The Complete Empire Trilogy (27 page)

Keyoke’s lined face remained expressionless as he set his dagger to the lines representing the place where the trail narrowed this side of the vale. ‘We could hold them here with little trouble, I judge, my Lord.’

Buntokapi fingered the tassels of his scabbard. ‘Better we let them come into the vale, send a company behind them, and trap them there.’

In the rapidly falling light, Keyoke studied the drawing, recalling each detail of the land remembered from his last patrol. Quietly he ventured his opinion. ‘If we sneak a company along the ridge above, we can have it in place by dawn. The bandits then could not retreat, and a quick sortie into the dell from this side might rout them.’

‘Good, but I think we do not charge.’ Frowning intently now, Buntokapi qualified. ‘We sit quiet, like frightened little birds, heh? They will go past us, deep into the little clearing, and we will leap up and rain arrows and rocks upon them, until they break.’

Lujan nodded in appreciation. ‘Still, they will break out.’

Buntokapi rubbed his jaw with a stubby thumb as he considered everything laid out before him. ‘No, you see,’ he said at last, ‘we shall strike just before they reach the second crest, so they think that they have been engaged by our advance patrol. But most of our men will lie in wait to the rear.’ He grinned with vicious anticipation. ‘The bandits will think the bulk of the Acoma garrison in front of them, defending the borders of the estate. They will run back the way they came, through our arrows, on to our shields and swords.’ He paused and added, ‘Papewaio, you will go with Lujan to the other end of the vale,
with’ – he quickly calculated – ‘all but fifty of the best archers. Keyoke will take twenty archers and station himself at the high ridge pass, just out of sight.’ His anticipation grew ugly. ‘Keyoke, when the bandits come, have the men yell war cries and strike their armour and dance to send up dust, so the enemy will think you an army. If they still advance, shoot them down.’

The matter decided, Buntokapi shouldered his bow. ‘The archers will take cover on the rim above the bandits, the better to rain death down among them. It is wisest if I oversee this company.’ Keyoke nodded agreement, recalling the practice bouts in the yard before the barracks. Buntokapi might be slow with a blade, but with a bow he was a demon. Excited now, Buntokapi delivered his last orders to Papewaio to ensure no bandit would slip through the line.

Grim beneath the shadow of his helm, Keyoke admired the audaciousness of the plan. Buntokapi expected a victory; and with the bold twists the young Lord of the Acoma had added, the bandit force might indeed be doomed.

Crouched upon the ridge, Buntokapi waved to the archer concealed across the dell. But the men moving below did not see his signal, for early morning mist whitened the dell like a blanket, obscuring anything more than a dozen yards away. The sun barely reddened the rocky rim of the eastern peaks, and the haze would not burn off for several hours. The invaders were only beginning to stir; here a man squatted to relieve himself, while others washed at the spring, beat dust from their blankets, or gathered dry wood to make fires for tea. Few yet wore armour. If scouts were posted, they were indistinguishable from the warriors rubbing sleep from their eyes. Amused by the general lack of preparation, Buntokapi laughed quietly,
picked his target – the squatting man – and let fly. His arrow thudded into flesh, and battle at last was joined.

The first victim fell with a strangled cry. Instantly every Acoma archer loosed their bows from the ridges. Thirty raiders were struck down before a man among them could react. Then the bandit company erupted like a hive. Blankets fluttered abandoned and cooking pots rolled into fires as the men under attack broke for cover. Buntokapi chuckled viciously and let fly another arrow. It struck his target in the groin, and he fell, writhing, and tripped a fleeing companion. Too many men were crowded together in too small an area, and their panic made the slaughter easy. Before their commanders could restore order, another twenty were struck down. Voices shouted commands in the clearing. Acoma archers picked their targets with increasing difficulty as the raiders went to ground, using fallen trees, large rocks, or even shallow depressions for cover. Yet still the arrows found targets.

An officer’s shouted orders caused the raiders to break towards the Acoma borders. Buntokapi’s exultation turned savage. Probably the ruffian in command thought he had encountered a patrol whose intent was to drive his men back into the hills. Those bandits who managed to regroup and obey reached the shadow of the second ridge, only to be stopped by shouts and the squeak of armour. Five men in the van fell with arrows bristling from them as Keyoke’s archers entered the fray. The soldiers in the lead jostled to a disorganized halt. Another dozen went down before the rearguard understood their predicament and an officer ordered a retreat.

