Comanche Dawn (5 page)

The enemy raised his shield, but the axe snapped its wooden rim and stunned the warrior, who fell onto his back, continuing to slash with his knife and even reaching for an arrow from the quiver on his back.

The jagged flint edges circled overhead again and cracked the skull of the enemy, glancing and peeling back hair and skin which flopped over one ear.

“Finish this one!” Black Horn said, handing his war axe to River Woman. “And the one above, with my arrow in his head. I am going to fight the others!”

Shadow's uncle scrambled back over the dying brown pony to his own mount. The boy went toward his grandfather, lying bloody and motionless against the canyon wall, but stopped when he heard the first blow by his mother.

Looking up, he saw River Woman's eyes blaze with a fury he had never seen. She lifted the axe again and crushed the ribs of the dead Raider. She lifted it again and broke an arm. Again, into the groin of the corpse. With every blow, she grunted and screamed at once, never taking her seething glare from the corpse of the Raider who had killed her father.

In this moment, Shadow absorbed the True Humans's great and lasting hatred for all their many enemies, and it fixed itself deep in his heart, ever to dwell and harden and grow. It was a cold and pitiless ire, colored by the blood of his murdered grandfather, drummed to a fervor by the thump of River Woman's axe upon the body of the beaten Raider. It sickened Shadow's paunch, but stung his limbs with strength, and he embraced it here in the Red Canyon of his birth, and gave it shelter, and made its medicine his own.

Black Horn had mounted his horse and struggled past the screaming women and children pouring into the canyon for protection. From below in the canyon, and over the rim above, the sound of battle cries mounted as the warriors of the Burnt Meat People regrouped after the surprise attack and prepared their resistance.

The Northern Raiders, it seemed, had planned their attack well, waiting until the long line of people was half in and half out of the canyon before loosing their arrows. But the party of Raiders did not seem large, or else the entire band of Burnt Meat People might have been pinned down and slaughtered. Even in his lack of experience, Shadow surmised that the attacking force was nothing more than a small hunting party that had stumbled upon the True Humans and planned a quick ambush, hoping to get away with some scalps, or maybe a horse.

Remembering what his uncle had said, Shadow reached for the knife dropped by the Raider his mother was now preparing for an eternity of agony in the Shadow Land. The knife was made of iron, a thing Shadow had seen only once before on an arrow point for which his father had traded a horse among the Raccoon-Eyed People of the plains. He grabbed this knife of iron and scaled the canyon wall to the place where the enemy warrior had fallen with Black Horn's arrow in his head.

Here, on the canyon rim, the boy could see everything. The warrior with the arrow in his head was still, but breathing, his eyes closed, instead of open in the death stare. The brown pony below had died, and Shadow's mother had stopped beating the corpse of the enemy to wail her song of mourning and pull at her hair over the body of old Wounded Bear. Shadow's baby sister, Mouse, was still staring at him silently, the dog pulling her cradle board standing obediently, panting, the whites of his eyes showing as they rolled suspiciously in his head.

Some warriors of the Burnt Meat People were attempting to climb out of the canyon, but so many people were blocking the narrow trail that the men could not make their way to the top. The few young warriors who had been walking near the end of the moving band were now gathering on the high ground above the chasm for an attack, but none owned a horse.

Some distance away to the north, the Raider who had been hit in the jaw by Black Horn's axe was being carried away by four other Raiders, and it seemed to Shadow that these five were all that were left of the ambush party.

Black Horn was across the chasm from Shadow, mounted, his bow in one hand, his lance in the other. He had dropped his reins, for his pony had been trained to react to pressure from the rider's knees. The boy knew his uncle would not wait for the young warriors on foot, but would gallop after the Northern Raiders and kill as many as he could before falling. Black Horn was a warrior who boasted often that he would die young in battle.

Now a powerful war cry pierced the sounds of moaning and crying in the canyon, and Black Horn's mount raised red dust. The enemy Raiders, not so far away that Shadow could not see them individually, laid their wounded companion down, formed a line, and prepared their bows and arrows. To Shadow's surprise, even the warrior who had been wounded in the face with the axe pulled himself to his knees and reached for an arrow from his quiver.

