Eagle in Exile

by Alan Smale

  “Sorry,” Hanska said as they climbed aboard. “Couldn’t leave without my man, could I?”

  Marcellinus felt touched and overwhelmed. “Thank you, Hanska, Mikasi…”

  Mikasi dug into his pouch. “Fishhooks and lines. Nets. Flints. Pugios to trade if we must. Some dried deer meat.” He grinned. “And tea and hazelnut cakes from Nahimana. She says to tell you that you are a headstrong fool and will be dead in days. And your toy people, who Wachiwi says are important to you.” He handed Marcellinus his small golden lares, representing his household gods.

  Hanska unwrapped the swords. “Below your toys in your little shrine was a fine gladius, and we brought that, too. Is it good?”

  Lost for words and in danger of losing his composure completely, Marcellinus could only nod. It was the gladius with the ornate hilt he’d had specially made before going to war with the Khwarezmian Sultanate just after being promoted to tribune, the sword that he had thought lost after his legion perished but that Great Sun Man had returned to him before the battle of Woshakee. This sword and his golden lares were the only pieces of his former life that remained aside from the Aquila of the 33rd itself. He was oddly overcome to be holding them again, and they gave him strength.

  Although he had to admit that the fishhooks would probably be much more useful. He resisted the urge to hug Hanska and Mikasi for their quick thinking. “It is all very good, and I am grateful and very happy you are both with me,” he managed eventually, and sat down.

  As the First Cahokian rowed the longship into the Mizipi, the current took it, forcing the bow around. They swung helplessly, spinning broadside as they were thrust downriver. Then Marcellinus got them all rowing again, and Akecheta steered the ship’s nose into the current.

  The Mizipi had them in its grip. It was good that Marcellinus had not set his heart on going north.

  “Well, Enopay, I guess we’re going downriver,” Marcellinus muttered under his breath as they passed the Mound of the River and picked up even more speed.

  It was all he could do by way of a good-bye. In all likelihood he would never see the boy again.

  Marcellinus took a deep breath. He was leaving Cahokia, after all, a moon earlier than he had anticipated, with a meager crew, few weapons, and little food, in a half-finished boat they had yet to learn how to sail.

  Staying alive; now, that would be the challenge.

  —

  “Enopay,” Tahtay said dully. “How could he?”

  Marcellinus had been sitting at the bow with Tahtay. Not talking, because the boy merely sat morosely staring into the boards of the hull. But Marcellinus wanted Tahtay to know he was there and have company of a sort. And now he had spoken.

  Marcellinus’s heart ached. “He had to. Enopay holds the trade numbers, counts the corn, counts the warriors. Avenaka would never have let him go, and even if he had, Kanuna would have died before he let Enopay be banished. Enopay knew all that. So instead of defying Avenaka, he helped us. Said the words that would make it easier for Avenaka to let us go.”

  “He swore allegiance to Avenaka! He swore!”

  “Yes, and he was lying.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “Because he also said the longship was stupid.”

  “It is stupid,” Tahtay said. “And we will all die in it. What can we do? How can we live?”

  “Hunting. Fishing. Trading.”

  Tahtay snorted. “Trade with what? Once the spare pugios are all gone?”

  Looking up, Marcellinus saw that a good half of the Concordia’s crew were within earshot and looking somber. It was an important question.

  And so he forced a laugh that was much more cheerful than he felt. “Pugios? We have a lot more than that.”

  He waited for someone to bite, and naturally it was Hanska who called out. “What? A lot of what?”

  “Expertise,” he said promptly. “Hurit, Dustu, Tahtay: you understand brickmaking and bricklaying like no one else in Cahokia. You can make fine kilns and granaries. I know about smelting iron and steel, and a few others of you have worked in the steelworks. And I know some blacksmithing.”

  He stood up and paced down the center of the longship by the mast. It was critical to raise their confidence, make them a team. “I brought wheelbarrows, nails, and bronze to Cahokia; I can bring them to other towns. And all of you here? Either fine warriors who can teach men to fight or excellent craftsmen—woodturners, rope makers, with steel tools of a quality no one else on the Mizipi can match. Wapi and the others can make more spears and arrows as we travel. We aren’t just going to survive, Tahtay. We’re going to thrive.”

