by Alan Smale
“Aha.” The Imperator smiled.
A trumpet sounded, and the ten cohorts of the Third Parthica all came to attention in a single precise movement.
The pain in Marcellinus’s head momentarily blurred his vision. He pushed water out of his eyes with his thumbs, and when he looked again, the First Cahokian had emerged in the exact center of the Cahokian line, six hundred warriors coming forward in close order, pila held up in front of them like a forest of steel. At their left edge Akecheta marched with gladius drawn and chin high.
It looked very much as if Marcellinus’s own Cahokian Cohort would be the first into action against the cohorts of the Third Parthica, one of the oldest and most experienced legions in the Imperium.
Agrippa glanced back over his shoulder. “Nice job, Gaius Marcellinus. Don’t you wish you were over there with them right now?”
Marcellinus did not respond. He was too busy trying not to fold and retch with the pain in his head. But as the Cahokian Army of Ten Thousand continued to walk forward, his eyes were drawn to two patches of color close together in the line to the north of the First Cahokian. The first was a figure only two-thirds of the size of the soldiers around him, dressed in a pale color approaching white. And from right next to this figure came a sudden flash of red.
Enopay was walking in the front line of the Cahokian army, and by his side Tahtay, war chief of Cahokia, had pulled aside his cloak to reveal the vivid red sash of the Fire Hearts.
Marcellinus forced himself to breathe. The slim figure walking on Tahtay’s other side had to be Kimimela, a bow in her hand. “Shit. Shit.”
The Sky Lanterns were continuing to rise and were now several hundred feet up, safely out of range of either archers or siege engines. Sintikala had lost height and disappeared behind the trees. Now she appeared again above the Cahokian line. Tossed into the air by a throwing engine, she was next to invisible until her wing unfurled. Again the Hawk chief began her sweeps back and forth, occasionally darting forward to look down at the formations of the Third Parthica.
The Army of Ten Thousand had covered about a third of the distance separating it from the Third Parthica. Now, as if the reappearance of Sintikala had been a sign, the massive army stopped. The First Cahokian marched on fifty yards ahead of the others and halted, too, grounding the butts of their pila in the grass.
Enopay and Kimimela stayed in the Cahokian line, but Tahtay kept coming, walking clear of his forces.
Around Marcellinus the fortress of the XXVII Augusta exploded into action. With a loud bang the gates were thrown wide. A column of heavy auxiliary cavalry galloped from the Westgate. A second column of light cavalry appeared from behind the fortress, obviously having exited from the Eastgate and formed a block fifteen horses wide and fifty deep. This second and much larger group swept on behind the fortress of the Third Parthica and came to a smooth halt to the left of the infantry.
From the Southgate the soldiers of the 27th emerged on the double, century by century, spreading out over the slopes.
Undaunted, not even breaking stride, Tahtay continued his lone walk toward the military might of Roma.
“Gods’ sakes…” Marcellinus stepped forward.
The Imperator Hadrianus III smiled. “Something to say, Praetor?”
Behind the Cahokians, men spilled from the trees. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of warriors in groups of six broke cover and jogged toward the rear of the Cahokian army.
“Iroqua,” Marcellinus said.
“Really?” Now Hadrianus was frowning.
A lump came to Marcellinus’s throat. The Iroqua were joining the Cahokians, thickening the line, standing side by side and shoulder to shoulder with Tahtay’s warriors from the Great City. Their numbers swelled the size of the Hesperian army across the valley by almost a half again.
“You said there wouldn’t be any more in the trees,” Hadrianus said sardonically. “Wrong again, Gaius Marcellinus. It’s as if you’re doing it deliberately.”
“Good, good,” Agrippa said. “We can put paid to all of them at once. We can finish this today.”
Now it truly was an Army of Ten Thousand. Numerically, at least, the Romans and Hesperians were close to equally matched.
Marcellinus coughed, trying to clear the lump in his throat, and his head stabbed with pain again. “Mostly Iroqua. By the headdresses, the style of the tunics, and the breeches I’d guess Caiuga and Onondaga, with some Tuscarora from the east. Plus a few hundred of the Blackfoot tribe of the plains. The Haudenosaunee and the People of the Grass have joined the Cahokians against you, Caesar. You’re facing—” He stopped, blinked, nodded as the realization sunk home, and spoke more boldly. “Imperator Hadrianus, you face a mighty alliance. A confederation of Hesperian nations stands against you.”
