Willow was smiling radiantly; Coyote saw that without looking at her. The smaller children looked mutinous, but Carter’s jaw hung slack. Coyote held his eye until he nodded. Then he went to the wagon.
They’d closed up the floor. Coyote made as if to inspect it. “Did Kettle Belly count this?”
“Yes, Whandall,” Willow said.
“Good!” But he was reaching for the manna. No need to open the false bed. Wood planks wouldn’t stop the flow.
No need indeed. Two wizards had sucked all the power out of all that gold. It was as dead inside the wagon bed as so many rocks.
Twisted Cloud was ten minutes away.
Any attempt to delay her would eat his time too, and he didn’t have time. Coyote-as-Whandall stalked away saying, “I’ll go patrol. I bet Hammer’s ready for a nap.”
Willow stared after him. “Be careful,” she called. “Be careful.”
Out beyond the firelight, he melted into the shadows. He’d needed wild gold! Coyote was going to miss the battle! And all he could do now was set this fool Lordkin in place.
CHAPTER
48
By now Whandall knew where most of the bandits were, at least those nearby. Fifty or so. There might be many more. A messenger was moving among them, but whatever his words, they were not “Attack!” Even a stranger’s body language told him that.
They weren’t waiting for anything in particular. They watched and envied. The shaman had known that in hours, or a day, they would run out of patience.
But Coyote had been waiting, and now Whandall knew why.
A pony whinnied. Then the others. Then the firelight showed Twisted Cloud walking proud and erect, with nothing to hide.
The ponies would have screamed their anger if she had lain with a man… with, say, Whandall Placehold. But Twisted Cloud had lain with Coyote. She was carrying Coyote’s child, freshly conceived.
The ponies went mad. They began to destroy the corral.
The bandits knew a distraction when they saw it. Without Twisted Cloud, their attack might have come at any time. They’d already marked the locations of most of the caravan’s guards. They charged in a scuffling run. The scouts ran about whacking laggards to get them moving.
And Whandall was behind them.
First things first. The nearest man was slow, and his back was turned. Whandall could have swung wide, but the man ahead of him had a fine knife with a big shiny leaf-shaped blade. Whandall would have to kill the first man before he fought the second.
The bandit never heard him. A backhand slash at a leg, draw across the thigh until it spurted blood, then bring the knife around and high and straight down to the join of neck and shoulder. He barely croaked as he fell.
But the second must have glimpsed something. He whirled around to see in the half moonlight a silent giant with a dripping knife. He screamed when he should have fought, and then the point was in his throat.
But Whandall’s knife stuck in the bone. And again he’d been seen! The bandit to his left turned and charged and ran himself on the knife Whandall had taken from the man Coyote had killed. Whandall left his own knife where it stuck. He had two bandits’ knives, each long and heavy, the hilt grooved for fingers, and with a guard! Treasure indeed in Serpent’s Walk, and worth his life out here, maybe, because four or five bandits were spreading through the boulders to surround him.
Again! What were they seeing? A Lordkin should know how to lurk!
Elsewhere the bandits were converging on the wagons, yelling like Lordkin, each pretending he was a mob. Whandall had been told they would do this. Among the rocks, who could know how many there were?
Kettle Belly stood in the center of the wagon camp, surrounded by his sons and a dozen others, the trained young men he called his army. Others, men and women and adolescent children, went to defend their own wagons. Younger children scrambled under wagons.
Kettle Belly shouted orders—and was obeyed. At his command fifteen young men with spears and javelins formed a line and threw their javelins at the bandits they could see. The wrong band, the disorganized gatherers. Kettle Belly couldn’t see the bandit lord, but Whandall could.
That one. His brighter colors flashing in moonlight, a burly bandit shouted orders to twenty companions who wore colorful sashes. Those hesitated, awaiting his word. The equivalent of Pelzed’s guard, Whandall thought. But most of the horde were rushing toward the wagons, paying no attention to the big man.
Those were no threat. They were gatherers who would run if faced with real force. It was the bandit chief and his henchmen that the Bisons ought to fear.