  “Thrive?” Tahtay laughed painfully, almost gasping. “You are a fool. We have lost Cahokia, and we are too few to protect ourselves, and we are dead.”

  A brittle silence descended over the boat. Men lowered their heads.

  Nobody, including Marcellinus, wanted to argue with a boy who had just seen his father murdered before his eyes. And in truth Marcellinus had given up much less than had the Cahokians around him who had abandoned family and clan. So he merely said, “We’ll see. But if we stand together now as we have stood together before—”

  “Catanwakuwa,” Dustu said suddenly. “Hawks coming.”

  Mahkah stopped rowing and leaned back, shading his eyes. “Three of them. No, five. And one’s an Eagle.”

  Marcellinus peered upward. He could see three of the wings; he’d have to trust Mahkah about the other two.

  He might have known it had been too easy.

  “Bows,” he said tersely. “Dustu, Hurit, pass bows to Mahkah and Yahto…String them, nock arrows, be ready. Remember to fire well ahead of them. Akecheta, hold us steady in the main current. Everyone else, stop rowing and grab shields.”

  They pulled the round Norse shields out of the shield racks. Marcellinus took a wooden shield for himself—they had more shields than people—and walked forward down the center of the ship.

  “Fighting,” Dustu said in amazement.

  It was true. The birdmen were ducking and weaving in the sky, a thousand feet up.

  One of the Catanwakuwa swooped in hard over the Eagle craft, which spilled air and slid to the right to avoid it and then banked hard. On its other side another Hawk reared up as if in defense of it, almost stalling, then dived again.

  “Slings,” said Mahkah. “Slings and rocks. The one above has a bow. Oh…”

  The Eagle craft had seen the longship. It arced around into a dive and headed straight for them.

  Marcellinus exhaled and picked up one of Dustu’s spears.

  Two of the Hawks followed the Eagle down. They saw the larger craft shudder as rocks hit it and bounced off the taut wing material.

  As the Eagle craft loomed, a broad white ribbon unfurled behind it.

  “Holy Jove,” Marcellinus said.

  “Shit,” said Hanska. “She’s going to—”

  Akecheta hit the deck as the Eagle roared over his head and then spilled air. The Hawks came after it. Rocks and a couple of arrows smacked into the hull of the Concordia.

  The Eagle belly flopped into the water between the Concordia and the bank. One of the Hawk pilots hurled rocks while the other sent arrows into the wing. The other two Hawks were dueling above the ship, wheeling back and forth. More arrows flew.

  Mahkah and two other men shot at the same time. Only one of their arrows found its mark, burying itself in the chest of the Hawk pilot who was even now banking above them and hurling rocks into the boat.

  Several hundred feet above them one of the Hawks shattered, its right wing appearing to crumple. The craft flipped and then fell out of the air, spiraling hard into the Mizipi with an immense splash. The surviving Hawk headed for the bank.

  “Demothi, that,” Mahkah said laconically. “Do not shoot him.”

  The single remaining Hawk streaked north away from the Concordia. But still Marcellinus could see no movement from beneath the Eagle craft. “Akecheta, get us over there, damn it.”


  As one, Dustu and Hurit dived over the side of the longship and swam splashily over to the wrecked Eagle.

  A head broke the surface, spit, and then ducked under again. Dustu kicked hard, sending himself underwater while Hurit grabbed the wing and started ripping at it, breaking spars, shoving debris aside.

  Kimimela’s head appeared. Hurit pulled up another figure.

  The Concordia had floated downstream of the Eagle, and in the chaos of the moment its crew were all rowing against one another. Oars collided, and the longship swung around. From the bank Demothi watched, shaking his head, hands on his hips and the broad Hawk wing resting on his back.

  Sintikala and Kimimela broke surface and swam free of the Eagle. Hurit and Dustu unbuckled the third pilot and dragged her away from the cords and spars. All five swam for the shore and pulled themselves out of the water, panting.

  Belatedly, the Concordia arrived at the riverbank, and Napayshni jumped out to moor it.

