Eagle and Empire

by Alan Smale

“One week more,” Marcellinus said. “They only formally agreed to ally with us today. Let’s at least give them the chance to show us what they’ve got. They say they’ve summoned their brothers from the west to come and tell us what we need to know of the Thousand…of the Mongols. Haida warriors who have fled all the way from the north, others from the Chumash farther south. Even if we only glean a bit more information and no warriors, it might still be worth it.”

  Enopay was shaking his head. “You believe them?”

  “We can’t afford not to,” Marcellinus said wearily. “If they have information, we need it. If the Yupkoyvi somehow really can reach thousands of warriors of the Hand in the cliffs to the north willing to stand with us, we need them. This alliance is why we’re here. If we leave now, we leave with nothing.”

  Enopay wiped sweat off his neck and looked around. “This place is even more rotten with shamans than Cahokia was under Avenaka. They make me nervous.”

  “Me, too,” Kanuna said.

  —

  “What did you learn?”

  Marcellinus looked up, chewed, swallowed, sighed. Pezi and Taianita were approaching him. Evidently he would not even be allowed to eat lunch in peace.

  Not that it was worth much. Cactus fruits, a few nuts, juniper berries. A hard chunk of saltbush bread made from the low shrubs in the area. A tea of juniper sprigs. They had long ago finished the Cahokian tea they had brought with them.

  “I learned that Yupkoyvi ceremonies go on forever.”

  Taianita’s nose wrinkled. “You smell terrible. Like you’ve been on fire for two days.”

  “Sounds about right. Bread?”

  Taianita almost shuddered as she shook her head. She was looking thinner, he noticed. So was Pezi. She lowered her voice. “Can we leave soon?”

  “Another week. The warriors they’re promising are probably a mirage. But Isleifur thinks we still might get some useful information.”

  Pezi looked across to where Bjarnason was sitting cross-legged, laboriously trying to talk with an old woman who was making pots. Marcellinus smiled, remembering Kimimela’s joke that Bjarnason “liked his women wrinkly.” In reality the astute Norseman knew all too well that it was the older women of any nation or tribe who held most of the history and wisdom of their communities in their heads and were often more willing to share it than the men. Pezi said: “He should get the Chitimachan to help him. And send the Romans far away.”

  Marcellinus just grunted.

  “Maybe we could leave Isleifur behind to talk to his women and he could catch up to us later.”

  Taianita poked him. “What Pezi means is that it is as much as we can do to keep the horses grazed and watered here, and it’s only going to get hotter.”

  “I know that,” Marcellinus said patiently.

  “No,” said Pezi. “What Pezi means is that Bassus and his men are jeopardizing all this.”

  Under Bassus’s discipline, the Roman cavalrymen had been polite and well behaved throughout their stay in Yupkoyvi. “Explain.”

  “They don’t know how to talk to people like the Yupkoyvi. Even Bassus makes them nervous. While the Romans are around, they’ll never tell all they know. We should have come alone.”

  If they’d come alone, the People of the Hand to the north might have killed them all. Marcellinus just shook his head.

  Taianita reached for one of the cactus fruits Marcellinus wasn’t eating. Pezi persisted. “Can we send them off somewhere? Bassus and his turmae. Perhaps make them go and build something? Another reservoir for water? That would build goodwill, and get him out from underfoot so you can talk again with Cha’akmogwi and Chochokpi without Bassus always frowning in the background.”

  Marcellinus raised his eyebrows. It wasn’t a bad idea, one he wouldn’t have been surprised to hear from Enopay. Perhaps Pezi had some redeeming value after all…

  That was unfair. Pezi had value, and so did the other word slaves. At last Marcellinus had seen the virtue in bringing so many translators, because several different languages were spoken just within Yupkoyvi. The People of the Hand were actually many peoples. The translators were almost permanently busy, especially Pezi. Marcellinus had never seen the boy working so hard. His interest in languages was genuine.

  Pezi mostly dealt with the elders, chiefs, and shamans. Because of her gender, the Chitimachan was relegated largely to dealing with issues of food and accommodations; which irked both her and Marcellinus, but it was valuable work that had to be done. Taianita was only slowly learning the language of the Hand and mostly helped oil the Cahokians’ interactions with the Romans.