Memories flooded through Whandall, riding the shouts of the bandits. Coyote had run with bandits too, and he knew them. Bandits didn’t want to destroy a wagon train. They wanted loot, women, and a wagon to carry it all. Eight or ten bandits could snatch a wagon and pull it into the dark, if other bandits stayed to harry pursuit. Men could outrun a bison team.
Five bandits were coming at Whandall, spreading out to surround him. Not enough to slow the horde. Yelling wouldn’t even be noticed, but—“Snake feet! Snake feet!” he screamed. He danced between two men and turned on one with slashing doubled blades and left him with both arms bleeding, then whirled to find the other much too close, stabbed him through the heart, and delicately plucked his blade. “Serpent’s Walk, you ignorant lookers!” and he ran.
Three still chased him. He was lucky to get any attention at all! He was only one man with a few corpses around him; over there was a wagon train rich with loot. These savages were going to kill a lot of people unless he could distract them.
Four of the front rank of gatherers went down before Bison Clan’s spears. Two got up and limped away from the battle. Kettle Belly’s army hefted spears in both hands and advanced toward the charging bandits. They hadn’t seen the bandit chief and his guard moving toward the caravan at a jog, holding formation.
Whandall ran to intercept them. He’d guessed their target.
He could hear panting behind him. He turned once and slashed and was running again. Three behind him now, one wounded, and none of them really wanted to catch him. In the caravan, some of the defenders had noticed Whandall.
From somewhere behind them came a high-pitched song that sounded of rushing wind, of storms and joy and death. Twisted Cloud! Her voice carried courage to her friends, fear to her enemies, and more.
Gold! She would be carrying some of the river gold, empowered by its wild magic. What had she learned from her father? Her spells would be uncontrolled in the best of times, and now—Whandall didn’t think he should put much trust in Twisted Cloud’s spells. Still her song rang out, and a few of the rear rank of bandits melted away into the night behind them.
A wind was rising. The storm that had gathered above Hickamore was coming to Bison Clan.
Carver stood on Willow’s wagon, Carter just behind him, their slings whirling. There wasn’t much light, and if their stones hit anyone there was no sign of it.
It was a game. Coyote would call it a dance. The bandits wanted loot, women if they could get them. The wagonmaster wanted to limit his losses, keep his people safe, inflict enough damage to make the bandits think again before attacking his wagon train. He would risk men to save women. He would risk all to save all the wagons, but he would not risk many men to save only one.
The bandits would choose the wagon least guarded, the lightest and easiest to move. Willow Ropewalker’s wagon was small and near, defended by children.
And Whandall Placehold was behind them.
Coyote memories and Kettle Belly’s training were overlaid on what he could see. What Coyote knew of bandits and raids was all scrambled up with memories of possession by Yangin-Atep. That was different. He’d been possessed of Yangin-Atep, but he had been Coyote. Coyote had opened his memory and doused him with knowledge and stories. Whandall would be days sorting out his own memories from Coyote’s.
Three of the chieftain’s score had been cut down by the
caravan’s defenders, but other freelance bandits were gathering around that core of men, increasing their number.
The corral splintered. The bonehead stallions ran mad through the camp, horns flashing in moonlight. Twisted Cloud ran behind them, flapping her arms, howling like a coyote, guiding them into the attackers. Bandits scattered ahead of them. One rose on a horn and was thrown flying, and one ran straight into Whandall’s knife, stopped in mortal shock, and screamed only when he saw Whandall’s face. Whandall moved among them, slashing. The ponies broke free and ran screaming from Twisted Cloud.
The bandit chief shouted more orders. Five of his guard and half a dozen other bandits heard, thought it over, and converged toward Whandall Place-hold. About time they noticed him! Whandall backed away from the horde that was coming at him; whirled and struck down the tired man at his back; turned back and saw them stop as if they’d hit a wall. Then half of them came on.
Too many. Too many were coming at him at once. If they swarmed ahead, they’d have him before he could deal with more than two.
