Blood Ties (55 page)

‘Mater Dei, Memento Mei.’

Mother of God, Remember me. Remember him!

The hardest thing was resisting the urge to rush forward. Walking seemed a difficult action to control; in running there would be less time to think. Still, they were approaching each other fast enough. Tagay could soon hear the man’s steady breath. It reminded him to take one of his own. Then he heard the first of the man’s words.

‘Little Bear.’ The emphasis was on the first word, the tone derisive. ‘Child! Come to the Wolf. Come and be suckled.’

Twenty paces, ten. At five, Black Snake stopped, so Tagay did as well.

‘Little Bear.’ The voice was low now, the words meant only for him. ‘You will die knowing your woman will lie beneath me, and then beneath every Wolf, before we kill her. You will die knowing your aunt will be murdered, your clan destroyed, your people enslaved. You will die knowing that you failed to save them. And that knowledge will haunt you for ever in the Village of the Dead.’

And then the man whom Sada had said was slow proved he wasn’t.

It was the sound of the club that Tagay reacted to, not the blur of slatted wood that ran at him. It whirred through the air, as if it already shattered bodies on its journey. He turned, just, and the wind of the passing almost bruised him at side of head, at shoulder and hip. A cry came from around the field as he lurched sideways.

Black Snake had put so much into the first blow that he followed the heavy club down, embedding its head in the soft earth. Yet it took only a moment to jerk it out and bending, he swept it upwards diagonally off the ground, the blow aimed at the knee. Tagay thrust his shield out, angled, as he remembered his teachers telling him to do years before with the buckler. But the angle wasn’t enough, the club caught him hard, splintering wood, sending him reeling again. Black Snake was up and following in a heart beat.

You are faster
, Sada had said. The words came to him now and he moved, ran from the man approaching him. He
was
faster.

Black Snake halted. ‘Coward!’ he bellowed, shaking his club before him. ‘You dare not stand and fight. It was how your father fought, I have heard, how he died – with an arrow in his back, running from the foe.’

Until that moment, Tagay had only thought about how to avoid the next blow, how to keep away from his opponent. Now, with a vision of a man he’d never met, and that man’s war club in his hand, his mind came clear. When Black Snake rushed at him again, he still ran. But there was less distance, the gap small enough, luring Black Snake to chase.

The club descended. This time Tagay stopped, ducked into the blow, raising his own club. The blow landed, but glanced off Tagay’s forearm guard. It hurt but not enough to stop him lunging after his opponent’s back, stabbing with the wooden point. It was nothing, for it was not a killing part of the weapon and it caught Black Snake harmlessly on his shoulder armour. But it was the first attack he had made, and the crowd greeted it with a shout.

Black Snake laughed. ‘The flies are buzzing here today,’ he said.

Tagay, who had moved again just out of an arm’s reach laughed back. ‘They are waiting to lay their eggs in your wounds, Tawane. Or is it your smell that draws them?’

He did not think such a jest would sting – or perhaps it was the defiance – but it caused the tattooed face to cloud. He ran forward again, the club whirring like bees around a hive, cutting the air as if air was solid. Tagay retreated but didn’t run, dodging blows, deflecting some on shield and arm guard. But for every blow that fell, he returned a thrust back, always with the point, always high, near the neck, at the under arm, stabbing the cedar, till the hawk beak began to splay and splinter.

The noise had built in the crowd, shouts and groans issuing from either end, from each side, according to the nearness of the blows, the giver or the taker.

On each strike, Black Snake grunted, a huge exhalation. He was breathing heavily while Tagay’s breaths came lighter.

Maybe
, he thought,
maybe I can do this
.

It was the flicker of confidence that nearly betrayed him. He had outdistanced Black Snake again, but his lunge at the neck took him off balance. The tattooed warrior saw it, stepped in, the war club rising in a great arc from behind him. Tagay was too far forward, too late to dodge. He raised his shield and the ironwood fell hard into its middle, shattering it.

Everyone saw. Anne leaned forward, witnessing one doom, anticipating in it her own. Sada started forward with a curse. Wolves howled in triumph; neutrals looked for the decision of their Gods.

It felt like his arm was as broken as his shield. He managed to scramble away, as another blow plunged into the ground by his head. But the mud caused Black Snake’s foot to slip and Tagay rolled onto one knee, shook away the remnants of his shattered shield. The two men, both breathing heavily, faced each other again.

