by Mike Blakely
In a way, he wished he could trade places with the attackers. He had always imagined his first fight at the end of some long war trail, in the land of some horrible enemy. Here, there were women and children to defend. Last night in a vision, the puhahante in the center of his shield had cautioned him not to endanger his people or his fellow warriors with foolish courage. Such greed for glory would risk the lives of mothers and babies, and make him a taunted fool instead of the rider-protector the spirits wished him to become in this, his first fight.
He was low in the grass, watching between the legs of his mount, his whole body tense with anxiety. A branch dragged across something behind him, and he whirled halfway round, making his horse snort and lift his head high against the reins.
“It is only me,” Teal said.
“Go away!” Horseback scolded. “Your place is with the women. Now you have made my horse move and the enemy will see me.”
“The enemy will not see, because I come with much magic,” she whispered, coming closer to him.
“A girl knows nothing about magic,” he said, admiring the way she had painted her face: yellow on her eyelids, red circles on her cheeks.
“That is true,” Teal answered, “but this magic comes to me in a dream. I do not have to know anything about magic for the magic to use me as it will.”
Horseback smirked. He had never spoken to Teal alone like this, and had not expected her to speak so well. “What was this dream?”
“In my dream, the spirits showed me that if you would carry the feather of the bird of the Sacred South in your quiver, it would make the arrows of our enemy go around you.”
“What kind of bird wears this feather?”
“I have never seen the bird, but I have the feather. An old grandmother of the Corn People gave it to me. She said it came from some Yuta woman who camped in places in the south where the bird lives. I know nothing about the bird, but the feather is beautiful.” Reaching behind her head, Teal removed the feather she had woven loosely into her hair. It was long and slender, dark-colored except for the pointed tip, which was white.
When he took it from her, his hand closed around her smaller hand, and he felt her warmth. “I will carry this feather in my quiver, Teal. Now, go hide with the women.”
“Use your weapons well, Horseback. Do not let our enemies carry me away.”
“My mother will cut off all her hair before our enemies take you away.” He turned from her and tried to concentrate on the coming fight again, but her smile and her sparkling eyes possessed his thoughts. No longer did he dwell on the war dance that had not happened.
They came so soon after Teal left that Horseback had not had time to make himself anxious. They were several steps into the clearing before he even noticed them under the belly of his horse. At first he thought his own warriors were coming back to the lodges, for they strolled upright, walking casually toward the empty decoy village.
Then he noticed their height—they were taller than any of his own people and more slender. He noticed the strips of fur some had woven into the braids they wore on either side of their heads, in the Yuta way. One looked toward him, and Horseback felt his heart try to leap from his chest. The enemy warrior was looking at the bay horse, and Horseback feared he had been seen. But the bay had his head down, grazing, concealing the war bridle around his jaw, and the rope Horseback had woven around the pony had been stained dark to match his bay color, and was hard to see in the light of dawn. Other horses grazed not far away, so the enemy warrior thought nothing strange about this one standing in the edge of the brush. When the attacker looked back toward the lodges, Horseback knew he had not been discovered. His war paint of black had made him like the night, unseen and unknown.
He tried to count them, but they continued to emerge from the timber, and he saw no real reason to enumerate them. They seemed many more than Echo-of-the-Wolf had reported. They carried bows with arrows already notched, clubs and war axes, slender lances as straight as a stake line stretched tight by a wild horse. It was going to happen very soon now. He must ride well, for the eyes of the Great Deer were on him, and the magic of the feather from the Sacred South enveloped him.
Now something happened that Horseback had not predicted. Two of the warriors broke away from the large party that crept toward the village of seven lodges. They angled toward him to capture the horses, which they would drive south toward their own mounts as the fight started. One of the horses nickered at them as they approached, and the others raised their heads, including the bay warhorse, but the enemy still did not notice the war bridle or the rope wound around the bay’s chest. The bay stood apart from the other horses, so the enemy warriors came straight toward him, in order to drive him into the rest of the herd.
