Fires of Change (The Fire Blossom Saga)

by Sarah Lark

  “Let it be, Aketu. It was certainly they who scared old Cameron so much that he avoided coming anywhere near Weraroa,” another joked.

  In his summer offensive, General Cameron had attacked ordinary maraes instead of actually advancing on Te Ua Haumene’s stronghold. The attacks on previously peaceful people had swelled the rebels’ ranks. The local tribes were impressed. If even the English feared the prophet, there must be something to his teachings.

  “Are you from Weraroa?” Eru asked hopefully.

  The leader smiled. “I am Aketu Te Komara, and this is Ahia Te Roa.” He gestured at the other men who were surrounding the campsite. “This is our taua.”

  Eru introduced himself and his friends.

  “You’re from the Ngai Tahu on the South Island? Te Ua will be pleased—there’s still too little support coming from the south.” Aketu finally lowered his spear.

  “Does that mean you’ll take us with you?” Kepa asked.

  Aketu rolled his eyes. “If we leave you here, you’ll attract the pakeha scouts in no time, the way you’re staggering through the woods. We’ve been observing you since yesterday afternoon, and we thought it must be something like this. After all, you’re not the first milksops who’ve come looking for us. But you”—he turned to Eru—“are wearing the face of a warrior. Even if your eyes are a little strange.”

  Since he’d been tattooed, Eru was no longer recognizable as half-pakeha. Only his green eyes set him apart.

  Eru took a deep breath. “I have the face and the soul of a warrior. Perhaps I don’t have all the skills yet. It’s possible that we are really staggering through your land like lost children. Our land is completely different, and our tribe has never been at war. But that doesn’t mean we lack courage. So don’t insult us. We are here to learn and to fight. We will drive the pakeha out of Aotearoa.”

  Aketu’s gaze became respectful. “Is that what you see with your pale eyes?”

  Eru shook his head. “I’m not a prophet,” he said cautiously. “But doesn’t Te Ua see it?”

  “Te Ua says it depends on us,” Ahia explained. “It depends if we believe, how we fight, and how many we kill.”

  Eru fixed his gaze on the two warriors. “Then I see it with my pale eyes,” he said formally. “There’s no one who could believe more strongly, fight more bravely, or kill more mindlessly than you.” He pointed to Ahia, and then, motioning toward Aketu, said, “Or you, or any of you.” He raised his arms in an encompassing gesture that included all the warriors.

  “Yes, and us too!” Kepa added enthusiastically.

  “Rire rire!” Tamati cried in excitement.

  This time, all the warriors answered. “Hau hau!”

  Chapter 35

  Weraroa was a gigantic fortress. The pa was on a hilltop above the river and was currently home to more than two thousand men. It was surrounded by high wooden palisades that were sunk deeply into the ground and bound together with cords of flax. Behind the fence were houses similar to those in a marae: meetinghouses, cookhouses, and a prayerhouse. They were all connected by a network of ditches through which the warriors could move without being seen from the outside, and where they were protected from cannon fire. At first glance, the fort looked unoccupied, almost ghostly.

  The Hauhau warriors had been trained to move silently whenever they weren’t rallying men or shouting war cries. Much of the space in the pa was taken up by a drill ground with a gigantic niu in the middle. The warriors surrounded the pole, singing and praying before and after each exercise. Spiritual strength seemed every bit as important to them as physical strength.

  Eru and his friends witnessed such a ceremony immediately after arriving. Hundreds of warriors moved in formation, lined up in rows in front of the niu, and stamped their feet and spears in rhythm with their cries.

  Kira, wana, tu, tiri, wha—Teihana!

  Rewa, piki rewa, rongo rewa—Teihana!

  Kill, one, two, three, four—Attention!

  River, large river, long river—Attention!

  Eru interpreted this to mean that the men were evoking the rivers, mountains, bushes, and trees of their homeland. But then he stopped thinking about it and let himself be swept along by the noise. Kepa was the first of the three companions to join the ring of warriors. Tamati followed, and finally all three were shouting and dancing with the others. By the time the ritual ended at sunset, they were smiling and feeling strong.

