The People of the Black Sun (54 page)

Fifty-six

Nesi stood gaping, momentarily frozen at the sight of Hills warriors flooding across the Bur Oak catwalks. Heartbeats later, they fired a coordinated, decimating volley of arrows into the Mountain warriors at the base of the palisades, warriors who'd been scrambling on top of the corpses, shooting straight up into the faces of anyone who leaned over to aim at them. Hundreds went down. Then more, as Negano's archers launched arrows into the fleeing horde whose senseless rage had led them way too close to the village.

Yesterday, most of the people standing on the catwalk had been elders and children with poor aims. As of this moment, the Standing Stone nation had three hundred of the finest warriors in the land.

Nesi's fists ached as he clenched them tight, and turned to face Chief Wenisa. Nesi was a big man, but Wenisa was bigger, his shoulders wider, his upper arms more massive. Though a cacophony of threats and curses had erupted from Wenisa's personal guards as they stalked about in fury … Wenisa stood eerily quiet. Just calmly watching the battle with his bulging muscles about to burst through his shirt.

Nesi's gaze slid to Chief Atotarho. The old man hunched over his walking stick, gripping the head with knobby parchment-like hands. His crooked body quaked with repressed violence. Muscle spasms twitched across his wrinkled face with such ferocity that Nesi thought he might be about to collapse in convulsions. Negano's move had left the Chief with five personal guards in the midst of a swarm of deadly Mountain warriors.

Nesi met the gazes of Atotarho's other guards. Terrified and stunned, they looked like they didn't know what to do. Each one who silently glanced down at his weapons belt, or shifted his shoulder to indicate his slung bow, received a subtle shake of Nesi's head. Gods, that was the last thing …

A wild-eyed youth came careening across the battlefield, leaping corpses in a heedless charge to reach Chief Wenisa. Shoulder-length black hair flew around his face. “Chief! Chief! I saw her first!”

Nesi studied the youth of perhaps fifteen summers. He had misshapen eyes, and spoke like a simpleton. Tears streamed down his bucktoothed face to stain the front of his ragged deerhide shirt. His eyes glistened as though he'd seen Sky Woman herself descending from the clouds.

Wenisa sneered, as though the youth was a well-known imbecile. “Get him away from me.”

As two of Wenisa's personal guards grabbed the young warrior, he shouted, “She's coming!
She's coming!
Listen to me. I saw her in the forest. I was the first one!”

“Shut the fool up!” Wenisa shouted.

One of the guards clamped a hand over the warrior's mouth and dragged him off.

Someone must have called retreat. Mountain warriors fell back from the village, out of bowshot, and a curious sound—like eels coiling in mud—moved across the battlefield. It started slowly. As a mass, warriors turned to the north, then came bursts of low questions erupted.

Nesi followed their gazes.

Where trees disturbed the path of Hadui, a lilting symphony of whistles and shrieks answered back: the music of the windswept forest.

Only slowly did he become aware of her. She appeared standing in the deepest forest shadows. A tall figure, broad-shouldered for a woman, wearing a simple doehide war shirt. Long black hair whipped around her beautiful face. Strangely eerie, the locks resembled black serpents striking at the air.

“Blessed Faces of the Forest,” someone whispered.

As she started walking down the slope and across the meadow, her skin had an alabaster radiance. A huge wolf strode close at her side. Where they stepped butterflies flitted from the warm grass and danced around them. The woman carried no bow or quiver, but her weapons belt glistened with light, the bone stilettos casting slender iridescent flashes.

Nesi shook his head, jimmied the images, the odd shadows. Her movements were so graceful she seemed to be floating, not tethered to the ground. It had to be a trick of light, that or he was dead and didn't know it. Perhaps he'd stepped out of his body into the world of the corpses that surrounded him.

Wenisa shifted to stare at her through his one good eye. “Who is that?”

One of his guards replied, “I … I think that's War Chief Baji from the People of the Flint. We fought against her two moons ago. She led the defense of Wild River Village.”

No one loosed an arrow at her or the wolf. Her sudden appearance—or perhaps her beauty—had stilled every fighter on the field of battle.

She walked straight to the unconscious Standing Stone Prophet and spread her feet as though ready to fight the world to defend him. Her expression was granite hard, her dark eyes brilliant with challenge. When the wolf lay down on the ground and began licking the Prophet's swollen cheek, murmurs passed through the guards. The animal whimpered softly.

As though the woman could have cared less that she was surrounded by enemies, she knelt beside the Prophet.

“It's me,” she softly said, then she sat down in the dry grass and gently drew his wounded head into her lap.

 

Fifty-seven

Baji smoothed the tear-soaked black hair from Dekanawida's cheeks. His purpled misshapen face was almost unrecognizable. His left eye had swollen closed, and his right eye was filled with milky fluid. Dried blood covered his shirt.

“Dekanawida?”

No answer.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, bringing the storm closer. Trees battered one another, and everything loose on the battlefield tumbled across the ground as though hurled by gigantic fists. Broken arrows and torn quivers cartwheeled by her.

“Dekanawida? Can you hear me?”

He roused slightly, then seemed to sink back into the oblivion that had swallowed him.

She stroked his short black hair. “I'm here. I'm right here beside you.”

Barely audible, he said, “Baji?”

“Yes. I'm here. I'm not leaving you.”

His lips twitched in what might have been an attempt at a smile.

