Sister of the Sun (40 page)

Once again the other sailor began to argue with Nika. There was no more time for games. At Paruru's signal the warrior nearest Kiore raised his club....
 

Somehow the sailor sensed the movement. He knocked the man's arm aside and delivered a blow to his belly. Before the second warrior could get to him, Kiore dove into the thickest part of the brash. "Get him," ordered Paruru. The heavyset warrior charged after the vanished sailor, but his shark-toothed sword snagged on a branch, delaying him a precious instant. The other warrior recovered and followed his companion.
 

"They will get him," Paruru said confidently to Nika.

"But he—"

"Kiore is stubborn," Paruru tried to explain. "I told him what will happen if the Pu-tahi find us. They will use the thunder-club against Tepua, and their spears against the rest of us."
 

Nika seemed to waver and Paruru wondered if he would have to leave him behind. But if Nika did not carry the weapon, then Cone-shell might insist on taking it. "We must hurry," the warrior said. "Friends are waiting."
 

"Friends?"

"Just ahead, I have men waiting to stand with us. We will not have to face the Pu-tahi alone." He pointed down the trail. A muscle twitched in the sailor's jaw. Nika peered anxiously in both directions, but before he could make up his mind, a crowd of Varoa men emerged from the thicket ahead.
 

"What was the commotion?" asked Cone-shell, at the head of his company of warriors. The chief was arrayed for battle in a spiked headdress of coconut fronds and a war kilt. Paruru had never seen him like this. He recalled tales of long ago, when Cone-shell had led an attack on a neighboring island.
 

Paruru sensed Nika's fright at this sudden appearance of so many warriors. He moved closer, preparing to use restraint if Nika should bolt. But Paruru felt his own fears growing as well.
 

He gazed at Cone-shell with new respect.
I am a reef shark among the fish
, he thought,
but he is a great white shark that I have coaxed into the lagoon
. When Cone-shell was done feeding, he wondered, who would be left?
 

Whatever happened today, Tepua must survive. Paruru had promised the gods that he would not let Cone-shell seize her power. Now he began to doubt that he could keep his word.
 

"Where is the other foreigner?" demanded Varoa's chief.

Paruru struggled to get out his words. "He...ran off. Your men...will catch him in the swamp."

"And if they do not?"

"He knows nothing that can hurt us...if we move quickly."

"Then go!" At Cone-shell's signal his men fanned out behind him, creeping silently through the undergrowth, their spears held low. Paruru led them along the shortest route to the Pu-tahi's compound. All the while he made certain that Nika remained close beside him.
 

The sailor seemed terrified, his face awash with sweat, his eyes shifting crazily. Paruru realized that despite Nika's talk of battles and weapons, the young man was no warrior. But Nika had done the important favor that his brother had asked of him—preparing the weapon, teaching Paruru how to use it.
 

The underbrush started to thin. Now the men were drawing near Tepua's guesthouses, heading for the compound where the Pu-tahi would be gathered about their chief. Paruru felt a growing dread as he advanced with the others. His victory was almost at hand, yet it would be Cone-shell's victory as well.
 

The
kaito-nui
gave a signal. The men crouched, taking cover behind a stand of yellow-flowered
kokuru
shrubs. Paruru could not see through the greenery to the compound beyond, but he sensed an eerie silence there.
 

Keeping low, Paruru crept forward, parting the thin
kokuru
stems to peer through. Ahead he saw the compound, its neatly thatched houses, its clean yard, its low surrounding wall of white coral. Where were the Pu-tahi? Daringly, he thrust his head farther out, until he could look to the side in both directions. No one in sight. Yet it was too early for anyone to have left for assembly ground.
 

He listened to the distant boom of the surf and faint cries of birds. Why were no children splashing in the shallows? Why were no women greeting each other along the shore?
 

Then a frightening chorus of yells from behind made clear that he had been betrayed. The air was filled with heavy stones that struck heads and sent men sprawling. The remaining warriors of Varoa cried out in astonishment, rose, and charged into the open.
 

