Clash of Eagles

by Alan Smale

  A Catanwakuwa looped past him, a hundred feet up. “Gaius! Go to the steelworks!”

  It was a woman’s voice. Marcellinus saw the flutter of ribbons as Sintikala’s Hawk wing continued on, lurching upward into the sky as it passed over her burning house.

  “Kimimela!” he screamed up at her. “Where’s Kimi?”

  “Longhouse! Safe!” Sintikala’s voice drifted back to him.

  On the mound, then. Indeed, the safest place in Cahokia.

  “Gods!” he shouted, and viciously slashed at the already dead Onida corpses at his feet. Adrenaline still overwhelmed him.

  “The steelworks,” he said, turning.

  If he’d thought of it at all, Marcellinus had assumed that the broad glow to the east was the coming of the dawn.

  Apparently not.

  It would be a long run to the steelworks, out in the darkness away from the city, and perhaps foolhardy to attempt it alone. Marcellinus took a few steps toward the eerie glow, considering it, then saw another house aflame close by him.

  It was a simple house no different from those around it except that it was burning and the adjacent houses were not. And it was the house of the chief of the Deer clan, whereas the others were houses of ordinary Deer clan families, brothers and wives and daughters and uncles: good people, mostly pot makers.

  “Anapetu,” he said, and turned and ran in the other direction.

  Not coincidence, then. Sintikala’s house was on a platform mound, which indicated rank. But if Iroqua had also burned the house of the Deer clan chief, they definitely knew which houses belonged to leading Cahokians.

  A club flew out of the darkness and smacked squarely into his right shoulder. He stumbled and fell, but even as he hit the ground and rolled, the Caiuga who had cast it leaped upon him and kicked him in the head. Marcellinus’s sword flipped up into the air, and he let go of it, continuing to roll.

  The Caiuga slipped and turned it into a jump. He kicked at Marcellinus’s chest just as Marcellinus switched hands with the pugio and drove it upward. Its blade sliced skin, but the gash was only superficial. The warrior leaped past and, regaining his footing, spun to face Marcellinus again.

  A stout Cahokian barreled around the corner, spear in hand. Seeing the Caiuga with ax raised, the man bellowed and swung a wild blow at the enemy brave.

  The Cahokian was no fighter; a spear was a thrusting weapon, and a fumbled quarterstaff strike could hardly be effective against an Iroqua warrior, but the distraction gave Marcellinus the moments he needed. Gasping, he seized the Iroqua club that lay beside him. Club met ax, and Marcellinus and the Cahokian forced the Caiuga back against the wall of a house. Seconds later the enemy was on his knees with a shattered skull and a deep pugio gash in his gut, and the Cahokian was sawing at the Caiuga’s scalp with an unholy glee.

  Marcellinus snatched up his gladius and ran on, leaving the man to his spoils.

  By the time the sun rose two hours later, a purposeful, bloody-minded calm had descended over the mounds and houses of Cahokia.

  By now the Iroqua were gone except for those killed in battle. Bodies littered the streets, both Iroqua and Cahokian, but moving them to charnel pits would have to wait.

  It turned out that the Haudenosaunee attack on the steelworks had been rushed or halfhearted; their liquid flame had scorched the outer brick, but the building still stood. The brickworks, however, was a steaming ruin. The entire place would have to be razed and rebuilt.

  The Big Warm Houses were intact. The Iroqua had known they were not a strategic target.

  On the first plateau of the Great Mound, Marcellinus met with Great Sun Man and the other surviving chiefs and elders in a council of war. Below them whole neighborhoods still smoldered, leaking smoke into the sky. Sintikala was aloft with others of the Hawk clan watching for further attacks, and from a distance Marcellinus had glimpsed the lithe figure of Chumanee hurrying through the plaza with her fellow healers to patch up the Cahokian wounded.

  The mood was urgent, and conversation flowed quickly; today there was none of the leisurely discussion of the sweat lodge. The pace was so fast that Marcellinus was glad that Tahtay and Enopay were there to help him understand what was being said.

