Eagle in Exile

by Alan Smale

  His lips rested against her hair, unmoving. He breathed her in, concentrating on the feel of her in his arms, her lean, muscular body now quiet and relaxed and gentle. Sometimes so dangerous and brutal but now in repose.

  “Gaius, Gaius,” she said.

  “What?”

  “With Wanageeska always there is change.” He felt her smile. It was what she had said on the night they had exchanged blood.

  “And with Sisika, apparently.”

  She looked up at him again, her lips just inches from his, her eyes even more serious and searching.

  Marcellinus leaned away. He had, after all, made her a promise: one thing and no more. She smiled again at that, and again his heart threatened to stop. “Sisika…”

  For a moment she seemed on the verge of saying something. Then she looked into his eyes and just nodded, and put her hand behind his head, and pulled him to her, and they kissed.

  At first they were tentative, as if it had been so long for either of them that they had forgotten what to do. He kissed her lips and then paused to look in her eyes again, and she kissed his lips and his cheek and said, “Wait.”

  Again he made as if to pull away, but she did not allow it. Now his lips were against her forehead, and her face was turned downward, eyes closed. She appeared to be in deep thought or even praying. He held her, still marveling that she was in his arms.

  Then she said, “All right.”

  He stroked her hair, her shoulder. “What is all right?”

  “I was saying good-bye.”

  Marcellinus understood, but she clarified anyway: “Saying good-bye to my husband, who died over ten winters ago.”

  She raised her head and looked into his eyes again, and her lips found his once more, and this time there was nothing tentative. She kissed him gently, then her lips parted, and with a shock that was almost like lightning their tongues met for the first time. Overwhelmed, Marcellinus pulled her in and kissed her fiercely: insistent, demanding.

  It seemed like an hour yet was just an instant before Sisika broke the kiss, breathing heavily. Her fingers were in his hair, her eyes wide. He stroked her cheek, her neck, her shoulders.

  She leaned back. “If we do not stop now, we never will.”

  His fingertips caressed her cheeks again. “Not stopping is fine with me.”

  “But you might be dead by next moon. Gaius, what?”

  He was laughing. The likelihood of his being dead within a month, a week, or a day had been a constant for as long as he had been in the land, indeed, for as long as he could remember. She smiled back, a little mystified, and swatted him on the shoulder. “Gaius, serious?”

  “All right. Sisika, I promise I will try to live as long as I can.”

  He tried to pull her in again but stopped when she resisted. “Gaius, I cannot…We must not do more, you and I. Not if you may soon be dead. You understand?”

  He thought about it and then nodded. “Let me hold you a little longer, though.”

  “For warmth, like warriors?” she said, faintly mocking.

  “Yes, of course, like warriors.”

  She sighed. “I did not want us to walk in there, into Roma, without you knowing…” She held his hand, and their fingers twined. “You understand? About this at least, I wanted to be honest.”

  “I think so. I hope so.” Marcellinus raised her hand and placed it over his heart and then said, “ ‘About this at least’?”

  She looked at him somberly. “Until recently, Gaius, always I was honest with you.”

  He squeezed her hand. “You mean about this? About us?”

  “No,” she said, and her fingers slipped out of his. “When you flew to the Haudenosaunee, you made sure that you did not know our plan, when our war parties would march, which route they would take. So that the Iroqua could not cut the information out of you.”

  Marcellinus nodded.

  “Soon we will go to the Romans, and we have made sure you do not know things. Tahtay and I and the elders, we all are agreed. If you are going to them, you must not know all that we know. And so in fact I am no longer honest with you.”

  “You have plans you are not telling me?”

  “Of course.”

  In an instant the mood had changed. Two legions stood between them now. “Always there will be something,” he said, trying to make light of it.

  “Roma is a big something.”

  “It’s all right,” he said. “In your shoes, I might keep secrets, too.”

  “In my shoes?”

  She glanced down at her moccasins, baffled now, and he laughed. “Yes, secrets in your shoes…Sisika, please. Smile for me again.”

  Sisika looked up into his eyes and smiled. Marcellinus squeezed her. “Perhaps I should not go to Ocatan again. Perhaps I should stay.”

