The Broken Land (51 page)

He screams, “No!” shakes off her hands, and runs.

I grab the youth as he darts by and swing him around to glare full in his face. “Pull that war club from your belt! You’re a Standing Stone warrior. Fight!” The man is shaking badly. “What is your name?”

“P-pato.”

I release him and step into the falling arrows to shout, “I am Sky Messenger. Follow me! Now is the time to save your families from slavery and death!
Follow me!
”

I shriek another war cry and pound into the plaza battle, loosing arrows on the run. I may not know these children’s names, but they know mine. I hear them coming on behind me, my army of children. Bravely following. May the ancestors protect them. I cast a glance over my shoulder. Perhaps forty. That is all the help I have to drive back the endless stream of warriors. It must be enough.

Yaweth’s people race along the catwalk, getting into position. Every time Hills warriors duck through a hole in the walls, her warriors cut them to pieces. That leaves perhaps one hundred of the enemy in the plaza. Men who know the only way they’ll get out is to kill every man, woman, and child in the village.

My quiver is empty. I toss it aside, scoop a war club from the ground, and lead my young warriors into the fight of their lives. My skills with a club were honed by the best: my father, Gonda, and my mother, the legendary war chief Koracoo. They taught me every nuance of the weapon.

A filthy warrior with rotten teeth charges me, roaring, his war club swinging for my shoulder. I parry the blow, shove him back, and level my club at his side. When it connects, a massive gush of air explodes from his crushed rib cage. He drops to his knees. Two more rush me.

I fight like a man possessed by an evil Earth Spirit, insanely twisting, dancing in to deliver blows, and leaping out beyond my opponents’ range. They both come at me at once. I cave in the closest man’s forehead and spin on one foot, ducking low, avoiding the blow that cuts the air over my head, to hammer the knees out from under my attacker. Bones crack. He falls, tries to drag himself away. He’ll never walk again. But he won’t have to. I crush his skull and move on.

“Sky Messenger!” someone behind me screams.

I glance back and see the youth I forced into the fight, young Pato, being beaten to the ground by a muscular Hills warrior with a triumphant grin on his face.

I’m there in three bounds. My club whispers through the mist as it slices for the man’s arm. He dives, rolls, and jabs his club at me, forcing me back until he can get to his feet again.

“You pathetic worm!” the man shouts. “Do you think you can defeat the greatest warrior in the entire Hills nation? I am Ponkol of the Snipe Clan!”

When he starts to stand, there is an instant when he’s off balance. I use it to rush him, hit him hard with my shoulder, and send him stumbling backward. Before he can regain his footing, young Pato slams him in the side of the head and staggers back. Pato looks dazed, stares at the dead man on the ground.

I shout, “Keep moving, Pato! Don’t slow down.”

As he turns to face his next opponent, an arrow rips the hide war shirt near my knees. I turn to …

Outside the walls, a horn trumpet blows three times. The blasts seem muffled by the fog, muted and haunting. The Hills warriors in the plaza jerk around in unison to stare. They look confused. Then there is a rush, an onslaught, dashing for the holes in the palisade. Yaweth’s people kill as many as they can, but the warriors push outside.

I blink. A few are fighting a retreating action, covering their friends as they escape, but most are gone. My young warriors stagger, staring at dead friends. Disbelieving looks carve their faces.

I shout, “Stop looking at your fallen friends. We can’t let anyone escape! Follow me!”

I pound toward the last four warriors who are covering their friends’ escape. By the time I arrive, Yaweth’s people have killed two. Two left.

With a single blow, I snap the spine of one man, then launch myself at the last Hills warrior standing in Bur Oak Village. He looks horrified. He knows what’s coming. Before I can crack his skull, someone on the catwalk shoots an arrow through his belly. The man cries out in shock, throws down his bow, and charges through the charred hole in the palisade, trying to make it to his friends.