  Three chiefs were dead, those of the Beaver, Wolf, and Deer clans, their houses ignited almost simultaneously with liquid flame. Anapetu had been saved from her own burning house by her son long before Marcellinus had arrived. And Sintikala’s house also had been torched, of course, though she had not been in it at the time. Marcellinus shied away from guessing where she might have been. That was not his concern. He was just happy that she and Kimimela were still alive.

  “So the Iroqua knew where they all lived,” he said.

  He had interrupted Great Sun Man. Everyone glared except the war chief himself, who nodded darkly.

  “Which means they had spies in the city.”

  Even now he had to rely on Tahtay to translate the idea of spies, but once the rest of the chiefs understood, they looked angry and frightened, and Marcellinus didn’t have the heart to say I told you so.

  “We invited farmers,” Enopay said. “People from far. All were welcome if they brought food.”

  Enopay’s hand rested on top of his head as if he were trying to stop himself from exploding. From the haunted look in his eyes, Marcellinus knew the boy blamed himself.

  A ribboned Hawk flew low over the mound top, banked steeply, and swooped down to a running landing beside the group. Sintikala shucked her wings and strode into their midst, her expression bleak. “More Iroqua warriors come.”

  “What? Where?” Great Sun Man looked out across the plaza, east toward the bluffs, west to the dull gray shadow of the Mizipi.

  Sintikala pointed twice, jabbing her finger toward the southeast and southwest. “Armies from there and there. I have signaled the Wakinyan to make ready.”

  “Two Iroqua armies?”

  Marcellinus frowned. “Nothing from the north? How do they come from the southwest? Along the river?”

  “The creek and the palisade are to the north,” Matoshka said impatiently. “Hard to cross and overlooked from this mound. And beyond the creek is the Crescent Lake and the scar.”

  Great Sun Man moved closer to Sintikala. The two of them had a hurried interchange, their muttered words whipped away by the breeze. Marcellinus glanced around impatiently. Tahtay fidgeted by his side, exuding waves of restless energy. Anapetu raised her hand and patted the air, mutely urging them to be calm.

  Great Sun Man turned. “Wanageeska, hear me. The First Cahokian marches south to the edge of the city. You will hold the line there, defend the city, kill Iroqua. Take your war cart in case we need you back quickly. Wahchintonka, hear me. You will defend the Great Mound with the warriors who defended it last night and a hundred more. The Iroqua must not take the Great Mound. You will die before you allow it. Ojinjintka, make the Wakinyan ready to fly. The rest of you, hear me. Gather all the warriors and the strong men and women who can fight and take them to western Cahokia. Many Wolf Warriors are already there. Guard the plazas, guard the mounds, and look to the riverbank, for it is by water that the Iroqua come. We must go.”

  Marcellinus raised his hand. This was not much of a military briefing, and he needed to say so. “The First Cahokian is but a small number of warriors. How many Iroqua come from the southeast? What if the Iroqua send war parties to flank us?”

  Great Sun Man shrugged. “Do not let them.”

  “The other Iroqua force comes by river? In canoes?”

  “Canoes on water and more warriors on land.”

  “Gaius Wanageeska,” Anapetu said.

  He ignored her. “How long till the Iroqua armies arrive?”

  “Soon.” Sintikala pointed at the sky to indicate where the sun would be.

  They had an hour or less. “What of the throwing engines? Where should we send them?”

  “Four to the river,” Sintikala said crisply. “Set them on the Mound of the Flowers or m
ounds farther downstream if there is time for us to set up a line there. The other four throwing engines stay here on the Great Mound. But the throwing engine that is also the Catanwakuwa launcher: send that one to the river, first and fastest.”

  Marcellinus blinked and looked at Great Sun Man. “As she says,” the war chief said impatiently.

  “Yes, sir. Where will you be?”

  The war chief pointed upward. “There is wild talk about the Iroqua. I must see for myself, from the air. And then I will go to lead the warriors in western Cahokia.”

  “Really?” Marcellinus asked skeptically. Sintikala’s intelligence could hardly be wild talk. “But in that case—”

  Sintikala cut him off. “Gaius. You have your task. Begin it.”

  “We have spoken,” Great Sun Man said.

  At their curt tones of command Marcellinus automatically saluted, Roman-style. The Cahokians flinched. “I understand,” he said to clarify. “I will begin.”