  Taianita nodded. “Talk to them for the League rather than for Roma.”

  Marcellinus looked to the left and right, but none of Bassus’s men were near. “Ever since we got here, Kanuna and I have been talking to them of the League.”

  “But all they see is Roma.”

  Maybe they were right. Both of them annoying as hell but…right.

  “Very well. I’ll talk to Bassus. We’ll send them out tomorrow, and perhaps then you, me, Pezi, Isleifur, and Kanuna will give this another try—”

  A hundred feet above their heads a Macaw Warrior squawked and rocked his wing back and forth. Taianita frowned at the discordant noise and glanced up into the blue.

  Two more Macaw Warriors now squawked and straightened. Both turned to fly southeast, wings rocking. Other Macaws had whirled their craft around, those high up curving back toward the mesa top behind the Great House while those nearer the ground dipped to land in the sacred enclosure in the left plaza.

  “Futete,” Marcellinus said.

  Isleifur’s pot-making friend had frozen, her eyes glazing in shock and fear. Now she muttered a few words, gathered her wares, and ran. Isleifur leaped to his feet and headed for a ladder up to the second floor of the Great House. “Enemies!” he called over his shoulder to Marcellinus. “She says enemies come!”

  Marcellinus jumped up and followed him up ladder after ladder until they were running together across the roof of the semicircular tenements. The People of the Hand were scattering, some running toward the gates to the city, others scooping up their children and possessions and disappearing into the buildings.

  For an emergency, it was uncannily quiet. Marcellinus heard no horns, no din of rocks being smashed against copper sheets, just the incongruous tinkling of the copper bells at the women’s waists as they ran. The squawk of a Macaw was apparently the only alarm needed in a community of the Hand, and that alone was enough to galvanize everyone into action.

  “There.”

  Bjarnason didn’t need to point. Marcellinus had already seen the rhythmic flash of reflected sunlight off obsidian from the peak of the towering butte that stood sentry over the canyon’s mouth several miles away, as well as the tall cloud of dust in the desert beyond it.

  “To horse!” Sextus Bassus appeared below them, his voice booming across the plaza. “Second Aravacorum: ready horses, armor up, mount up, on the double!”

  Marcellinus was scanning the canyon. “Sound the horn! Bring everyone back in!”

  Bassus nodded and relayed the command. His cornicen gave three blasts of his horn at a volume that had some of the Hand leaping in shock. The trumpeter looked briefly pleased with himself, then sounded the alert again.

  “The Fourth are to the west,” Isleifur said. “Not too far. See them? Plenty of time.”

  The troopers of the four turmae took it in turns to exercise and forage for their horses. Grass had become increasingly difficult to find; there was precious little browsing for the four-legs anywhere near the Great House, and they generally had to go most of the way to the adjacent canyon. As for water, there were seeps and springs in the box canyons, many equipped with catch basins, and a dune dam and small reservoir a couple of miles south. Marcellinus saw three ten-man squads of cavalrymen in the distance, heading briskly back toward the Great House, their pack mules trotting gamely in their wake. “Good.”

  The du
st cloud beyond the mouth of the canyon was already closer. It was moving faster than a man could run. Not the warriors of the Hand they’d been hoping for, then. Sweat prickled his skin, and he felt a moment of dizziness. “Mongols, here?”

  “Must be,” Isleifur said.

  Marcellinus almost spit in frustration. “And we only find out now? When they’re within ten miles?”

  “Either the Handies’ famous signal stations along their Great Roads are all crap or the Mongols sent outriders ahead to take them out and stop them from raising the alarm. The signal butte would be harder, though; the only way to the top is steep, hidden, well guarded—”

  Marcellinus cut him off with a gesture. It didn’t matter. What mattered was finding out as soon as possible how large a force they faced, and for that they needed to understand the signal flashes from the butte.

  “Stay here. Watch their approach.” Marcellinus ran for the ladders and slid down them, back to the floor of the plaza.

  —

  “Chochokpi says ten thousand men, spread over all across the plain.” Pezi was shaking his head. “But Gaius, he has no idea; he is afraid and guessing. You can see it in his eyes.”

