The Unfinished Song - Book 6: Blood (33 page)

As the number of combatants dwindled, the men kneeling beside Dindi along the side of the plaza began to mutter and moan.

“There’s no hope, there’s no hope,” groaned one grizzled man, who fought for his daughter. He was Weaver Caste. “Our kind never win.”

A younger man, Drover Caste, who fought for his true love, on the other side of Dindi, leaned forward. “I will win!”

“Sure you will, fool. Against Harcho the Bone Breaker!”

“Why not?” demanded the young man. “Pytro once slew Bruso the Ram Killer to rescue the Raven Maiden and not only redeemed her, but was granted Ervo Eagle’s Son, the War Chief’s own bastard, as his slave to honor his victory.”

“And you think you’re another Pytro, do you?” sneered the older man. “Tell me how that works out for you.”

The older weaver turned away, as if he could not bear to continue the conversation. The young man noticed Dindi, who could hardly help hearing the conversation conducted across her.

“I
will
win,” he said quietly. “For my bride’s sake, I have to. I’ll not leave her to that defiler.”

Dindi thought: This man
will
win. She
knew
it. When his turn came, he climbed the ladders with confidence, and a warmth spread inside her. He was good, handsome, and brave, and he fought for the woman he loved. He couldn’t
not
win.

The champion he faced was the same sneering Eagle Lord who had claimed the young man’s new bride as a slave girl, Harcho the Bone Breaker. Each combatant was armed with a short spear. The ram’s horn sounded. They exchanged swipes as they scrambled up the bomas and across the ladders, striving to gain the high ground. Harcho was first surprised, then dismayed, at how well the young sheep drover fought.
He will win, he will win!
Dindi grinned. Beside her, the older man grunted softly, pleased despite what he had said earlier.

The two reached the highest of the bomas, where they circled around a tiny wooden platform far above the ground. Harcho whipped a fierce kick across the young man’s face. He saved himself from a deadly fall all the way to the ground by grabbing the edge of the tiny platform with one hand. Harcho did not give him time to regain his footing, but swung down by his feet and drove his spear upward into the young sheep drover’s chest. Harcho flipped back to the platform and landed on his toes.

The sheep drover fell to the ground. His head cracked open like a tossed pumpkin. Harcho’s spear stood like a totem pole atop the red hill of his chest. A woman screamed and broke away from her guards to weep over that red hill, to kiss the breathless lips, to pound the ground and scream and scream again. Harcho the Bone Breaker leapt down the ladder of the boma, from rung to rung. A smirk of triumph curled his lips. He picked up the screaming girl and dragged her away.

Beside Dindi, the old weaver heaved a sigh.

“It’s not fair,” she whispered.

“He died well,” said the weaver. “He died with dignity. They could not take that from him.”

What good did dignity do him? Or his bride?
She bit back the useless words she wanted to shout.

Two guards came for him next. He glanced at Dindi as he left.

“Die well,” he told her.

The old weaver did not last as long in his fight as the young drover had. He fought with courage, though, and dignity; he did die well. Dindi doubted she would meet doom so bravely as either of them.

As for dignity… well.

When all the other duels had been fought—every last fight won by the high caste champion and not one by a low caste challenger—they came for Dindi. The guards escorted her to the center of the fighting area, a clear spot where they left her. At the same time, her opponent, Hawk, walked alone from the other side, to stand in front of her. Though he was an Imorvae slave, he represented the War Chief, so he wore a magnificent feathered cape and headdress. She wore a simple cape of undyed wool.

“I’m sorry, little girl,” Hawk said gravely. “I have no wish to taste your blood. I must kill you to save my son. It is a cruel choice—but I must choose my own. He is my heart.”

This was it.

“PREPARE TO DIE, PUNY BIRD-MAN!” Dindi shouted as loudly as she could.

The crowd twittered in shock and amusement at her gall. Hawk’s face tightened, and his lips thinned into a line. He tossed his headdress and feathered cape to the waiting guards, revealing that he wore nothing but sturdy boots, a loincloth, and acres of muscle. The guards handed each of them a short spear. Hawk twirled his spear around expertly and pumped the air with it, flexing another herd of muscles in his arms.