  Sintikala and Great Sun Man sprinted along the plateau. They turned the corner and were gone.

  Marcellinus again surveyed the city and the lands beyond. He still saw no signs of Iroqua, but his sense of foreboding grew.

  The other Cahokian chiefs had not moved either, and Marcellinus realized they were looking to him. They, too, were discomfited by what they had heard from Great Sun Man.

  And with such hazy orders, perhaps there was no obligation for Marcellinus to do exactly as he was told.

  Marcellinus looked to Anapetu. Now she nodded.

  He took a deep breath. “Elders, chiefs, hear me. We already know the trickery and deceit of the Iroqua, and perhaps even Sintikala does not clearly see all there is to be seen. Great Sun Man is wise, but Iroqua warriors from the southeast and southwest in plain sight may distract us from yet more warriors coming in stealth from the east. Such a force could cut off the First Cahokian from the city. Our warriors must not be stretched too thinly. We must stand together. Most of you must go to western Cahokia. But some must help us to establish a battle line across the south and east of the city. We must not lose Cahokia.”

  The chiefs eyed one another as Tahtay crisply clarified some of Marcellinus’s more difficult phrases. Several chiefs nodded. Others did not.

  “This is not the same as what Great Sun Man said,” Howahkan said.

  “Of course it is. Great Sun Man told me that I lead the First Cahokian and that I must not let our forces be flanked.”

  “But we are not First Cahokian, and nor are our warriors,” said Kanuna.

  Marcellinus eyed him steadily. “Would you like to be?”

  Under Akecheta’s bellowed commands, the First Cahokian was already falling in as one of the prototype Eagle craft roared off the Great Mound.

  Marcellinus glanced up, and his heart leaped into his mouth as the triangular wing unfurled above him. Beneath it hung Sintikala and another woman pilot of her clan, side by side in the lead positions … and hanging prone in the third harness, Great Sun Man. Marcellinus had never seen the Cahokian war chief in the air before, had not even known Great Sun Man was a pilot. And perhaps he was not, because the Eagle craft wobbled precariously and slewed sideways in the sky before recovering and banking toward the Mizipi.

  Marcellinus shook his head. How terrible would it be if one of his own contributions to Cahokian flight got the Great City’s most important chiefs killed just before a critical battle?

  No time to worry about it. He had a cohort to lead.

  Marcellinus called out quick instructions, and they were off and marching; the central core of his First Cahokian, the men who had trained with him for nearly two years, were leading a much larger and more amorphous group of warriors who now made up his impromptu auxiliary. As they passed, other Cahokian men and women donned armor of wood or steel and either joined them or hurried west to the other battle line in no kind of order. The lack of discipline bothered Marcellinus to distraction: in a crisis everyone should know where he was going and with whom, and who was in charge. With the exception of the four hundred trained warriors who marched in step with him toward the south, the Cahokians were still a rabble, and he had seen just hours earlier that the Iroqua now understood the virtues of careful organization.

  Two Hawk wings sprinted by above them, heading south. This morning the skies were almost as busy as the land.

  Marcellinus was still thinking it through. A frontal assault, by daylight? Surely the Iroqua knew better than that. Cahokia’s defenses were strong, and its Wakinyan were deadly to a large force. So the Iroqua must be taking these things into account. They must have a plan.

  At the very least, Marcellinus should expect the Iroqua not to bunch up into ranks as his own First Cahokian would, but remain diffuse. Small nimble groups of warriors with the advantage of mobility to skip and dodge away from the paths of the Thunderbirds to limit their losses. The Wakinyan might not prove decisive in this battle, but their presence would certainly shape the enemy’s tactics.

  Behind him, by the smoldering brickworks, a Sky Lantern leaped up with two braves clinging precariously to the shallow wooden frame that swayed beneath it. Close to their heads was the deeper framework that carried the fire jar. Even as the lantern rocked at the end of the stout cable that kept it tethered to the ground, one of the braves spared a hand to feed the flames.

  Marcellinus shook his head. The risks young Cahokian men would take in search of honor still amazed him.

