Ember of a New World (38 page)

“Let-go?” h
e
asked, starting
to laugh.
His hand started reaching for a place on the woman he should not have tried to touch.

“I show-you what...”
he began to say. H
e stopped abruptly with a sudden gasp. The
appearance of a
shaft protruding from his chest told his disbeliev
ing eyes that he wouldn’t finish the touch
. Both Ember and the man stared at each other in shock. She had fired her arrow cleanly and so abruptly that everyone had been taken by surprise! The man tried to grab the slave as he sank to his knees, but she stood firmly and stared at him with vindication and tears in her eyes as he let go and began gasping for air, his lungs
quickly
filling with blood.

He pulled the arrow from his chest, but the arrow head remained in his body, detaching as it was designed to do.
The other four men could only stare in shock as their leader coughed up his life blood
,
falling to his side and going into shuttering convulsions. Suddenly
,
the shock of the moment was over, and the men tore their bows from their backs, stringing them and grasping at arrows as fast as possible.

Ember yelled to t
he women in the trade language,
“Down!” The three women dropped to the ground as quickly as they could. Ember used the moment to nock her free arrow and dashed for the trees, running through her small maze of traps hoping to draw the men from the slaves to keep them clear from the arrow fire. She loosed her second arrow in a blind twisting fire as she paused between traps. The arrow shot wide missing the men but the one who had nocked and
drew
his bow misfired whi
le ducking from the wild shot.

Ember ran behind a tree and pulled her body tightly against the cool bark. Her chest pounded as she carefully selected an arrow from her quiver. For some reason, she noted the f
l
etching was made from a brownish feather. Ember's mind was trying to detach itself from the events unfolding. As she did so, she heard and felt an arrow as it thudded into the tree just behind her head, exploding as the flint arrowhead blew apart from the force of the impact! The sudden thud brought her back into focus.

“Goddess
,
be with me
,”
she said to herself as she summoned the courage to return fire. She looked across at Brig'dha who was behind a nearby tree holding her small flint knife and wearing an expression of utter fear and exhilaration. Ember gave her a weary smile and moved sideways to stand in the open where she might take aim. She knew she would be a larger target, but one clear shot was worth the
risk.

One man was making a run for her when she took a bead on a second man who
was
also firing. Ember wanted to duck, but she remembered kicking the wolves
that
had chased her in the face, and the memory brought forth a short burst of inner strength. She stood her ground ensuring her aim was perfect. Both Ember and one of the men fired at once. The man's arrow flew past Ember's face, just missing her. He
r arrow flew true and buried it-self deep
within the man's throat. He gasped and gurgled falling to the ground, all thoughts of fighting lost in his own torturous pain. Ember now caught site of the slaves, who had thankfully dropped to the gr
ound and were cowering in fear.

Good
, she thought,
k
eep out of the fight
. An arrow
flew past Ember and another impacted
her arm! The arrow head bit into her soft skin as the shaft suddenly turned sideways from its own momentum, cutting her arm open. Blood rolled down her arm, and she dropped to the ground and crawled behind the bushes she had scoped out earlier as a refuge if things got out of hand. Things were
getting
out of hand.

Behind the bush
, her extra arrows lay ready to go. The three remaining men fired at her as she continued to return fire. The man who had been rushing at her had apparently had second thoughts after seeing his companion shot through the neck. Though the men were momentarily at bay, Ember realized she had a forming problem. She had lost the pace of the fight and was quickly being flanked. She only had a few arrows left, as well. Ember had to be daring now and took the risk of lifting her body above the bushes, fully exposed, to take a shot. She knew she would be an easy target firing from above the bush on her knees, but the men were not coming towards the trap, and she had to do something.
Ember hoped this would work.
Sure enough
,
an arrow flew into the
bushes right in front of her.

Ember let loose a horrified scream and fell backwards her bow falling away from view. She wailed and started crawling away from the bushes on her side with an arrow coming from her stomach, seemingly buried deeply. Blood dripped down the arrow as she cried and squealed, dragging herself as she crawled away. The victorious men came forward quickly dropping their bows and pulling daggers. A deep wound to the lower stomach could leave this crazed woman in agony for a day before she died, but their urge to finish her by hand was overpowering! She had killed at least two of
them. They would cut this beast-of-a-
woman's throat. A
pack of wolves
was always stronger than a little red fox. Unfortunately for these wol
ves, the fox was more cunning.

In his haste to finish the woman, the first man stepped directly onto a spike trap and fell forward in a tripping motion as his foot was suddenly held fast by a hand length spike protruding from the upper part of his boot. He screamed louder than the wounded woman in front of him. The other two men turned as they ran past to see what had happened to their friend. For one of the two men, this was a big mistake. He stepped onto another upturned spike which failed to puncture his boot but tripped him, sending him sprawling
forward. He landed face first on
another trap. He was dead before his body stopped moving. The last man now turned to the wound
ed girl, who was suddenly up
and not so wounded!

As she stood with her recovered bow in her hand, she let go of the arrow from her side. The arrow fell to the ground with a soft clatter. She had held it tightly against her waist to give the illusion of an arrow
poking
through her. The blood had come from her cut arm. The arrow in the bush was close, but the rock Brig'dha had placed in the bush had stopped it, as Ember knew it would when she had chosen that bush as an ambush site. Slowly, she nocked her arrow. The man looked around in terror, suddenly realizing that he stood in a small field of unseen traps and worse, he had brought a flint dagger to a bow and arrow fight. Ember stood at a standoff distance with a razor sharp flint head
ed
arrow and a
vicious
, if not some
what forced smile.