The bandits knew that. No one wanted to be one of the two.
Whandall snatched up a cloak that a dead bandit had gathered from a wagon. He wound it around his arm with the skirt dangling, just in time to shield himself from a knife thrown from the shadows. It was still turning, and struck the cloak without penetration. Whandall leaped forward to slash and felt the chuk! of his blade striking bone.
Then he leaped atop a boulder.
Kettle Belly shouted orders. His spearmen moved forward at a trot, spears held waist high in an underhand grip. The bandit chief was between Kettle Belly’s spears and a maniac dripping blood and marked with a serpent. His companions closed around their chief and shouted in a language Whandall had never heard before. He understood every word.
“Look what I got, Prairie Dog!”
“Fool! My brother is dead. It’s not loot I want, it’s blood.”
“Drink alone, then.”
“His face! His face! You said their shaman was dead!”
“Run away!”
They were pursued by worse than Kettle Belly’s laughter.
Some had snatched clothing that Ropewalker wagon had set out to dry. A gale wind pulled at the cloth like sails, and they ran off balance and half blind. Whandall ran after them, striking down the slowest, who fell with a scream.
Two others turned, releasing what they carried, drawing knives as their loot flapped away like ghosts. Then one fell without a sound. The other dithered an instant, then came on alone. Whandall killed him.
He looked around to see a whirling sling, a triumphant grin. “The moon’s come out!” Carver shouted.
His sling whirled. A bandit with a wooden chest in his arms cursed as the stone hit his back. He turned, dropping the chest. It shattered. Whandall caught up to him. Slash the leg, chop to the shoulder, run past, take another.
“Whandall!” Kettle Belly’s voice, well behind, too far behind to be any help.
Carver laughed beside him. “Whandall! Do you know what your face is like?”
He’d seen himself in Morth’s mirror. But Carver didn’t wait for an answer. “You light up! Every time… you kill a man… the snake lights up… in blue fire! Just for a breath, but… it scares them out of their minds!”
There must be magical power—manna—in murder. It was lighting up his magical tattoo. But only for an instant, and now each running man perceived Whandall in the dark behind him. A man clutching a big wood bucket with a handle turned and saw him, and shrieked. Whandall’s utmost burst of speed still couldn’t catch him, though his staccato scream was announcing his location all across the plain…
Enough. “Carver!”
“They’re getting away!”
“Leave some to tell the tale, Carver,” Whandall commanded. “Come back to the wagons.”
He had two fine new knives. He’d left his crude Lordkin knife somewhere on the plain, stuck in a man’s throat. Coyote spoke to him, from memory or from the shadows, not in words but in pictures, of a pack of coyotes running away to regroup and fall on a pair of pursuing dogs. He urged Carver into a run.
CHAPTER
49
Nobody slept. Conversations clustered around the wounded. There was wine. Whandall was treated as a hero, except that nobody offered him wine. He said nothing, and looked.
Many were heroes that night, and great was the praise they received, but only the wounded were drinking wine. That actually made sense, he thought. Wine dulls pain.
Everybody had a story. They all wanted to hear Whandall’s, but they didn’t want to shut up.
“We’ve been counting on you, you know. We wanted to see how a harpy would fight.” This from a man who remained cheerful as his wife bound up a deep slash across his back. He’d never spoken to Whandall before. “After Hickamore went off with you, we were all twitchy, waiting for the attack, wondering when it would come, why Hickamore would leave us now, why he’d taken the harpy. Thinking he must be crazy.”
“He was crazy,” Whandall affirmed.
“Yeah?”
“Gold fever.”
“Ah.” The wounded man found his train of thought. “Then the ponies all went crazy. We near jumped out of our skins. We saw Twisted Cloud come back alone, and bandits running out of the dark, and guards running ahead of them to get into position. Everyone armed was running somewhere; anyone else was looking for weapons. Twisted Cloud saw what was happening, and she ran around flapping her arms at the ponies—”
“They were running away from me,” Twisted Cloud said, “and I thought I could steer them into the bandits. It worked, a little, but they wrecked a lot too, and I wouldn’t count on their coming back.” She seemed unhurt. She smiled at Whandall, a sudden bedroom smile, and he couldn’t help leering back. She told Kettle Belly, “I carry Coyote’s child. That’s what they were afraid of.”
