Paul Cook - Children of the Plains

“We haven’t got much time!” Nianki declared. “The first sixty, follow me. Targun, take the others and pound on every door in Arku-peli. It’s time the mudtoes fought for their own valley.”

Karada and sixty warriors stumbled through the dark village toward the cattle pens. It was plain that if the rebel nomads were coming back, they’d have to use one of the passes at the northern end of the valley, of which Cedar-split Gap was the closest. At the top of the sandy hill that stood between the pens and the village, Karada halted her comrades.

“What is it?” asked Pakito, too loudly.

“Shh! Listen!”

The gap, lined with stone on all sides, focused the sound of massed horses into the valley. They all strained to hear, poised on the crest of the hill. The rumble was unmistakable.

“What’ll we do?” whispered Pakito.

“They think they’ll surprise us, catch us asleep,” Nianki said. “Instead, we’ll catch them.”

She spread her meager force out along the hill, just below the crest and out of sight from the other side. The warriors went down on one knee and leaned their spears forward, bracing the butt against their feet. If the renegades came galloping over the hill, they’d run smack into a hedge of waiting spear points.

Behind them, Targun, Samtu, and the rest rattled every door in the village. Some of the villagers came out to see what the commotion was, but most bolted their doors and tried to get a glimpse of the situation from their upper windows. They were the first to catch sight of the oncoming attack.

The cry went up. “Riders! Riders!”

“Brace yourselves!” Nianki told her warriors.

Waving torches, the first wave of horsemen swept down on the unguarded cattle pens, their agile ponies jumping over the low stone wall. They threw ropes over the gate and tore it down, then screaming nomads got behind the herd and started driving them out of the pen.

“They’re stealing our oxen!” wailed a villager.

Pakito eyed his chief. Karada shook her head. The warriors held their positions.

To her consternation, a sizable body of riders simply rode around the hill, along the pebbled shoreline. There was nothing between them and the village. Nianki was about to order her line to fall back when a second wave of mounted renegades, some eighty strong, came cantering over the hill. It wasn’t quite the headlong charge she wanted, but several of the riders did run into the thorny line of spears. The renegades recoiled, and showered the nomads on foot with stones and thrown spears.

“Hold your place,” Nianki said. “If something comes your way, knock it down before it reaches you.”

Following her own order, she batted down a pair of light javelins hurled at her. The predawn darkness made it difficult to see every missile, and two of her warriors went down, scalps laid open by large stones.

“All right, on your feet!” she said. Nianki herself went to one of her fallen comrades and helped the injured woman stand. “Back to the houses — but slowly! Slowly!”

Under jeers and missiles, the slender line withdrew to the outermost ring of houses. Nianki gave the nomad she’d rescued to some householders, who took her inside. A few of the older villagers, who remembered fighting like this from their younger days, joined Nianki’s defenders. They were armed with whatever came to hand — wooden rakes, shovels, staffs. Not one in ten had a stone-headed weapon. With no other options to hand, Nianki put them quickly into the line.

The renegades who’d ridden down the shore of the lake turned in to the village and began throwing torches at the housetops. One by one, the roofs caught fire, the families running outside to escape the flames. Hatu’s riders let them go, racing inside to plunder the burning house before the roof fell in on everything. The terrified villagers ran to the foot of the falls, under the very mouth of the dragon’s cave, and prayed for the aid of their great protector.

Into this scene of terror came Amero. He directed those fleeing to take shelter by the falls and moved on against the screaming tide. A few horsemen were harassing the fleeing villagers, tripping them with their spear shafts or knocking them around with their horses. Furious, Amero stormed at the nearest bully. The laughing nomad was chivvying an old man and teenage girl, pushing them this way and that, not letting them get clear to run. Amero rushed the nomad from his blind side and thrust his spear into the man’s armpit. The horseman’s head snapped around, totally astonished. He fell from his horse. Freed of its rider, the animal galloped away from the battle.

Villagers surrounded Amero and praised him for his prowess and courage. Impatiently he said, “All I did was stab a man when he wasn’t looking! Go!”

A pair of riders bore down on Amero. He flattened himself against the side of the cairn just in time to dodge simultaneously thrown javelins. One came close enough to cut the waist of his trews.

For the second time in as many days, Amero found himself going up the side of the cairn. At least the horsemen couldn’t reach him up there. Rocks and axes flew thick and fast as he scaled the sloping stone side. A few thumped him with glancing blows. Wincing, he kept his grip and made it to the top.

The dark sky was lightening to blue. Keeping low to avoid missiles, Amero crept to the other edge of the cairn and saw the battle raging among the houses.

Nianki’s line had become a circle, bounded on all sides by stoutly defended houses. In the gaps between, her warriors and the armed villagers who remained fought tenaciously. The narrow lanes between the houses reduced the mobility of the renegades’ horses, and many dismounted to fight on foot.

From his perch, Amero spotted Nianki. Her closely-cropped hair made her easy to pick out as she stood in the center of the besieged circle. She directed the defense with cool words or fierce cries, as needed. Amero was deeply struck by this image of his sister. He’d seen her duel with Sessan, but he’d never before witnessed her commanding in battle.

A head bobbed up over the edge of the cairn, a long-haired nomad. With surprisingly little remorse, Amero put his foot in the man’s face and sent him tumbling to the ground. Two others tried to scale the platform and reach him, but he fended them off with his spear. Amero felt a growing confidence in his fighting abilities. Another quick glance over at his sister and he thought proudly that warrior blood did run in the family.

A heavy pall of smoke wafted between the cairn and Nianki’s position. Renegades on the outer edges of the battle were setting more and more roofs afire. When the flames reached the houses making up Nianki’s defenses, her line would fragment, and the defenders would be cut up and defeated piecemeal.

Scooting back to the center of the platform, Amero knelt and bowed his head. Concentrating as hard as he could, he formed a single thought.

Duranix! Help us, or we are lost!

The blazing roof on the house nearest the cairn — Konza’s home — collapsed. Inside, the wooden posts and flooring burned ferociously, tongues of flame spurting from the second-story windows. The heat was so powerful it drove Amero to the opposite end of the cairn. He fervently hoped no one was left inside the tanner’s house.

Pakito, fighting with the long-handled axe so dreaded by his foes, cleared a swath in front of him. Through the smoke he saw Amero crouching atop the dragon’s cairn.

“Karada!” he bellowed. “Isn’t that Arkuden?”

Nianki spared a glance in the direction he indicated. She saw Amero, wreathed in smoke and flames. Her heart seemed to stop; her instinct was to fly to his defense. Instead, she said, “We can’t reach him — there’s too many on us!”