by J. Thorn
“What of the children?” Jonah asked the scout.
The older scout seemed to have got his breath back and stood up straight. “They were there,” he said. “They have them tied up near the middle of the camp, three of them.”
All still alive, Jonah thought, and he glanced around the gathered crowd and the combined strength of the Six Clans. His gaze halted on a group far across the clearing, an old woman bent over a younger one, the younger woman inconsolable. A mother of one of the taken children.
We must act. I must act.
“What do you know of them?” he demanded of Corrun. “Of the Cygoa? Why would they be here?”
The man seemed to fumble for words. Gone was the confidence he had shown as head of the council.
“I…” Corrun turned to other members, but from the expressions on their faces there would be no assistance from that direction.
“Anybody?” Jonah shouted. “Does anyone know why the Cygoa, who supposedly live hundreds of miles to the north and haven’t had contact with us in…what—thirty? — years have shown up now? What reason?”
There was silence across the gathered crowd. Nearly five hundred people lined the clearing, gathered in their clans, but none spoke.
Until Logan edged forward, moving from the crowd line. “They come for revenge,” he said, looking down at his feet.
A murmur spread through the crowd, but Jonah raised his hand and the chatter ceased. He peered at the old man, frail with years, but didn’t say anything. He waited, a million questions in his head. Instead he stared at Logan, his gaze demanding answers.
“They come because they have had generations of distance—plenty of time not being put down by the T’yun—and it has allowed them to grow strong again. They should be weak, but two generations is enough...”
“But why us?” asked Jonah. “Why the Elk? And the Five Clans?”
Logan looked up and stared him in the face. “Because your father, Judas, was the last high chieftain of the T’yun,” said the old man. “Because the Elk is the closest to true T’yun blood that can be found walking.”
Jonah felt his heart hit the ground, but didn’t show it. He took a deep breath, shaking his head. He had known this, somehow, hadn’t he? He’d known that his father had been involved in the tales of the past, but they were told as though they were centuries ago, not just a few decades. But Judas? The leader? Judas had never mentioned that either.
“What do you mean?” he muttered. “How is that so? The T’yun dissolved thirty years ago, when Judas was young.”
“He was young, yes,” said Logan. “But he was strong when he took the leadership from the previous ruler before he was even two decades old himself. The T’yun raided the Cygoa for many years, keeping them subdued, but now they have had two generations without raids to grow strong once more. Now they come for revenge.”
Jonah turned to the council elders “Did you all know of this?” he asked. “Did you know that this would happen?” But the council members stared back, unable to answer.
“Of course they knew,” Logan said, his voice getting louder. “They were T’yun lieutenants in their youth, and raided their fair share of Cygoa camps, just as your father did. They’re all as guilty. We all had this coming.”
“We?” asked Jonah. “You as well?”
Logan lowered his gaze once more. “Yes,” he said. “Me, as well. And now the remnants of the T’yun Horde are old and weak. It’s why I never had children myself. I would never have wanted them to face the revenge of those we hurt.”
“But that’s us, then, isn’t it?” Jonah said. “We’re the ones who have to face them now. For your raids, we now have to face their hatred.”
Jonah was silent for a moment.
“Then let us go and face them,” he said, once more glancing at the sobbing young woman at the other side of the clearing. “They’ll not take our children.”
Chapter 9
The rising sun revealed the extent of the damage. The Cygoa had burnt down four tents, killed a half-dozen people and abducted three children. The clans meandered through the camp, picking up pieces of debris and inspecting them, dropping the ones too damaged to salvage or of no value. Smoke curled to the sky, spilling into an otherwise pristine morning. A few songbirds chirped in the distance, oblivious to the destruction on the ground below.
Jonah spent the first hours of the morning thinking about what Logan said. He felt the fear in the old man’s words and saw the truth in his eyes. The Cygoa now hunted them for revenge, and none would be spared. That left only one option. Fight.
Jonah knew that only the victorious side would survive, and no amount of negotiations or politics would save them from the savage invaders of the north. Judas, his father, and the countless others that had rallied under the T’yun banner, had raided the Cygoa relentlessly until the remnants fled north. They had sealed the Elk’s fate a long time ago, and it would be up to Jonah to write the next chapter of the clan’s history.
“Jonah. I—I don’t know what—”
“Say nothing,” Jonah said to Corrun. He could see the old chief’s eyes were full of tears. “Nothing is what you’re good for.”
The man looked stung, and for a moment Jonah regretted his words, but Corrun didn’t anger.
“Times were different then, and we had the invincibility of youth,” Corrun said, looking at the ground. Jonah wondered what memories now passed through Corrun’s mind, but he didn’t want to know.
“But men are not,” said Jonah. “What you have done has started a chain of vengeance that I must break. And I must do so with the lives of good warriors, good men. I do not expect you to change the past, but you have an obligation to help me protect the future. Do not talk to me and tell me you don’t know what to do. You know exactly what we must do.”
Jonah should have looked around before berating one of the oldest chiefs of one of the most powerful clans, but he did not. Most of the people continued to wander through the camp searching for lost articles and hope.