Baji bent down to examine Dekanawida's milky eye. “Can you see anything? Can you see me?”

He whispered, “Clouds … just clouds.”

She lightly pressed her lips to his. As she lifted her head, the whirling columns of insects that had, moments before, glistened at the edge of the trees, evaporated, and the birdsong faded away until it lay stone dead upon the forest.

The Thunderers rumbled again, and a brilliant flash of lightning lashed outward from the leading Cloud People to crackle white fire across the sky. The afterimage burned into her eyes was of a gigantic tree of light.

“Wr-wrass?” Dekanawida asked.

“He'll be here. You know he will.”

“… yes.”

As the storm approached the air cooled, and the light shifted, flickering across the meadow in curious stripes. At first she thought it was just the leading edge of the clouds blotting Elder Brother Sun, then she noticed the butterflies settling into the grass, hiding themselves as though afraid.

Her heart started to pound. She murmured, “Dekanawida?”

As though Great Grandmother Earth had exhaled her last breath, the wind stopped. Just stopped. Conversations hummed as warriors turned to each other in confusion.

Baji's gaze darted around.
“Dekanawida? I think…”

His fingers flexed, and he shifted in her lap as though feeling was coming back to his limbs. Upon his swollen face, she saw the sunlight turn from amber to an unearthly blue, and she lifted her eyes to the sky.

In the strange shadow-bands of light, Elder Brother Sun seemed to tremble, then a midnight abyss opened beside him, and slid forward, cutting a black hole in the universe.

Gasps and cries swept the meadow.

“It's the Dream!”

“Dear gods, it's happening … I told you it was true. I knew it!”

Every warrior lifted his face to the sky, and a low moan quavered on the air.

A sliver of Elder Brother Sun's face disappeared, then more, his light and warmth being sucked away into eternal darkness.

Gasps rose, followed by shrieks.

“Run … Run before it's too late!”

Mountain warriors started to throw down their weapons. The clatter of a thousand quivers hitting the ground at once sounded like the sky splitting.

“I'm leaving!”
One of Wenisa's guards pounded away.

Wenisa took a step backward, then another. Finally, he whirled and ran as hard as he could for the cover of the trees.

Atotarho and his guards stood gaping, as though too shocked to move as Elder Brother Sun fled the world.

Finally Nesi shouted, “Come on!” He grabbed Chief Atotarho, threw him over his shoulder, and sprinted away with his men behind him.

As soon as they entered the forest, a surprised roar went up, and Baji saw hundreds of warriors surrounding them. Their clan symbols were from both the Hills and Landing nations. Wenisa roared in outrage, and she saw him fighting the strong hands that held him.

Hiyawento appeared at the crest of the hill. Tall, his eyes blazing, he briefly studied the situation, then charged toward her, his long legs pumping.

With a stunningly brilliant flash, Elder Brother Sun vanished and white fire,
white feathers,
sprouted from his shoulders. His newborn wings fluttered wildly. He was flying away into the darkness.…

“Baji?” Dekanawida weakly rolled to his knees. “Help me up.”

As she carefully pulled his arm over her shoulder, she said, “Hiyawento's coming.”

Dekanawida heaved a deep sigh, as though all was now as it should be.

Hiyawento tossed his bow to the ground, and said, “Let me help you.”

Together, Baji and Hiyawento lifted Dekanawida onto his feet. “I can stand.”

“No. No, you need me—”

“Back away, Baji,” Hiyawento said. “He has to stand alone.”

Reluctantly, she stepped back, leaving Dekanawida wobbling in the bizarre fluttering light. Gitchi leaped in front of Dekanawida with his fangs bared, daring anyone to try to hurt him.

On the verge of collapsing, Dekanawida stumbled and righted himself. When he'd managed to stiffen his knees, he sucked in a breath, and slowly lifted his arms as though to embrace the vanishing heavens themselves.

 

Fifty-eight

Sky Messenger

I fight to clear my vision. Images are jumbled. Like thin sheets of ice struck with a rock, everything appears shattered. Warriors are splintered shards of colors. Hiyawento could be made of fire-cracked quartz. Each angle of his face reflects the unnatural gleam differently. At my feet, Gitchi stands like a melting ice-sculpture dog, his shoulder blades sharp as knives.

The only thing whole in the entire world is Baji. To my right, she stands as a coherent woman-shaped shadow, a living shadow, moving, breathing. I long to reach out and touch her, but dare not move. My legs are shaking too badly. I don't know how long I can stand.

I let my head drop forward long enough to get a full breath into my lungs. Sounds and scents seem exaggerated. The cries on the battlefield surround me like soaring birds, flying about, puncturing the air. And the tears! The scent of tears claws at the back of my throat like a stone hand trying to find a way into my heart—a way to die a meaningful death.

I exhale hard before I tilt my face up to the sky.

In the center of the eerie blue background, a single black eye wavers, watching me. Huge and velvet.

“Please, Elder Brother, I beg you…”

My knees are about to buckle. I fight to keep them rigid as I stretch out my hands, and in a deep agonized voice, cry,
“No more! No more war!”

In the distance, a defeaning roar booms and rolls across the sky. The ground beneath my feet trembles. Then the blast comes. Blinding flashes sear my eyes as gigantic white roots split the Skyworld and crackle outward to the four directions.

Hundreds of warriors throw down their weapons and flee, abandoning the field of battle. The sound of frantic feet tripping over corpses strikes like fists.