Horseback’s heart galled him with pain and made his chest throb. They looked like horrible butchers coming at him, and they were two to his one. The bay grumbled at them and lay his ears back, and Horseback took courage from his mount, He only hoped the terrible warriors would not notice the war bridle on his bay until the fighting had started. Like any proud Noomah warrior, Horseback wanted to die in battle someday—hut not in his very first battle.
He no longer took time to think. His mind went away to the clouds and the talk of the Two Rivers ceased. All he could hear were the blades of grass brushing the leggings of the painted enemy warriors coming right toward him. Beyond them, the main party of invaders had come silently among the seven lodges.
Suddenly, the warrior nearest him stopped, and Horseback knew he had noticed the reins hanging from the mouth of the warhorse. Sound-the-Sun-Makes leapt the eastern horizon, into Horseback’s body, and made him go crazy with strength and courage.
He sprang to the back of his war horse with the ease of a lion, and felt the ancestral war cry of wolves and eagles and rutting bull elks building in his chest. The enemy brave near him was stepping backward in surprise as the cry rose from the invaders at the empty decoy camp. Horseback released his own battle scream, and it made all four legs of the bay kick crazily for footing. He charged hard toward these strange slender thieves and murderers who had strayed too far from their own ground.
The rider’s right hand held the war club. The magic shield was strapped tight to his left wrist and forearm. His left hand held both his bow and his reins.
As horse and horseman charged, the enemy brave hastily drew his bow and shot an arrow, but the magic of the feather in Horseback’s quiver made the arrow sail high. His pogamoggan swung upward as the enemy warrior turned to run in terror. He grabbed the long black mane, for the wise warhorse was closing on the enemy and needed no touch of the reins. As the pogamoggan came down, the fleeing warrior looked back with fearful eyes, and the weapon struck solidly on his forehead, driving him to the ground.
To Horseback, high on the back of the bay, the fallen warrior looked suddenly small. He was, in fact, just a boy, no older than Horseback himself. He glanced toward the seven lodges and saw his fellow Noomah warriors closing in on the surprised invaders. The other boy who had come to steal the horses was running away to join his war party. He, too, was young. Horseback could have ridden him down and clubbed him as well, but something was making him linger over the body of his first victim.
His heart felt bad. It seemed these two boys his age had been sent to gather the horses away from the most dangerous fighting at the lodges, for they had seen nothing of battle. It had been his duty to strike this invader, no matter how young and inexperienced. But now he wished he had hit the boy on the shoulder, and driven him away still living to spread his fame, as his father had once left an arrow standing between the heads of two sleeping foes who would talk forever about it. Now he feared he had not yet killed the boy, and knew that this young warrior at the feet of his prancing war horse was destined to die slowly at the hands of vengeful women, or to be castrated and enslaved.
Some brave women were emerging from the brush to watch the fight. “Do not let them take us away and defile
us with their seed!” one cried.
Horseback let the war club dangle from the thong around the wrist of his arrow hand. He drew an arrow from his sacred quiver and notched it on the bowstring. Since the fight with the great bear that had wounded his father, he had practiced shooting many arrows from the back of his pony, and knew he could hit the boy on the ground. The shot was straight down and close. When the string sang, the bay horse jumped away from the prone invader, but Horseback held his place, his knees thrust tightly under the loops of rope encircling his war pony’s chest. His arrow pierced the body in the grass. When the corpse failed to flinch, Horseback knew the young warrior was dead, and his heart felt glad.
A cry of “Yee-yee-yee-yee” went up among the women, for few of them had ever seen a kill made from a horse before. Horseback slid down from the bay stallion and pounced on the fallen enemy. He felt strength fill his arms as he took the scalp lock of the dead boy in his bow hand. He drew his knife and slit the skin just in front of the hairline, pulling hard. The scalp would not come off, so he made new slashes with his knife until he heard the flesh tearing away from the skull, sounding like the hoof of a horse pulling out of a mud hole. The trophy suddenly came free, and Horseback held it high.