  “The sentries on the butte?”

  Pezi looked wry. “All their signals say is Many. Perhaps they cannot see through all the dust the Mongol horses are kicking up.”

  “What do the Hawks…I mean the Macaws, what do they say?”

  “They cannot yet see far enough either.”

  Bassus strode toward them, his steel plate armor gleaming in the sun. Beyond him his cavalrymen of the Second Aravacorum mostly had their horses saddled and barded and were in various stages of donning chain mail, boots, and helmets. Two other decurions walked among them, snapping out orders and pointing out girth straps and harnesses that were loose or crooked. The final decurion was with the troopers hurrying back across the canyon floor.

  Bassus arrived and saluted. “Well, this is a pretty pass, sir.”

  Marcellinus grinned with confidence he did not feel. At a time like this, military bravado had to take over. “Certainly is, Decurion.”

  “No point in trying to get away,” Bassus said. “Western end of the canyon’s too tough for the horses to negotiate. The Mongols would catch us before we could haul ourselves out. And that would be undignified.”

  Marcellinus nodded. At a canter, the Mongols might be at the Great House in half an hour. The Romans simply would not have enough of a head start. “Plus, we’d be abandoning the Yupkoyvi.”

  Bassus snorted. “I don’t give a good crap about the Handies. They couldn’t warn us better than this? Fuck ’em. If you can get them to stand up for themselves and fight with us, well and good. If not, let them rot.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Bassus broke into a run, heading back to his men. The Chitimachan had come to Marcellinus’s side. Across the plaza Hanska, Mikasi, and Mahkah had appeared and were talking urgently to Kanuna. The Cahokians tended to sleep through the hottest part of the day. This must have been a rude awakening.

  Chochokpi was still talking animatedly to Pezi, waving his arms and shaking his head. Pezi studied him. “He knew the Mongols would come.”

  “He just said that?”

  “Of course not. He claims he is shocked, cannot understand it, does not know how this could have happened. But it’s not true.” Pezi looked at Marcellinus. “Gaius, I once was a liar and a coward. I can see those things clearly enough in others.”

  “Pezi speaks true,” the Chitimachan said stolidly. “We are betrayed.”

  “But the People of the Hand are still at risk themselves. Aren’t they?”

  “Are they?”

  Marcellinus nodded grimly. “We’ll see. Pezi, tell Chock to get all his warriors out and lined up, best at the front, ready to fight. Where the hell did Cha’akmogwi go?”

  “Let’s find out.” Pezi strode forward, the Chitimachan by his side.

  —

  Cha’akmogwi glared at them and spoke. Pezi pointed at him and translated almost as fast as Chack spoke. “ ‘Yes. Of course we knew.’ ”

  Marcellinus jumped at a sudden sharp sound, his gladius already halfway out of its sheath. The Chitimachan had slapped the Yupkoyvi chieftain. Chack looked startled, then a sneer appeared on his face and he spoke derisively. Pezi pointed again and translated. “ ‘You want your woman to kill me now? Then kill me and have two men less to help you defend against the Mongols.’ ”

  Cha’akmogwi spoke. Pezi translated. “ ‘We knew the Thousand-Thousand came. Last time they passed us by, far from here. Now? Word of you must have brought them.’ ” He turned. “Chack blames us for bringing the Thousand-Thousand Enemies down upon Yupkoyvi.”

  The Chitimachan continued the translation. “ ‘But we are few, and you are strong. You must stand with us, protect the Great House. We allied with you for this, no?’ ”

  As Chochokpi added some words, the Chitimachan said, “ ‘This is the alliance you sought: we People of the Hand along with your men of steel and your beasts.’ ”

  The fourth turmae of the Aravacorum cantered in through the gates of Yupkoyvi. Their decurion looked frazzled, and it was his young deputy who gave the orders to the other men to dismount and run for their armor and horse barding.

  Marcellinus stepped forward and put his hands up to his mouth to form a trumpet. “Isleifur! How long?”

  From the top of the Great House the Norseman turned and waved his arms in hand-talk. Ten minutes.

  “Shit,” said Marcellinus.

  Bassus jogged back to them. “So what’s it to be? Face the Mongols outside or fortify and let the bastards siege us?”

