Eagle in Exile

by Alan Smale

  As casually as if they had met by Cahokia Creek at the end of a quiet day, Akecheta said, “Let us through, Wahchintonka.”

  Wahchintonka barely spared him a glance.

  Tahtay stepped up. “Wahchintonka, if you believe in Cahokia, if you ever loved my father at all, open the gates.”

  Wahchintonka shook his head helplessly. The men around him stood firm.

  “This is the Cahokia you want? At war with itself?”

  A high, terrifying sound cut through the furor. Enopay had reappeared and was running along the top of the Great Mound toward the archers, screaming at the top of his voice and waving at them in broad hand-talk, “No! No! No!”

  As he drew close, the Wolf Warrior captaining the left-hand squad of archers stepped forward and kicked him, bowling him over. Enopay tumbled, slid on the grass, and went over the edge of the Great Mound. He rolled ten or twelve feet down the incline until he came to rest, curled up and clutching his stomach.

  Tahtay howled and burst forward, away from Sintikala and Akecheta, crashing into the front line of Wolf Warriors. They recoiled, lifting their axes away to avoid harming him; Tahtay was young and held no weapon.

  Their movement left a gap, and Sintikala lunged for it. One of Wahchintonka’s men swung his ax, aiming a lethal blow. Sintikala swung to defend herself. The hafts of their axes met, and Sintikala’s spun away into the air. Growling, she leaped forward and locked her hands around the warrior’s throat.

  Akecheta stepped up to shield Tahtay with his body as the rabble surged again with new vigor, the noise now deafening.

  On the ground, Sintikala and the Wolf Warrior wrestled for the upper hand. Marcellinus shoved again, desperate to reach her. In front of him, Wahchintonka raised his club.

  And at the same time shook his head and with his other hand gestured, Hit me.

  Marcellinus clasped his hands and jumped, bringing his joined fists down on the warrior. The blow was all for show, for he pulled it at the last moment and his wrists bounced off Wahchintonka’s shoulder. Wahchintonka made it look good: he spun in fake pain and dropped to the ground to the right of the palisade gate. He rolled and lay prone, his eyes darting to the left and right.

  Sintikala snapped the neck of the warrior beneath her and leaped up. The braves on either side of her lowered their weapons and backed away.

  “Step off, warriors!” Akecheta yelled against the din. “Let us through or die!”

  And they did. Faced with the prospect of offering lethal force against Akecheta, Tahtay, and Sintikala, with their captain down and making no attempt to rise, the Wolf Warriors stepped back.

  Tahtay pushed at the gate, Marcellinus at his side. The gates swung open. Hanska was to the left of Marcellinus and Akecheta to his right as the First Cahokian burst through.

  Once again Marcellinus found himself pounding up the grassy slope of the Great Mound followed by a body of warriors, but this time they were Cahokian and Ocatani.

  Above them, the archers loosed their shots. A wave of arrows flew by. Some barely skimmed the grass, and others flew over their heads. Were the warriors trying to get their range or deliberately aiming to miss? Marcellinus had no time to think about it. But when a Hawk craft soared over him, he ducked instinctively.

  A second Hawk followed it into the air and then a third, obviously flying up off the launch rail behind the mound.

  Akecheta and the other warriors of the First ran past Marcellinus now. Younger than he, angrier than he, they bellowed with rage.

  Panting, Marcellinus looked up. A Hawk craft whirled by, and one of the archers on the mound’s corner went over backward. With deadly accuracy, the Hawk pilot had hurled a rock with his sling.

  More Cahokians surged through the gates, some trying to run up the mound and others trying to stop them. The massive brawl was extending onto the sacred surface of the Great Mound. Far off to his left on the mound slope Enopay was sitting up, gasping, his head lowered. But Sintikala had vanished, nor could Marcellinus see Demothi or the other Hawk pilots.

  Now he heard the telltale ring of swords. The square below him might be mostly an unarmed brawl, but above the battle had turned deadly. Marcellinus’s gladius still hung from his belt. He had promised Sintikala he would try to avoid spilling Cahokian blood, and so far he had kept his vow, but now…

  Tahtay was above him and had acquired a sword. Still short of the mound top, he was engaged in a bitter duel with a warrior Marcellinus did not recognize, and this brave certainly was not pulling his blows. Akecheta and Hanska had engaged, too, and Mahkah and others were crashing into the fray. Marcellinus sucked air into his lungs and ran on.

