T'cumu's face grew very thoughtful. After a moment, he answered "I think they probably have, Nate. If I were them I would be waiting for we men of the Mesa to arrive, they know we have the largest force of all of us, and I'm sure they know we won't stand idly by. Of course, I can't promise, but my heart tells me they are near, probably laying low somewhere to the east along the trail to the city."
"I think you're right. I sure hope so anyway, we can use all the help we can get."
Despite their ongoing descent into dusk, they spied on the proceedings a little longer, taking ample stock of the situation while considering their battle plan.
After some deliberation, Nate turned to T'cumu, who had been playing his new role as a general with great aplomb and considerable natural talent.
"Well, what do you think, T'cumu? When should we begin the attack?" he asked his younger friend.
"I think I would prefer the enemy to be fighting on an empty stomach with the sands of sleep still sticking to their eyes." T'cumu answered, obviously relishing the challenge that lay ahead.
"The hour before dawn it is then. The early bird shall have her worm."
Wishing to avoid another trip through the forest, especially in the dark of night, T'cumu and Nate worked their way south just inside its western edge, marking the location of enemy scouts stationed along the path they would be riding up in just a few short hours. Once they were sure they had passed by any remaining watchmen, they walked easily guided by soft starlight along the wide trail, enjoying the occasional cool sea breeze that led them toward the coast. They would reach camp in a much shorter time than their trip through the woods had taken and felt somewhat refreshed by the quiet beauty of their midnight stroll, interrupted only by the occasional unearthly moans of the great beasts emanating from the forest's primeval depths.
****
Seaside Camp, Western Sea
No one was getting much sleep as they awaited the return of the scouts.
Ni-T'o stood at the edge of the ocean watching the waves wash in and out with a sound like some massive creature's breathing. The water was illuminated by a wide sky brimming with stars. He thought of his wife, and the sad look on her face as he had taken his leave, wondering if she would lose a husband again. She hadn't wept or begged him to stay. She knew well the requirements of the tribe came before one's personal happiness, just as she had known when F'vni had left home never to return, it was as it must be. For Ni-T'o 's part he very much intended to return, vowing that he would not make Hvishi a widow for a second time!
As he brooded, someone came up behind him with a very light step, and he knew immediately that it was the Raven Priestess. Such was her skill that if she had not wished him to hear her approach he would not have, but she did not wish to startle him.
As she came up beside him he gave her a polite bow, which she graciously acknowledged and returned with a kindly smile.
"Ni-T'o?" the Raven Priestess said his name in a soft voice, and he couldn't help but twitch slightly. She rarely spoke to any but her closest advisers and, of course, her husband, Nate, and hardly ever in public.
"Yes, Raven Priestess?" he answered in an equally quiet tone, just audible above the ceaseless heaving of the waves.
"If I may, I have a question. Our languages, though related, are sometimes quite different. One knows that T'cumu is 'The Bobcat,' but one wonders what the meaning of your name is?"
"In your tongue, my name is pronounced Kukuuh Bánushah, 'Water Blue.' "
"Ah, a most elegant name, indeed! And what do you think of this great blue water before us? Never had I seen such before."
"In the former world, I had not seen a body of water larger than a three-mile-long lake. The first time I saw this 'ocean' as Nate calls it, it was almost frightening, that much water spread out over so much world. Now I find I have come to love it. I hope someday we can cross its gulf to see what lies beyond."
"I believe that day will come, wise Kukuuh Bánushah. The courage and foresight I see in men like you and your kin, in men like Gonzalo and my dearest Nate, leads me to believe we will prosper in this world. Our people will grow strong, and we shall one day be found in every land, on every shore."
"I am the witness to a prophecy I think." Ni-T'o smiled, and bowed his head briefly to honor her wisdom.
"Call it a prophecy if you will dear friend, but I think it is just the simple truth. Destiny has brought us here, and will see us rule this 'New New World.' "
"I also believe it to be true, great Raven Priestess, as I feel it in my own heart. Your words shall come to pass."