Sunlight touched the mist, dyeing the fringes red as the original thirty archers continued their murderous fire from the ridge. Hampered, and dying by the moment, the invaders pulled back through the narrow defile. An elated Buntokapi guessed a full third of their number lay dead or wounded. He kept up his rapid shooting, and calculated
that another third would be down before his retreating victims encountered the Acoma soldiers who waited to their rear. Yet well before he ran short of targets, Buntokapi exhausted his supply of arrows. Frustrated at his inability to kill, he grabbed a large rock and sighted upon a man lying just behind an outcropping of stone. He reared back and hurled the stone, rewarded by a cry of pain from below. Heated with the lust of battle, he sought more rocks.

Other bowmen out of arrows soon joined in, and now a hail of stones descended upon the raiders. From the east, dust rose along the trail, accompanied by the sound of men shouting, Keyoke and his band lending the appearance that their ‘army’ charged to attack. Several of the raiders sprang to their feet in alarm, while the more panic-stricken spearheaded a general break to the west. Buntokapi sent his last stone whistling downwards. Afire with the anticipation of glory and victory, he drew his sword and shouted, ‘Acoma!’

The men in his company followed his reckless charge down the steep sides of the dell. Stones loosened under their feet, rattling down with their hurtling bodies. Clammy mist enfolded them as they reached the floor of the clearing, and the rout was on. Nearly two hundred raiders lay dead or dying upon the ground, while to the west the survivors rushed upon the waiting shields, spears, and swords of the men under Papewaio and Lujan.

Buntokapi hurried along, his short legs pumping furiously as he raced to reach the battle before the last enemy was slain. He encountered a desperate-looking man in a simple robe. The sword and plain round shield he carried reminded Buntokapi of his own shield, abandoned somewhere in the rocks above in the excitement. He cursed himself for carelessness, but still charged the raider, crying ‘Acoma! Acoma!’ in almost boyish glee.

The raider braced himself for swordplay, but Buntokapi beat the raised blade away. He hurled himself into the shield, depending upon strength and bulk rather than risking facing a swordsman who might have superior skill. The man stumbled, and Buntokapi raised his sword, bearing down in a two-handed slash that smashed the man’s shield and broke the arm beneath. The raider fell back with a cry.

Buntokapi beat away a feeble attempt at a thrust. Grinning madly, he stabbed and his opponent died with a gurgling cry. The Lord of the Acoma cleared his blade and rushed after Acoma bowmen who had followed his impetuous charge into the dell.

From the west the sounds of battle raged. Winded, eager, and exulting in his strength and prowess, Buntokapi breasted the small pass through the rocks. The mist was thinning, a sheet of gold through which armour and bloody swords glinted against shadowy greenery. The flight of the raiders had broken upon a waiting mass of Acoma soldiers. Papewaio had stationed kneeling shield men, with bowmen behind and spearmen beside. Not one raider in twenty had reached their lines, and even as Buntokapi pounded down to join them, he saw those last enemies die on the points of the long spears. The surrounding wood fell suddenly, eerily still. As he picked his way around grotesquely sprawled corpses and heard, for the first time, the moans of the wounded and dying, Buntokapi’s excitement did not fade. He glanced over the carnage his plan had wrought, and spied the plume of an officer.

Papewaio stood with folded arms, overseeing the binding of a soldier’s wound.

Buntokapi shouldered his way through the bystanders. ‘Well?’

‘My Lord.’ With barely a glance away from the injured man, Papewaio saluted with his sword. ‘They hesitated when they saw our lines – that was their mistake. Had they continued their charge, our losses would have been worse.’ The man on the ground groaned as the bandage tightened over his wound. ‘Not so taut,’ snapped Papewaio, seemingly forgetting the waiting presence of his Lord.

But Buntokapi was too elated from victory to mind the lapse. Leaning on his bloodied sword, he said, ‘How many casualties?’

Papewaio looked up, his attention focused for the first time. ‘I do not know yet, but few. Here, the Force Commander approaches.’ He turned with swift instructions for the care of his wounded warrior, then fell into step with the Lord of the Acoma.

