by Maya, Tara
Through the shimmering mesh of the shield, he could see the enemy had cleared and camped in a field on the slope below the tribehold. The Orange Canyon had several hundred warriors on foot, who wore feathers braided into their hair and pinned on their winter fleece. The biggest men were crowned with rams’ horns. Towering behind the warrior groups were fourteen Raptors with Riders in tight ocher leather and feather headdresses. At any given hour, two Raptors were on the wing. They circled around the tribehold, like vultures that waited on a dying elk.
“Fa!” Tamio muttered out loud. “I wish they'd get it over with.”
Next to Tamio, Hadi shifted. “I expect once they get here, we'll wish they'd waited longer.”
“I don't think anything could be worse than this.”
“Tamio,” said Hadi.
“Yes?”
“I'm sure she didn't mean it.”
“What?” Tamio looked up at Hadi, surprised by the change of topic. “Who?”
“My clan sister. Dindi. I know her… She must have had a reason. A female-type reason, at least. I mean, who knows why they do anything, but I'm sure in her warped feminine mind there was some girl-reason for breaking the engagement.”
Tamio scowled. “I'd rather not talk about it.”
“No, but look…what I thought about you…what I said about you, before…I was wrong. I guess I thought I knew what kind of person you were, but since then, I’ve realized you're not that kind of person at all. You're all right.”
“Thanks.” Tamio made a face.
“I think you would make a fine husband for Dindi. And I think she'll realize it in time. Fa, the battle has her worried. But only because she loves you and doesn't want you to get killed. After this is all over, she'll regret her foolishness and come around.”
Tamio touched his cheek where Dindi had slapped him. Probably it was the first time in her life she had ever hit anyone outside battle. He could remember how it had felt when he thought he loved her: a wonderful, ebullient, irrational feeling. But it had all been an illusion, and even if he wanted to, he couldn't make himself feel that way about her again.
Still, he now wished that his last words to her hadn’t been so harsh. He might die in the next few days, maybe even the next few hours. He didn't want Dindi to think he’d gone to his jar hating her.
The ram horns sounded.
War Chief Nann stood upon a boulder carved into a wolf. Her headdress made her look like one of the wildlings as it shifted from human to beast; she wore the full pelt of a snow fox, dyed forest green. Her bow hung on her back, and her antler-crowned staff rested in her hand. She had a dozen antler daggers strapped to her legs and arms. The wind whipped her grey-and-brown hair out like a flag.
“The Vyfae fan us with a northern gale,” announced War Chief Nann. “Their humans released a flame in the woods, the Vyfae have fed it with their winds, and now the conflagration rages on all sides of our tribehold. They mean to starve us out by destroying our tribelands. Will we suffer this desecration or will we bite back? Will we let them terrorize us from above or will we shoot their filthy carcasses from the clouds and stomp their bones into the ash?”
The warriors roared.
“Prepare the Giant’s Bow!” she ordered.
Green Woods warriors climbed into the trees. Between the trunks of the conifers, they fixed a colossal cord of sinew, slinky as a desert snake, between two trees. It had a kind of leather saddle in the middle, into which they placed a lance that had been fletched like a giant arrow. They drew the saddled arrow backwards along a halved-log, notched down the middle. To draw this monster arrow taunt took more strength than mere men possessed, so the burden was taken up by a team of horses. This was Tamio’s task. He had fastened the harnesses and he walked Clipclop and her equine sisters forward until the sinew cord perfected its parabola.
“Hold still as stone!” commanded War Chief Nann. “The shield is contracting! Let it pass over you! Do not move, or it will destroy you! Stand still and it will pass without harm!”
Hadi’s eyes bugged. “I hate magic craziness like this! Can you see it, Tamio? I don’t want to get sliced up like a rabbit by my own side!”
Tamio could only see a faint, inconstant flicker where he knew the shield to be, but he said, reassuringly, “I can see it, Hadi. Don’t worry, just stand very still, and I’ll tell you when it’s safe.”
Hadi bobbed his head.
“Don’t move your head!” snapped Tamio.
Hadi froze.