Behind them they heard a commotion rise in the camp, and rose to investigate. Upon seeing Nate and T'cumu coming down the path they both broke into a run, relieved to see them safe. Feeling as if it had been long days, not hours since their departure, Ni-T'o and the other great chiefs shared a brotherly embrace while the Raven Priestess launched herself into her husband's arms with her usual wild abandon. He let out a happy laugh which was quickly drowned in one of her deep, dizzying kisses.
The scouts gave their report and plans were made. With that accomplished, an exhausted Nate and T'cumu were able to lie down for a couple of hours to get whatever sleep they could before they broke camp in the hour after midnight. For Nate's part, it wasn't much; he couldn't stop thinking that young men and their horses were going to die today, and he could only take solace in the fact that the cause was just.
****
It was time to go. The Raven Priestess leaned over him, awakening him with a kiss as soft as rose petals and a gentle shake of his shoulders. He was still groggy when he opened his eyes and gasped in surprise, which made her utter one of her strange bird-like laughs and grin like a madwoman. His lovely, bronze-skinned bride was gone, replaced by the startling warrior-queen he had first laid eyes upon atop the Sun Temple's pyramid. She was painted indigo from head to toe, raven feathers were woven through her hair, and her eyes glittered bright amber in the black raven wing mask drawn over her lovely face. Nate wasn't sure if he found her appearance arousing or frightening, or possibly a bit of both.
Still laughing at his discomfiture, she pulled her husband to his feet with her always surprising strength and led him to where Poppy waited. The doughty mare was chewing contentedly on the coarse grass that had spread along the strand, but paused to eye the Raven Priestess with a bit of suspicion.
"It's just me, Poppy." she whispered as she drew in closer to the horse, and after a cautious sniffing received an affectionate nuzzling from her four-footed friend, despite her outlandish appearance.
Nate climbed up and reached for his wife, who took his hand and vaulted up behind him as effortlessly as ever. They took a moment to check their weapons. Both carried their latest invention, the English longbows they had recreated. Despite being a bit cumbersome due to their length, they had greater power and range than anything the enemy had, providing an important advantage. As always, Nate had his trusty cavalry saber, and his treasured pistol-- just in case, while the Raven Priestess bore her long, razor-sharp stone dagger and a wicked-looking spear.
There was one more weapon in their arsenal, the flame arrows that had proven so efficacious in dissuading hungry dragons from dining on passing humans. Nate had remembered that idea from the history books he used to enjoy reading. History was one of the few things during his attempt at a college education that he thought might prove useful, and so it had. Flame arrows had been used several times over the course of history, most famously by the Greeks. Pitch from the great conifer trees was highly flammable. After some experimentation, they learned to wrap long, stone arrowheads in woven grass soaked in the pitch. The question then was, how to light them quickly while on the move?
That answer had come from the tribesmen, who produced small clay pots wrapped in leather. These were filled with burning coals that maintained their heat for hours. The addition of wood shavings or dried grass and a puff of air produced flames quickly, the arrowhead was dipped in the pot an
d fire away! They were somewhat unwieldy and had a reduced range, but Nate thought they could be used to good effect. Around twenty cavalrymen were equipped with them and had instructions to shoot them at the tipis. He wasn't sure how fast a tipi would burn, but a field full of the things on fire would definitely make an impression on the enemy.
Nate gazed about the camp as his cavalry mounted up, and the pikemen moved into marching formation. The striping on the legs, flanks, and necks of the mesa 'cayuses' lent the animals an exotic mien, and many of their riders had painted themselves to match their mounts so that they seemed to merge into one very intimidating-looking creature. The new horses had been tamed, yes, but still retained a wildness of spirit that Nate wasn't sure whether he should be concerned about or admire.
That demeanor certainly matched their riders. The men of the Mesa were proving to harbor a level of ferocity that Nate hadn't expected. They had seen war in their own time, and the prospect of it held little fear for them—in fact, they seemed to relish it. By no choice of his own, Nate had faced the braves of several tribes in combat during his time with the US Army and had more than once come close to an early finish to his career at their deadly hands. He knew all too well they could be a force to be reckoned with, and he was damned glad that today he rode into battle with a tribe of his own, and that these fearsome warriors were very much on his side.
