“WE’VE GOT TO FIND A PLACE TO HIDE.” I STUDIED THE BRUSH around us, what I could see anyway, given the thicket of branches. “There. Up in that maze of plums.”
I led the way, showing Back-from-the-Dead where to step so we didn’t leave tracks. With my bow, I eased us past branches and dropped to my belly at the edge of the plums. Like snakes we crawled into the gray stems.
“Try not to disturb the leaves more than you have to.”
My bow and quiver made the task maddeningly difficult. And convincing myself to move slowly took all of my will. Nevertheless, within a finger’s time we had found a spot in the plums where the wrist-thick trunks and higher branches created a haven of sorts.
Motioning for Back-from-the-Dead to stay flat, I rearranged myself and found that with contortions I could stand with my head screened by branches.
You couldn’t call my spot a vantage point by any means, but through the screening brush, I watched something flip through the air and land in a nearby myrtle. Whips of smoke rose.
They’re trying to burn us out.
Fingers of smoke lifted where the torch had disappeared in the brush. With my foot I tested the leaf mat, feeling it spring under my weight. We’d had rain not so long ago. But was it enough?
The Kristianos kept calling back and forth. I caught sight of another of the burning brands as it arced through the air a bow-shot to the south.
More calling.
Anxiously I watched the smoke as it thinned and finally vanished. I sighed from relief.
“What’s happening?” Back-from-the-Dead whispered.
“Quiet,” I hissed back.
Movement.
I picked out a helmeted head as it passed a gap in the brush. Figuring the distance, I placed the Kristiano at twenty paces to the south. Twigs were snapping, snags rasping on his clothing. The man looked like a soldado, and he was anything but happy to be there.
I tried to swallow, realizing how thirsty I’d become. A branch snapped behind me. I slowly turned my head, unable to see through the gray thicket.
A mockingbird exploded from the brush a stone’s toss to the south. As the panicked bird flapped away, I eased my head around. Two soldados—each with a crossbow—stepped into view, then vanished. I heard the clink of metal, the distinct scratching of thorns on cloth.
Wedged as I was in the plum branches, I could figure no way to use my bow. Nor did I have an open shot in any direction. Short of a miracle, an arrow would be deflected by the maze of branches.
My leg began to cramp; I carefully worked myself into as comfortable a position as I could. Back-from-the-Dead gave me a questioning look. I shook my head, signing, “Many. All around us. Quiet.”
He signed back: “What do we do?”
“Wait.”
He nodded, looking very unhappy.
Moments later, a Kristiano called out, “Hay un indio aqui. Él es escondido en una zarza.”
The announcement was followed by the breaking of stems, excited shouts, and, sometime later, a man’s screams. From where we hid, the sounds of his capture were agonizing. You’d have thought they tore up half the thicket dragging him out. We could hear the man shouting, “No! No! Please!” as if it ever did any good with Kristianos.
“Donde está Concho Negro?” Antonio’s voice could be heard as they dragged the captive up the slope. He repeated it over and over, as if the poor carrier would know who Concho Negro was.
Then quiet descended, broken only by the occasional shout of a Kristiano or the crackling of their passage through the brush.
Back-from-the-Dead quivered with each sound. Finally he looked up at me, signing: “I have traveled the Spirit Worlds. Why, then, am I so scared?”
I signed back. “Because you are smart.” Blessed ghosts, I was plenty scared myself.
Looking up, I could see from the shadows that we were well into the afternoon. How long until dark? And then what? Could Antonio—as a capitán—insist the soldados stay out after dark? Generally that was a death sentence.
Except that Antonio hates me with all his heart.
So we waited, hearing a new sound. It took a while to figure out what it was: a rhythmic thumping accompanied by occasional snapping. It started upstream and grew ever closer.
So odd was it that I shifted, getting my feet under me. Then I rose ever so slowly, muscles trembling as I worked up through the branches. Careful to keep my head screened, I chanced a glance, seeing soldados. Each had a long stick and was beating at the brush.
When I’d lowered myself, I signed: “They are poking the brush with long sticks. When they get here, make no sound even if they poke you.” I willed my resolve into his eyes. “Do you understand?”
As if his nerve had failed completely, he dropped his forehead onto the leaf mat and nodded.
They came, all right. They hammered at our plum thicket. Twigs and last fall’s leaves rained onto us. I spent the time developing an empathy for every rabbit I’d ever flushed from cover using exactly this same tactic.
Then I stifled a grunt as one of the weasels jammed a stick across my back. I must have felt like the mud I was covered with, because the pole was withdrawn and jabbed in again, just missing my head where it pressed on the musty leaves.
Thinking back, the ordeal couldn’t have lasted that long. It just seemed half a lifetime.
And then they were gone.