Fawn and Rutting Deer were tending Mountain Cat. That looked like a near miss, a wide bloody knife stroke across his ribs and chest, an inch above cutting his belly open. His arm was bleeding too. Fawn glared at Whandall (and, interestingly, Rutting Deer didn’t) but Mountain Cat didn’t notice.
“You saved me,” he said, “know it or not. That son of a broke-horned pony cut me and was going into his backslash. That would have opened me like a salmon. Then, out there on the desert, you pulled your knife out of some poor bastard and looked at us like a hell-blue glowing snake, and he just couldn’t look away. And I did! I think I sliced up his eye. Anyway, he ran.”
Rutting Deer seemed bewildered. She caught Whandall looking and shrugged helplessly. “I never saw anything. Just you killing someone in the dark, and poor Mountain Cat fighting for us.”
“I can’t see it either,” Whandall told her.
By midnight it was over. Kettle Belly’s men took a tally by dim firelight and intermittent moonlight, not straying too far and never separating.
The score was twenty dead bandits against one old man who died of a heart attack and one young boy who was out after stream water. They found him facedown in the water, his head bashed in and his bucket missing. Some rope, clothing, a few pots, one mirror, some harnesses, a couple of spears; they lost very little and got some of it back. Most agreed that it would be a while before these bandits attacked the Bison Clan again.
“But there are other bandits,” Kettle Belly said, “All along the trail.” As Whandall crossed between fires, the man had moved smoothly into place beside him. “Winning this kind of fight can be really expensive. It wasn’t, but it could have been.”
Whandall waited.
“Hammer saw you and Carver running into the dark and out of sight! We thought they’d killed you!”
“We chased them.”
“You have wagons to defend. You could get lost. They could double back around you!” Kettle Belly studied him. “It doesn’t make sense to risk everything like that. We couldn’t go after you, you know, and then you wouldn’t be there next time.
/> “Look, harpy, this is how it’s supposed to work. The bandits give up trying to get a wagon as soon as we show them some blood. Then they grab anything they can and run. Typically you’ll see a couple of bandits facing off against a wagon family, and nobody really wants a fight. The owners shout for help. A couple of neighbors come, and the bandits run away and hit some other wagon.”
Whandall began to doubt. Had he broken some law? “Kettle Belly, do we have some kind of bargain with them? A treaty?”
“With bandits? No!”
“Then it doesn’t make sense to follow their rules. We gave them no guarantees, right? They’re not holding back to keep some bargain, are they? Let’s shake them up a little. They want rules? Let them come and ask for rules.”
Kettle Belly sighed. “Hickamore said bandits wouldn’t know what to make of you. He was right. You’re more interested in killing them than in protecting the wagons. Now you’re telling me you were following a plan?”
“Plan. Well. I did what I’ve been taught. The Placehold never makes half of a war.”
Whandall dreaded the moment when he must face Willow… but when the moment came it didn’t matter.
Hickamore’s storm swept over Bison Clan. They were soaked and blinded. The rain was gone as quickly as it came, leaving them in a howling hot wind.
Kettle Belly and Twisted Cloud drove them to work. The flood was coming just behind!
The wagons were already on high ground, trust Kettle Belly for that, but everything had to be tied down, anchored. There was the risk that bandits would strike again under cover of the storm… and in the midst of all that, he and Willow could only glimpse each other at a half-blind run.
In a moon-shrouded moment they almost ran into each other. Willow blinked, then gripped his shoulders and bellowed, “Was it the fire god?”
“No, it was Coyote! You heard—”
“I was afraid she might be wrong!” She was gone.
Dawn showed the wagons on islands in a flood. Bandits would drown before they could gather anything. It seemed safe to sleep… and everyone posted a guard anyway.
The Burning City Page 32
