and the Acoma still able to fight closed ranks, stepping back of necessity over the still-warm bodies of their comrades. Mara prayed to Lashima for strength and reached out with unsteady hands for the fallen archer’s bow.
The horn bow was heavy and awkward, and the arrow slippery in her sweaty hands. Mara notched the shaft with raw determination. Her hand faltered on the string, and the arrow tilted, sliding. She managed to recover it, but the rush of blood to her head momentarily blackened her vision.
She willed herself to continue by touch. Sight cleared in patches; another man crashed against her litter, his blood pattering into streaks across white gauze. Mara braced the bow and strove against weakness and pain to draw.
Her effort failed. Tearing agony laced her shoulder, and her lips drew back in a cry she could not stifle. Weeping tears of shame, she closed her eyes and tried again. The bow resisted her like iron-root. Tremors shook her body, and faintness stifled her awareness like dark felt. As the cries of the men and the clatter of weapons dimmed in her ears, still she strove to pull a bow that probably would have defeated her strength when she was in perfect health.
Suddenly someone’s arms supported her. Sure hands reached around her shoulders and closed firmly on the fingers she held clenched to leather grip and string. And like a miracle, a man’s strength joined hers, and the bow bent, paused, and released.
With a scream audible through the noise of battle, the signal arrow leaped into the sky; and the Ruling Lady of the Acoma passed out into the lap of a man with a leg wound, who, but for the grace lent by her cunning, would have died a condemned criminal in the wilderness. He eased his mistress’s slender form onto the stained cushions of her litter. The strip he should have used to bind his own hurt he pressed to staunch the blood from the arrow wound in Mara’s shoulder, while around him the Tuscalora pressed in for the victory.
Lord Jidu ignored the chilled fruit at his side as he sat forward eagerly upon his cushion. He motioned for a slave to fan cool air upon him while he sat watching the finish of the battle in his dooryard. Perspiration from excitement dripped off his forehead as he regarded his imminent victory – though it seemed to be longer in coming than he had expected. Many of his best warriors bled upon the gravel walk, no small few felled by the black-haired Acoma officer who fought with his hands drenched red to the wrists. He seemed invincible, his blade rising and falling with fatal regularity. But victory would come to the Tuscalora, despite the officer’s aptness at killing. One by one the ranks at his side diminished, overwhelmed by superior numbers. For a moment Jidu considered ordering him captured, for his worth in the arena would recover the cost of this battle. Then the Lord of the Tuscalora discarded the thought. Best to end this quickly. There was still the matter of the other force of Acoma soldiers on his border, now attacking, no doubt, upon the release of that signal arrow. At least one Tuscalora archer had struck the Lady. Perhaps she bled to death even now.
Lord Jidu took a drink from the tray. He drew a long sip, and sighed in anticipation. The question of this debt he had incurred while gambling with Lord Buntokapi was coming to a better conclusion that he could have hoped. Perhaps he might gain the Acoma natami, to bury upside down beside the bones of Tuscalora ancestors. Then the Lord Jidu considered Tecuma of the Anasati, ignorant of this battle. A laugh shook his fat throat. Capture the Acoma brat and force Tecuma to terms! The boy in exchange for withdrawal of Anasati support from the Alliance for War! Jidu smiled at the thought. The Great Game dealt blows to the strong as well as the weak; and any ally of the Warlord’s was to be balked, for war inevitably bent the monkeys of commerce away from chocha and into the pockets of armourers and weapons masters.
But all would depend on this victory, and the Acoma soldiers were showing an alarming reluctance to die. Perhaps, thought Jidu, he had ordered too many to attack the force on the border. Already both sides had been reduced, but now the odds were little better than two to one in favour of the Tuscalora. Again the green plume of the Acoma officer fell back, and the First Strike Leader of the Tuscalora shouted to his men to close. Now only a handful of soldiers remained, crowded against Mara’s litter with their swords swinging in tired hands. Their end was certain now.
Then a breathless messenger raced up to the estate house. The man prostrated himself at his master’s feet. ‘Lord, Acoma troops have penetrated the orchards and fired the chocha-la bushes.’
Jidu bellowed in fury for his hadonra; but worse news followed. The messenger took a gasping breath and finished his report. ‘Two Acoma Strike Leaders with a force of three hundred warriors have taken position between the burning crops and the river. None of our workers can get through to battle the blaze.’
The Lord of the Tuscalora leaped to his feet. Now the situation was critical; chocha-la bushes matured with extreme slowness, and a new field would not mature to yield sufficient harvest to recover his loss within his lifetime. If the bushes burned, the proceeds from this year’s crop could not pay off the creditors. Ruin would be visited upon Jidu’s house, and Tuscalora wealth would be as ashes.
Gesturing for the exhausted messenger to move clear of his path, the Lord of the Tuscalora shouted to his runner. ‘Call up the auxiliary squads from the barracks! Send them to clear a way for the workers!’
The boy ran; and suddenly the fact that Mara’s escort was nearly defeated lost its savour. Smoke turned the morning sky black and evil with soot. Plainly, the fires had been expertly set. Lord Jidu almost struck the second messenger, who arrived panting to report that shortly the crops would be ablaze beyond hope of salvage – unless the Acoma force could be neutralized to allow water brigades access to the river.
Jidu hesitated, then signalled a horn bearer. ‘Call withdraw!’ he ordered bitterly. Mara had set him to select between hard choices: either surrender honour and admit his default as a dishonour, or destroy her at the price of his own house’s destruction.
The herald blew a series of notes and the Tuscalora Strike Leader turned in open astonishment. Final victory was only moments away, but his master was signalling him to order withdraw. Tsurani obedience told, and instantly he had his men backing away from the surrounded Acoma guards.
Of the fifty soldiers who had arrived upon the Tuscalora estates, fewer than twenty stood before their Lady’s blood-splattered litter.
Jidu shouted, ‘I seek truce.’
‘Offer the Lady of the Acoma your formal apology,’ shouted the green-plumed officer, who stood with sword at the ready should combat resume. ‘Satisfy her honour, Lord Jidu, and Acoma warriors will lay down their weapons and aid your men to save the crops.’
The Lord of the Tuscalora jiggled from foot to foot, furious to realize he had been duped. The girl in the litter had planned this strategy from the start; what a vicious twist it set upon the situation. If Jidu deliberated, if he even took time to dispatch runners to survey the extent of the damage to determine whether his force had a hope of breaking through, he might forfeit all. No choice remained but to capitulate.
‘I concede the honour of the Acoma,’ shouted Lord Jidu, though the shame gripped him as though he had eaten unripe grapes. His First Strike Leader called orders for the warriors to lay down their arms, with reluctance.
The Acoma soldiers left living unlocked their shield wall, weary but proud. Papewaio’s eyes flashed victory, but as he turned towards the litter to share victory with his Lady, his sweat-streaked features went rigid. He bent hastily, the bloody sword forgotten in his hand; and for a last, vicious instant, the Lord of the Tuscalora prayed that fortune favoured him. For if the Lady Mara lay dead, the Tuscalora were ruined.
Mara roused, her head aching, her arm aflame. An Acoma soldier was binding it with a torn shred of litter curtain. ‘What …’ she began weakly.
Papewaio’s