  “You must go. And I must fly to look and make sure that the Romans are still held in camp by the spring mud.”

  “But I could look at you forever.”

  She mimed drawing a line. “All right. Kiss me one more time, and then I am going away, to sleep.” She poked him. “Yes, Gaius, I am going away. Be ready.”

  “I will be ready,” he said, and pulled her close again, and they lost themselves in each other for a little longer.

  Cogs engaged, and wheels began to turn. In the open air of the Ocatani South Plaza, eight woodturners and Hurit sweated in the springtime sun.

  Then Hurit muttered a snarky challenge to the woodturners, her eyes glinting. They really put their shoulders to the wheel, and the mechanism spun.

  The woodturners held a long handle connected to a large vertical wheel. Broad wooden cogs reinforced with thin steel plates linked this wheel to a second horizontal wheel, which was mounted on a pole anchored firmly in the soil of the plaza. This second wheel then drove a much smaller vertical third wheel, which spun so quickly that it was soon a blur.

  Marcellinus took a step back. The wooden structure the wheels were attached to was rocking alarmingly, and there seemed a good chance the third wheel would fly off into the air. He had a brief, dark, but rather satisfying vision of its steel-lined cogs slicing off someone’s head. Even ten feet away he could feel the breeze off the wheel.

  Well, that certainly would grind some corn.

  Marcellinus grinned. It was a waterwheel—no river would ever drive it this fast even in spate—but it was hard to fault Hurit’s enthusiasm.

  He glanced around, wishing Anapetu were there to see it, but his Raven clan chief was outside the walls of Ocatan, washing clothes in the blue Oyo with her sisters and grandchildren and enjoying the spring day. Anapetu had taken a leading role with the Sky Lanterns but was baffled by the waterwheel; it was clear she thought it was a waste of time and effort.

  “All right,” Hurit said, and the woodturners released the handle and stepped smartly back before it could spin around to hit them. Hurit peered at the cogs linking the second and third wheels as the machine ran down, looking for damage.

  Marcellinus wondered what else they might use it for. Perhaps the gears could be linked to bellows to help circulate air into the Big Warm Houses more easily and into the Sky Lanterns at launching. Perhaps—

  He shook his head. The gears were beautiful, but for the life of him he could think of few other practical uses for them.

  Suddenly there was a snapping, braying sound, and Marcellinus instinctively reached for Hurit, assuming that the mechanism was breaking.

  It wasn’t. The snapping became an arrhythmic drumming, and from the ramparts of the Temple Mound behind them came the clash of rocks on copper sheets.

  The braying from the south sounded for all the world like a Roman trumpet. Marcellinus had not seen or heard one since his days with the 33rd, even at the Market of the Mud, had not known that any had survived the battle.

  He did know that the combination of sounds was quite unpleasant.

  The wheels spun slowly to a halt. Even in his distraction, Marcellinus noted how frictionless the bearings wer
e, how well the lubrication of the sunflower oil kept the wheels going.

  All across the plaza the Ocatani had stopped dead in their tracks and turned toward the Temple Mound. Now they broke and ran in different directions. Parents grabbed their children. Warriors darted into their huts to emerge clutching either spears and axes or pila and Roman shields, or donning the wooden matting armor of the Mizipians. Men raced for the town walls.

  Marcellinus looked around him, astonished at the sudden change in the atmosphere and the speed of the Ocatani response.

  Then that absurd braying sounded again, and with a jarring shock Marcellinus finally recognized it as a Roman cornicen calling troops to arms. Over the Ocatani alarm drums he now heard a steady, deep drumbeat.

  Iniwa, war chief of Ocatan, and a squad of thirty elite warriors burst out of the Longhouse of the Temple Mound and ran full tilt down its slopes.

  Slowly, slowly, the gates of Ocatan began to swing closed.

  But Anapetu and her family were still outside the walls, down by the Oyo, along with hundreds of other Ocatani.

  Marcellinus turned in sudden fear and realization. “Hurit—”

  She was already grabbing his arm. “Come. Swords.”

