by Inmon, Shawn
Prata-eh smiled at Janta-ak and said, “Werta,” which meant fate, or joss, in the universal language.
“Werta,” Janta-ak agreed.
Figuring that a run-in with Godat-ta was the worst thing that could happen at that moment, Janta-ak wrapped his legs around the trunk of the tree, laid his face against the hard wood and drifted off.
Janta-ak kept up the same grueling pace for the next five days, stopping only to eat some berries and pemmican or jerky, and to grab a few hours of shut-eye before starting again.
The weather was good, though, and aside from the close call with Godat-ta, they had been left alone by other wildlife.
When they approached Stipa-ah, they slowed. They knew from the stories Alex had told them about his journey that Stipa-ah had been destroyed, but they didn’t know what its current status was.
Alex had thought it was possible that Doug-ak, as he referred to Douglas Winterborne when speaking to the Winten-ah, had taken it back over and rebuilt it. Expanding armies need space and, unless an opposing army had a trebuchet, Stipa-ah was easily defendable.
Janta-ak and his group stood in the trees and watched the village, much as Yosta-ak had on Alex’s journey.
At one point, Prata-eh pointed and said, “Movement.” They watched the spot for long minutes, though, and did not see anything.
“It was likely just an animal. If Denta-ah was here, we would have seen them. Still, we need to be cautious.”
Janta-ak led the small band over the footbridge to the island. The buildings looked just as Alex had described them—the outer ring was burned out, while the interior simply looked like a ghost town.
“Spread out, see if you can find any sign of life.”
Janta-ak walked by the mass grave where the warriors of Stipa-ah were buried. Grass was growing over it, but the mound was still visible.
Janta-ak saw a building that he thought might have food stores. “That would be good to know when we march back home. We will be hungry,” he said to himself.
He stepped into the cool darkness of the windowless room and waited for his eyes to adjust.
His ears detected a movement to his right and Janta-ak whirled in that direction. Three bodies bowled into him, slamming a cudgel into his ribs.
Janta-ak rolled with the blow, sprang to his feet and had his own club in his hands. He lifted it to strike and held his weapon at the top of its arc.
He was facing three dirty, scrawny, children.
The tallest of them barely reached above his waist.
Janta-ak lowered his weapon and put his hands out, placating them.
“I am a friend.”
The children, who looked more feral than human, snarled and ran at him.
“Prata-eh!” Janta-ak yelled. “Help me!”
Janta-ak was more than capable of clubbing the children into unconsciousness but grabbing them and calming them was more difficult.
Prata-eh and the other warriors ran into the building, weapons at the ready, when they saw it was small children attacking Janta-ak.
Prata-eh did her best to hide her smirk as she said, “Gorka-ah, Renta-ah, grab the children.” She reached down and plucked the child up but soon lost her smile. The child fought, kicked, and bit like a cat thrown into a washing machine.
She set the child down so she could get a better grip and the little girl kicked her ferociously in the leg.
“That’s it,” Prata-eh said, whirling the child around and wrapping her up in a hug so tight she couldn’t budge.
Gorka-ah and Renta-ah did the same to the whirling dervishes in front of them, while Werta-ah, the final member watched with a small smile.
“Just hold them,” Janta-ak commanded.
“Easier to order than to carry out,” Prata-eh said, “or maybe you didn’t notice.”
“I noticed,” Janta-ak said, rubbing a welt that had risen on his ribs where one of the children had clubbed him.
He kneeled in front of the three captive children and in the universal language said, “We are friends, understand? We are not the Denta-ah, who destroyed this village. We are coming to make war with them. Kunta.”
The children quit struggling so much and relaxed, but still eyed him warily.
“Are you Stipa-ah?” Janta-ak asked.
The leader seemed to be the young girl. She answered, “Yes,” while touching two fingers to her forehead.
“Have you been alone here since the day Denta-ah destroyed the village?”