Tamio felt an electric tickle. It was like when you rubbed a fur fast and it sparked your finger. It hurt, but only for an infinitesimal flicker, then it was over.
Nann waved the all-clear flag.
“We’re good,” Tamio told Hadi.
“Oh, thank Mercy!” Hadi sagged. “Now if I could just go back to bed, this could be a good day after all.”
Tamio laughed. “I won’t sleep happy until I’ve added a few notches to my kill stick. And how about you, Hadi? You missed out in the last war. This is your chance.”
“Wonderful,” said Hadi glumly.
Another staff with a signal flag went down on the wall. Archers climbed onto the wall and readied their bows. Another contingent of warriors moved into position in the tunnel under the wall. These would lead the sortie down onto the slope. Hadi went with them. Tamio had to stay behind. They clasped shoulders briefly, then Hadi jogged out of sight beneath the roots of the big trees.
The ram’s horn sounded.
Hadi
The next thing he knew, Hadi was howling and loping like a wolf across the snow-laden field. When he felt he was close enough to the oncoming rush of enemy warriors, he threw his spear. It landed ignominiously in the snow, a good ten feet in front of the enemy line. Most of the other clansmen on Hadi’s side launched their spears around the same time that he did, with a similar lack of deadly effect.
None of the Orange Canyon warriors had loosed their spears yet.
Oh, muck, thought Hadi. We’re all going to die.
Maybe he hadn’t really believed it before. From time to time, the clans of the Corn Hills fought, either with each other or with other nearby clans. Usually, the dispute involved some silly fight between headstrong, beardless boys defending their sisters’ honor against some supposed slight from equally headstrong and equally beardless boys from a neighboring clan. Shouts would be shouted, threats would be threatened and spears would fly. If the spears landed well short of their intended victims, that was all for the best, because it would be awkward to explain to some boy’s auntie why one had skewered her nephew’s leg come next market day. Besides, in all likelihood, he had been one’s clan brother only a year or two before, or else possibly his sister was one’s betrothed.
The Orange Canyon warriors were only twenty-five feet away when they threw their spears.
Half the Green Woodsmen side fell to the ground in the first volley.
Hadi slammed to the ground too, though he hadn’t been hit. Muck, muck, muck, he thought. He pulled his dirk from his belt. He should have done that before.
He lay still, until the wave of Orange Canyon warriors was right over him. Then he jumped up, thrusting his stone dirk into the belly of an enemy. Entrails spilled out warm and slick onto his hand. The body collapsed and Hadi rolled out from under it as he jerked his hand away, sickened. Then he realized he needed his dirk back. Cringing, he reached down to the dying man, and pulled the dirk out of his stomach. The enemy warrior met his eyes with an expression of confused pain.
“Stop looking at me!” Hadi shouted, irrationally.
The man stopped. He died. Hadi could tell. Something flickered out inside him. A body was still there, but the man was gone.
Hadi crouched there, frozen, until someone bumped him from behind. Whirling in response, he nearly cut open one of his own brother-in-law, Yodigo. Breathing heavily, Hadi moved instead to attack the man that Yodigo fought. The two of them together made short work of the second man, and they took
the time to share a congratulatory grin.
Shadow covered them both.
Huge talons razed Yodigo. His body jerked, he screamed in pain. Red slices appeared like welts over his body. Yodigo hopped around, yowling hysterically.
“Hadi! Hadi! Help me!”
The Raptor swept back over from the other side, dragging its talons across Yodigo like a scythe over grass. A big, red slash crisscrossed Yodigo’s throat and his head tumbled free of his body.
Oh, mercy, despaired Hadi. The bird killed him. The bird killed him and the bird warrior is still here, maybe closing in on me. How can we fight something that flies?
Tamio
Tamio could not see the first wave fall, but he heard the cries. The enemy crowed their bird-like song of triumph. He wanted to urge his horse forward.
“Hold for the signal,” War Chief Nann shouted from up on the wall.
Tamio seethed with impatience. But he did not disobey.
One of the Raptors lifted a man into the sky.