  The Great House of Yupkoyvi sat against the western wall of a long canyon that ran northwest to southeast. The Mongols were coming in from the southeast. As Bassus had noted already, the northwestern end was negotiable by horses, but only slowly and carefully. The staircases out of the canyon up to the massifs behind them were a hard and dizzying climb; if they tried that, the Mongols would pick them off one by one with arrows and make a sport of it.

  Marcellinus looked along the walls of Yupkoyvi. The Great House was no fortress. The walls were thick but only eight feet high and flat-topped with no battlements or crenellations, and there was no time to build any. Nonetheless, they had over a hundred Romans and five hundred of the Yupkoyvi.

  “The Mongols are horse archers,” he said. “But if we can resist their arrows, hold them back…we’re short of men, not weapons. There must be a year’s worth of arrows in this dump.”

  Bassus pursed his lips. “The Mongols sieged and broke many a Jin and Song city.”

  “But that takes engineers and a big army. This may be a small contingent.”

  “Or a large contingent,” Bassus said. “That dust cloud…”

  “Four or five horses for every man,” Marcellinus reminded him. “If it’s a small group, they might not be able to break us. And if it’s large, they’ll have hell’s own job getting enough browse for the horses and water for the men while they siege us.” He shook his head. They didn’t know enough yet. “So let’s try to fortify but be ready to charge out if we decide we can take them.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Marcellinus turned to Pezi and the Chitimachan. “All right. Tell Chochokpi and Cha’ak…Cha’akmogwi to get all the Yupkoyvi who can fight, give them spears and shields, and get them up on the walls. Those who can’t fight, get them to bring arrows out of the stores. As many as possible.” He looked up at the cliff. “How many Macaw Warriors can they deploy at once? Get them ready to fly. And we’ll need—merda, what the hell?”

  Smoke gushed from the window of one of the tenements behind them against the mountain on the fourth level. Another window spilled black smoke on the other side of the complex. On the high roof of the fifth level men were attacking the roofline with pickaxes. “Pezi, ask Chochokpi what on earth—”

  But Pezi was already snapping at Chocho
kpi, gesticulating, spitting out words, even as Chochokpi snarled back at him. Now Pezi turned. “They are killing Yupkoyvi. Their sacred house must not fall intact into the hands of the barbarians. This is the Center of the World. The Mongols shall not have it.”

  “And so they’re doing the Mongols’ work for them before they even arrive?”

  Pezi shook his head. “Bassus was right. These people are mad. Stark, staring mad.”

  “This is fucking hopeless,” said Bassus. “I told you. Half of them want us to protect ’em while the other half burn their own fucking town.”

  Marcellinus nodded. “Let’s get on with this.”

  Bassus strode out into the center of the courtyard and began shouting orders. “Close the gates! Line the walls, tether the horses, prepare weapons!”

  Marcellinus scanned the rooflines. The Great House covered two acres. The walls were high and thick, but the structure covered quite an area. Yet the site had no central tower or citadel that could be defended any more easily. They could not consolidate into a smaller area. They defended the whole house or nothing.

  It was a tall order, and still the Yupkoyvi were arguing with his translator.

  Marcellinus turned, grabbed Chochokpi by the throat, and rammed him back against the plaza wall. Chochokpi yelped, and his brother, Cha’akmogwi, drew a knife and stepped forward. “Stop him,” Marcellinus said, and Pezi jerked up his stick and thrust it into Cha’akmogwi’s chest. “Stay put.”

  “Tell him to get the Macaws back in the air,” Marcellinus said. “Now. First we need to know how big the Mongol army is. Then we need them to attack the Mongols from above. And tell him to get his people to stop burning and grab weapons. Get them down here to defend their Great House. He gives the orders now, and if I don’t see fast results, I’ll kill him myself.”

  “Yes.” Pezi rattled out orders at the shaman-chiefs and released Cha’akmogwi. The priest of the Hand stepped forward and began to call out his own orders, watching Marcellinus out of the corner of his eye.

  Bassus turned and signaled to Marcellinus. The four turmae of horsemen had completed armoring up and were readying their bows, hasta, shields. Waiting for orders. Good.