  Aketu and Ahia seemed to be satisfied with them, and now other warriors wanted to exchange hongi with the newcomers. There was no further mention of their belonging to a tribe that had not long ago been at odds with many of the North Island tribes. Now they all stood as one behind their prophet.

  “Will we—will we get to see Te Ua soon?” Kepa asked excitedly as they followed Aketu to their quarters.

  The rangatira seemed to have taken them on as his own. He nodded. “He speaks to his warriors every morning. Perhaps he’ll even ask you to step forward. As I said, we have few men from the South Island, and very few who look like you.” He turned to Eru, who blushed.

  “I don’t want to be anything special,” Eru said.

  Aketu gave him a stern look. “It doesn’t matter what you want.”

  The young men were shown to a sleeping house just like the ones at home. The only differences between this part of the pa and a typical marae were the ditches and the undecorated houses. No one had made the effort to elaborately carve the roof tree and support beams of the military quarters or to place tikis in front of the buildings. There was a simple meal offered before they went to bed—just a quickly made stew that consisted mostly of kumara. No one sat around the fire afterward either. To the contrary, the pa was cloaked in darkness in order not to attract scouts.

  At first, Eru was too excited to sleep. He wasn’t used to sharing a sleeping house with so many other men. So he thought of Mara, for the first time in many days. Someday soon, he thought in half sleep, when the battle has been won, I will go to Russell and get her. Just in time before the prophet banishes the pakeha.

  He fell asleep thinking about how joyfully she would welcome him when he saved her from exile.

  A rangatira’s cries awoke the warriors at dawn. Everyone else jumped up, but Eru and his companions needed a few moments to orient themselves. Then they rushed outside and breathed the fresh air hungrily. In the sleeping house, the stuffy air smelled of gun oil and unwashed bodies.

  “Is there something to eat?” Tamati murmured hopefully as all the men moved together silently in one direction.

  A warrior shook his head. “Morning song,” he whispered, pointing to the drill ground.

  Eru was reminded painfully of his time at the missionary school. There, too, the children had been called to prayer when they were still half-asleep, and there, too, he would have preferred to be in a cozy breakfast room instead of in a church. He immediately scolded himself for having such thoughts. This was completely different than the dreaded morning church services in Tuahiwi. Here, the spirit of the prophet ruled. If Aketu was right, Te Ua Haumene would soon be speaking to them personally.

  Next, they all gathered around a niu. There were several such poles in the pa, arranged in the various drill grounds. An impressive number of men stood around every pole, between three hundred and five hundred warriors. As the prayers began, they all raised their right hands.

  “My glorious niu, mai merire!” a prayer leader cried.

  “My holy niu, have mercy upon us!” the men replied.

  “God, the Father, have mercy upon us!”

  “Mercy, mercy!”

  “God, the Son, have mercy upon us!”

  Eru, Kepa, and Tamati glanced at each other in surprise. They’d had to repeat similar prayers in Miss Foggerty’s lessons, and of course Eru was reminded again of his time at Tuahiwi. The young men had hoped that the prophet would offer different kinds of prayers.

  But the invocations at the pa differed only in their ending. Instead of “amen,�
� the warriors concluded, “Rire rire, hau hau!”

  Now the companions were very hungry indeed. But everyone streamed toward the main drill ground. A podium had been erected there so everyone could see the speaker. In front of the niu, Te Ua Haumene was waiting calmly, his head lowered in humility.

  “The archangel is speaking to him,” whispered a young man next to Eru.

  The men gathered quickly around the podium. There was complete stillness, which seemed almost eerie after the deafening morning prayers. Then Te Ua Haumene looked up.

  Eru gazed at the man’s wide face and short hair. The prophet wore no warrior’s knot. He wasn’t tattooed either. Eru remembered hearing that he’d been captured by an enemy tribe as a small child and had been kept as a slave. Slaves were never given moko. Later, he’d been raised in a Christian mission. Of course there hadn’t been a moko master there. But Te Ua Haumene was dressed as a chieftain. Under an elaborate cape luxuriously ornamented with kiwi feathers, he wore a white robe. As he began to speak, he raised a hand and spread his first two fingers. Eru remembered seeing images of Jesus Christ in the same pose.