Dindi accepted her weapon but also pulled one boot off her foot and tied it on her head. She tossed aside her own cape, just as dramatically as Hawk had, except underneath
her
cape…

…She was dressed, once again, as a clown.

“OR NOT!” Dindi displayed a sheepish grin to the crowd.

Then she dropped her spear and ran away from Hawk as fast as she could.

The crowd burst into laughter at her cowardice. The ram’s horn to start the match had not even sounded yet.

Two guards caught her by either arm and lifted her in the air. She kept wheeling her legs, as though she were still running. She could hear sniggers and laughter all around her. Among the onlookers, she spotted Gremo and Svego. Gremo was already moving her cape. Svego winked at her.

A brave man is stronger. A funny man lives longer
.

The drumroll began, growing louder, until the ram’s horn sounded.

The guards threw Dindi at Hawk’s feet. She kept on rolling right under his legs, picked up her spear on the way, and waved it in the air triumphantly when she jumped to her feet. Then she shoved it into Hawk’s chest—the wrong way around. The blunt end bounced right off his pecs. She scratched her head and flipped her backward spear, clipping herself in the jaw with the stone blade. As if she had knocked herself out, she ‘fainted’ straight backwards, just missing—by ‘coincidence,’ of course—Hawk’s retaliatory blow.

She stumbled to her feet, scratching her head, seemingly oblivious to Hawk taking another swing behind her. She pounded the spear in the ground, as if angry at it, and hit her own foot, the bare one.

“OWZA!” she screamed. She hopped around in ‘pain,’ once again coincidentally evading Hawk’s attempts to spear her, while she cursed loudly at the spear. All she managed to achieve was to untie the stone head from the staff. The spearhead went flying into the air, and happened—purely by accident, it would seem—to hit Hawk in the forehead just as he closed in on her for a killing blow.

No one, not even Hawk, looked more amazed than Dindi.

No one noticed, except Hawk, that Dindi quickly picked up the spearhead from the dirt.

The blow did not fell him, but it did make him stagger backward several steps before he roared and rushed her again.

Dindi emitted a girlish, high-pitched ululation and ran out of the arena, smack into a pack of guards. They threw her back in. The crowd could not stop chortling. Dindi looked at Hawk barreling across the plaza, shrieked again, and, as if desperate, leapt up the nearest ladder. She clambered up to the top but seemed to forget she was holding a sharp rock in one hand. She absent-mindedly slashed free the rope holding the rungs together as she went.

Meanwhile, Hawk climbed a parallel ladder, perhaps intending to intersect her on the platform at the top, where the two ladders met.

Dindi had been holding the ladder together as she climbed, even as she loosened the cords along one side, but now she suddenly flipped her body around and placed all her weight on the top rung. It could not hold the weight. Nor could the rung beneath it, nor the rung beneath that. Dindi grabbed and released rung after rung, letting herself fall, seemingly by accident, in a jerky, comic fashion. The rope uncoiled, and the ladder, sliced along the rungs from top to bottom, split all the way down the middle. At the end of her comic fall, she landed in center splits.

Hawk, now at the top of his ladder, aimed his spear at her. She knew he had perfect aim, even from much loftier heights. She rolled backward and jumped to her feet, only to sway around as if dazed and dizzy, just as the spear narrowly missed her.

The crowd roared with laughter and amazement.

“Oh for the luck of a fool!” shouted someone (possibly Svego). The crowd laughed and shouted their mocking agreement that they had never seen a luckier idiot.

Dindi whirled around and ‘discovered’ the spear sticking out from the dirt behind her. Hawk was already climbing down his ladder; he’d be upon her any moment. Yet it seemed to take her a long time to pull the spear out from the ground, especially since her sleeves, which were mismatched and too big for her, kept falling down over her hands, no matter how many times she rolled them up.