  Another Hawk flew up and unfurled, and Marcellinus recognized Demothi from his stocky frame. Larger than the average Hawk pilot, he was easy to spot. Apparently the archers hoped he would be just as easy to hit, because as he looped quickly around and down, a wave of arrows from the right-hand squad shot past him. Demothi in turn released a single fast arrow into their midst and hooked sharply upward.

  Marcellinus had missed what had happened, but Akecheta and Tahtay now were running for the mound crest side by side. With a last desperate burst of speed Marcellinus drew his gladius and followed. As he achieved the crest of the mound, a warrior came barreling at him from his right. In the split second Marcellinus had to react, he recognized Ohanzee and raised his sword, but Ohanzee’s club came down hard in a glancing blow, striking just below his shoulder.

  Instantly, Marcellinus’s arm went dead. His gladius dropped out of his hand and bounced on the grass.

  Ducking to grab it would have been suicide. Instead Marcellinus leaned backward and away and drew his pugio with his left hand, but the Raven warrior’s chest slammed into him and knocked him over.

  Marcellinus rolled left, toward the edge of the mound, and Ohanzee’s club thudded into the clay next to him. Ohanzee dropped to pin him, his knee on Marcellinus’s good arm. Marcellinus kicked, and drove his knee into Ohanzee’s ribs. Spittle flew from the warrior’s mouth, but it was open only because Ohanzee was smiling. Snatching the pugio from Marcellinus’s hand, Ohanzee stabbed it down into his chest, and bellowed.

  The shout was one of pain, as Marcellinus was wearing his breastplate under his Cahokian tunic. Roman steel deflected Roman steel, and the pugio spun away.

  Ohanzee punched Marcellinus viciously in the face. His other hand was coming in for Marcellinus’s eyes. Marcellinus kicked again, but the warrior was impossible to dislodge. He thrashed as Ohanzee held his fist ready, waiting. The brave’s next blow surely would break Marcellinus’s nose and end the fight.

  Another weight landed on Marcellinus’s legs. Ohanzee’s head jerked back, pulled by the hand that had just grabbed his hair. A blade flashed and sank deep into Ohanzee’s neck. Marcellinus turned his head away to avoid the gush of blood and found himself looking up into Kimimela’s eyes.

  Her face contorted with fury, she pulled Ohanzee’s spasming body off Marcellinus and hacked at his scalp inexpertly, jamming the pugio into the warrior’s hairline again and again.

  Marcellinus shook his head to fling away Ohanzee’s blood. The fight still raged all around them, dozens of Cahokians slashing at one another, wounding, killing; Marcellinus could barely tell the two sides apart. He scooped up his gladius with his left hand and shoved himself awkwardly upright while at his feet his daughter took her unholy revenge on Ohanzee, who was still jerking in his death throes. “Kimi, stop! Stand up. Be ready…”

  In front of them the tide of fighting bodies parted, and there was Avenaka, dressed in his kilt and tunic, swinging his chert mace against Akecheta, centurion of the First Cahokian. Akecheta parried the blow with his shield and swung with his ax, which the war chief knocked aside with contempt. Then another Wolf Warrior, fresh from a kill of his own, swung a club at Akecheta’s legs, and he went down.

  The sky above Marcellinus blinked as a Catanwakuwa flew over him so low that it almost grazed his head. It slammed into Avenaka and smashed him ba
ck into the wall of the Longhouse of the Sun. The Hawk exploded in a mess of spars, skin, and sinew, and Sintikala skidded and rolled and banged into the wall, still attached to the wreckage.

  Avenaka shoved and spit, tangled up in the mess of the Hawk. Sintikala came upright, broken wood and wire hanging from her shoulders. She tried to pull an ax from its strap across her back, but it snagged in the remains of the wing.

  “Sintikala!” Marcellinus threw his gladius to her. She knocked it aside out of the air and then saw what it was and picked it up.

  Avenaka was on her now, his chert mace swinging. She parried, but the stone club’s greater weight knocked the gladius out of her hand, up and away.

  But the mace was not an agile weapon, and it was still swinging in its arc as Sintikala ducked under Avenaka’s arm, snatched the proffered ax from Akecheta’s hand, and slammed it viciously into the war chief’s chest.