"Remove-clothes," she said. The man stared at her with a true confusion. Brig'dha actually had a confused look, as well. Such acts were more generally associated with men than women. Sensing his confusion
,
Ember pulled the bow string tighte
r to show her dangerous intent.

“Remove or-die
.”
Ember waited as the man pulled off his clothes and stood before her just as frightened as the women he had enslaved. She had decided to spare this man. Enough lives had been lost, and no more would be lost, unless no other way could be found. He would have to return to his tribe and explain this whole mess, and that might be worse than death. She could hear the stories
now;
we
were attacked by fifty warriors!
S
he halfheartedly smiled at the thought.

“Go! Go-home. Run!” The man walked carefully looking from the deadly spiked ground to the arrow and the crazed red headed woman holding it. He held his hand
s
out at her in fear, as though warding himself from her while backing off, then suddenly took off in a run. Ember fired her arro
w near him to keep him running.

That one won't come back for revenge any
time
soon
, she thought
,
grimly. Ironically, she would have been ill equipped for a fight
if he had tried
, for she was
actually nearly out of arrows.

Ember carefully nocked her last arrow and walked towards the enslaved, but now free, women. The scene before her was quite intense. A man
lay
on the ground face down in a pool of gore
,
occasionally quivering. Near him was a man holding his booted foot and whimpering in anguish. Brig'dha had come out
of her hiding place
and now stood by the wounded man with her knife at the ready. Not far from the women laid a stilled man with an arrow in his throat and next to the women, a man laid holding an arrow
-hole
in his chest. He was either
dead or soon would be. She couldn't tell if his jerking was life or the shakes a body experienced a
fter death as the spirit left.

When
she approached the women, Ember suddenly felt a cold shudder throughout her body and fell forward to her hands and knees. The enormity of
what
had happened filling her like a sickening and cold liquid. Ember vomited all over the ground as the adrenaline wore off. Her pain started to become noticeable. Her left arm had a sli
ce the length of her finger acro
ss it. The slice was not deep, but it would need to be cleaned and possibly burned before it became warm and sore. Her body had other random aches and pains as well, but the nausea only lasted a short moment. Ember was unsure of how she should feel. Pain, sadness, the thrill of victory, shame; all of these emo
tions danced through her mind.

Ember slowly stood and staggered over to the women who w
ere still cowering and crying.

“It-is good, now. Stand. Can-you walk home?” She removed her dagger and cut their
bindings
. Each woman wore plenty of clothing, and they were in generally good condition. The oldest woman, not more than a few seasons older than Ember, shook her
head up and down meaning, “yes.”

“Your home, two days walk?” she
asked,
pointing the way of the previous village. The oldest girl nodded yes again. Ember smiled and handed the lead girl the knife from the dead man at her feet. She removed the dried meat from one of her pouches and handed it to the woman. It was plenty of meat for a single meal for the three. She
gave each one of them a smile a
nd motioned them to leave. She would spare them the horror of cleaning up after the battle. As the three women stood, unsure of what to do Ember moved towards them again a
nd gave each a reassuring hug.

“Go. Go-home. Good life. Many babies!” She gave them a wide smile and slowly they started to walk. The youngest woman, nearly a girl really, looked back at Ember and spoke in the trade lan
guage for the first time.

“What your-name?” she
asked.

“Ember, This Brig'dha
,”
Ember replied using her hands to gesture. The woman stared into their eyes for a long moment, then turned with wet eyes and
slowly
joined the other two women
. Ember watched them go beyond the rise and towards their home. She was sure they would make it with only two day's journey ahead and a bright m
oon to come.

Ember and Brig'dha would need to clean up this mess before they left. A yelp caught her attention, and she saw the wounded man. He was trying to pull free his foot from the spike, but without the ability to bring himself to do it. The stick was as thick as three of her fingers and would leave a massive hole when it was removed. Worse, from
the angle of his leg, it appeared
that his ankle was broken. Ember wasn't sure he would live if he pulled it out. If he left the spike in his foot, he would die of the sweats and redness. Ember motioned Brig'dha to leave him alone, and they moved to the other men. The two women pulled each by the legs to the gully near the wounded man. There
,
they
carefully stripped the weapons and valuables from the men and left each of them face down in the dirt. She should feel some pity, but the memories of the anguished looks on the faces of the tribe she
had
passed and the dead in the ruined village she had once seen held back most of her sympathy. These men were in need of a lesson, and she would bring it. Emb
er was a warrior, was she not?

On the men, Ember found five flint daggers, twenty good flint arrows, and enough leather thong to string a full hut. They placed all of these items in the cramped boat and removed the spikes form the ground to prevent others from being hurt. Before
they
left
,
Ember
returned to the wounded man. No matter how little remorse she could feel for the men she had killed, she was unable to keep those feelings for the wounded man. He had this terrible habit of looking at her with pained eyes. She felt that she had done the right thing. In fact, his wound came as a result of running at her with a knife, ready to kill her as she apparently bled to death from her supposed arrow wound. No matter how she rationalized it, she still felt sym
pathy for the man.