The Broken Land (52 page)

He wanted to look for a time longer.

Sonon kept his gaze on Atotarho’s crooked, misshapen body. Strands of Atotarho’s gray hair had come loose from his bun and stuck wetly to his wrinkled cheeks. The war lodge shadowed most of his expression.

Sonon cocked his head.

How strange that the most important lessons lived in shadows. To see anything important, a man had to be willing to stare full-face into the living darkness.

As he stared at his brother, Atotarho turned, and Sonon found his own living darkness staring back. He was looking into the black abyss that had swallowed him when he’d seen eight summers.

Someday, someday soon, he would have to confront his brother … but not today.

The warriors coming up behind him veered off the main trail and trotted toward the hilltop where Sonon stood. Their breathing was coming hard. Their clan flags flapped as they ran.

Sonon tore his gaze from his brother and swiveled to watch their approach.

Sixty-one

T
he mist moved as a great white ocean, waves surging and retreating, leaving lacy patterns like sea foam in their wake. Tree branches dripped incessantly. Chief Cord shivered. The damp cold ate at a man’s bones.

“I don’t understand this,” War Chief Baji said.

Cord rubbed the back of his neck. “I doubt anyone does. Especially the warriors on that battlefield.”

Where they stood upon the hilltop to the east of Bur Oak and Yellowtail villages, they could look out across the misty battlefield. The dilemma was clear. Both sides were Hills people.

“Ah. Maybe I do understand.” Baji’s gaze scanned the principal figures, men and women standing out in front of their forces, preparing to give orders.

“Well, explain it to me.”

His adopted daughter had grown into a strong muscular woman, broad-shouldered with long legs, and the face of a Sky Spirit. Oval, with large black eyes, high cheekbones, her face would have been perfect were it not for the white knife scar that slashed across her pointed chin. She did not wear a cape, just a knee-length buckskin war shirt and high-topped black moccasins. Weapons dangled from her belt. She carried a bow and quiver over her left shoulder.

She tipped her chin. “To the south, do you see the tall man with the war ax? That’s Hiyawento. The short slender woman to his right is Zateri.”

Cord gave her a curious look. “We’re too far away to see their faces. How could you possibly know that?”

Her gaze moved across the battlefield and seemed to fix on some far point. Her voice turned soft. “The same way I know that that’s Dekanawida trotting out from Bur Oak Village. I know them, Cord. In ways I will never know any other human beings. The motions of their bodies live in my souls. Every tilt of their heads, every wave of their hands, the way each stands, is part of me. I might as well be looking at myself in a slate mirror. I know that sounds strange—”

“No. It doesn’t.” Cord nodded his understanding. They had gone through so much together as children it made sense that they would have a mysterious sort of connection.

He gave her a sidelong look. “Very well. Then we know a little more about what’s happening. War Chief Hiyawento’s forces are to the south.” As he said the words, Hiyawento’s archers trotted down the hillside. When they knelt with their bows aimed, waiting for the command to let fly, Cord asked, “Are you suggesting a course of action?”

She didn’t answer right away. Her gaze tracked Dekanawida’s progress across the field and up the hill toward Hiyawento. When the two men embraced, tears welled in Baji’s eyes. Pain and longing, and something Cord didn’t understand, tightened her expression. For just a moment, she seemed to be looking backward to another time, another embrace—one that had wrenched her heart.

Cord’s attention shifted to the warriors to the north. Lines slithered into position. While archers trotted out and stationed themselves fifty paces in front of Hiyawento’s line, men with war clubs snugged up behind them. An old man in a black cape drew Cord’s attention. Where the main trail cut through the flats to the east of the villages, a single war lodge stood. The man stood outside it, surrounded by warriors, probably personal guards.

Cord said, “Is that Atotarho? Standing before the war lodge?”

Baji turned. Hatred hardened her features. “Yes. It must be.”

“Then Hiyawento’s forces are standing against Atotarho’s?”

As though a plan was forming right behind her black eyes and she didn’t wish to be disturbed, she softly replied, “Yes.”

Cord noted, “Hiyawento is greatly outnumbered.”

Shouts erupted. Orders. Both sides let fly.

The mist seemed to rip apart, punctured in a thousand places by streaks of silver. The warriors with the clubs charged into the fray. The line to the south wavered, ragged now; many had fallen. Frightened warriors ran, strides eating the distance to the tree cover, shorter legs falling behind, being cut down. Long gaps appeared in the lines on both sides, leaving warriors scrambling to close them. The mixed howls of victory and anguish resembled the peculiar serenade of panicked wolves.

As though Matron Jigonsaseh had been waiting for this exact moment, warriors flooded out of Yellowtail Village and flanked Atotarho’s forces. Shrill war cries split the day. The low growl of hundreds of clashing war clubs rumbled. The Hills warriors had been surprised. Many ran in confusion. Others turned one way and then another, not sure who to fight first. Inexorably, the Yellowtail warriors pushed Atotarho’s forces toward Hiyawento’s, trapping them in the middle.

A slow smile of appreciation came to Baji’s lips. “That’s Koracoo.”

“Where?”

She pointed. “In the red war shirt, leading the Yellowtail charge.”

Cord saw her, and nodded in respect. It did not matter that she was the village matron now. She had a warrior’s heart. The situation was desperate. She knew it. She would not let her warriors go into the fight without her.

“Do we join the battle, War Chief?” Cord asked. “Or bide our time and wait to see what happens?”

Baji’s eyes narrowed. Her blood was up. The vein in her throat pulsed. She slid her bow from her shoulder. “We fight on Hiyawento’s side.”