‘The Bear … has lost … a paw.’ Black Snake gestured to the arm already swelling. ‘Kneel before me … one blow … and all your hurts will be over.’

He came forward again, his own shield raised high to fend off what he knew would be Tagay’s last and most desperate attack. And, lunging from his crouch, Tagay’s point did indeed rise up, aiming, so it seemed, for the blue snake that held the warrior’s left eye in its fanged mouth. Black Snake’s shield rose even higher over his forward foot, to counter, to deflect. The club was lowered to the ground poised to bring over the killing blow.

But Tagay’s weapon did not hold true to its course. Instead, as he rose from the ground he pivoted on his front foot, throwing his battered left arm out and around, using it to spin him. His father’s weapon he dropped down and, for the first time, he used not the point, but the blade. Falling, his eyes fixed on the target, just before his back reached the ground, Tagay thrust the hawk’s head between the front and rear guards of the slat armour of the lower leg. He landed, using the full force of his fall and a cocked wrist to rip the blade outwards, severing the flesh and tendons behind the knee.

He kept rolling, his face sliding into the wet earth, hearing but not seeing the club once more thud into the ground behind him, hearing but not seeing the crowd because of the mud lodged in his eyes. He rolled up, spat, wiped a hand. His vision cleared.

It was Black Snake who was on one knee now, trying to force himself up. But the leg wouldn’t work and he kept sinking down. Then he used the club like a crutch raising himself onto one foot.

All sounds disappeared for Tagay. The crowd gone, grunts and insults gone, even the tide of blood that had pounded so in his ears receded to nothing. The only thing he heard, because it wasn’t a sound but a memory, were the words of Sada, telling him where the two weaknesses in his opponent’s armour lay. And having found the one, Tagay stepped forward now to seek the other.

Tagay ran around the raised shield. Black Snake lifted the club from the ground but in doing so his slashed leg collapsed. As he fell, Tagay found what he was looking for. With a wide blow, he drove the blade between two more plates of armour, burying its length in the muscle that joins shoulder and arm.

Then sound returned in a rush, the rush of people running onto the field, screams of triumph, of shock. A smaller circle formed around the two combatants. Black Snake lay on his back, one leg twisted, blood seeping through the slats of his armour, pooling in the mud. Tagay sank to the ground, but was pulled to his feet immediately by Sada. His cousin’s placid face, which so rarely showed any emotion, was cracked with wonder now, with joy.

‘Feint high, take him low, take him on the outside.’ The man laughed. ‘Good advice, eh?’

He was one of the few to display any passion. Most seemed to think that what Tagay had done was normal, everyday. Like the tall, thin elder who pushed his way through to them, nodded at Tagay once, before turning to Sada.

‘My grandson will come to your lodge and collect the beaver skins.’

He turned and walked away, barely glancing at Black Snake.

Sada was doing his best to look small.

Tagay finally found his eyes. ‘You bet against me, Sada?’

The smaller man looked embarrassed for a moment, then shrugged. ‘That man makes the finest beaver cloaks in the village,’ he said. ‘I thought one of them would keep me warmer next winter than my memory of you.’

Tagay laughed. It felt a strange sensation, wonderful and new. He looked above the crowd to the oak tree. The branch was empty.

Are you coming to me, White Cedar?
he thought. Then a gap opened in the crowd and Tangled appeared, followed by the other chiefs. The space widened to accommodate them.

She was trying to reach him. When he’d fallen that last time, she’d known he was finished. She did not see his crippling blow struck home, because she’d looked down to the silver cross on the branch before her.

It is over
, she’d thought,
all over
.

At the great shout, she’d forced her eyes up again, to testify to a brave man dying, as she had watched her father die only two months before. It was the least and all she could do. And she’d looked up just in time to see the miracle – the monstrous warrior on his knees, Tagay up and moving in again, Black Snake falling to another cut. She’d snatched up the cross, replaced it beside the hand in the pouch, dropped from the branches of the oak as if she was stepping down one stair.

It was while she was running toward the gathering crowd, looking left and right to seek some gap to bring her to him, that she saw what at first appeared to be a mere bundle of deer skin abandoned on the ground. She looked away, back to her desire. Then something stopped her, perhaps the sparkle of torchlight reflecting in the elaborate pattern of beads on a dress.