“Ahh-hey,” he screamed, in a voice that screeched so high that he scarcely recognized it as his own. Looking toward the brush, he saw many women. He saw his mother, who seemed crazed with joy as she danced in the grass with a long spear. He saw Teal standing farther back in the bushes, and heard her voice among all the others:
“Drive them away! They come to take me to their mountains and spoil my virtue!”
Suddenly the bay war horse screamed and lunged hard against the reins. Horseback barely managed to stay on his feet as his mount tried to bolt, but he hung on. An enemy warrior had lobbed an arrow in a long arch through the sky and hit the bay in the hip. Tucking the trophy scalp under his loin skin belt, Horseback grabbed the arrow and pulled, but the barbs of the war point only drove the bay to wild lunges. He heard the voice of a spirit telling him he should have painted his horse with magic signs for protection, and felt ashamed that he had not heard this voice last night.
Breaking the shaft of the enemy arrow, Horseback again sprang behind the withers of his war horse who kicked a hind leg in protest of the pain, but did not attempt to throw the rider. He wheeled the wounded horse toward the seven lodges and tried to take in the battle.
His own people had surrounded the enemy warriors and were closing in slowly, sending an occasional arrow into the village of empty lodges. At the closest point of the surround, Horseback saw Echo-of-the-Wolf standing upright, a shield in one hand, a long-handled stone axe in the other.
“Come out and fight!” he shouted. “You hide behind the lodges like children behind the skirts of your ugly women!” He drew an arrow from his quiver and stabbed it into the ground in front of him. “I will defend the ground where my arrow stands. I am Echo-of-the-Wolf. Come let me kill you. I never retreat!”
As he loped to join the circle of the surround, Horseback saw many enemy warriors drawing their bows to shoot at Echo. Then, rounding one of the lodges, he saw an enemy brave who wore three feathers placing a strange weapon to his shoulder.
“The Fire Stick!” he shouted.
Echo had stood and laughed at the first arrows that flew by him like shadow-wasps, but now he crouched behind his shield as he heard Horseback’s warning and saw the evil weapon pointing his way. Fire and thunder shot from the end of the iron stick. At the same instant, Echo rolled over backward as if kicked by an invisible horse.
A battle scream went up among the Yutas and they poured from the cover of the seven lodges and rushed toward the place were Echo had fallen.
Yet, Echo stirred! He rose to his knees, slipping his arm from the loops of his magical shield. The warriors of the True Humans were rushing to him, to lift and protect him, and Horseback saw Trotter reach him first, making his heart grow with pride of the power he had loaned to Trotter. As the enemy charged on, Echo hung his shield on the notch of the arrow that stood in the ground, making sure the sacred shield would not touch the ground. He let his wounded shield arm dangle at his side, but raised his axe in his good hand, inviting the enemy to come on.
It looked bad to Horseback, for the enemy warriors were running desperately at the braves who had stopped to gather around Echo. He saw his own father, Shaggy Hump, and Trotter, and Whip, and other men he knew. It seemed the enemy had the power, for they were charging. They would fight desperately to break out of the surround and escape. The True Humans would be swept back, as if by the raging waters of a flooded river.
He felt the voice of Sound-the-Sun-Makes hot upon his face. Leaning over the long black mane of his war horse, he swung his pogamoggan back and bounced it lightly off the rump of the bay, who sprang forward like a lion making a charge. He rode fast, screaming his battle cry until his throat hurt, angling hard against the near flank of the enemy charge.
One by one, the invaders faltered as they saw him come on. Each slowed, exposing the next man in the charge, and Horseback galloped among them as a hawk would dive into a flock of prairie chickens. He glimpsed faces, eyes wide, mouths open. Arrows curved away from him. One brave warrior stood with a lance for the warhorse to run upon, but the horse and rider had taken on the power of the sun, the bay baring his teeth and striking with a front hoof as Horseback leaned all the way across the mount with his shield to catch the point of the lance and fling it aside.