  Marcellinus ran forward in case others of Avenaka’s men attacked her, but Tahtay was quicker, leaping in to slash his gladius across Avenaka’s throat.

  Tahtay swung again and a third time, and Avenaka’s head came away from his body, rolling grotesquely across the clay of the mound top.

  Already Wolf Warriors were backing away and tossing their weapons aside. Several dropped to their knees and held up their hands to protect their heads and show they were no longer armed.

  Not Matoshka, though. The elder warrior thundered forward, ululating, his studded club held high. Marcellinus turned to face the threat. Mahkah was quicker, running in from the side to drag his gladius across Matoshka’s gut. The warrior folded and fell.

  Mahkah raised his sword, but Tahtay held up his hand. “Let the traitor bleed.” Akecheta’s arm was up, too. Mahkah backed off. Matoshka tried to pull himself to his feet, his face a snarl, and then swayed and crashed down again, clutching his stomach.

  Sintikala ran to Kimimela and scooped her up to carry her away from Ohanzee’s corpse, away from the other warriors. More than anything, Marcellinus wanted to follow and make sure Kimimela was all right, but there was work to be done here.

  Mahkah helped Akecheta to his feet. Tahtay stood, gladius still held high, apparently dazed.

  “What are your orders, sir?” Marcellinus said, and then, because this really could not wait: “Tahtay! We must stop the fighting below.”

  “Yes,” said Tahtay, and looked toward Sintikala and Kimimela.

  “You must tell them,” Marcellinus said. “I cannot. Tahtay? It is not for me to give the orders. You must.”

  Tahtay blinked at him once, twice, and then reached down for Avenaka’s head. Raising it high by the hair, he strode forward. “Stop fighting! The battle is won! Avenaka is destroyed!”

  His words were almost lost in the noise, but from the mound’s base came the boom of Wahchintonka’s voice. “Everyone stand still! Avenaka is dead, and Tahtay is war chief of Cahokia!”

  Akecheta took Tahtay’s other hand and raised it. Behind them Mahkah and others were dragging Avenaka’s bloody corpse forward, holding it up, too, for the people to see.

  All across the plaza the riot was fizzling. Together, Wahchintonka’s warriors and the braves from Ocatan, those of the First Cahokian who were still down in the square, and others were fanning out among the crowd and pulling the remaining brawlers apart.

  Avenaka’s reign had ended.

  Not far away, Youtin and Kiche were flat on the ground, pinned by warriors of the First Cahokian. “Do not kill the shamans,” Marcellinus said to Tahtay. “It will only inflame the people again. We need calm in Cahokia now. Be magnanimous in victory.”

  “As long as everyone swears fealty to me?” Tahtay shook his head as if still unable to believe what was happening around him.

  Marcellinus frowned, uncertain whether the boy was joking. “No good leader demands fealty. He assumes it. Unite the warriors, and the people will follow.” He gestured at the plaza. “Look, they are already working together.”

  “I can see that. I am not an idiot.”

  Marcellinus nodded.

  Kanuna was by Matoshka’s side, trying to staunch the bleeding from his gut. The elder warrior glared and grimaced with pain, but all the fight had left him. Hurit, sword in hand, had appeared and run to Anapetu, her clan chief, and Dustu stepped up to stand by Tahtay. Sintikala was still holding Kimimela, talking to her. Marcellinus ached to run to them.

  Tahtay pulled himself together. “Hotah? Bring me my elders; bring me my clan chiefs. I must speak with them immediately. Akecheta? Put the Wolf Warriors to work taking away the dead and cleaning up. We must keep them busy, and blood must not stay on the soil of the Great Mound.”

  Akecheta nodded and turned away to give the orders. The First Cahokian began to escort Wolf Warriors off the top of the mound.

  Hanska and Hurit were entering the Longhouse of the Sun with blades drawn, Anapetu in their wake. Marcellinus hesitated, wondering if he should go with them.

  “Mahkah? When calm is restored, bring me Wahchintonka.” He glanced at Marcellinus. “Yes, yes, I saw what he did. I will spare him, too. He is too useful to kill.”

  Marcellinus looked out over the city. The plaza was emptying, corpses being carried off, the injured and stunned being helped away. Chumanee was surely busy.