“ ‘Against you’?” Hadrianus said. “Your words betray your sympathies.”
Marcellinus lifted his shackled arms. “I am not a combatant.”
“You’d like to march out with us? Kill a few Cahokians at last?” Agrippa taunted.
“No, what I’d like is for you not to slay the war chief of Cahokia, who is walking alone across the field of war to parley with you.”
“Is that what he’s doing? I thought perhaps he was committing suicide.”
Marcellinus surged forward dangerously, and his guards grabbed his arms. “Lucius Agrippa, I’d like to see you have the balls to walk alone across a valley toward an enemy army.”
His eyes bleak, Agrippa let his hand drop to the hilt of his gladius.
Hadrianus raised his hand. “Marcellinus, Agrippa: do shut up.”
“Caesar, I will not be silent until you agree to hear what Tahtay has to say.” Marcellinus steeled himself. “If you’re going to let him die unheard, you’ll have to kill me, too.”
“That should not pose a problem,” Agrippa said.
In the skies above the Cahokian line, Sintikala continued to swoop back and forth. Marcellinus could almost feel her agitation as she looked down on the lone figure of Tahtay. The war chief had reached the lowest point of the gently sloping valley and was strolling up the other side, directly toward Praetor Decinius Sabinus and the massed cohorts of the Third Parthica.
“I made a vow.” As Marcellinus said the words, the pain in his head dwindled. Now his voice came more strongly. He looked again at Sintikala in the sky and Tahtay walking through the grass. He raised his shackled hands. “Along the Wemissori River, I swore that I’d do everything in my power to keep that boy alive. Other Hesperians were the threat then, not Romans. But I brought Tahtay to this, and an oath is an oath. Free me and let me stand with him as he dies. Or come with me and find out what he has to say. Or strike me down, and Hades take you all.”
Agrippa laughed derisively. Hadrianus stared at Marcellinus as if he were a new type of creature never beheld before.
“Caesar, let me go,” Marcellinus said. “If you will not attempt to make peace with these people, I’m of no use to you anyway. I will not lift a gladius against Roma. But if I’m to die, let me die out there with Tahtay.”
Hadrianus raised his hand. “Hush.”
Somewhere in the far distance, a wolf was howling.
Tahtay heard it, too. His head came up, and he halted a hundred yards in front of the First Cohort of the Third Parthica. He looked right and left as if he expected the beast to appear, although it was obviously many miles distant.
Tahtay nodded, raised one hand high above his head in salute, and then lowered it.
“That was peculiar,” the Imperator said. “Explain.”
“I don’t believe I can,” Marcellinus said.
Agrippa’s irritation was growing. “Should I kill him now, Caesar? Or should we march him onto the battlefield and cut him down in front of his redskin friends?”
Marcellinus grinned without humor. He had been here before, faced by a Hesperian army, with a senior officer of Roma close by threatening to kill him. Both armies fully deployed and waiting for orders.
&nb
sp; But today Marcellinus was a captive rather than a general, with no tribunes, no officers, no soldiers. His closest friends were on the other side of the battlefield, preparing to charge to their deaths.
Perhaps he had lived long enough.
“Talk to Tahtay,” Marcellinus said. “Just once more, Caesar, I beg of you.”
Hadrianus looked around. The trumpeters stood awaiting his command. The Third and the 27th were fully deployed. The First Cahokian stood, a solid block of steel in front of a mile-wide array of Hesperians.
Tahtay pulled a small stake out of his belt and began to unravel his red sash. It was longer than Marcellinus would have guessed, perhaps ten feet in length. One end was securely anchored to his waist. Tahtay took the stake and drove it into the ground through the other end of the sash.
Then he lowered himself and sat cross-legged a hundred yards from the Third Parthica. From the front of his legion Decinius Sabinus turned and looked up toward Marcellinus and the Imperator, nonplussed.
“Tahtay has pinned his sash,” Marcellinus said, his heart heavy.