He leapt through the line now, and found himself behind the enemy charge as it neared the arrow and shield of Echo standing on the ground. His club reached out as he galloped on, and he knocked two warriors down and made others duck and reel away with fear.
The enemy charge bogged like buffalo in quicksand, and Echo came forward with his axe swinging. Its long handle reached beyond an enemy shield and its sharp flint edges struck the shield bearer under the ear, bringing forth a spray of blood. The Yutas scattered, their courage shaken, and the fights were warrior against warrior now, hand-to-hand, the enemies fleeing as they fought.
Reining in the bay, Horseback heard the thunder of the Fire Stick again, and two men locked in battle behind him fell to the ground. But the medicine of the enemy had gone bad, for the one killed wore the skins of a Yuta. It was Whip who rose, the intended target of the Fire Stick. He had wrestled his foe at the right moment to pull him into the path of the killing magic. Whip screamed a crazy war cry as he scalped the mountain warrior who had died by the Fire Stick of his own kinsman.
Turning his mount, Horseback saw the Fire Stick warrior between two of the seven lodges, making the peculiar incantations over his weapon. He kicked the bay’s ribs and charged toward the seven lodges to stop this brave before he could instill the magic in the weapon again. He was riding hard when he heard the screams of the women, and saw that two of the Yutas had broken toward the horse herd and were trying to catch mounts on which to escape. He glimpsed his own mother running toward the horse thieves with her lance.
Horseback clashed with the Fire Stick warrior, running into him before he could finish the evil Fire Stick spell. But this warrior wore three kill feathers in his hair and knew much of battle. As Horseback swiped at him with the pogamoggan, Kill Feathers ducked in front of the bay and struck Horseback on the other side with his Fire Stick, almost knocking him from the pony.
Without a pull of the rein, the bay was turning, snapping his teeth at Kill Feathers. Horseback let his mount attack, but the warrior was quick and came around the head of the horse with an iron knife. Horseback caught the first thrust with his shield, but the second plunged into his leg, and the third into the bay’s shoulder. The horse screamed, wheeled, and kicked just as Horseback’s war club glanced off Kill Feathers’s head and smashed into his shoulder.
The enemy staggered back and fell, but quickly rose. “Get off your horse and fight like a true warrior!” he demanded.
Horseback understood this talk, becau
se his second mother, Looks Away, was born Yuta, though she had been made into a good Noomah wife. Looks Away had taught him Yuta words for many winters, for she hoped always for peace and trade between her old people and her new people.
But Horseback thought nothing of peace and trade now, for Kill Feathers had come to destroy him, and would carry Teal away if he could. As his blood ran hot down a leg seared by pain, a new rage engulfed him, and he remembered the day the Northern Raiders had attacked his people and killed his grandfather. The ancient hatreds he had inherited that day plunged like shadow-warriors into his soul, and it seemed the ground all around him shook with his anger. He felt his grip like stone around the handle of the war club. “I am Horseback!” he cried, and he ran upon the thrice-feathered warrior.
Reining wide with his bow hand, he passed beyond reach of the enemy warrior’s knife and leaned far toward Kill Feathers with the heavy pogamoggan. The warrior tried to shield his head with an arm, but the power of the passing horse was in the blow, and Horseback felt bones break through the wooden club handle. The bay was planting hooves and turning back with snapping teeth as Horseback brought the club down again, landing it solidly among the three feathers.
A victory cry came from the direction of the river, and Horseback did not even have to look back to know that his fellow warriors had broken the enemy charge. Now the sound of screaming women pierced the victory yell, and he looked up to see his mother, River Woman, jabbing her lance at an enemy warrior who was trying to avoid the sharp blade long enough to notch an arrow on his bow.
The bay was tired, but leapt toward the women at Horseback’s signal. The warhorse seemed to run very slowly and River Woman seemed very far away as Horseback rode to protect her. As he watched from the back of his pony, his mother made a deliberate advance with the spear, but the enemy warrior dropped his bow and caught the shaft with his hand. He was stronger than Horseback’s mother, and Horseback feared he would wrest the weapon from her before the bay could get there.