Lujan joined them as they met Keyoke, dusty from his efforts in the clearing, and his plumes beaded with mist. The officers consolidated their information with a minimum of words, and Buntokapi’s heart swelled with pride. He struck a playful blow to Keyoke’s shoulder. ‘See, they broke and we slaughtered the dogs, just as I said. Ha!’ He frowned, but not with displeasure. ‘Any prisoners?’

‘I think about thirty, my Lord,’ Lujan said, his voice queerly flat after the animated tones of his master. ‘Some will live long enough to become slaves. Who their officers were I cannot tell, since none wore helms of office. ‘He gave a thoughtful pause. ‘Nor house colours.’

‘Bah!’ Buntokapi spat. ‘These are Minwanabi’s dogs.’

‘At least one was.’ Lujan pointed to a man who lay dead not twenty feet distant. ‘That was a man I knew’ – he caught himself just short of revealing his odd origin – ‘before I first took house colours. He is the elder brother of a boyhood friend, and he took service with the Kehotara.’

‘Minwanabi’s favourite pet!’ Buntokapi waved his fouled sword as if the presence of a soldier of Jingu’s vassal proved his contention.

Lujan stepped out of range of the gesture, smiling slightly. ‘He was a bad man. He might have turned outlaw.’

Buntokapi shook his blade in Lujan’s face, any humour clearly beyond him. ‘This was no outlaw raid! That dog lover Jingu thinks the Acoma soft, and ruled by a woman. Well, he now knows he faced a man.’ He spun around, brandishing his weapon in the air. ‘I will send a runner to Sulan-Qu to buy a few rounds in the taverns by the docks. Jingu will know within a day I have tweaked his nose.’

Buntokapi brought his sword whistling downward. He stared at the drying blood, and after a moment of deliberation thrust the weapon into its tasselled sheath. A slave could polish it later. With an enthusiasm not shared by his officers, he said, ‘We shall sort this out at home. I am dirty and hungry. We leave now!’ And he began abruptly to march, leaving Keyoke and Papewaio and Lujan to organize the men, fix litters for the wounded, and hustle the companies on the road to the estate. The Lord of the Acoma wished to be home before dinner, and his company of battle-fatigued soldiers concerned him little. They could rest once they were back in their barracks.

As men rushed to form ranks, Papewaio looked at his Force Commander. Eyes met for a moment and both men shared a thought. This bullish man, barely more than a boy, was dangerous. As they parted to attend their duties, both prayed silently for Lady Mara.

Hours passed, and the shadows shortened. The sun climbed to the zenith while the needra herders returned from the meadows for the noon meal, and servants and slaves went about their chores as if no disaster were
possible. Mara rested, attempting to read, but her mind refused to concentrate on the convoluted organization of lands and business owned by the dozens of major Lords and hundreds of minor ones in the Empire. One night, a month before, she had thought she recognized a pattern in the way one estate’s distant holdings were placed, then after hours of further study decided the perception had been an illusion. But such pursuits had given rise to another thought: where a family’s holdings lay, even those that appeared insignificant, could prove as important as any other fact in the nuances of the Game of the Council.

Mara pondered this new angle through the heat of the afternoon. Sundown came and went, and in the cooler air of evening she sat to a long and silent meal. The servants were subdued, which was unusual in the absence of their Lord. Feeling her pregnancy like a weight, Mara retired early to sleep. Her dreams were troubled. Several times in the night she started awake, her heart pounding and her ears straining for sounds of returning men; but instead of marching feet and the creak of armour, the night stillness held only the soft lowing of needra cows and the chirp of night insects. She had no clue how her husband and Keyoke fared against the raiders in the mountains, except that the peace of the estate remained unbroken. Just before the dawn she fell into a deep and oppressive sleep.

She woke with the sun on her face, having opened the screen in her restlessness during the night. Her morning maid had forgotten to close it, and the heat already made her sweat. Mara raised herself upon her pillows and suddenly felt ill. Without waiting to call for a servant, she hurried to the chamber for night soil and was sick to her stomach. The morning maid heard her distress and ran to attend her with cool cloths. Then she saw her mistress back to her mats and hastened to fetch Nacoya.