The enemy warriors had been foolish to ambush a party so much larger than their own, Shadow thought. They would be ridden down by Black Horn, who could keep them busy until his friends could arrive and finish them. Shadow could see that the Raiders had no horses. He glanced again at the warrior with the arrow stuck in his head, lying still at his feet. He gripped the iron knife tighter as he looked back across the chasm to see his uncle do battle with the horrible Northern Raiders.

When Black Horn got just inside arrow range, he veered to the left, and Shadow knew his uncle was going to circle the Raiders before dismounting to fight. He started in the east and bore south, then west, the way Father Sun circled Mother Earth. The circle, once closed, would make his medicine powerful.

The Raiders had arrows notched to bowstrings, but only watched Black Horn ride, preferring to wait for a closer shot. Their only hope was to kill him and run before the other Burnt Meat warriors arrived on foot.

The curtain of dust closed around the enemy warriors, and Black Horn paused to raise his lance and scream. Now he would dismount, Shadow thought, and charge the enemy single-handedly with the lance. That he should watch this fight filled him with more excitement than he had ever known, and the skin all over his body seemed to soak in the chilling cry that Black Horn sent rattling across the high ground. If only his father were here, that Shadow might see him go to battle as well! His grandfather and his pony were dead, and the boy of nine winters hungered for vengeance older than his own days upon the earth.

The war cry trailed away on a breeze that had sprung from the cold highlands, and now Shadow saw something he would remember as long as he lived. His uncle, seized by some new medicine, rode his horse into battle. This was not the way of his elders. The True Humans had always fought with their own feet on the ground, but Black Horn was part of the horse now, and the horse part of him, and Shadow could hardly believe how courageously he rode among the five Raiders.

Through the body of Black Horn, the spear magically took on the power of the pony. When he thrust it forward, underhanded, it went like a kingfisher plunging into the water, and its flint tip hit the same warrior who had been struck in the jaw by Black Horn's axe, driving all the way through the man and sticking in the ground behind him.

The Northern Raiders, stunned by this mounted attack, let Black Horn ride past them untouched. Now he turned and prepared to attack them with nothing but the white flint knife he had once taken from the dead body of a Crow enemy. This was glorious, for Black Horn still carried his bow and arrows, but chose to fight the enemy attackers hand to hand, for they had dishonored him by raiding the party he led. The Northern Raiders, seemingly charmed by the powers of the horse warrior, still did not send their arrows. They had expected Black Horn to dismount, Shadow thought, and the horse magic was confusing them.

What happened next seemed like something from a bad vision. Black Horn drove his pony among the enemies again, and one of the raiders reached for the reins as another raised a stick—a very long and very straight stick—putting one broad end of this stick against his shoulder. A flash of orange light like a hundred flint sparks pushed a black cloud from the stick the way a man would blow tobacco smoke from his mouth, but quicker, darker, and with more evil power than any man could muster.

Black Horn rolled backward off his war pony, and as he hit the ground, a clap of thunder came from out of nowhere, for Shadow did not yet understand that the terrible Fire Stick possessed its own thunder.

Everything seemed to hang in silence for a moment, and the warriors coming to help Black Horn lost their courage and stopping running. Shadow's heart sank into the fear of all unknown evil as he watched. His grip loosened around the handle of the iron knife and he watched helplessly as one of the Raiders rushed to finish his uncle.

But Black Horn's courage was legend, and he fought flat on his back, even in the shadow of the warrior carrying the powerful Fire Stick. A Raider descended on him with a scalping knife, but Black Horn slashed with his own knife of white flint, and the enemy warrior had to catch his own entrails as they bulged from the wound.

The young warriors of the Burnt Meat People took courage and charged again as the Raider with the Fire Stick tried to make medicine with it, going through many strange incantations. Arrows were beginning to fall among the enemy warriors, and they threw their wounded and dead over Black Horn's captured horse to flee, leaving Black Horn on the ground. The
Noomah
braves pursued them afoot until the Fire Stick warrior put the evil thing against his shoulder and made it smoke and rumble again.

