The People of the Black Sun (31 page)

Wampa's head turned. Around two hundred enemy warriors stood on the catwalks, talking, joking, ripping off strips of jerky with their teeth. Their conversations drifted through the still night air. Wampa was probably wondering how the thirty arrows in her quiver, plus another thirty in Papon's, could possibly make a difference.

Gonda continued, “Wampa and Papon, don't leave the marsh unless you're forced to. Use the cattails, rushes, and trees as cover when you let fly. As soon as Sindak and I have finished our last duty—if we're able—we're going to come boiling back into the marsh, and we'll all make our way back to Bur Oak Village. Any questions?”

The only sound was the slight rustling of reeds.

“Then let's go.”

Gonda bent low and began wading through the waist-deep water. Mist swirled by, scalloped here and there with the curls spun off their arm movements as they pushed aside a cattail, pointed to a floating branch, or sleeping bird, or adjusted quivers when they slipped sideways.

Cold, bitter and numbing, ate into Gonda's feet and legs. He moved around a thick stand of reeds, and waded into the copper-colored portion of the marsh that shone in the firelight streaming from Yellowtail Village. Reflections of tree branches combined with those of the reeds to form a dark filigree upon the water. The effect was stunningly beautiful—perhaps more so because Gonda suspected it might be his last such sight.

Gonda studied the treetops, then pointed out the two sentries high in the branches. Placed as they were, they'd be sure to spot anyone who tried to sneak between the marsh and Yellowtail Village. If it were Negano's work, it was smartly done.

Gonda hissed, “Wampa, shoot them first.”

“Understood.” She touched Papon's shoulder, pointed at herself, then the man on the right. Next, she pointed to Papon, and the man on the left. He jerked his head in understanding, and the two began to wade toward their targets.

Gonda's gaze returned to the Hills' warriors on the catwalks. One man was gesturing wildly as he told some story. The others around him smiled and nodded, then laughed out loud.

“All right, Sindak.” Gonda gestured to chokecherries masking the shoreline. “I'll go first.”

Gonda maneuvered through the cattails to the stand of chokecherries. Their smooth gray-brown bark shone with firelight. He ducked down behind them, waiting until Sindak caught up and crouched beside him.

Gonda looked at him. In the reflected light, patterned by cattails, Sindak's lean face might have been carved of stone, but the lines around his deeply sunken eyes had gone tight. The War Chief's gaze methodically studied the palisade, noting faces, probably saying names in his head. Was he remembering moments of laughter with these men and women? Perhaps times when he'd saved their lives? Or they, his?

Gonda asked, “The jokester and the three men beside him, who are they?”

“The jokester, on the far right, is War Chief Joondoh of Turtleback Village. He's short, so he makes up for it by being loud. The tall thin man beside him is Oswego, one of his deputy war chiefs. The other two warriors are from Atotarho Village.” A barely audible tightness entered his voice: “Lonkol and Tadu.”

Gonda was watching Sindak very closely. “Tell me about them.”

Sindak shrugged as though there wasn't much to tell. “Both are good warriors.”

“Married?”

“Yes.”

“What are their wives names?”

Sindak shot Gonda a look that seemed to see straight through to Gonda's souls. “Osto and Tawisa.” He hesitated. “Why?”

“I'm just wondering how you can kill them.”

Sindak frowned. “Now is a fine time to ask.”

“I thought I'd wait until you could see their faces.”

“Their faces? You thought … What? That I'd crumble when I saw them?”

Gonda exhaled hard. “I suspect some of these warriors are lifelong friends, men and women who have guarded your back in a hundred battles. Some may have saved your life, and you are about to repay them by killing them.” Gonda paused to study Sindak's stony features. “I'm not sure I could kill my friends and relatives.”

Sindak didn't respond. He was staring at the people on the catwalk. The longer he looked, the harder the set of his mouth became.

Wind Woman's gentle daughter, Gaha, swept the surface of the pond, turning it into a sea of golden glitter, broken here and there by swaying cattails. The scent of the oak fires kindled in Yellowtail Village wafted over them.