And from that height dropped him.
“Now!” Nann lowered the signal flag. Tamio slapped the horse’s flanks as he slashed free the straps holding the sinew cord to the harness. The giant arrow shot up the grooved log and soared into the air.
The arrow flew true. It hit the Raptor. The bird screeched and plummeted from the sky.
The Green Woods archers raised their bows and cheered.
Dindi
The unnerving screech of the Raptors and screams of their victims pierced the ear above even the general din of battle cries and mayhem.
The Tavaedies of both tribes gathered together. The Tavaedies held bows, but no arrows. Elder Ferret, the grizzled old Green Zavaedi, showed them the tama. “We seek to force the change on the birds. They were once men. We will make them men again. Follow my movements. It matters not what your Chroma is.”
The aged Zavaedi began a graceful circle. His dance struck Dindi as faintly familiar. She had done something similar to the wolf that attacked them in the forest and to Paro when he’d fought to claim Jensi. A luminous Green ribbon arose around him as him moved. The other Tavaedies copied the movements, and ribbons of light tinted in their various Chromas lifted into the air.
Elder Ferret danced with his bow, drawing it back as though he were going to shoot an arrow. Instead, however, it was the ribbon of Green light he pulled back and released.
The arrow of light shot into the sky, just as a real arrow would have, and hit the bird. A moment later, the variegated colored light beams of the other dancers also hit the bird. The bird radiated halos of different hues, then shifted into a man. His female Rider cried out in fury. Man and woman both plunged to a messy landing.
“This is more like it!” Kemla said. “Let’s kill the rest of them!”
The Tavaedies repeated the dance and aimed at another bird. But this time, the bird was too swift, and not every colored beam met the target. A few did, but those weren’t enough. Only if a ray of every Chroma in the rainbow hit the bird simultaneously did the spell work.
The next time they performed the dance, Dindi made a subtle alteration. Instead of one beam of light, she created six, and instead of one arrow, she launched six.
The next bird went down.
“We are winning,” Kemla gloated. “Once we pull their wings, they are just men.”
Winning? Green Woods was not winning. Past the field of battle, other giant birds flew. Vyfae. Pure Orange, glowing like hot coals, they swept their wings over the forested mountains. Everywhere they flew, winds kicked hard at the trees, spreading fire from one pine to the next.
If the forests of Green Woods burn to the ground, we’ve already lost.
Tamio
They were thinning the ranks of the Raptors. The Vyfae had shown no interest in attacking the humans directly. If the fourteen Raptors could be downed, the fight would be on more even terms. The Giant’s Bow took out three Raptors. The Tavaedies with their arrows of light transformed another four. That halved their ranks from fourteen to seven.
War Chief Nann stood on the stone wall and shouted, “Turn away, Orange Canyon! You cannot prevail!”
A woman in a feather headdress—surely it was Amdra, though from the ground it was hard for Tamio to tell—flew her Raptor close enough to shout back, “Then we will die destroying you and all your tribe!”
The Raptor Riders identified their most dangerous foes. They retaliated. All seven remaining Raptors formed a V and concentrated their attack on the Giant’s Bow. Each bird carried a boulder in its talons. They released these onto the same portion of the wall from high above, beyond the reach of the infuriated Sylfae, who strove in vain to grab them with their twiggy hands.
Rock after rock crashed down on their heads. Tamio and the other warriors manning the Giant’s Bow scrambled out of the way. The horses panicked and bolted.
The device splintered. Under the tremendous impacts, even the wall cracked. Rocks tumbled and fell in a rockslide. Debris rained on Tamio’s head.
Orange Canyon warriors jumped through the breach. One of them smacked Tamio in the back of the head with a club. Tamio fell hard, on a sharp rock. All the air rushed from his lungs. But he flipped himself onto his back, just as the warrior smashed down a second blow. Tamio kicked up with both legs. The enemy fell backwards.
Another foe rushed in with a spear. Tamio grabbed and torqued the shaft to pull himself up and force the enemy down. Then he reversed the spear and killed the Orange Canyon warrior on his own flinthead.