It killed no one this time, but it caused the earth to blow red dust into the air very near the place where Shadow stood watching. This power frightened the boy, yet he gathered from the way the Raiders were running that the Fire Stick medicine was not all-powerful. Once used, it took some time to conjure again. Still, it caused him to fear, and his fear turned to anger as he heard the wails of mourning for this horrible day. He did not know whether his uncle was dead or yet alive, only that he had failed to rise from the ground, and this made Shadow angrier still.

The iron knife was in his hand, and he used all his weight to make it plunge into the body of the fallen Raider beside him. The body jerked as the blade cut deep, and the boy sprang away, afraid the warrior with the arrow stuck in his head might still be able to fight.

He thought it better to finish this invader with a rock, and he turned to find one large enough to crush a skull.

4

The medicine woman, Broken
Bones, had been summoned, but had refused to come. Black Horn knew it would have been useless anyway. The evil power of the Fire Stick was greater than the old crone's magic. Broken Bones was better off with the way she had chosen, for this world had gone bad.

From where he lay in the shadow of Red Canyon's wall, Black Horn could see the old sorceress now, high above, in the fading sunlight. She stood over the crevice on the canyon rim into which the people were lowering the body of Wounded Bear, wrapped in a good buffalo robe with his
pogamoggan
and bound tightly in rawhide.

The old man had died well, swinging his war club. It was a lucky thing for an old blind man to die in battle. Black Horn felt lucky, too, for he would soon die of his battle wounds while still in his prime and never have to suffer the disgraces of old age. He would never be relegated to making bows and arrows and telling stories in winter lodges.

Yet, he worried about this wound in his belly from the Fire Stick. Would it torment him in the Land of Shadows with this same incredible pain? He had not allowed himself to be killed in the hands of his enemies, and so he should not have to worry about such a thing, but the Fire Stick was new, and its power was yet unknown.

Only his wife, Looks Away, had stayed near him, risking whatever horror the wound of the Fire Stick might still hold. Its evil magic had shot all the way through him, making a small hole where it had entered and a very large ugly wound where it had left. He had not seen the large wound on his back, of course, but he had listened to the young warriors talk fearfully about it as they carried him back to the canyon.

But this wound did not frighten Looks Away, and she had stayed with him. She had made a good wife, and he loved her. It was Looks Away who had taught him much of what he knew about horses. He had captured her on a raid against the
Yutas.
He had found her so pretty that he protected her from the other warriors and treated her with kindness. The
Yutas
had more horses than the True Humans, and Looks Away, after Black Horn made her good and took her as his wife, told him much about ways to train and handle ponies. And she told him strange tales of trading parties carrying captured
Noomah
children away to the south and returning with horses. She had been told that men with iron shirts, pale skin, and faces covered with hair would trade horses for slaves.

Now Black Horn waited for this good woman to bring water, for he was thirsty. He lay alone on a buffalo robe that felt sticky with his own blood, until Shadow came near him. He raised his chin to greet the boy, too weak to lift an arm.

“
Ahpoo,
” the boy said. “They took your horse.”

“Your father will follow them to get it back.”

Shadow smiled. “I saw many things today that I will remember when I am a warrior like you. I saw you
ride
into battle.”

Black Horn held back his smile. What had possessed him to fight astride his horse? The boy was right, strong medicine had moved him to greatness. “You were brave today, nephew. You did not run and scream like a child. But you must not seek our enemies until you have found your medicine in your vision.”

“I know,
Ahpoo.
”

The wailing from the top of the red bluffs became frenzied. Black Horn looked up to see the warriors throwing the rawhide lines down into the crevice, on top of the body of Wounded Bear. Broken Bones began to shriek like her coyote ancestors. She held a knife with which she cut her hair off close to her scalp. She began to slash her old arms, and her shrieking made Black Horn's ears hurt, even from this far away on the canyon floor.