Woe be to the foe that faces this outfit! Nate concluded to himself, grinning darkly.
When all appeared in readiness, the four great chiefs came together at the head of the column. They all looked at each other for a moment, smiling at each friend in turn, silently offering encouragement and good fortune to each other in the struggle to come. With a last, determined nod at his faithful comrades, Nate let out a loud, long whistle and urged Poppy forward in a ground-eating walk—fast, but not too fast for the men on foot. The column fell into step and the final march to Stone Wall Village began. They moved as quietly as possible along the wide, starlit path, hoping to retain as much of the element of surprise as they could get.
They found the sentries all foolishly dozing off at their posts along the path, the first sign of an overconfidence that the invaders would soon come to regret. The arrows through their skulls at close range ensured they would never wake again. Ahead of them the enemy camp stretched across the meadows and fields, barely illuminated by the dim, gray glow of earliest dawn. The tipis, filled with their slumbering occupants, were surrounded by many more men roughing it on blankets under the stars through the warm night.
Nate called the column to a halt with a simple raised hand, then signaled those that had them to light their flaming arrows by starting one of his own. The Raven Priestess mounted behind him had already blown their firepot into readiness, and he carefully stuck the tip of his arrow into it. There was a bright, hot flare and he pulled the now flaming arrow out, which he then used to light his wife's arrow. Flames flickered to life in rapid succession, burning bright in the deep gloom. Nate raised his arrow high for all to see then brought it down quickly to point at the sleeping enemy.
"Charge!" he shouted boldly as he nudged Poppy into a gallop.
Upon his word, the warriors of the mesa surged forward, led by the cavalry, the only sound the rumble of hooves and the nervous snorting and whickering of the horses.
Nate and Ni-T'o led the charge, heading into bow range as the enemy began to stir. Astride swift and sure-footed Poppy, Nate and the Raven Priestess moved almost as one, each firing their flame arrows into the nearest tipis with deadly precision. Ni-T'o rode close behind on jet-black Bella, who had once belonged to a conquistador and was a mount well-seasoned to battle. His marksmanship was second to none, and he managed to light three arrows in surprisingly rapid succession, sinking each into an unfortunate tipi. The hide covering was slow to catch, but the high heat of the burning pitch ensured that their flames began to spread.
A half dozen men stirring nearby died as Ni-T'o switched to the regular arrows and shot again and again, his arms almost a blur as they went through their well-practiced motions. Following their leaders' impressive examples, each horseman in succession fired as quickly and surely as he. Those who had them sent a flaming arrow into a tipi followed by a regular arrow into a man on the ground. With their first round away, the cavalry turned to follow the broad, wheeling circle Nate was creating, making way for those coming behind to have clear shots as they wound their inexorable way deeper and deeper into the camp.
Terrible screams could be heard as the unsuspecting enemy died, their sleeping furs becoming their final resting places. Warriors spilled out of the now gleefully burning tipis, coughing and confused only to be felled by a passing horseman. Of the few surviving the initial onslaught, most became overwhelmed and fled, gibbering in terror about the terrible striped demons that had come out of the night to slaughter them.
It seemed cruel perhaps, Nate thought coldly, but this was a battle they must win against unfavorable odds, and no quarter could be shown to the invaders who had started the conflict by assaulting the peaceful existence of the Mesa People's allies and kin here.
As he turned Poppy back in another turn of their lethal wheel, Nate licked a sticky layer of dust from his lips; it tasted of smoke and the iron tang of dried blood. The ground they covered as they made their way back to the front was mostly still and silent, the dreadful scene of a very successful massacre.
"Payback's a bitch, huh?" he told the dead in a stony tone as he briefly surveyed the incredible destruction the first charge of the First Cavalry had wrought. "There's more to come buckos. We are just getting started!" He clicked at Poppy to move faster, his gray eyes glinting like cold steel, a predator moving through the dawn in search of his next prey.
