and run to look over the edge. Five warriors arrived before me. They’ve been loosing arrows, ducking behind the palisade, loosing more arrows for ten heartbeats. A bloody tangle of bodies sprawls below, but they succeeded in setting fire to the pitch before they fell. Bright flames lick along the wall. In the mist, they resemble gauzy orange flags. Fluttering. Climbing. The warriors must have managed to splash the pitch high. Down the palisade, more fires. They’ve probably been set all around. That was the point of that first shuddering volley, to allow the fire teams to get in close enough. Some of the fires will burn through. Then more teams will dart in, splash the second palisade, and fire it. Finally, they will fire the third palisade … and be through. On the fabric of my souls, I can already imagine enemy warriors racing through Bur Oak Village, killing anything in their path. I remember Yellowtail Village … burning … twelve summers ago.

A cold whisper of air brushes my face. I dive for the catwalk. I’m not hit. Close, though. Right beside me, a young woman goes down with a sharp cry. I scramble toward her on my hands and knees. The arrow cut the big artery in her throat; it’s pumping ferociously. She shivers, suddenly freezing. “How … how bad? Tell me the truth!”

I gently smooth black hair away from her face. I would want to know the truth. “It’ll be over soon. What’s your name?”

“I am … Londal.” She squeezes her eyes closed for a moment, then opens them and gazes up at the sky. “Thank you, thank you … for telling me.”

She seems not to hear the ululating cries of oncoming warriors or feel the palisade shudder when they hit it and their axes crack against the logs, hacking their way through the charred patches left by the fires.

I sit down and pull her head into my lap, cushioning it as I stroke her hair.

She says, “I’m feeling … weaker.”

“It won’t last long. Just a little while. Is there any pain?”

Her lips move. She mouths the word no. A brown autumn leaf flutters through the fog and alights on the catwalk.

She whispers, “Pretty.”

I pick it up and twirl it before her eyes. “Yes, it’s still veined with red.”

Just beyond the palisade the world is dying, she’s dying, and we’re talking about leaves.

“I—I’m falling.” She struggles.

“Don’t be afraid. I’ve heard it’s a long slow fall, that it comes quietly and peacefully.”

“ … falling fast.”

“Yes, but you won’t hit bottom. Soon you’ll be walking the Path of Souls with people you once loved. Their campfires will be warm and bright.”

The blood is jetting rapidly now, but there isn’t much of it. Her heart is failing. It can’t keep up. Then it’s over.

I rise, mindful of the hail of arrows slicing overhead. Dead bodies crowd the catwalk. Warriors trip over them, walk on their backs. Some are crying, trying to be gentle. Most of the seasoned war veterans inside the palisade are dead. Young inexperienced warriors have replaced them. Their faces are twisted into stunned masks. What happened to the two men assigned to carry the wounded and dying into the plaza?

My job now. I bend and lift the woman warrior into my arms. Walking hunched over, I see Skenandoah. He’s firing one arrow after another at the base of the palisade. His war shirt has a dozen ragged holes down his arms where his cape has been clipped by arrows. His square face is hard and red, his brown eyes glittering.

As I struggle to move by him, to reach the ladder, Deputy War Chief Leep cries out. Four paces away, he staggers backward and falls off the palisade with an arrow through his skull. Skenandoah looks for an instant too long. The arrow strikes him squarely in the lungs. As he grabs hold of the palisade, his bow drops from his fingers and clatters on the catwalk. A strange, almost amused expression touches his face. It’s a mortal wound. He must know it. He straightens to his full height, as though making a target of his broad chest, and shrilly roars a defiant war cry. Within moments three more arrows slam into his body, each knocking him back a step. He crumples like a dry blade of grass beneath tramping feet.

Every warrior on the catwalk stops. They’ve lost both their war chief and deputy war chief in less than twenty heartbeats. Most have seen fourteen or fifteen summers. There’s no one left to lead them. I can see it in their eyes. They think it’s over. There’s no hope.

One youth throws down his bow and flees. Two follow him. The rest are backing away from the palisade.

I hastily lay Londal’s body down and grab Skenandoah’s bow. Sick helpless rage fills me. As I tug the quiver from Londal’s shoulders and sling it over my own shoulder, I shout, “Get that look off your faces! There are Hills People to kill! Nock your bows!”

Young warriors suck in air. They stare at me.

“Do it now!” I shout.

As though they’ve been slapped from a nightmare, they scramble to obey me.

A strange madness filters through me. An old familiar madness. My practiced hands work automatically, pulling arrows from the quiver, nocking, letting fly. As I watch man after man fall to my arrows, the fever builds. I’m on fire, and the sparkling mist is so bright it hurts.

“Sky Messenger!” Yaweth cries. “They’re coming through!”

I swing around and see enemy warriors flooding through two holes in the innermost palisade, streaming across the plaza. The few Standing Stone warriors run to meet them. It is a disorganized rabble. As more of the enemy floods inside, the Standing Stone warriors break and run. The enemy pursues. The sodden thuds of war clubs striking flesh rises. The victory cries of the Hills warriors are like a Spirit Plant surging through my veins.

I throw my head back and shriek a war cry. Every warrior turns to me. Aims shift. Enemy arrows stream around me.

“Yaweth!” I shout. “You’re my new deputy. Pick twenty people and form teams to cover every place where they might come through the inner palisade.”

“Yes, Sky Messenger. What about you?”

My eyes must be blazing. An appreciative smile crosses her face. She knows this look. We are going to win. “I’m going down to lead the warriors in the plaza. Now move! They’re coming.”

I charge for the ladder.

Fifty-nine

Sky Messenger

I
leap off the rungs and hit the ground running. Skenandoah’s bow sings in my hands. Standing Stone warriors flee around me, their faces stunned and gray, a slack-jawed mob. Most are very young, little more than terrified children. But I, above all, know what children can do when they must.

A bony girl in a torn dress has hold of an older man’s arm. She is perhaps thirteen, crying, trying to drag him backward into the fight. He’s seen around sixteen summers. “Please, my brother, they’ll kill Mother and Father!”