  Ignoring everyone else, Sintikala stepped into the longship and strode to the bow, where Tahtay sat. She perched beside the boy and began talking to him quietly. Tahtay, startled out of his funk for once, looked up at her, shook his head, then nodded at whatever she was saying to him.

  The third Eagle pilot looked familiar, but Marcellinus couldn’t place her. She and Demothi began to strip the Hawk down, loosening its sinews, unhooking its wings, and folding them so that they would fit in the confines of the longship.

  Shivering and dripping, Kimimela stared up at Marcellinus. “You really thought we’d stay in Cahokia?”

  “You banished yourselves?” Stunned, Marcellinus looked again at Sintikala in the bow.

  Kimi shrugged. “You did tell me to stay with my mother.”

  “Not us,” said the third pilot. “Demothi and I return to Cahokia. I am Chenoa.”

  Demothi gave Marcellinus a wry look and walked forward to say good-bye to Sintikala. The Hawk deputy clan chief had never really taken to Marcellinus.

  Now Marcellinus understood the plan. Kimimela was not yet proficient enough to fly a Hawk the distance needed to catch up to the Concordia, and so Sintikala and Chenoa had brought her on an Eagle. But Sintikala would need a Hawk, and so Demothi had brought one for her. And now Chenoa and Demothi would return to Cahokia on foot.

  “You will be safe there?” he said to Chenoa. “After helping Sintikala escape?”

  By her look of scorn he recognized her now: Chenoa was the pilot of the Eagle who had flown him to the Mizipi during the battle for Cahokia, who had swooped down over the longships so that Marcellinus could see into them and know that they were fighting Iroqua, not Norsemen or Romans. She looked young and tough and no fonder of him than Demothi was. “We will tell him Sintikala threatened us and gave us no choice. If Avenaka wants his clans to fly, he will not slaughter their best pilots.”

  “You will swear allegiance to Avenaka?”

  Chenoa’s eyes narrowed. “Of course. We have family.”

  Marcellinus nodded.

  Sintikala rested her hand on Tahtay’s shoulder, then walked back down the drekar. She nodded to Marcellinus as if they had just met in the Great Plaza and set about stowing the Hawk for the voyage.

  —

  Demothi and Chenoa raced into the trees, and the Concordia put out into the river again. Marcellinus stood with Akecheta in the stern, talking to the crew in as encouraging a way as he could manage. He pointed out how well the dragon ship rowed, how sound it was, how they already had enough planks and nails on board for any repairs.

  Eventually Marcellinus walked between the rowers to where Sintikala stood in the bow, almost as rigid as the wooden dragon head at the prow.

  “You banished yourself.” The magnitude of what Sintikala had done overwhelmed him. She had left her city and her clan, perhaps forever.

  “Serve the man who murdered Great Sun Man? You could not. How can you think that I could?”

  That logic was unassailable. “Yes. Sorry. Will they pursue us? Try to get us back?”

  She hand-talked, No. “Avenaka has Cahokia. We are gone.”

  “And Great Sun Man is dead.”

  “Yes.”

  Marcellinus looked south into the sun. “I hardly even know Avenaka.”

  “You have never favored shamans and those who put their faith in them.”

  “And our treaty with the Iroqua?”

  “If the Iroqua raid again, Avenaka will strike hard. Blood will be met with blood. And if Avenaka and the shamans want war, they will always find an excuse or make one.”

  “Then it was all for nothing? The Mourning War begins again?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “And will they really be safe? Demothi, Chenoa, after helping the two of you to escape?”

  “Avenaka kills Chenoa and Demothi at his peril. They are popular. If he wants anyone to lead the Hawks and fly Eagles now that I am gone, he will accept the allegiance they swear.”

  Marcellinus nodded. They had made their choice, and there was nothing he could do to help them, anyway.

  Instead, they were heading rapidly away and could never return. Every day they sailed downriver with the current would take them three, or four, or five days farther away from their old lives. “And so we go south.”

  “Yes. Now we are birds that fly south for the winter.” She pursed her lips. “Maybe you will find some gold.”

  “Ha.” His renewed obsession now seemed as foolish as it had the first time around. Hold off the Romans with gold?