“Tell me what you need,” Corrun said.
“I will pursue the Cygoa and take back what is ours. I will need most of our strongest warriors, regardless of whether they are Reed or some other clan. I cannot let this Cygoa arrogance stand. I cannot.”
“What else?”
“I’m leaving Declan here to fortify the camp. He is my proxy and you will obey him.”
“He is just a boy.”
“And you are just an old man. I will put my faith in the boy who has already proven himself to me.”
Corrun’s face flushed red beneath his dirty, white beard and Jonah hoped he had not gone too far. He dropped the volume of his voice so only Corrun would hear him.
“This is on all of us now, whether we were alive during the T’yun and Cygoa battles or not. I need all of your collective wisdom.”
For the first time since they began talking, Corrun raised his head and looked Jonah in the eye. “I’m with you, but mind your words when others are listening. Regardless of your views.”
Jonah nodded, knowing he deserved at least a small rebuke, and then he looked over Corrun’s shoulder toward the center of the camp. “Send me my raiding party. Right now.”
Declan, Solomon and Gunney emerged from the tree line at the head of the scout’s trail. They approached Jonah as Corrun hobbled toward the camp.
“I need you to stay and fortify the camp,” Jonah said to Declan. He could taste the boy’s disappointment along with the odor of burning wood.
“I can fight.”
“This is fighting, too. I cannot risk the safety of the camp if I’m to take a raiding party to the Cygoa.”
“A what?” Solomon asked.
“We’re going after the Cygoa. We’re going to get our children back and kill the Cygoa who did this.”
Solomon shook his head and rubbed at his eyes. His torso began to shake until a rambunctious laughter burst forth.
“You are one crazy motherfucker,�
�� Solomon said.
The hilarity infected Gunney, and he started laughing too, slapping Solomon on the shoulder with his right hand.
Jonah smiled at the two men as they fell over each other in fits of hilarity. Declan stood, his mouth open and his eyes wide.
“But we’re just as nuts,” Gunney said. “When we leaving?”
“Right now,” Jonah said with a smile.
He nodded at Declan and the boy turned to enter camp.
“Declan,” Jonah said. “Drag the carts into a circle surrounding the camp. Place guards. Place every warrior available. Do not let anyone out until I return.”
“Yes, my lord,” Declan said, and he jogged into camp.
“At least fifty of the Reed want to join us. Maybe more,” Gunney said.
“Call them forth,” Jonah said. “Despite the absence of bravery of their chief, they want to avenge their dead.”
Even before Solomon and Gunney could try to recruit warriors, men began to appear. They came with axes, knives, clubs and bare knuckles. One by one, they approached Jonah and dropped to one knee. He helped each one to their feet and looked them in the eye. When the numbers approached over a hundred, Jonah held both hands up.
“The scouts followed the trail to the tree line overlooking the valley where the Cygoa are camped. It is not far. We will take back what is ours and leave nothing in our wake. We will be quiet until we are ready to attack. Any of you who are unable to move swiftly and silently through the forest should stand down now and stay here to guard this camp.”
A collective roar rose from the men. Solomon and Gunney looked at each other and smiled, their eyes still wet with laughter.
“Follow me,” said Jonah.
The men raised their weapons. They jogged through the woods behind Jonah, stomping the underbrush and turning a delicate trail into a trampled path through the forest. Jonah led them, with Solomon on his left and Gunney on his right. They reached the base of the rise and continued upward at a slow march.
The trail became wider and more apparent. Jonah could not tell if the scouts had done this or whether the Cygoa had been less concerned about revealing themselves so close to their own camp. Jonah’s heartbeat regulated and the initial surge of adrenaline faded as he plodded up the hill toward the tree line. There was little noise in the forest, and Jonah presumed that the men following him had taken his words seriously.
Several hundred yards from the summit, Jonah stopped and turned to face his warriors.
“Silence. We go the rest of the way as quietly as possible. Hopefully, the Cygoa will not expect retaliation, and we can only surprise them once. Push your bloodlust down but do not lose it. Our patience will last but for a matter of moments. Pass the word back.”
Jonah turned and continued marching up the hill until he reached the trees at the top. He peered down into the valley where the Cygoa camped, their sigils and tents on proud display. Jonah shivered, despite the mid-morning sun warming his back.
Chapter 10
Jonah felt the blood rising to his cheeks and the adrenaline burning in his veins. Beside him, and behind him, one hundred and fifty warriors of the Six Clans surged down the hill in near silence, like a new stream bursting through the forest. They swept between the trees and through the undergrowth, the tents of the Cygoa growing closer by the second. Jonah’s chest heaved and his heart thumped heavily, so much so that he could almost hear it.
There were two dozen tents and maybe forty Cygoa warriors, the scouts had estimated, so he knew that he had both the element of surprise and the numbers to win this. But there were children held captive in the camp, and if they were not brought out of there alive, everything he had accomplished would be for nothing. It was, he realized, his first major act as a war-chief within the Wytheville clans. It needed to go to plan.
For the first time in over twenty or thirty years, ever since the last battle of the T’yun, more than one clan from the valley and the forest banded together for a single purpose. Jonah had never known other clans to fight alongside the Elk, and now warriors from all of the five other major clans surged forward as one.