She repeated the same gesture.
“How have you survived?”
“When Denta-ah dropped fire on our village, our mothers hid us. They told us not to move, no matter what. We didn’t. We stayed in our hiding spot for three days until we got so cold and hungry, we had to come out. Everyone was gone.”
“And there’s just the three of you?”
In response, the small girl put fingers to her lips and whistled three times.
Over the next minute, four other children came warily into the building.
“How have you survived?”
“The Denta-ah just wanted our people. They did not take our food. We’ve been eating what was left behind, but it is gone now.”
“Let’s go outside,” Janta-ak said, leading the way.
In the better light, he could see that the children were not just thin, they were emaciated.
“Oh,” Janta-ak said. “We will not let you starve.” He pulled his bag off his back, took out all his remaining food, and handed it to the little girl. Prata-eh and the others did the same.
“We cannot take you with us yet. We are going to fight the Denta-ah.”
“They throw fire,” the small girl said.
“We know. That’s why we are going to fight them, so they can’t do this to other tribes. When we beat them, we will come back to you and make sure you will have food to eat. Understand?”
The children answered in a chorus of, “Yes,” but Janta-ak could see they didn’t cherish the idea of being alone again for an unknown time.
“We have to go on, but another, much larger, group will be along behind us. They may come and look at the village. If they do, please do not attack them. You can hide, but they are my friends and they are coming to attack the Denta-ah.”
Janta-ak wanted to stay, to protect the children, but knew he could not. They still had a mission to accomplish.
Janta-ak and the others walked away from Stipa-ah with lighter carry bags but heavy hearts.
Chapter Thirty-One
Godat-ta
There would be seventeen hours of daylight for their march, and Alex wanted to maximize every minute of it, so he decided there would be no campfires. It was possible that Denta-ah would have spies everywhere. They had enough manpower to do so. A campfire and its smoke can be seen for miles at dusk. That meant there would be no cooking fire, and every person was responsible for carrying their own food.
Again, Sekun-ak had come to the rescue with bountiful hunts. Every warrior in the march started with a shoulder bag full of pemmican, rolled fruits, berries, and nuts. Alex remembered that he had run out of food the day before he had arrived in Denta-ah and so packed more food this time.
Alex had planned for weeks exactly how he wanted his army to march. Most of the men and women carried their shield, but the longbowmen would be firing at a distance and shouldn’t need the protection. They carried their bows slung over their shoulder, along with their arrows and other supplies that the group might need for the fight.
Alex had two dozen shield-bearers at the front, then four longbowmen, and kept that ratio until he ran out of bowmen. Alex gave Tinta-ak the honor of leading the march. He knew that the giant man would push them as hard as they could be pushed. Alex and Sekun-ak marched in the very middle, where they could hear what as many of their warriors were saying as possible.
Before they left, Benka-eh, the priestess, and Lanta-eh, the prophesied savior of Winten-ah stood high on the cliffs in the pre-dawn light and loo
ked down over the assembled warriors. Both spread their arms wide in benediction and chanted a blessing on both the fighters and their mission.
Finally, in her pure, sweet voice, Lanta-eh said, “I have seen the future and it is good. You are brave and will prevail.”
Not exactly ‘Win one for the Gipper’ as far as inspirational speeches go, but she didn’t say we were happily marching to our death, either, so I’ll take it.
Ganku-eh and Banda-ak stood with Alex to say goodbye. Banda-ak had desperately wanted to go and fight, but Ganku-eh had forbidden it. Winten-ah was giving more of its warriors to the cause than any other tribe. Banda-ak needed to be home to begin to train the children to fight, in case the Manta-ak Army failed in their mission. They would be all that was left to stand and face Denta-ah if that happened.
As they left the open field, they marched in rhythm. Alex knew it wouldn’t add to the distance they covered each day, but he wanted the group to feel like a single unit, and be able to act as such, once they reached Denta-ah.