  Roma was a task for tomorrow. Today it might be all they could do to stay alive.

  “We’ll need fresh water,” he said. “There’s little enough left in the jars. And a strong place to sleep where we can hide the longship behind some overhanging trees or up a creek. Behind a sandbar, perhaps. Four watches of three men each. We’ll need to stay alert. And keep the crew busy so they don’t brood.”

  Sintikala nodded, but Marcellinus had never seen her look so tired and broken.

  “Thank you for standing with us,” he said quietly.

  Her face was a mask. “I had no choice. Kimimela stood with you. Tahtay stood alone. And you and I, we swore a blood oath.”

  “You regret the oath?” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.

  Sintikala stared out over the waters as if she had not heard. “I have lost Cahokia. My father was war chief. Now his daughter is banished. And when Great Sun Man needed me, I was not there.”

  “You can hardly blame yourself for that.”

  She turned on him, eyes flaring. “Can I not? You do not remember what I told you? When my husband was killed, when he needed me most, I was not with him, I was not there. Today-now, once again I was in the wrong place. Not there. It is my life, to never be there. To fail. And then men die. Men die.”

  Marcellinus did not know what to say. Bitter memories of his own failures came flooding back.

  He reached out. He wanted to comfort her, somehow, or perhaps to comfort himself. But she stood like iron, and he let his hand fall back by his side.

  “We will keep an eye out for a creek, then,” he said. “For fresh water.”

  Once more Sintikala nodded, her expression forlorn, as their somber crew rowed the Concordia down the endless river.

  South they went, day after day.

  They passed Ocatan at speed early on the third day and kept going. The blue waters of the Oyo, still swollen by snowmelt, entwined with the greenish murk of the Mizipi to produce a broader river with water of a deep golden brown. Relatively straight as it passed the hills and forests north of the confluence, the Mizipi now twisted sinuously through an endless procession of broad curves and oxbows, arcs of water that almost looped back on themselves. Sailing was difficult on a river that could not stay remotely straight for even a few miles at a time, and they relied on the oars to keep them in the deepest part of the channel, where the current could carry them; left to its own devices, the Concordia would spin off into eddies and en
d up in the shallow waters on the outer edges of the curves. The crew also had to stay constantly alert for floating tree trunks, submerged snags, and the endless sandbars that would rise beneath them and threaten to ground them even when they were far from the bank. The Mizipi was not a tame river.

  They passed mound-builder towns, villages, hamlets. Most nights they stopped and made camp on the bank, sleeping either ashore or on the longship. After two weeks they judged themselves safely clear of Cahokian hegemony and cautiously began to make contact with the communities along the river. Occasionally they stayed as guests in the huts of a riverside homestead. Always they were welcomed; always those mound-builder communities already knew who Marcellinus was. Word had clearly spread far and wide.

  But even in his grief and cynicism, Tahtay had been right: the crew had little opportunity to teach the townspeople anything. Even the largest towns they visited were only a few hundred people strong, and it proved difficult to convince them overnight or even over a visit of a day or two of the compelling value of bricks. Gifts of Cahokian iron and Roman steel were greeted enthusiastically enough, but the townsfolk did not jump at the opportunity to learn how to smelt and forge such items themselves. Mostly their interest was in the Wanageeska, with his unusual skin tone and curly hair, his odd bearing, and his quirky way of speaking their language. He was a curiosity and a local celebrity, and they were pleased to meet him.

  What the villagers valued above all else were Marcellinus’s traveler’s tales: of the Iroqua lands, of making peace, of the Roman Imperium and the lands across the ocean from Nova Hesperia. Marcellinus had not anticipated that one of his most useful talents would be as a storyteller, but this happy discovery played nicely into his desire to warn people of the dangers of Roma and to build his Hesperian alliance piece by fragile piece.

  As for their own status, it was a tricky balancing act. In most villages they chose not to mention their banishment at all. By now they were traveling well ahead of the news that Great Sun Man was dead, and raising that issue would only have created complications. Fortunately, at this far remove from the Great City, none of the men and women they met knew Great Sun Man personally or asked after him. Sintikala merely declared herself the chief of Cahokia’s Hawk clan, and that was that.