I chase after him. Just as he lurches through the last palisade, I crush his shoulder. He staggers back against the wall, calling desperately to his friends who are far out ahead, charging away. When he turns, his gaze flashes over me and fixes on something over my shoulder.

“No,” the man hisses. “No. They’re doing it!” He collapses to his knees. “I don’t believe it!”

I turn to look toward the southern hills, following his gaze. A slight breeze has kicked up, swirling the fog into wavelike patterns that seem to ebb and flow. As it shifts, gaps open in the mist, revealing a sight that leaves me shaking my head, trying to decipher what’s going on. Two sides are lining out. To the north, I see Sindak stalking down the lines, waving his war club.
Atotarho is to the north.

I glare down at the wounded Hills warrior. “What’s happening? Who is that to the south?”

He rocks back and forth, his hands clutching the arrow protruding from his belly. “Treasonous dogs! They deserve to die for this!”

“Who is that?”
I draw back my war club to kill him if he doesn’t answer quickly.

In a pathetic whimper, the man responds, “Chief Atotarho pulled three villages out of the battle because he thought they might refuse to fight. He ordered them to remain in camp! But they didn’t. You can see that! They’re marching out to face him down. The filthy traitors! Civil war is inevitable now!”

“Which villages?”

He lifted a trembling arm to point. “See there? That’s War Chief Hiyawento. He’s leading warriors from Coldspring, Riverbank, and Canassatego villages!”

The wind changes. The mist blows back across the field to chill my face. The clan calls are easing off as warriors receive new orders and realign. The world goes soft and still.

My hands shake. I don’t know what this has cost Hiyawento—I may never know—but the fact that he and Zateri have managed to pull the disaffected Hills villages into an alliance to fight against Atotarho …

After all my words about standing up for peace, this is where we are—locked in a death struggle.

From my right, a voice calls, “Sky Messenger!”

Father trots around the palisade with thirty or so warriors behind him. His wet cape sleeks down over his thin wiry body. His round face is haggard, his short black hair matted.

“Father! You’re alive.”

We throw our arms around each other in a bear hug. He laughs. “So far. Don’t get your hopes up. I’m certain the Hills People would like to change that.”

War Chief Deru comes to stand at my side. His eyes narrow at the sight of the wounded Hills warrior. Unceremoniously, he crushes the man’s skull, then turns back to the battlefield. “What’s going on out there?”

“Civil war, I think.”

“They’re fighting each other?” he asks in disbelief.

“So it seems.”

Father’s expression goes tight and sad. He says nothing for a long time, then whispers, “Warriors are asked to bear too much.”

Neither Deru nor I have to ask what he means. Along with exhaustion, hunger, and the rage that leaves the heart a barren wasteland, these men and women will also have to live with the knowledge that they killed their loved ones with their own hands.

As the war fever begins to drain from muscles and sinew, my skin tingles. Those are my cherished friends out there, willing to fight their own people to save me and the entire Standing Stone nation.

My grip tightens on the bloody club in my fingers.

From out of nowhere, Gitchi glides along my leg and looks up at me with soft yellow eyes. He limps, but his tail wags, ready to follow as soon as I give the order. I don’t know where he came from. One of the longhouses. Where’s Taya? I turn to look, but I do not see her. High Matron Kittle must have ordered her lineage to remain within the walls of the longhouses.

I gaze down at Gitchi. “Hello, old friend. I missed you.” I gently stroke his head. He leans against my hand and sighs, as though being with me is all he’s ever wanted in his life.

“Well, what are we doing standing here?” Father looks around, searching each warrior’s face. “If they’re fighting Atotarho, they’re on our side. We should join them. War Chief, what do you think?”

Deru inhales a breath and exhales it slowly; then he nods. “It seems we have just joined a new alliance—a strange one. Us and Hills People? Who would have ever thought? But Gonda is right. If these new allies are willing to die for us, we owe them no less.”