“Jigonsaseh says you were such a beloved war chief that your people will hesitate to kill you if they see you. I, on the other hand, think the reverse is probably more likely true.”

Sindak took a deep breath and nodded his understanding. “You think I will be the one to hesitate?”

“Just tell me why you volunteered to do this.”

Sindak looked back at the warriors on the palisade and his eyes glistened, as though he were straining against his better judgment. Standing silhouetted against the firelight, the warriors made perfect targets. Except for Joondoh's group, most were vigilantly watching Bur Oak Village, the marsh, and scanning the surrounding hills. “May I ask you a question, Gonda?”

“Of course.”

“Do you think that you and I are here by chance?”

“Chance? What do you mean?”

“I mean that I think you and I are meant to be here. From that fateful instant twelve summers ago when Towa and I were ordered to help you and Koracoo find the missing children right up to this conversation, I don't think any of it has been chance. Do you believe in Sky Messenger's Dream?”

“If I didn't I wouldn't be out here with my testicles so frozen they've knotted up against the bottom of my throat.”

Firelight reflecting from the marsh danced over Sindak's lean soot-coated face and seemed alive in his eyes. “Is there anything else you want to know?”

“No.”

Gonda looked back at Papon and Wampa. They were almost invisible in the eddying mist. Both stood watching and waiting, undoubtedly wondering what was taking so long.

“When we get inside the palisade, I'll go right and you go left. The crumbling remains of refugee shelters fill the space between the palisades. It's a trash heap of charred bark, old cloth, torn baskets, and rush matting. Finding quiet footing is going to be the challenge.”

“I understand.”

Veering around the chokecherries, Gonda got down on his belly, and slid ashore. Sindak was right behind him. They slithered around the patches of snow that dotted the dark leafbed, and headed straight for the southwestern palisade wall of Yellowtail Village. Beneath where War Chief Joondoh and his friends stood, a black gaping hole had been burned through the palisade logs—a vulnerability in the defenses, which probably explained War Chief Joondoh's presence above it.

Heart pounding, Gonda moved with the stealth of a hunting serpent. He still half-expected Sindak to warn his friends and betray their mission.

Wampa and Papon must have managed their tasks in utter silence for the sentries in the marsh had called no alarm.

When they reached the blackened hole, Gonda flattened himself against the wall as he quietly slipped his pack from his shoulders and pushed it through the gap, before he crawled through. A few heartbeats later, Sindak pushed through, glanced at Gonda, then looked up. Through the slats in the catwalk above them, they could see the men moving, hear them talking.

“Ready?” Sindak asked, lips to Gonda's ears.

Gonda gave Sindak a firm nod and bent to his business. His fingers were shaking—from cold and fear—as he untied the laces. Carefully he removed the pots of walnut oil mixed with pitch, the bag of wood shavings, and pots of hot coals gathered from the fires of the Bur Oak longhouses.

He leaned close to Sindak, busy with his own pack, and whispered. “I think we have around six hundred heartbeats before Deru starts letting fly.”

“Which means we have to hurry.”

“I'll count to five hundred and meet you back here.”

“Good luck!”

Gonda watched Sindak disappear among the shadows and pulled the wooden stopper from his own oil pot. Silently, he moved along beneath the catwalk, tiptoeing through ankle-deep ash, slabs of burned bark, and useless chunks of basketry.

Glancing up, he saw two men standing above him. He edged forward, moving ten paces farther down the wall to a twisted wad of half-burned reed matting.

Gonda dribbled oil on the mat, then shook out a small amount of hot coals in the middle. It would take a little while to catch, but not long. He had to move quickly. The warriors on the catwalks continued talking, laughing, completely unaware of his presence.

When he'd gone halfway around the curve in the wall, one of the warriors on the catwalk suddenly stopped talking in midsentence and leaned over. “Who's there?”

Motionless in the shadows, Gonda thought his heart was going to batter its way through his breastbone.

The man illuminated in the firelight above was a square-jawed man with long hair streaming over his shoulders.

In the midst of thick shadows, Gonda's black-clothed body should blend with the background, but mist glistened in the firelight. If it eddied around him, creating unusual swirls …

“What did you see?” the man's friend asked.