Parana grabbed Nika's arm and dragged him forward, hurrying out of range of the slingers, then wheeling to face the foe. Only a fool would let the enemy keep its advantage of cover. Now the ambushers would have to show themselves if they wanted to attack again.
 

His blood pounded as he stood beside Nika, watching for the enemy to appear. For a long moment all was still again. An insect whined. A tropic bird flew overhead. Then he saw branches shaking, bushes parting.
 

Suddenly a forest of spears emerged from the shadows. Too many spears. They could not all belong to Pu-tahi. They did not even look like Pu-tahi spears.
 

Cone-shell's men stood with the lagoon at their backs. Paruru knew at once that his force was badly outnumbered. The attackers came closer, and he groaned in despair. Half were Ahiku warriors! The Pu-tahi dogs stood in one fierce line, the local warriors in another. And Tepua-mua-ariki, arrayed in her own spiked headdress, was leading her men in the charge.
 

With wild cries, the battle began, spear parrying spear, club striking club. Dust swirled, sun flashed on polished wood and the sudden brightness of blood when a man went down. In the midst of the onslaught, Paruru realized that Nika had slipped away from him.
 

He turned with alarm, but saw that the sailor had not gone far. Nika was behind him, crouching by the low compound wall. He had already unwrapped the weapon.
 

Paruru had wanted this used against the Pu-tahi, but now it would be turned against Ahiku as well. Even worse, Cone-shell seemed determined to deal the thunderous blow. Parana saw him coming toward Nika as the sailor made his final preparations—cocking the beak, sprinkling powder in the bowl. Paruru felt a coldness in his gut as he caught the fierce glitter in Cone-shell's eyes. He had been
kaito-nui
for too long to give up his loyalties in a single day.
 

If Cone-shell seized the weapon and used it against Ahiku Clan, the damage would be far worse than anything Paruru had anticipated. The old ways of battle would mean nothing if a man no longer needed strength and agility, if a man could kill merely with a pull of his finger. Pu-tahi dogs deserved such a death. Ahiku men did not. Neither did Tepua.
 

Paruru's only hope was to reach Nika before Cone-shell did. The warrior felt as if he were moving in a strange slow dream, his legs weighted, his arms slow and heavy. As he threw himself into a lunge he heard a foreign shout behind him.
Kiore's voice
. Nika's eyes were wide with terror and he seemed not to hear.
 

Cone-shell was approaching from one direction, Paruru from another. Nika rose, staggered backward, then lifted the thunder-club. In seeming confusion, he pointed it first at the line of attackers and then at Varoa's chief. Everything around Paruru became a wild blur, but at the center, as if at the calm eye of a hurricane, he saw Nika's forefinger curl about the long tooth under the weapon.
 

"No!" Paruru cried, his hand reaching to stop him.
Too late
! The bird's beak fell. Sparks burst upward from the pan.
 

Paruru heard the roar at the same moment that he felt the pain, tearing down the outside of his arm. He fell, one hand clutching his wound, the other his head, where the echo of the terrible noise sounded again and again. Rolling over, he stared through clouds of drifting smoke and black patches that were closing out his vision.
 

He saw Cone-shell toppling, his hands clutching his breast, his mouth open in a scream that Paruru could not hear. And blood sheeted down Cone-shell's ribs like the ebbing tide running over coral.
 

 

 

 

TWENTY-TWO

 

Tepua watched with disbelief as Cone-shell and Paruru fell. The smoke cloud spread. Warriors cried out in panic. Varoa's men scattered, some diving into the lagoon.
 

Sea-snake grabbed Tepua's wrist, tried to drag her to safety, but she shook him off. "Wait!" she shouted, watching Nika where he crouched beyond the wall. His eyes were wild, his face slick with sweat. He staggered to his feet, swinging the weapon from side to side, showing its terrible mouth....
 

"It must not speak again!" she cried. She charged forward, her spear aimed at Nika's belly. Then she saw Kiore running toward him as well—running right into her path.
 

She screamed a warning as she tried to aim high. Kiore ducked. Nika dodged and stumbled. The point missed both men, but Nika was down. With an enraged roar Kiore was on him, jerking the thunder-maker from his grip.
 