“Meaning?”
“In addition to being the paramount chief of Cahokia, Tahtay is a member of the Fire Hearts, a Blackfoot warrior society. He will stand and fight where he is. He will not retreat from that position.”
“Well, that will make him easier to kill,” Agrippa said.
Marcellinus ignored him. To Hadrianus he said: “Tahtay is giving you one last chance. A chance for peace. A chance to go and talk to him. If you don’t take it and Tahtay dies there, his warriors will fight to the last man.” He looked out at where Kimimela stood in the front line and up in the air at Sintikala. Hanska would be somewhere out there, too, bouncing on the balls of her feet, ready to cleave Roman scalps with her ax.
Not Hurit, though. Marcellinus swallowed. “To the last man and woman, the last Cahokian or Iroqua or Blackfoot. Caesar, do not mistake Tahtay for a barbarian. He is not. He is an honorable man.”
With a metallic ring, Agrippa unsheathed his gladius. “I believe we have heard enough, Gaius Marcellinus.”
Marcellinus stepped forward to face him, hands up before him, unblinking.
Agrippa raised the sword. “On your knees, traitor.”
Marcellinus stood where he was. “Before you, verpa? Never again.”
Agrippa nodded, held the gladius high, and looked at his Imperator.
In the skies, Sintikala’s Catanwakuwa jerked in the air and slewed left. On the ground before them, Tahtay suddenly had risen to his feet.
Marcellinus hoped with all his heart that Kimimela, at least, was still too far distant to see this.
He braced himself, his chained fists raised in defense. “Imperator Hadrianus,” he said. “Caesar, by all the gods: please talk to Tahtay, but above all else, please tell me I do not have to fight this moron yet again in order to make my point to you.”
Hadrianus stared, flabbergasted. The guards and Lucius Agrippa all looked to him for orders. Marcellinus kept his eyes fixed on Agrippa, ready to throw himself forward as soon as the Praetor moved against him.
Marcellinus had been prepared to die quietly on many other days in Nova Hesperia, but not today. Not today.
“Oh, Great Jove above.” Hadrianus shook his head. “Send the signal to hold the legions. Agrippa, lower your sword and order my horse to be brought to the gate. Gaius Marcellinus, your Cahokians have one last chance to come to their senses before we annihilate them. One.”
The Imperator rode a fine high-stepping chestnut Nisaean with its forelock braided into a poll knot and its harness decorated with silver disks. On either side of the horse walked the Praetors Decinius Sabinus and Flavius Agrippa in full-dress uniform and armor. Marcellinus, still wearing the tunic he had slept in, walked to Agrippa’s left and a little behind him, escorted and guarded by a common foot soldier of the Fourth Cohort, 27th Augustan.
In front of them stood Tahtay, alone. He had eschewed the regalia of a war chief of Cahokia; he wore a fine buckskin and the red sash of the Fire Hearts that anchored him, but wide copper armbands and ankle bands were the only other indications of his rank. It was a good choice. The Romans would have found the full kilt, cloak, headdress, and mace of a Cahokian paramount chief barbaric rather than magnificent.
The two unequal parties met on the hill in the middle of what soon might become a bloody battlefield.
Tahtay frowned up at the Imperator. “You have brought several men with you. I would bring up three chiefs of Cahokia to stand behind me and hear our words. It is permitted?”
“Certainly,” Hadrianus said. “If they are unarmed and keep their distance.”
Tahtay nodded. “One of them is…” He pointed upward. “She will come down now. Do not fear her.”
Agrippa snorted.
Tahtay tilted his head back and made hand-talk with large gestures: Land in peace. Then he turned, pointed to the Cahokian line, and signaled some more.
The Romans stiffened. Tahtay had turned his back on the Imperator. “He means no offense,” Marcellinus said quickly.
Tahtay faced them again. “Offense?”
“We allow it,” Hadrianus said even as Agrippa shook his head and grimaced.
Tahtay looked at Marcellinus, who said, “Never mind, Tahtay. Carry on.”
Two men and a girl detached themselves from the Cahokian line. The girl was Kimimela, and one man had to be Kanuna, but Marcellinus could not immediately identify the other. It was not Wahchintonka.