Ni-T'o, still riding in formation behind Nate and the Raven Priestess, shook his head sadly at the awful destruction, the ghastly sight of which filled him with remorse. Unable to stop himself, he looked down at the dead and dying they blithely rode over, his mount's hooves sometimes cracking bone and crushing the flesh of the fallen as she carried him across the carnage. To his further horror, he saw that Bella's flying legs were stained a bright scarlet. Another innocent creature soaked in the blood of men spilled by men. Must it always be so? Must we go through every century since the gods made the world to her fiery end, killing each other? He grimaced at the hopelessness of the thought and vowed that one day, he, Ni-T'o of the Mesa People, would find a way to stop that hideous cycle. He spoke aloud, making it an oath, but his voice went unheard beneath the cacophony of battle. "We scattered orphans spirited away to this lost and terrible time will be the first of Earth's children to know true peace! I will see to it!"
Ni-T'o looked up to see that Nate had pulled ahead of him, ready to start the next round, and shook himself, focusing again on the bloody task at hand. He took a deep breath and steeled himself for what was still to come. "I wish so for peace, but today I am a Great Chief and a general in my people's army, and I have a duty to protect them. Today I must kill and kill again, and so I will, and I will do it well." With a frosty, grim resolve moving across his mourning heart like a glacier gliding over a troubled sea, Ni-T'o urged Bella to catch up with a gentle nudge of his knees and notched another arrow.
****
Gonzalo's pikemen, accompanied by a contingent of the mysterious and deadly Raven Warriors, followed along behind the cavalry's path of destruction, moving ever closer to their goal, the stockade at the bottom of the hill. Gonzalo rode his golden stallion, Flavio, another equine veteran of many battles, with a small group of six cavalry accompanying him. The timbered building was guarded by less than twenty men, an example of how confident the invaders had been. They weren't expecting any opposition! They will pay for that arrogance! Gonzalo thought with a grim smile. Now that the battle had been joined the remorse that had filled him the day before had vanished, replaced with the steely resolve of the seasoned soldier.
To their credit, the guards held their ground and screame
d threats at them as they drew nearer. A clamor could be heard rising from the enemy stationed on the heavily fortified rocky hillside above. The force that was holding the villagers within their gates had taken notice of their approach. Gonzalo let out a fierce battle cry as he urged his stallion into a thundering gallop. He and his horsemen followed Nate and Ni-T'o's tactic on a smaller scale, riding in close, letting off a volley of arrows at the men stationed at the stockade, then circling back around to do the same again.
They had greater range than the enemy, and the guards who still lived after the first turn of the wheel soon realized that trying to return fire at that distance was futile. Gonzalo's group danced just out of their range, bringing down yet more of their men with each pass. Now thoroughly cowed by the horsemen and their deadly rain of arrows, not to mention the phalanx of pikemen advancing inexorably toward them, the few survivors fled their posts, falling back up the hillside behind the lines of palisades their comrades held, completely surrendering their ground to the liberators.
The pikemen quickly established a perimeter around the stockade, and prepared to face the retribution that would eventually come down from the enemy stationed on the hillside, once they had gathered their wits and courage to organize a counter-attack. The men of the Mesa would be outnumbered by two-thirds, but each warrior vowed he would not yield as they proudly raised their pikes up to form a fearsome spiked wall that would be very difficult to penetrate.
Gonzalo dismounted and walked quickly over to the stockade's timbered side. With a grunt, he pulled the heavy door open himself, and called out in the local dialect that he was a friend, a reassuring greeting echoed by the men with him. It was dark, and a foul-smell emanated from within, the press of too many bodies with no chance to bathe for God knew how long? A warrior handed him a burning flame arrow and he entered, accompanied by two of his lieutenants. The bright, flaring light of the burning pitch revealed a wretched scene. Around thirty women, a handful of children, and a few shriveled-looking old men huddled pathetically against the back wall, completely terrified. Gonzalo nearly choked, not from the stench, but from the profound pity he felt for the misery he beheld. Many of the prisoners began to cry, too exhausted and hungry to understand what was happening, simply fearing more torment.
Grantville Gazette, Volume 73 Page 19