Kiore became a madman, smashing the weapon on the coral wall. The air rang with the sound of battering until pieces broke away and the rest fell, bent and twisted, to the ground. "The thing is dead," he said hoarsely, his chest heaving, his eyes bright with tears.
 

Tepua gazed at him in astonishment. He had destroyed the thunder-club, the work of his own people. "The battle is over!" she called to the dazed men who remained at the scene. "Let there now be peace among us."
 

Varoa's warriors held on to their weapons. Nervously they edged toward their fallen chief.

"No more fighting!" she shouted as Pu-tahi moved to cut them off. "We pledged our goodwill to the gods."

The Pu-tahi and the men of Varoa cast threatening looks at each other. "Come away," called Ata-katinga to his warriors. "We have no more business here," he said in disgust. "We are finished with these deceivers."
 

Tepua felt outraged by his words, but was glad to see the men following their orders. The Pu-tahi assembled about their chief. Slowly, one by one, the stunned warriors of Varoa put down their weapons.
 

A crowd had gathered about Cone-shell's remains. Tepua pushed her way through and looked down. Blood pooled in the gaping hole in his chest, welled up, and spilled over, staining the white sand. She gasped. Ata-katinga had told what the foreign weapons could do, but his words had not conveyed the horror.
 

"He is gone," said a warrior who knelt beside the body. "No one can help him." He began his wail of mourning, and others took up the cry.
 

Tepua turned, leaving the men of Varoa to their grief. She caught sight of Paruru, also lying still. "Send someone for Heka," she told Sea-snake. "She must know what has happened to her brother." Unwillingly she stepped around the mourners to look closer at the state of Paruru's body. She saw blood seeping from small wounds on his upper arm....
 

Suddenly Paruru groaned and stirred. "He lives!" Tepua shouted. "Call a healer!" Paruru's hands went to his ears and his face twisted with pain. When she tried to speak with him, he did not seem to hear.
 

At last he looked in her direction. "Noise...in my ears ..." he said weakly. "Not stopping." He clutched his head again. He was trembling all over and his face had gone pale.
 

He looked at her with wide, pain-filled eyes. "I cannot hear you,
ariki
. But listen. This is...my doing. I planned it all. The burned headdress...and the weapon. Do not blame the outsiders."
 

How can I not blame them? she wanted to ask. She motioned for Paruru to stay where he was until a
tahunga
could help him. There was no need to consider his punishment now.
 

At last she turned her attention to the sailors. Flanked by a pair of her warriors, Nika stood trembling beneath a palm tree. Guarded by another pair of men, Kiore sat on the wall, grimly watching the crowd. She wanted to believe that he had tried to prevent this violence. He had disarmed Nika and destroyed the weapon, but he was not blameless. None of this could have happened without the presence of these two men.
 

She approached Kiore, following his gaze as it went from Cone-shell's mourners to her stricken
kaito-nui
. "May the gods forgive us," Kiore said quietly.
 

She had no words for him, no comfort. Her feelings were in turmoil. "I must go," she said. "I must deal with Ata-katinga now." She saw Kiore turn away in anguish, and wished she could stay with him.
 

Tepua tried to compose herself as she recalled the events of the morning. When news had reached her that warriors of Varoa were lurking in the forest, she had quickly conferred with Ata-katinga, agreeing that her men would fight beside his. For a brief while there had been an alliance between herself and the Pu-tahi chief. Now she saw Ata-katinga holding the ruined thunder-club, turning it over and over, his tattooed face dark with fury. Beyond him, she saw his men carrying their equipment from the guesthouses. They were leaving the atoll!
 

"Ata-katinga, I know what you are thinking," she said as she came up to him. "But I was also deceived. I truly thought the weapon lost."
 

He glanced up at her and tossed the ruined thunder-club aside. "There is no more to say, Tepua. Whatever hopes I had are ended. I wanted you to stand with me against a common enemy, but I came to you too late."
 

"It is not so!" she answered. "Ata-katinga, my
kaito-nui
acted without my knowledge. It was his idea to attack you, not mine. Be glad that he relented at the last moment and tried to stop Nika from using the weapon. Otherwise you would be the one whose chest was torn out."