Another notch for my kill stick. He grinned and opened his arms to the oncoming wave of men. He roared, “Don’t hang back, you laggards! Come faster and die!”
Hadi
The Raptors moved on to more vital targets, but the field swarmed with Orange Canyon foot fighters. Hadi found one enemy who seemed small enough that he might win in a contest.
“Die, bird muck!” He waved his dirk in scary swipes.
The warrior turned around. It was a female. She was one of the Riders, whose bird had been struck with a giant arrow. She’d survived her mount’s fall, but fury enlivened her. She screeched fit to curdle milk and attacked Hadi with some kind of horrid spiked mace.
He screamed and ran in the other direction.
Immediately, he tripped. The Rider swung her mace over her head.
Hadi squeezed his eyes shut.
A rush of air whizzed by his head, but didn’t connect. He heard terrible growling and a shriek. His eyes popped open.
A wolf straddled the Rider. She gouged the wolf’s eye, but he sank his jaws into her jowls. Blood spurted. Some of it splattered him. He had to turn away.
After the wolf finished off the Rider, he glowed and changed. A man, in fur legwals, hirsute and quite wild, crouched in its place. Blood oozed from his left eye. The man sniffed the air.
“You smell like Jensi,” he said to Hadi. “Are you her kin?”
“Y…yes,” stammered Hadi, unnerved by the question.
“Where is her husband? I would protect him. For her sake.”
Hadi swallowed hard. “Yodigo is dead.”
The wolfling bowed his head. “Then I will protect you.”
Another Orange Canyon warrior ran toward them, spear raised. The wolfling switched shape again and leaped to meet the foe.
Finnadro
Dozens of wildlings, mostly wolves but also some other animals, tore into the flank of the Orange Canyon warriors. For a time at least, the army of the enemy had to turn to fight off this new threat.
It would only delay the fall of the tribehold. Not enough packs had answered Finnadro’s call. The wildlings, like the other animals of the woods, had been driven to panic by the forest fire. Many had fled beyond finding. Others, far too many others, had perished in the smoke and blaze.
And seven Raptors still held sway over the skies.
Even as Finnadro watched, from the back of the Green Lady in her wolf form, he beheld the Raptors destroy the Giant’s Arrow and a sectio
n of the wall. Then the birds turned to fight the wolves.
The Green Lady growled. “We must tell the Sylfae the time has come.”
“Yes, my Lady,” he said with a heavy heart.
She bounded across the field.
Before she reached the wall, a Raptor swooped toward Finnadro. He recognized the hawk and his mistress. Finnadro lifted the Singing Bow and chose his staunchest arrow.
Amdra
Amdra laughed when she saw Finnadro aim his bow at her. The giant bow that the Green Woods folk had set up, that was a danger to her Hawk, but no ordinary puny bow could hope for the reach or strength to pierce the flesh of a Raptor on the wing.
Finnadro must have had no ordinary bow. His cursed arrow flew impossibly high and hard. The slender missile jabbed Hawk in the shoulder, where his wing met his breast. She tasted burning pepper, foul eggs, boiling piss. Pain flooded Hawk’s thoughts.
The winged Raptor tumbled. Hawk had been flying low enough that he was able to mediate his fall, but the ground still caught him brutally. Amdra was thrown from his back. A tooth swam free in her mouth’s blood. She spat it out, and wiped scarlet from her jaw.
Finnadro, astride a great Wolf, raced to finish her off. Hawk switched to human form and stepped in front of her. He dragged Finnadro from the wolf’s back. Though he had lost effective use of one arm, Hawk made Finnadro stay and fight him. In the exchange of blows between the two men, neither mercy nor quarter was given.
Amdra did not linger to help Hawk. She ran, single-mindedly, toward the tribehold.
The Wolf kept bearing down on Amdra.
An Eagle, glowing Orange, landed between Amdra and the Wolf.
“Go!” commanded the Eagle.
“She is your Henchwoman?” asked the Wolf.
The Eagle answered with an attack. The Wolf snapped her jaws and the two bloodied each other with abandon, as only fae could.