Gaka was lying on her side. When Anne reached her, turned her, she saw that the old woman’s face was distorted, turning a blueish shade. Her left arm was clamped rigidly to her side, while her right flopped and banged into the ground, scrabbling in the dirt as if seeking a hand-hold on the earth. The eyes were rolled back under half-opened lids.

She was getting no air! Her jaw was locked so, grabbing the grey-haired head into her lap, Anne forced the mouth open. Gaka had swallowed her tongue. Anne reached in. It was fortunate that Gaka had lost most of her teeth, because the jaw bit down on her fingers. She grabbed the tongue, pulled it back up. Looking around desperately, she saw a small stick on the ground nearby, grabbed it, laid it on top of the tongue, let the mouth close around it.

‘Do-ne!’ The boy had stayed at the base of the tree during the fight. Now he hobbled up, his eyes wide as he looked at the writhing body.

‘Stay with her. Try to keep this in her mouth. I will get help.’

She had to reach Tagay. The crowd was still forming up ahead. She reached the rear of it, began to push her way through.

‘The Twins have made their judgement, Tawane,’ Tangled said. ‘Do you abide by it?’

‘I do.’ Black Snake grimaced as he pulled himself up from the ground into a sitting position. The blood that had flowed down his back onto the ground now ran from his chest, bubbling between the cedar slats, staining them a deeper red. ‘It is as the Little Bear has told you. The Tattooed people gather their allies from all over the world. The sunrise after the full moon will see them here, burning your lodges down. It is the end for the Tahontaenrat.’

The muttering that had been continuous during his speaking now broke into shouts. Tangled quelled it with a raising of his staff. ‘Is that why you betrayed us?’

‘I returned to an older loyalty, that is all. I despised myself that I did not die like a warrior when you captured me, because I was so young and weak. I lied to myself for the many summers since. But then I saw the strength of the people I was born to, while the Deer people grew weaker. I wanted to be strong like them again.’

Once more, Tangled quieted the crowd. ‘And now?’

‘Now I wish to die like a warrior as I should have before. I wish to sing my death song so you will all see that my people have courage beyond your courage, strength beyond your strength. That is my wish.’

‘And you will have it.’ Tangled lifted his staff and pointed to the east, where the sky was lightening. ‘The God of War is coming to us in fire and we will send him your soul to greet him. If we had time we should prepare you for many days, so you and he would both have much honour. But by his swift coming and your life flowing in red upon the ground I do not think we have that time.’ He turned now to his people, to the warriors who had gathered at the front. ‘Release his soul.’

The people spread back but not far, creating a space of about fifty paces in length, thirty wide. The drums that had beat during the fight started up again now, and the crowd began to chant ‘Heh-Heh-Heh-Heh-Heh’. The torches were brought in, placed around at intervals, though the growing light was rendering them unnecessary. Yet their fire was needed for a different purpose now.

Sada came to Tagay, handed him a smouldering stick, took him to the end of the two lines that had formed, facing each other, twenty warriors in each. Black Snake was stripped of his armour and, naked, his blood spreading in a red web over the blue tattooed body, he was dragged to the entrance of the lines, forced to stand.

‘Do as I do,’ whispered Sada. Then he stepped up to Black Snake and said, ‘You look cold, Tawane. Let me warm you.’ And he thrust his flaming, sharpened stick into the blue tattooed ear.

Black Snake did not scream. He roared, ‘I am Tawane of the Nundawaono. Hear my death song!’ and he began to stagger down the lines.

Tagay thrust, at the same time as the man facing him on the other side of the line. Their brands were pushed into flesh, but Black Snake did not turn, or acknowledge the pain in any way. He limped down the gauntlet, receiving the fire and jabs, singing his song through clenched teeth. He fell twice, forced himself up, dragging his useless leg behind him and on.

Somehow he reached the end of the line. When the last stake had been pushed home with a cry of, ‘You bleed. Let me stop the flow!’ he was thrown down, his hands stretched out to logs on either side, other logs brought crashing down on them with full weight crushing his fingers. He screamed then, but just his name, and fainted. Water was thrown over him, and he sat up. Immediately, he began to sing again.