Paul Cook: Children of the Plains

“Pa’alu! Come down from there!” It was Nianki’s voice. “Throw the torch on the ground and free Amero!”

“I’m not taking your commands any more, Karada. This may be the day I die, but if I do, I’ll take Arkuden to the spirit world with me.”

There were shouts of “No!” and “Let him go!” and Amero hoped his people or Nianki’s would storm the cairn and save him, but he quickly realized that the torch was so near the dry kindling that no one dared move.

Duranix! Duranix, if you can hear me, I need your help! he thought frantically. How far away could the dragon hear him? A league? Two leagues? Ten? How far had the dragon walked in half a morning?

“Why are you doing this?” Nianki called out. “Amero’s done you no harm.”

“I’m doing this because you betrayed me — betrayed us! You promised us greatness, Karada. You said that under your leadership we would rule the plains! Yet we live in this tiny valley, relying on the favors of strangers, laboring for them in exchange for a little meat and a place to pitch our tents. Is this the greatness you promised, Karada?”

Her response was to throw herself at the cairn. She ran and leaped, landing halfway up the sloping stone sides. Without ready footholds, she had to climb, and that slowed her down. Pa’alu calmly shoved the torch into the pile of wood. Smoke curled from the broken branches, followed by a puff of red flame.

Nianki hauled herself up as far as the upper edge of the altar before she misplaced her foot and slid back to the ground. Pa’alu came to the edge and looked down at her.

“Amero!” she cried. Villagers surged around her, trying to reach the cairn before the fire claimed their chief.

While everyone was yelling and struggling, Nacris saw her moment and acted. She stepped away from the shadow of the house in which she’d been hiding. The crowd was between her and the cairn, and no one was looking at her. She picked up a loose stone.

“Free Arkuden! Death to the nomads!” she cried, and threw the stone.

The distance was short and her aim was good. The rock hit Pa’alu hard on the jaw. He reeled with the blow and toppled off the cairn. Flames erupted from the pile. More villagers surged forward, some of them echoing Nacris’s cry, “Death to the nomads!”

Nianki got to her feet in time to avoid being trampled. She shouted for order, but the crowd was too loud, too far gone in pent-up anger to hear her.

Makeshift weapons appeared: pruning forks, wooden hoes, rakes, stone hammers, and axes. Blows were exchanged. The press of the crowd drove Nianki straight into the stone side of the cairn. She was unarmed save for her flint knife, which she could not reach because of the weight of the throng at her back.

She struggled and cursed, her blood boiling as she watched her outnumbered people being clubbed senseless by outraged farmers, potters, and herdsmen. Nianki yearned to plunge into the fray and teach the villagers a lesson, but her first duty was to Amero, still bound atop the cairn.

Suddenly, the mob pinning her helplessly in place dissolved as the unarmed scurried to get away from the armed. She started climbing again, and this time desperation put new strength in her hands. By the time she made it to the stone platform, Amero was squirming frantically, trying to put some distance between himself and the flames. With only bark sandals on his feet, he kicked at blazing tree limbs.

“Amero!” She grabbed him by his shirt when he wormed his way close enough. Dragging him away from the fire, Nianki next climbed over him and sat astride his back, sawing at his bonds with her knife.

Rocks and thrown clubs whizzed by Nianki. She dodged them with uncanny flicks of her head and shoulders, never once looking up from her task. When the thong was finally cut, she slid aside. Amero dragged her down so she would be less likely to be hit by random missiles.

“What happened?” she said in his ear.

“Pa’alu’s gone mad! He meant to kill me, and Hatu and Nacris helped him!”

She stared, disbelieving. “Hatu?”

He nodded furiously. A hammer hit the rim of the platform and exploded in a shower of rock fragments.

“We’ve got to stop this!” Amero said.

“Any idea how?”

“I’ll try to calm my people! You’ll have to see to yours!”

Below, those nomads not knocked out in the first minutes of the riot fell back to the animal pens. There, they began bridling their horses and mounting amidst a hail of stones and other makeshift missiles. Once on horseback, the nomads closed ranks and charged, relying on their speed and weight to knock the villagers out of the way. They quickly cleared the pathways between the houses and trampled the best-armed group of villagers, a band made up of the sons and daughters of the village elders. Yelling war cries, the mounted nomads galloped to their camp. While the villagers retreated to their houses, the nomads pulled down their tents and lashed their gear to their horses.

Nianki came upon Pa’alu, painfully crawling away from the cairn. He’d broken a leg and several ribs in his fall. She easily overtook him and pinned him to the ground by planting her foot in his back.

“Now you must kill me,” he gasped, his face in the dirt.

“Kill you? I should roast you alive on the pyre you made for my brother! Were Nacris and Hatu involved in this?” she said.

“No.”

“Liar!” She put more weight on her leg and his broken ribs scraped together. He writhed in agony. “They put you up to this!” she hissed.

“No! I did this myself! So kill me!”

Nianki removed her foot and grasped Pa’alu by the hair, turning him over on his back. She said, “You’re going to live just long enough to tell the entire band this was a plot by Nacris to overthrow me!”

Pa’alu looked past the angry eyes of the woman he loved and into the face of death. A figure had appeared atop the cairn behind Nianki. She didn’t see him, had no chance to block or dodge the spear he threw; however, the weapon wasn’t aimed at her. It took Pa’alu low in the gut.

Nianki rolled to the side and jumped up, knife ready. She caught only a glimpse of the spear thrower as he leaped down from the other side of the platform. By the time she ran around the end of the cairn, Pa’alu’s attacker had escaped into the maze of village houses.

She cursed heartily and returned to Pa’alu. His eyes were still open, but his breath was shallow.

“Karada,” he whispered.

She bent low over him to catch his dying words. “Who else?” she hissed. “Who else is with Nacris and Hatu?”

“All of them.” He tried to laugh, but it came out as a rasping, rattling wheeze. “Finish me.”

Knowing he’d betrayed her, yet feeling some pity at last, Nianki found it in her heart to fulfill this last request.

She pulled the spear out of his belly. It was a boar spear, with a broad flint head and an oak peg lashed to the shaft to keep the spear from going in too far to be recovered. She positioned the tip over his heart.

“Peace… to you… Nianki,” he rasped.

“There is no peace,” she replied. “Not while I live.” She leaned hard on the shaft. Pa’alu, so near death already, felt nothing, and his last breath escaped soundlessly.

She slumped against the stone side of the cairn, the bloody spear across her lap. Out of the swirl of dust and smoke appeared a towering figure, coming toward her.

Pakito.

Nianki straightened her back and wrapped her hands more tightly around the spear shaft. The last thing she wanted was a fight with Pakito, her most loyal friend and a formidable foe, but Pakito’s brother was dead, and by her hand — how would the mighty warrior take that?

Pakito dropped to his knees beside his brother. He closed Pa’alu’s eyes and, scooping up a handful of loose dirt, gave him a nomad’s benediction — he poured the handful of dirt on Pa’alu’s forehead.