  —

  They ran up the wooden steps on the inside of the palisade to one of the firing platforms. Ocatani braves with bows and arrows stood aside, allowing Marcellinus to see past them.

  As he took his first look, there was an astonishingly loud blast of Roman trumpets, almost as if they were saluting him.

  This was his fourth visit to Ocatan, and by now he was familiar with the terrain. To his right was the Mizipi, to his left the broad sweep of the Oyo as it curved in from the northeast to converge with the Mizipi and form a single river heading south. Both rivers were still swollen from the spring thaw.

  Speeding up the Mizipi against the current came seven Roman quinqueremes, giant triple-decked warships, in a V formation. Each flew the same legionary standard, a golden thunderbolt against a red background.

  The quinqueremes were immense. The Concordia was close to a hundred feet long. The lead quinquereme was almost twice that length and much broader. Its top deck was a good fifteen feet above the waterline, and fore and aft it carried a fighting tower an extra twenty feet taller, painted to look like stone. Even more intimidating was the vessel’s huge curved prow that concealed its steel-tipped ram, an armored beak twelve feet long.

  A solid bulwark surrounded the deck. That bulwark and the upper deck levels were painted a bright red, changing to a dark green at the third rank of oars near the waterline. As the warship neared, Marcellinus saw the traditional large eye painted on its bow to ward off bad luck. Today the bad luck lay solely with the Ocatani.

  The Roman warships came astonishingly fast, propelled by hundreds of oarsmen in three enclosed tiers. Their decks were crammed with legionaries in red-plumed helmets, red and white tunics, and steel armor. Around the centuries ran sailors in gray tunics and blue cloaks and caps, responding to the shouted commands of their captains.

  Marcellinus reeled, still not quite believing his eyes.

  Then his practiced eye made out the white plume of a Praetor standing in the high stern of the leading vessel, and it became all too real.

  Roma was attacking. The two legions in the east might still be trapped by the spring mud, but Ocatan was under assault from the Legio VI Ferrata from the south.

  And with Hesperian help, for behind the Roman galleys came a fleet of native war canoes, paddling hard. They were Mizipian craft, as if Cahokia itself were attacking its own satellite city, but of course that was not so.

  “Bastard. Verpa. I should have killed him.”

  Hurit shook her head impatiently. “What, who?”

  “Son of the Sun. The Shappa Ta’atani have allied with the Romans just as he threatened.”

  Hurit spit over the ramparts. “Then we will make sure he dies slowly.”

  “Seven quinqueremes,” he said. “Three hundred oarsmen and two hundred marines on each. All legionaries ready to fight. And perhaps five hundred warriors of Shappa Ta’atan.”

  Hurit shook her head.

  Even in the terror of the moment, Enopay would have blurted out the answer. Marcellinus swallowed his impatience. “Three and a half thousand Roman troops in all, plus Son of the Sun’s men. As many soldiers as there are people in Ocatan.”

  Marcellinus looked back. The First Ocatani was forming up into three straight ranks in the plaza, with shields, pila, and gladii. Perhaps five hundred warriors, they looked pitifully small compared with the forces of Roma storming down on them outside.

  A Sky Lantern rose into the air beside the Ocatani Big Warm House, crewed by eight braves armed with bows and arrows. It wobbled and dipped, but two warriors lobbed pots of liquid flame into the jar at the same time, and the Lantern lurched upward. As it did so, the first Ocatani Catanwakuwa flew into the air from the rail behind the Temple Mound. A ball of wood and skin, it spread its wings and locked open, banking away from the Sky Lantern. A second Hawk followed it and then a third.

  That was all very well, but one Lantern and a few Hawks were not going to deter the Sixth Ironclads.

  With the Mizipi in flood, its waters stopped barely two hundred feet from the Ocatani palisade. And the galleys were only a thousand yards distant. Soon, the Romans would be within bow range.

  The Ocatani guards had half closed the gates, and there they stopped. The nearer, faster townsfolk were already running into the town, but there were still far too many people outside.