Monda-ak continued to go where he wanted, when he wanted. He chose not to march in rhythm, but he was rarely far from Alex.
By midday, Alex compared where they were with where they had been when he marched with Yosta-ak. They were behind, and Alex was forced to realize that there was simply no way an army of almost four hundred, no matter how motivated, could move as efficiently as a small group.
Sekun-ak noted the same thing, but said quietly to Alex, “We’ve waited six months to strike at Denta-ah, one or two more days will not make any difference.”
Alex knew the truth of those words, but he still chafed at their pace.
“With almost four hundred people, somebody always needs to take a piss.”
“We can either stop marching together or take fast breaks more often.”
“Which will slow us down in the short run, but maybe move us faster in the long run.”
Alex turned to Senta-eh, who was marching behind him. “Tell Tinta-ak to halt.”
Senta-eh did not hesitate but fell out of line and ran ahead. Soon the order came back, and they halted.
Alex grabbed his water bag off his belt and drank deeply. The advantage of having made this trip once was that he had some idea where they would pass streams where they could replenish. They could march for days without food, but not without water.
Alex was reattaching his bag when he heard an uproar from ahead in the line.
One panicked word came back to him: Godat-ta.
Alex jumped out of line and sprinted up to the front. When he reached Tinta-ak, he looked ahead on the trail. His bowels felt suddenly watery.
He had seen bears in his life. This was no bear that had ever wandered the earth that he had seen or dreamed of. It was sitting on its back haunches and swiping a paw at a berry bush, pulling it into its mouth and stripping it, thorns and all.
Alex tried to judge its height but gave up. It was at least twice as tall as Tinta-ak, while it was sitting down.
What the hell do we do? There’s no way four hundred of us can turn and run.
“Stand down,” Alex said quietly. As softly as he had spoken, his words carried on the wind, because Godat-ta slowly turned his head toward him.
Surely, Godat-ta had never seen so many humans grouped together in one place.
Will we look like the buffet table, or will so many of us frighten it away?
In answer, Godat-ta stood on its hind legs and sniffed the air.
The men behind Alex stirred. It wasn’t that they wanted to run, but everyone in Kragdon-ah knew one thing for certain. Godat-ta meant death.
The bear dropped back down on all fours and casually walked toward them. Twenty yards away, it stood to its full height and loosed a mighty roar.
“SHIELD WALL,” ALEX said. Not that it was a perfect or even good strategy against a bear that size. It was just the only words that hadn’t left his head.
Tinta-ak, Alex, and four other warriors clinked and locked their shields, then braced themselves.
To Godat-ta, it may have looked like all the men disappeared, replaced by these odd shapes.
Godat-ta snorted and ran toward them.
Alex and his men were blind, but they knew what was approaching. The sound of the gigantic paws scraping and pounding against the ground was undeniable.
The men directly behind the front shield row put their shields against the men’s backs in support.
None of it mattered.
Godat-ta slammed into the shields head first and the men and equipment went flying like bowling pins.
Godat-ta continued on through the line, never slowing or hesitating. Where he passed, he left a tangled heap of arms, legs and torsos. Monda-ak, who many thought resembled a bear himself, launched against Godat-ta, crashing into his hindquarter.
Godat-ta failed to notice.
Eventually, Godat-ta reached the end of the line, ran on for a few yards, then stopped, turned, and looked back over his shoulder at the destruction he had wrought. He shook his head in a circle, then stood and roared.
The ground trembled and birds flew up in a cloud from surrounding trees.
Alex hurried through the line, encouraging everyone who could, to stand. He reached the back of the line, where he found Senta-eh, notching an arrow on her longbow.
“Don’t fire unless we need to. I don’t think we can take it down,” Alex said.
“I’m not going to be run over again while I have my bow in my hand.”
Can’t argue with that.
Other bowmen—some with regular bows, others with longbows—gathered at the back of the line. They notched arrows, but held.