Sixty-two

Z
ateri watched the battle with her heart in her throat. She couldn’t let herself lose sight of Hiyawento. She feared if she did, he would vanish like so many other friends had today. Keeping him in view wasn’t easy. The mist was like a giant undulating beast, constantly shifting, gobbling one portion of the battlefield, then twisting to swallow up another.

Someone sobbed. She did not turn.

Wounded warriors lay on the wet ground all around their camp, dragged in by their friends, who had spoken softly to them for as long as they could before they had to charge back into the fight. Some wept inconsolably.

A monstrous disgust caused Zateri’s hands to tremble. She tried to keep them hidden beneath her cape.
You can’t afford to show any weakness. Not now.

Kwahseti stood beside her in front of their fire. They had not spoken in a while, but she could hear Kwahseti’s ragged breathing.

“Who is that?” Kwahseti asked, and pointed at a man running hard along the western edge of the battlefield. The blue and yellow shapes on his cape had blurred to a green smear.

“I can’t tell.”

“Qonde, maybe? Isn’t that his cape?”

Zateri shook her head like a woman trying to get rid of a deafening ringing in her ears. The runner swerved wide around the battle, holding his white arrow over his head for all to see.

“It is Qonde; I’m sure of it. What does he want?”

Zateri pulled her gaze from Hiyawento’s broad back long enough to glance at Kwahseti. The Riverbank Village matron’s face had flushed. Short hair lay wetly against her forehead and curved down over her cheeks, wreathing her dark eyes like gray paint.

When Qonde finally made his way around the battle and trotted up the hill to the west, two sentries grabbed hold of his arms, searched him for weapons, and escorted him the rest of the way.

Kwahseti’s jaw set. “It can’t be an offer of surrender. Atotarho would never give up so easily. His huge pride—” She stopped short and her eyes flew open. “Who’s that? Blessed ancestors, are those Flint People?”

Zateri swung around to stare, and Taya hurried forward with her long black hair swaying around her slender waist. She was so pretty. “They came! I don’t believe it!”

“What do you mean?”

Taya whirled to face Zateri. “Matron Jigonsaseh went to Flint country to ask them to form an alliance with us to fight Atotarho.”

Zateri breathlessly watched the tall woman in the lead. There was something … “Oh.” She put a hand to her lips as tears constricted her throat. “That’s Baji. Baji and Chief Cord.”

As though time had mysteriously reversed, Zateri found herself sitting in a birch bark canoe twelve summers ago, with Baji’s strong arms around her. The moonlit night had been quiet and cold. Mist hovered just above their heads, slithering along the course of the river. She could see it all again. War Chief Koracoo had paddled in front, and War Chief Cord in the rear of the canoe.
“I am your friend forever,”
Baji had said, and tightened her arms around Zateri. Tears had filled Zateri’s eyes, for it had been the first time in moons that she’d felt truly safe.

The same feeling stole over Zateri now. It was irrational, even ludicrous, in light of everything happening on the battlefield, but she couldn’t help it.

She watched as Baji dispatched a runner to Hiyawento, probably to announce herself and her intentions—so Hiyawento wouldn’t mistakenly turn his forces on Baji’s.

Though it wasn’t necessary. Both Hiyawento and Sky Messenger were staring at Baji where she stood on the eastern hilltop. They had recognized her instantly, just as Zateri had.

When her runner returned, Baji led her forces down onto the battlefield. There had to be six or seven hundred Flint warriors. Ecstatic roars went up from Hiyawento’s warriors, and on the far side of the field, Jigonsaseh’s warriors whooped. They had Atotarho’s forces completely surrounded.

“Chief Cord from Wild River Village?” Kwahseti asked.

“Yes,” Zateri replied, and when she turned to look at Kwahseti, she noticed that Taya’s young eyes had riveted on Baji.

Taya straightened. With dignity, she asked, “She’s a war chief? Not just a warrior?”

“Apparently. I didn’t know it myself until just now.”

Taya seemed to wilt.

As the sentries shoved Qonde toward Zateri and Kwahseti, the man clutched his white arrow in both hands.

“What is it?” Kwahseti asked.

“I bring a message for Matron Zateri. Your father asks for a short truce so that he might speak with you.”

“Why?” Kwahseti demanded to know.

“He did not give me that information, Matron Kwahseti.”

Kwahseti turned to Zateri. “Perhaps now that he’s doomed he wants to negotiate with the rightful leader of the Wolf Clan and the nation?”

Zateri ground her teeth while she gazed across the battlefield. As the mist eddied, her father’s black cape appeared and disappeared. He couldn’t negotiate. He
had
to win. If he didn’t, he would no longer be the chief of Atotarho Village. In fact, the clan mothers would strip him of his name. He wouldn’t even be Atotarho. The name would be taken back and eventually given to someone more deserving.

Zateri said, “Tell my father there is nothing to discuss.”

Qonde’s heart seemed to sink. His expression sagged, but he bowed. “Very well, Matron.”

As he sprinted down the hill, Kwahseti said, “Good for you. We’re winning and he knows it. It will be over soon.”

In a soft voice, she said, “Not soon enough,” and her gaze returned to Hiyawento.

He stood in the midst of a tormented knot of warriors that clashed not more than fifty paces from Atotarho’s war lodge. The fighting was desperate. Through the blowing fog and smoke from the burning villages, the figures were somehow unreal, just floating phantoms, condemned to forever fight a battle no one could win. They were killing aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers. In a fight such as this, victory was impossible.