“I don't know. Something moved down there.”

“Could be a wood rat. I just about jumped out of my skin last night when one knocked a pot over. They're after the moldy corn kernels scattered down there.”

The warrior straightened up, sighed, and went back to his former conversation. “As I was saying, how did the Flint People expect Atotarho to act when he discovered they'd allied themselves with our enemies? They should have known he would ambush their trail home. I tell you, no one hides better than we do! No one is craftier than we are. This war is over. The world belongs to Atotarho.”

His friend replied, “I'm sure the Flint People expected us to take revenge, just not so soon. That's one thing Negano did right. That ambush was perfect. You have to admit it.”

“Any time you kill four hundred Flint warriors in a single attack, it's a great victory. But that's all Negano has done right. If you're as hungry as I am, you know he's an incompetent fool. Another quarter moon here, and we'll all be starving and desperate enough to slit Negano's throat and eat him to fill our bellies. I can't believe he's the new War Chief, he…”

Gonda stopped breathing. Atotarho ambushed and killed four hundred Flint warriors? Blessed gods, not Cord's war party?

Worry about it later.

Gonda silently tiptoed forward, pouring more pitch and coals into the back of each of the crowded shelters, until he rounded the northern edge of the palisade and could see the Yellowtail gates. No guards stood outside, but around twenty warriors with slung bows overlooked the entry. He could just see the tops of their shoulders and heads over the palisade.

Gonda slipped up to a pile of charred timbers the enemy had scavenged for firewood. Charred wood caught fire quicker, burned hotter. He poured the last of his oil, shavings, and all of the remaining coals at the base of the woodpile. He could already smell smoke on the breeze.

A commotion started along on the southern palisade catwalk that overlooked Bur Oak Village. Questioning voices rose, then someone shouted,
“Fire!”
and a staccato of feet pounded the catwalk, shaking the palisade.
“There are fires all along the wall! Get water!”

Several of the warriors stationed overlooking the northeastern gates ran back to help.

Gonda's heart kicked into a gallop as he raced back, using the noise on the catwalks as cover. Flames danced in at least half the shelters he'd fired. With the commotion, no one seemed to notice him as he thrashed back toward the gap where he was supposed to meet Sindak. He pressed his back against the wall and gritted his teeth, his gaze straining to see Sindak coming around the curve in the wall.

Wait. Wait …

Gonda's gaze shot upward when what appeared to be falling stars began plunging from the darkness. War Chief Deru's diversion was right on time. Flaming arrows punctured the mist and rained down upon Yellowtail Village, lodging in the newly repaired roofs of longhouses, the piles of debris in the plaza, and piercing the bodies of anyone who stood in the plaza. Wave after wave of arrows arced through the night sky. Panicked cries erupted inside Yellowtail Village, accompanied by shouts and desperate running. Atotarho's warriors screamed orders.

Sindak, blessed gods, where are you?

War Chief Deru's voice boomed from the Bur Oak catwalks, “Fight you filthy worms!”

“We are attacked!”
a man roared. “Get to the southern end of the village. Defend the walls!” Then, “Deru, you have the testicles of a gnat! Only a gutless coward attacks at night!”

The spitting hum of a thousand arrows launched and in flight combined with the rapid-fire
shish-thumps
of stone points impacting wood, frozen ground, and flesh. Ululating clan war cries split the darkness.

Sindak appeared like a ghost from the shadows, and Gonda said, “Come on. Hurry!” and shoved Sindak through the gap wall.

Gonda leaped out behind him to find Sindak staring to the north. Men were screaming. Two toppled over the palisade wall, landing hard not more than three paces from them. From the marsh, Wampa and Papon fired smoothly, one arrow after another, taking the warriors in the chests or heads. Several of the Hills warriors had rushed to the western wall to shoot into the marsh at their invisible assailants.

“I don't think we want to go running out there!” Sindak pointed toward the marsh. “Did you notice the pile of timbers stacked outside the gate?”

“I set fire to a big stack of firewood on the inside. That's enough. Let's go!” Gonda grabbed his sleeve and tried to drag him away.