Godat-ta fell back onto all four and took one menacing step toward the group, then two.
The air was heavy with silence and dread. Alex could hear the slight creak of the bowstrings.
Godat-ta charged.
A dozen arrows flew. Several missed. Most connected, but barely sank into Godat-ta’s thick hide, or bounced off completely.
One—fired from the longbow of Senta-eh—pierced the behemoth’s left eye.
Godat-ta tumbled to a stop then righted himself, clawing at the arrow and screaming his agony.
Alex had only a split-second to decide a strategy—try to kill the nearly unkillable beast or run.
He turned to Senta-eh. “Run to the front. Tell Tinta-ak to march us at double time.”
An army of nearly four hundred takes time to get underway. While they waited, Alex and a dozen bowmen waited, arrows notched. Every second, more longbows joined them. Alex still didn’t like their chances.
Godat-ta managed to grab at the arrow with both paws and pull it out. The giant bear’s eyeball came out with it. It tilted its head to the sky and roared—a scream that might have been heard back in Winten-eh.
Alex felt the army behind him moving and he and the bowmen marched backwards from Godat-ta. The mighty bear continued to paw at it its eye socket, then turned and ran straight up a hill.
Alex halted and watched until the lumbering bear disappeared over the hilltop. Only then did he and the archers turn and join the others.
Less than one day out and we’ve run into the most powerful beast in the world. That’s gotta be the worst of it right?
It was not the worst of it.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The Plan
Janta-ak and his crew climbed the hill that overlooked Denta-ah and approached the tree line but did not look out. The closer they got to Denta-ah, the more signs of growth and activity they had seen.
Twice, they had passed by crews of men working falling trees and hauling them back. What Alex had described as nothing more than a path was now a road—wide enough for four men to pass abreast. Plenty wide to haul logs back to Denta-ah.
Janta-ak sat in the cool shade of a tall tree and indicated to the others to do the same. It was summer in Kragdon-ah, and the sun beat down mercilessly.
Finally, the air cooled, the sun set, and the diam
ond-bright starfield came out. The moon was almost full and gave more than enough light to see. And, potentially, to be seen, so they still moved slowly and cautiously.
They crept to the edge of the hill and looked down on Denta-ah. It looked vastly different from what Alex had described.
Where there had once been a stockade across a natural entrance to a dead-end valley, that massive barrier had now been moved out a great distance. They had lost the easy-protection of the hills by doing so, but made up for it by continuing the stockade—built out of the thickest, tallest trees in the surrounding forest. It now looked to Janta-ak as though there was room for an entire community in the space between the beginning of the barrier and where that wall had once stood.
Outside the stockade, a hundred acres of soil had been turned and there were plants of all sorts now springing up in organized rows.
“This is the largest community I’ve ever seen,” Prata-eh said, her voice tinged with awe.
“They will only get bigger and enslave more if we do not do our duty.”
The five of them had no food but did not regret feeding the children of Stipa-ah. They knew, if their mission was successful, they would have something to eat soon enough.
“I’ll take first watch,” Janta-ak said. “Sleep while you can. Prata-eh, I will wake you for next watch.”
The four warriors nodded, sat down with their backs resting against a tree and were out almost immediately.
Janta-ak crept back over to the edge of the ridge and watched the activity below. Even at night, there was a buzz of activity everywhere.
The next morning, Janta-ak and the others crept down the side of the hill, moving from one piece of cover to another. When they had nearly reached the bottom, they crept along until they were nearly lined up with the edge of the fortress-in-making.
“Remember the plan,” Janta-ak whispered. “And good luck.”
The five of them dropped their weapons in the deep grass, then walked to the edge of the barrier and made themselves visible. For long, stomach-churning moments, no one noticed them.
Without warning a crossbow bolt whizzed through the air and into the throat of Renta-ah. The short bolt hit with such ferocity it buried itself almost to the end of the shaft.