  The swift appearance of the Roman warships had caught the people outside the walls by surprise. They had been spread up and down both riverbanks, enjoying the spring day. Some were swimming with their children or out in canoes. Others had been washing clothes farther up the Oyo, where the river water was clearer, not yet merged with the sediment-laden waters of the Mizipi. Many ran back toward the palisade now; others walked more slowly, weighed down by their infants or possessions or helping their elderly relatives and friends. Some milled around in terror or merely stood and gaped foolishly, as if the warships were objects too unbelievable to be feared.

  “Anapetu, Anapetu, Anapetu.” Hurit stamped her foot, as if trying to conjure their clan chief into view.

  “There.” Marcellinus pointed.

  She ran down the bank of the Oyo like the wind, almost flying, her big raven-feather cloak billowing out behind her. On either side ran her sisters Dowanhowee and Leotie and her daughter Nashota, their heads down and panting. In front of them were Anapetu’s grandchildren, four in all.

  Then they split up. Dowanhowee, Nashota, and the children ran back toward the gates. Anapetu and Leotie headed not toward the walls of Ocatan but out to the riverbank to help the others, carry infants, and support the elderly.

  “Futete!” Hurit swore, and ran.

  “Hurit!”

  She dashed down the stairs ahead of him. Marcellinus hurried after her, but Hurit had jumped to the ground and sped to Ocatan’s gate before he even made it to the foot of the uneven stairs. He followed her between the tall gates and out of the palisade.

  They were not alone. Even as the ordinary folk ran in, Ocatani warriors spilled out of the gates, leaving the safety of their town walls to defend their people. Only a handful of braves even wore the reed or wooden mats that the Hesperians used as armor. None carried a scutum. Once the Romans landed, the carnage would be immense.

  Marcellinus had sworn he would never lead a Hesperian army against Romans. But this? Stand by and do nothing while innocents faced a massive Roman surprise attack?

  Marcellinus had once been a soldier of Roma. Now he was a member of the Raven clan of Cahokia, and his chief and his friends were trying to save helpless people from fully armed and armored Romans.

  Oaths or no oaths, Marcellinus could not simply stand idle and watch the Ocatani be slaughtered in droves.

  Marcellinus wore no armor and no helmet and carried only a gladius. He had a
pugio in his belt but chose to keep his left hand free rather than draw it.

  The leading quinquereme was now a scant four hundred feet from the bank. Marcellinus could hear the barked orders in Latin even over the beat of the drums and the piping of the martial flutes that gave the time to the three ranks of oarsmen.

  The first flight of arrows came then. One of the galleys had turned broadside to the shore and was holding position. An arrow whizzed over Marcellinus’s head. Around him Ocatani screamed and fell; the Romans were picking their targets with care.

  Running like a rabble for the gates was not the answer. The Ocatani had to retreat in an orderly fashion from the Romans as a shielded group or they were all dead.

  “Come together!” Marcellinus bellowed in Cahokian. “All of you, come here to me, group up! If you panic and run alone, you die! Warriors, form a line! Women, children, you others: get behind them!”

  He ducked back inside the gate. “First Ocatani! Come out now, on the double! First Ocatani!”

  Anapetu began shouting, too, shooing the children and the elderly and the other women toward Marcellinus. The warriors jogged around him and formed a stout line, the younger, fitter men and women joining them in defense.

  Anapetu came to his side. His Raven chief was narrow-eyed, breathing heavily but alert, not panicking, thinking clearly. Good. “Get them in,” Marcellinus said. “Through the gates and behind the walls. Hurry.”

  “Can you stop them, Gaius Wanageeska?”

  “The Romans? No.”

  “Talk to them, hold them, give us time?”

  Aside from Marcellinus’s short hair and lack of tattoos, little differentiated him from the mass of Hesperians behind him. “They won’t stop to talk. They’d cut me down and walk over my corpse.”

  Another shouted Roman command from just offshore, another flight of arrows.

  One of the first arrows caught Anapetu in the right shoulder, shot with such force that its sharp steel point passed through her to reappear close to her armpit. Anapetu glanced down at it with a mixture of surprise and irritation before the pain hit her. Her eyes widened, and she stumbled. Hurit seized her and shoved her upright, pulling her back.