  To his right were the Mound of the Sun and the Mound of the Smoke, and beyond them the giant red poles of the Circle of the Cedars. In front of him were the Mound of the Hawks and the Mound of the Chiefs. Dozens of smaller conical, platform, and ridge mounds dotted the landscape, and off in the distance was the brown ribbon of the eternal Mizipi. There were the steelworks and brickworks, and the Big Warm House, and the Mound of the Sky Lanterns. Late sunflowers still bloomed outside Cahokian huts.

  It was hard to believe he was back in Cahokia. He had never expected to be here again. It definitely felt like coming home.

  Behind him Hurit and Hanska reappeared at the door of the Longhouse of the Sun, dragging someone between them. By her clothing Marcellinus recognized Huyana, sister of Avenaka and past wife of Great Sun Man.

  Huyana’s nose was broken, her mouth full of blood, and she appeared too groggy to walk. Without ceremony, the warrior women dragged her to Tahtay.

  Tahtay looked down at her as dispassionately as Huyana once had looked down on the dying body of her husband. “Huyana.”

  She blinked at him, dripping blood.

  “See, here is your brother’s head on a spear. Dead, as I swore.” Tahtay squatted and looked into her eyes. “I should keep you alive for a very long time. Not for my sake but for my mother, who you would have killed if you had gotten to her before my friends did. But you are not worth the time. So we will kill you quickly and forget you, just as you would have killed and forgotten her. Huyana? Do you hear me?”

  Huyana’s lips moved. “I mourned when you fell in battle. I did all I could for you then. And the day Great Sun Man died, I urged Avenaka not to spill your blood.”

  “You supported Avenaka. Abandoned my father.”

  “Forgive me…”

  “Beg my father for forgiveness. You will have none from me.”

  He nodded to Hurit.

  Hurit slit Huyana’s throat with the pugio, leaning in with all her strength to make it swift and sure.

  Tahtay stood and turned away from her without another word. Hurit’s eyes followed him, hurt, but Anapetu beckoned, guiding Hurit and Hanska off the mound, leaving Huyana’s body lying in the grass.

  Marcellinus felt sick. Had it come to this? Would Tahtay slaughter all his enemies one by one?

  “Tahtay?” It was Kanuna, holding the wounded body of Matoshka upright on his knees. As Tahtay looked around, Matoshka ripped his necklace of bear claws aside, baring his breast in defiance. Tahtay walked slowly across the mound top toward him.

  Marcellinus followed. Matoshka was panting. The deep gash in his stomach still wept blood.

  “Ah, Matoshka, who supported Avenaka in killing my father.”

  Matoshka spit.
“Avenaka was strong, and your father was weak. You know this.”

  Tahtay drew his pugio. “I swore I would kill you.”

  Matoshka smiled. “Then do it. Better to die in battle than live with cowards and bow to a boy.”

  “This is not battle,” Tahtay said. “This is shame. And you, too, I should keep alive for a while longer, but you do not deserve that honor either. And nobody will eat your heart, for it is the heart of a coward and should be eaten by a dog.”

  “That is not true! I have the heart of a bear!”

  “No, you do not, and you have failed Cahokia.”

  He reached down and grabbed Matoshka’s hair, put his pugio to his throat, and then looked at Marcellinus.

  In Latin, Tahtay said, “Should I kill him, Gaius?”

  Marcellinus raised his eyebrows. “You are chief now. You decide.”

  “You once told me my first kill should not be a man in defeat on his knees. But it was. Should my second be also?”

  “Avenaka was your first kill?”

  “Yes. Is Matoshka still a danger to me?”

  Matoshka squinted up at them, uncomprehending, but his head was drooping. Pain was winning out over bravado.

  “Perhaps,” Marcellinus said.

  “If I spare him, will he think me weak like my father? Or can he help me be accepted by the Wolf Warriors and hard men in western Cahokia?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Tahtay looked exasperated. “Hotah, if you stood where I stand now, would you kill Matoshka?”

  “No,” Marcellinus said. “Enough have died already. And you are a bigger man than this.”

  “Huh,” said Tahtay, taken aback.

  Kanuna frowned. “Never mind. You have talked Matoshka to death…No, his heart still beats. He is just unconscious.”

  “Then perhaps when he awakens, it is worse to make him bow to a boy.” Tahtay let go of Matoshka’s hair, wiped his hand on his tunic, and walked away without looking back.

  Kanuna looked up at Marcellinus. “Was that mercy, weakness, or prudence?”