“Stop fussing with your sleeves and pick up the spear!” shouted someone in the crowd. Other voices shouted similar advice. They were on her side now.

When the spear finally came free, it was with such violence that Dindi flipped into a backwards headstand and cartwheeled out of the way as Hawk finally reached her. There was no humor on his face as he turned to where she somersaulted and stalked her.

“HA HA! WHO HAS THE SPEAR NOW?” she shouted boastfully. She raced toward him, spear held aloft, ready to fly from her hands.

Except, she seemingly forgot to let go of the spear when she threw it. Instead, she held on with both hands as the spear plunged into the dirt, and her whole body flipped into the air.

“Let go! Let go!” the crowd shouted.

Dindi let go. She vaulted through the air, over Hawk’s head and landed high on the naked pole, the pole which was all that remained of the ladder she’d sliced in half. Somewhere along the way, unnoticed by the crowd, she’d grabbed the fallen rope, recoiled it rapidly, and shoved it into her belt.

Hawk recovered his spear and aimed at her. Dindi squealed melodramatically and squirmed up the pole.

The slender pole began to sway. She shifted her weight subtly to swing it first one direction, then the other, all the while demanding loudly, “You stupid pole! Stop that! Behave yourself!”

She kept squirming up and up, higher on the pole, though the higher she climbed, the deeper the pole dipped on each swing. The deeper it tipped one direction, the stronger the rebound was, and the further she went to the other side on the next swing. The pole was close enough to the edge of the courtyard that at one extremis, the pole dipped right over the cooking area, and Dindi snagged a basket of potatoes.

Hawk, meanwhile, had decided to gain the high ground again. He climbed another ladder, where he aimed his spear at her. Dindi was still swaying crazily this way and that on the pole, but that would not stop him from finding a clear shot eventually.

She pelted him with potatoes. They were the black frozen kind, small but hard as rocks. Hawk had to throw up his arms to protect himself from the tuber shower or suffer Death By Potato.

The crowd loved it. Hawk, not so much.

No sooner than the last potato left Dindi’s hand, Hawk threw his spear at her, and it was a direct hit… into the wooden bowl she held up as a shield. She untied the spearhead and threw the bowl and useless shaft back at Hawk. It didn’t come close to him, but now he had no weapon either. She had two spearheads tucked into her wide clown belt. She also had a length of rope. She looped and knotted a spearhead to either end of the rope. Then she shoved the weighted rope back into her belt.

Meanwhile, the pole was still swaying, and on Dindi’s next dip into the cooking area, she grabbed a bowl of bean mash. She also braced herself and the pole tip long enough to re-orient herself, so when she let go, the pole snapped toward Hawk’s platform.

This time, Dindi let go.

The momentum of the pole launched her as a bow unleashes an arrow. She flew threw the air and hooked one hand around the top of the ladder, swung around once, and dropped onto the platform in front of Hawk. She balanced the bean mash on the boot atop her head.

She slapped her cheeks with her palms, mugging it for the crowd.

“OH NO! MY FOE!”

They laughed, cried, and bellowed their advice, from “Get out of there!” to “Kill him quick!”

“As if you didn’t mean to do that,” muttered Hawk. “You may fool the crowd, but you don’t fool me. I knew the Great One wanted me dead. I didn’t know he would dishonor me so much as to pretend it was at the hands of a clown!”

He had no weapon, but he needed none. His arms slashed at her like spears. He was faster and stronger than she, and hatred boiled in his face. Dindi barely evaded his blows, but finally she saw her chance.

She smacked him in the face with the bowl of bean mash.

While the crowd laughed uproariously and Hawk furiously wiped the mush from his face, Dindi pulled out her weighted rope, swung one end around a ladder some distance away, and swung free of the platform. She used her rope tool to swing from boma to boma, until she reached the tallest ladder. She began to climb.

This was the highest platform. Below, the onlookers looked like corncob dolls. The wind was so strong here that it swayed the wooden tower. Far below the platform, she could see her own white cape, spread in a perfect circle on the ground.