  “Pai marire, hau hau!” the large, heavy man with the resonant voice called in greeting.

  His warriors replied, and once more the fort seemed to quake with the power of their voices.

  “I greet you on a new day in our land! The Promised Land, the land that God and the angels intended to be ours. Ours, and ours alone!”

  The men cheered.

  “A land where our people shall live in peace, as Archangel Gabriel told me. In earlier times, our people killed one another in fratricidal war. That weakened us. It angered God and his angels. But now that the Last Days are upon us, they are once more by our sides! Gabriel, Tama-Rura, and Michael, Te Ariki Mikaera!”

  “Riki,” the warriors chanted. Archangel Michael, defender of heaven, was obviously their favorite among God’s servants.

  “God and his angels will help us create the peaceful, loving, and fair society that Tama-Rura spoke to me of. Milk and honey will flow in the Promised Land—Aotearoa, our land!”

  “Rire rire, hau hau!” the crowd cheered.

  “But first, my friends, there is work to be done,” the prophet said. “Because we, God’s chosen people, are chafing in slavery. Our land is in the hands of enemies who do not respect it. Our people are being hunted and killed, just as the people of Israel were once chained in Egypt.” The prophet’s face darkened. “But God is with us!” he announced. “With his help, we will once again reclaim our land and our inheritance. Jehovah himself will fight by our sides as we drive the pakeha into the sea from whence they came.”

  The prophet paused for a moment and gazed out over his crowd of followers. Then he resumed with a stern voice. “Now, you say the pakeha are strong. The pakeha are many. The pakeha have weapons that spit fire. We cannot conquer them. But I say unto you: Rura is strong, Riki is strong. Both of them lend us their strength. The angels are our legion. God’s weapons are lightning and thunder, and the words of the prophet make every one of us invulnerable when we stand against the pakeha’s weapons of fire. Your faith will deflect bullets, your belief will make the cannons melt into useless clumps of iron. Not only can we defeat them, we will defeat them! So take up your arms. Pray! Fight! Conquer!”

  “Kira!” Kill!

  The warriors took up the cry, repeating it again and again until they had worked themselves into a frenzy.

  “Rire rire, hau hau, rire rire, hau hau!”

  Stamping and shouting, the men celebrated their prophet as he stepped down and relinquished his warriors to their day.

  Eru, Kepa, and Tamati were swept away by the excitement, longing to practice their fighting skills in order to combat the fatal bullets of their enemies. But even with divine assistance, warriors couldn’t go into battle on empty stomachs. For breakfast, there was flatbread and dried fish, but the three young men’s hunger soon returned. They devoured their meal to the last crumbs, then saw Ahia was standing next to them.

  “When you’re done, go to the chieftain’s house,” he said. “Te Ua Haumene wishes to speak with you.”

  The prophet sat on a stone in front of one of the houses in which the chieftain and commanders lived. This was an exclusive area of the fort, separated from the warriors’ quarters. On the North Island, arikis and their families had always been constrained by many tapus. Eru and his friends only knew the stories they’d heard from their elders. The Ngai Tahu had never been so strict about such things. Before the pakeha had come to Aotearoa and given the South Island a new appearance with their grazing animals and seeds for crops, the tribes had often suffered from bad harvests, hunger, and cold. One needed strength simply to survive. There wasn’t time for complicated battles and ceremonies that made everyday tasks more difficult. And in Eru’s iwi, Te Haitara and Jane had done away with most of the last remaining rituals that set the chieftain apart. Te Haitara was affable with the pakeha and his own people alike. No one worried much which purification ceremonies should be used when his shadow accidentally fell on one of the members of his tribe.

  Here it was different. The three adventurers approached the prophet, shy and unsure of what rites they were supposed to observe. As they approached, he was listening to a group of about twenty warriors who looked exhausted and terrified.

  “We walked all night,” the leader said. “No, no, don’t worry, the pakeha didn’t follow us, we—”

  “I am not worried,” Te Ua said, “for my faith is strong. The pakeha know who I am, but they fear my power. They fear our power. Pai marire, hau hau!”