  The lantern continued to rise as the men on the ground paid out the cable from the winch. The wind urged the lantern eastward, pulling the cable into a long draped arc. Well out of earshot at that altitude, its pilots signaled to the men on the ground by using long paddles made of matting.

  Marcellinus didn’t want to know what the view might be like from up there, out of range of an arrow from the ground, but he hoped the braves had eyes like hawks. Also, he hoped that none of the real Hawk wings flew into the cable. Ribbons had been attached to the cable at intervals to make it more visible, but the Catanwakuwa flew at high speed and their pilots could not look everywhere at once.

  A Hawk flew over him, several hundred feet up. From the dexterity of the flight and the compact, powerful body of the pilot Marcellinus knew it was Demothi, Sintikala’s second in command. The Hawk swung left, waggled its wings, and then banked back toward Cahokia.

  “The Iroqua are to our southeast,” Marcellinus called. “Akecheta! Turn them farther left! Stay in formation.”

  They passed the marks on the ground that indicated where the new palisade would eventually stand. Still being built, the palisade currently protected only the northern and eastern sides of the central city precinct. Marcellinus smiled without humor: too little, too late.

  And there were the Iroqua, boiling across the floodplain, thousands of them spread over ten acres or more. As expected, the Haudenosaunee warriors had no formation. Their numbers sent a dark war thrill down Marcellinus’s spine.

  From the west came the dull thud of an explosion. A hot breeze swept through the city. Far beyond the houses to his right, probably by the Mizipi, a Thunderbird had dropped a load of liquid flame.

  This was only one of the two battlefronts. Whoever prevailed today, the Cahokians would need a huge new burial mound to honor their dead.

  He looked back, but Demothi had already relayed his message. Half a mile behind him another Thunderbird soared upward, heading their way.

  “Halt!” Marcellinus cried, and “Halt!” the message went out through Akecheta to the First Cahokian and via the signalmen to the farthest reaches of the auxiliaries. No sense in engaging the enemy before the Wakinyan had a chance to wreak havoc here as well. He would hold and let the Iroqua come to him.

  “First rank, prepare arrows! Third rank, set pila!”

  The Cahokians readied for battle in three deep rows, the front rank kneeling with bows in hand and arrows nocked while the line behind stood ready to step past and take its turn at the front. The third rank took several steps back
and set pila in open order, each man three feet from the men to his left and right. Their pila were pointed safely at the sky; once the Iroqua warriors approached to within melee distance, the first two ranks of archers would duck back through the third rank and the pila would be lowered.

  Marcellinus almost hoped the Wakinyan and the arrows left enough Iroqua alive to fight at close quarters. His bloody soul would sing to see Mohawks and Onida and Seneca hurling themselves onto the massed spears of the Cahokians.

  On the faces of his men he saw the same determination. If the Haudenosaunee night attack had been intended to shatter the Cahokian resolve, it had failed utterly. His warriors boiled with energy. He had never seen an army more primed to maim and slaughter.

  “Steady!” he called, walking behind the ranks. At his heels three braves wheeled his war cart, really a chariot pulled by men. He wished he could order them away; the wheeled conveyance seemed ignoble to him. It smacked of cowardice to have a vehicle ready to whisk him away from the front. But this had been one of Great Sun Man’s few direct orders, and there was nothing Marcellinus could do about it.

  The Wakinyan flew over their right flank and banked for its strafing run across the Iroqua line. An invisible hand squeezed Marcellinus’s heart. If he lived to a hundred winters, the traumatic memories would never fade.

  The Thunderbird opened up. In their attack on the Romans, the birds had released the liquid flame in large torrents designed to maximize the damage to his tightly packed legion. Here, the fire came out in a steady, broad spray over a wide area.

  It was a rolling tide of agony. The Iroqua were so widely spread that only two warriors of every five were doused with the incendiary. Nonetheless, the front of the wave was easy to see. Iroqua fell screaming, and not in the clean drop of men struck by arrows or spears but an untidy flail. Panic-stricken, they tried to wipe the burning oil away, but just as with the 33rd Hesperian, their efforts only spread the incendiary over larger areas of their skin. The Iroqua thrashed like crazy men, and the Wakinyan flew on, still showering horror upon them.