A ragged, exhausted cheer goes up from his warriors. They shake bows and clubs in the air.

Father turns to a young man. “Risto, run to Matron Jigonsaseh. Tell her we join the fight on Hiyawento’s side.”

The warrior bows and runs as hard as he can toward Yellowtail Village.

“All right, let’s go.” Deru waves his warriors forward and leads them out onto the battlefield.

Father says, “Are you coming?”

I breathe, “Yes. Soon.”

He frowns, then nods, understanding there is something I must do before I can follow him. “Don’t be long.” He trots away.

I crouch before Gitchi. The old wolf licks my face, and his tail wags. “I know you want to go, Gitchi. You are a great warrior. But I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you. I want you to stay here. Don’t follow me.”

Gitchi’s ears droop. He drops to his haunches and whimpers as he watches me pound away into the cold swirling fog.

Sixty

W
here he stood in front of Chief Atotarho, Negano rubbed a hand over his face. In all his thirty-two summers, he had never imagined that a day like this would come. He had many cousins in Riverbank Village, men and women he’d loved his entire life. He could barely stand to watch. Blessed Spirits. He had to come to terms with this, or he would …

Atotarho vented a low laugh.

Negano turned around to stare at him. The old man had braided so many rattlesnake skins into his gray hair that it gave his skeletal face a serpentine quality. Granted, they were symbols of war victories, but this was garish.

Atotarho maneuvered his crooked body forward, carefully placing his walking stick, until he stood less than one pace from Negano. His eyes had a cold inhuman gleam. “Find a runner for me.”

“Yes, my chief.” Negano lifted a hand, calling, “Qonde?”

When the guard trotted over, Atotarho said, “Grab a white arrow. I wish you to deliver a message to my daughter, Matron Zateri. Tell her I wish a short truce to speak with her.”

Qonde gave Negano a relieved look, bowed, and trotted away.

Negano turned to Atotarho, hopefully asking, “Will we make peace, Chief?”

“Oh,” Atotarho nodded fervently, “
they
will make peace.” Atotarho gripped his walking stick as though to strangle the life from it. “The arrogant fools. Did they think I would not foresee this treachery?”

From within the war lodge, a deep-throated laugh rumbled.

F
rom where he stood on the tree-covered eastern hill, Sonon could look down across the misty battlefield. He watched his brother’s messenger trot toward Matron Zateri’s camp, weaving through thousands of warriors, men and women preparing for the final confrontation. The fog-shrouded field echoed with their efforts: damp bowstrings whined as they were drawn back; arrows rattled in leather quivers; wooden-slat body armor clacked. The low, dreadful groan of the battlefield hung over everything like the death wails of soon-to-be-forgotten nations.

Ohsinoh laughed, and it made Sonon go still. It was like the hiss of a poisonous serpent, quiet with the promise of death. It made the skin creep.

Sonon’s gaze moved to the war lodge where his brother, Atotarho, stood.

He granted himself a moment to wonder what if …

What if Atotarho’s afterlife soul had not been chased from his body? What if the stream of their lives had not been broken? That boy, his brother’s son, would have been a greatly beloved member of Sonon’s family. Sonon would have helped raise him, would have taught him to fish and hunt, would have comforted Hehaka’s tears. If he’d had the chance, Sonon would have done everything in his power to keep that boy from harm.

But Atotarho’s soul had been shaken loose. The stream of their lives had been sundered. Sonon and his twin sister were sold into slavery at the age of eight, and Hehaka at the age of four. Their three lives had become a diabolical monument to Atotarho’s loose soul—a soul that continued to wander shadow-like through the forests.

Sonon’s soft exhale frosted and blended with the eddying fog.

Behind him, coming up the main trail, hundreds of moccasins thumped the frozen ground. Weapons jangled with their quickstep. They must have run all the way to get here, for the salty scent of their sweat wafted on the light breeze.

He didn’t turn. Soon, it would all begin again.