And he was at the front, leading them down the hill, expecting the moment a Cygoa warrior would take him down. Would the initial surprise they had last long enough for them to overrun the camp? Were the Cygoa really arrogant enough to not expect it?
Or were they waiting for this? Doubts flooded Jonah’s mind as he ran onward. It was too late to stop the surge of warriors now, and any attempt to do so would leave him as an embarrassment rather than a leader.
He had committed himself to this.
He burst from the line of trees twenty feet from the first tent and kept on running, feeling the air move around him as a dozen of the other warriors surged forward within feet of him, still silent. He passed through the gap between the first two tents, raising his axe as he did so, and ran straight toward a single Cygoa emerging from the tent to his right. His vision blurred, rage taking control of his movements. The axe came down, slicing deep into the shoulder of the man who went sprawling, crying out as he hit the ground.
Then he could hold his voice no longer.
His mind flashed back once more to a time when he had been out with Judas. They had been hunting in the forest. He had been only eight summers old. He and Judas crouched behind a bush, near a clearing that was only a mile from their home, and they watched as a young buck at the opposite edge of the clearing, chewing on the grass that grew in abundance there. The animal was calm and hadn’t spotted them.
“You are old enough now,” Judas had whispered. “It is your turn.”
Jonah remembered looking at his father, with eyes widened in fear, and then down at the bow in his hands.
“Use what you have practiced and make the kill,” Judas had said.
Jonah remembered raising the bow and taking aim at the buck, sighting it along the shaft of the arrow and holding the bow steady. He breathed in and watched, aiming. But the buck had looked up at that moment, straight toward him and he thought, straight into his eyes.
“Shoot now,” Judas had said, but Jonah couldn’t fire. He didn’t know why he had turned the bow slightly away from the creature before he let loose. He’d known that he and his family needed food, and that this was his responsibility. He should have killed the buck, but he had deliberately missed. He also remembered Judas’s fury and the rage in his father’s voice. Judas knew he could make the shot and somehow knew Jonah had missed intentionally.
“You must show no mercy,” Judas had scolded him.
No mercy. The words rang in his ears as he raced toward three Cygoa bursting from the largest tent in the middle of the camp. His legs found new energy from fury.
“No mercy!” Jonah bellowed as the first man fell to the axe. The second tried to lower a spear toward him, but Jonah punched the shaft aside and slammed his axe into the center of the man’s skull. The man crumpled to the ground, knocking down part of the large tent as he rolled away.
The third man turned and ran, eyes wide with fear, as Jonah felt more than saw the swarm of warriors flood over the camp, and with them came the cries of war, but more prominent in Jonah’s ears was the cry of “No mercy!” he heard echoing through his gathered force.
Solomon rushed into his field of vision, swinging his hammer and sending the third, fleeing man falling into the still burning fire-pit to the left of the main tent.
Jonah moved on, hurrying through the camp, dodging several fights as he made his way to the center, where the scouts had reported seeing the children. As he rounded a large tent and saw an opening with a stamped out fire-pit. Two of the Cygoa pushed out from the tent opposite and rushed forward, both just feet away from striking one of the warriors that had joined Jonah’s band from one of the other clans. He didn’t recognize the man but saw that he was already injured, blood trickling down his side despite his hand clamped over the wound. The man stumbled back, barely lifting the axe he held in trembling fingers.
Jonah leapt forward, intercepting the two Cygoa before they were able to see him coming and just before they reached his injured ally. His swung his axe with every bit of strength he could muster and slammed the sharp head into the neck of the first man. He stumbled back, shocked as the strike cleanly decapitated the Cygoa, sending the head rolling into the chest of the other warrior. The second Cygoa turned, frowning, wondering what had hit him, and then he screamed. The man spun away, panic taking over him, and tried to run, but Jonah’s axe swung down into the middle of his back and he staggered forward, twitched a few times, and then was still.
Jonah didn’t stay to check the injured man. He had already saved him from death. Around him other battles raged, and he pushed onward into the middle of the camp.
Finally, he saw the three children tied together just to the side of the clearing next to the largest tent in the camp. He rushed forward as other warriors hurried past him, heading for other tents, and stopped at the children. One of them recognized him and Jonah saw a flush of relief cross the boy’s face.
“Just stay still,” he hissed. “This will be over soon and you will be safe.”
“To me!” bellowed a voice from beyond the large tent. “To me! Stand strong!” A tall, wiry Cygoa paced into the clearing, followed by four other warriors. They stayed close together, swinging their weapons at any who approached them, and very soon, Jonah realized that all other fighting had ceased. All that remained were these five warriors, and they were completely surrounded by Jonah’s warband, and backed up against the wall of their own tent.
An arrow whistled across the clearing and thudded into the chest of one of the warriors. The man dropped his club, grabbed the arrow and staggered, looking down at the shaft protruding from his chest. Jonah turned to see one of the scouts that had accompanied him notching another arrow. Seconds later, another Cygoa warrior fell, an arrow protruding from his neck.