  “But the men in the fortress weren’t afraid,” a warrior said. “They were vigilant, and when we attacked, they shot at us.”

  “They couldn’t hurt you,” the prophet replied calmly.

  “That’s what we thought too!” one of the warriors burst out. His arm was wrapped with a dirty, blood-soaked bandage. “We prayed and conjured the wind and Jehovah and the angels. We gave our battle cries and stormed them with the holy words on our lips.” His voice broke.

  “Hapa, hapa!” one of the others added. “Fly past! That’s what we are supposed to say to deflect the bullets. But it didn’t work.”

  “Didn’t work?” Te Ua said sternly. “Aren’t you here, almost uninjured?”

  “We are,” the leader said. “But there were fifty of us when we attacked the fort. The others—”

  “The others are dead,” one of his comrades said.

  Te Ua snorted. “If they’re dead, it’s their own fault. Their faith wasn’t strong enough. They didn’t trust in the power of the karakia.”

  “But ariki—”

  “Go now. And look deep within yourselves! Especially those of you who didn’t fully manage to deflect the enemy’s bullets.” He gazed intently at the young man with the bandage. “Go and pray for the strength of the niu. Pray for mercy, for you have disappointed Rura and Riki today. It was your duty to hinder the building of that fort. You weren’t able to do it. You did not bring me the heads of our enemies. Go and repent.”

  He dismissed the men with a wave of his hand. Heads lowered, they slipped away unhappily.

  The prophet took a few moments to pull himself together, and then he called Eru, Kepa, and Tamati.

  “You are the warriors from the South Island?” he asked. His gaze wandered over their face, and stopped on Eru. “You!” he cried. “You have the eyes of a pakeha!”

  Eru gasped, but then gathered his wits. “I have the heart of a Maori, and the courage of a warrior.”

  “You have the face of a warrior,” Te Ua remarked. “The face of an old warrior, but you are young. Have you ever killed, Te Eriatara?”

  Eru straightened his shoulders, amazed and flattered that the prophet knew his name. “I am prepared to kill for my people,” he said.

  “And you know what I preach?” Te Ua asked. “I have not yet sent a prophet to the south.”

  “I have read your gospel,” Eru replied. />
  The eyes of the prophet flashed. “You can read?”

  Eru nodded. “I read it to the men in my taua,” he declared. “We all know what you preach, and we all believe.” He fought to keep his voice steady. The conversation he’d just overheard had shaken his belief in the invulnerability of the Hauhau warriors.

  The prophet narrowed his eyes. “Tell me your story. Tell me what brings you here.”

  Eru began hesitantly, but then his anger overtook him. He told about Jane and Te Haitara’s devotion to the god of money. He spoke of the pressure Jane had put on him, and finally about his decision to become a whole Maori, and a whole warrior.

  Te Ua stopped him only once, when he nervously admitted having a pakeha mother.

  “You speak language of pakeha without have to seek words?” he asked in broken English.

  Eru nodded. “Of course,” he replied in English. “It’s my mother’s language. I speak it fluently, without an accent.”

  “And the rest of you?” Te Ua asked. His eyes held something dangerous.

  “We speak English well,” Kepa answered slowly, being careful not to make any mistakes. “Not as well as Eru, but well. We learned it at school.”

  The prophet nodded and then asked Eru to continue with his story.

  “We are here to do battle for our people,” Eru concluded. “We will throw the pakeha into the sea. We—”

  The prophet silenced him with a gesture. “Your intention honors you. But I don’t need you as warriors.”

  “What?” the trio replied in chorus, shocked and disappointed, and prepared to argue. But then Eru lowered his head. He remembered Aketu’s words. It doesn’t matter what you want. And then there was that quote from the Bible . . . Eru took a deep breath.

  “Te Ua, our prophet and our father. Your will be done.”

  The prophet grinned. “Rire rire, hau hau,” he replied in acknowledgment. “I don’t need you as warriors, but only because you are too valuable for that. I need you as ambassadors. You will help me spread my teachings across our land.”