Then the man put his hand to his belly, and Marcellinus knew him. Marcellinus blinked and squinted, but the elder’s rolling walk was very distinctive, that and the way he still held his hand protectively over his stomach, as if he expected the wound he had suffered after the toppling of Avenaka to open up again at any moment.
“Yes?” Hadrianus said. “Speak.”
“The man on the left is Kanuna, whom you met before, walking with the translator, Kimimela. On the right is Matoshka, another elder of Cahokia, much more experienced in war.”
He deliberately had spoken loudly enough for Tahtay to hear and used words the war chief would understand.
“Yes, of course,” Tahtay said. “If it happens that Cahokia must march its army away, it must be Matoshka who takes the word back to Wahchintonka and his Wolf Warriors. Otherwise, why else would they agree to spare you, having come so far?” He looked up at Hadrianus and spoke almost apologetically. “Lately they have been robbed of many wars, and thirst for battle. They know they can take many Roman scalps. I am sure you have men among your army that wish to fight today, too, who you must also…” He glanced at Marcellinus and gestured.
“Appease,” Marcellinus said. “Placate.”
Hadrianus nodded. “Certainly.”
By his side Agrippa smiled tautly, and Tahtay picked up on the movement and gave him an ironic half bow.
Sintikala had looped around to the west. Now a white ribbon unfurled behind her wing, and she came in fast and low behind Tahtay. Hadrianus’s horse raised its head and blew air out of its nostrils with a harrumph. Sintikala landed running and unbuckled her wing.
The two groups faced each other. On one side was the Imperator Hadrianus, flanked by Sabinus and Agrippa, with Marcellinus beside them; on the other, Tahtay, Sintikala, Kimimela, Kanuna, and Matoshka. They sized one another up for a long moment. Kimimela glanced at the shackles on Marcellinus’s wrists, her face bleak. None of the other Cahokians spared him a second glance. The wind blew cool over the meadow.
Tahtay nodded and spoke. “Caesar. Before, in your castra, we spoke with you at your pleasure, at your time. You did not treat us with respect. We were not happy.”
He fixed the Imperator with a sharp stare, and Marcellinus cringed a little. Even with Tahtay’s speaking skills, this was veering dangerously close to pantomime.
Then again, Marcellinus knew Tahtay well. The Imperator and the two Praetors did not, and they appeared to be taking him completely seriously.
“Perhaps you
look at me and see a boy. But look behind me, Caesar. There stand the finest warriors of Cahokia, the greatest city on the Mizipi and in all the land. I have the best warriors from the plains, the Fire Hearts of the Blackfoot. I have the best warriors of the Haudenosaunee, the Five Tribes from the Great Lakes. And these men all came for me and against you. You will not defeat us, Imperator Hadrianus. You cannot.”
“And yet here you are, talking to me.”
“Yes. Because I do not want to see thousands of your men and mine slain for no good reason, when you can just say a few words and make a treaty for peace and all will be well.
“You are a man of pride, Imperator Hadrianus. You are proud, and so you should be. Your army is fine and strong, and their armor shines. But perhaps you can also be proud of not fighting. Perhaps you can be proud of winning without needing to fight.”
And in that moment, and whatever happened next, Marcellinus knew that Tahtay was truly a worthy heir to Great Sun Man.
Hadrianus raised an eyebrow. “You are prideful, too, Tahtay of Cahokia. And you can say just two words and we will not fight. The words are ‘We surrender.’ Order your savages to lay down their weapons on the grass and disperse, and give us Cahokia.”
Tahtay shook his head. “I think not. I choose to negotiate from strength rather than weakness. Here are Cahokia’s terms. Take them or leave them.”
This was not how one spoke to an Imperator. Marcellinus could almost see the thoughts buzzing in Hadrianus’s brain. “Tahtay…”
Tahtay turned his acid gaze on Marcellinus and said, “You will not speak unless commanded.”
Marcellinus bowed.
To the Imperator, Tahtay said, “Take my terms or leave them, Caesar. They are not bad terms, for we are a fair people. Please, I ask you to listen.”
Hadrianus looked at Marcellinus. “And you say you did not coach him?”