I shuddered, exhaled in relief, and lifted my head. Back-from-the-Dead gave me a hollow stare. He slowly shook his head in despair.
We waited as they moved on. More Kristianos crisscrossed the brush-choked drainage, shouting as if to nerve themselves for the pursuit. Who was more afraid of whom?
Shadows were lengthening, the light fading when I finally nudged Back-from-the-Dead with my foot and wiggled my way through the stems. How long had it been since we’d heard anyone? A hand of time? Two?
I emerged from the plum thicket like some oversized water moccasin, lifted my bow, and fit an arrow. Gesturing for Back-from-the-Dead to follow, I worked down to the creek and began sneaking downstream. We moved with the stealth of hunters, taking a step at a time as we searched the shadows.
When, I wondered, had I spent such an incredibly long day? Maybe in the water at Napetuca, but Blood Thorn had been there sharing the ordeal with witty comments and grim humor. I glanced at Back-from-the-Dead. The man just reeked of desperation.
We’d traveled little more than a bow-shot’s distance when the brush began to thin. I used a stand of tall grass as cover as I inspected the drainage ahead. Another of the trail crossings loomed in the dusk.
This would have been Antonio’s choke point. The place stank of cabayo, and several piles of their droppings could be seen in the track-stippled dirt.
I rose higher, looking around, seeing no one. On the other side, three junipers stood like dark sentinels. Did we wait or make a run across the open space? Easing out, I craned my neck, searching where the trail climbed the slopes on either side. No one waited in ambush.
“I think they’re gone,” I told Back-from-the-Dead. “As much as they want us, they want even more to be back at Anhaica by dark.”
He gave me a puzzled look. “Chicaza, why are you doing this? You don’t even like me.”
“Because your people need you. Come on. Head straight for that brush beyond the junipers. If anything happens and we get separated, keep going. The important thing is that you get back and help Fire Falcon lead the fight.”
He reached out, taking my arm in a firm grip. “Thank you, Black Shell.”
He nodded. “I’ve been seeing it all over in my head. They burned those women. And they had so many piles of wood.”
“Let the memory continue to burn inside you.” I gave him a grim smile. “You know now why we fight.”
At that I turned, arrow nocked, and hurried forward in a half crouch. He sloshed out of the water, following my tracks along the bank.
The distance wasn’t far, maybe ten paces, and we were most of the way across when a soft voice called, “Alto!”
I stopped short, staring in disbelief as two men detached themselves from the junipers. Both had crossbows leveled, ready to release.
My bow wasn’t drawn, the arrow clamped by my left forefinger. Could I pull and make a snap shot before they killed me?
“No, amigo,” the one to the left said, as if he could read my mind. “Quieres morir?”
Did I want to die?
“Black Shell?” Back-from-the-Dead whispered.
I lowered the bow, straightening. Desperate images went whirling through my mind: Ortiz, the metal collars, snapping war dogs, and a lingering death at Antonio’s hands. My decision was made.
“When I shout, Hilishaya, you run,” I said reasonably, knowing the Kristianos couldn’t understand. They were easing forward, never lowering their crossbows. “I’ll make sure they put both arrows into me. Just promise me you’ll escape. No heroics, Hilishaya. Promise?”
“Yes,” he said weakly.
My heart battering my ribs like a hammer, I smiled, holding my bow out to the side, and stepped toward the Kristianos. “Yo rendirse,” I said with a shrug, remembering Napetuca and the words that granted survivors a short-lived clemency.
They both laughed at that, as if I’d said something funny. Then one asked, “Eres el Concho Negro?”
“Síme as our eyes meet,” I replied.
The one on the right began chattering happily, the excited words more than I could comprehend. I did catch mention of “Don Antonio” a couple of times.
I was closer now, almost within spitting distance. For the first time, the man on the left changed his aim, wisely considering me to be the greater threat.
Within a few heartbeats, I am going to die.
A sensation of peace settled over me. I pushed images of Pearl Hand out of my souls, focusing on what I had to do next.
“Ready, Hilishaya?” I asked. “On the count of three. One. Two . . .”
A voice from the brush shouted, “Now!”
The hiss-thunk of an arrow broke the evening stillness. One of the Kristianos jumped at the impact.
More arrows whistled in the gloom, thudding into the Kristianos. I threw myself to the side as the Kristiano before me triggered his weapon. The wicked little arrow tore the air beside my head.
I landed on one knee, my bow up, and clawed the arrow back. I imagined more than saw my opponent’s face over my stone-pointed arrow. Then I let fly, my shot driving home.
As he fell, dark shapes were charging out of the forest. The Kristiano on the left turned to face them. He jerked with the impact as arrow after arrow thudded into his padded armor.
Setting his feet, he took aim, and I heard the peculiar twang as his crossbow released. One of the charging figures stumbled, dropped to his knees. Hands clutched at his breast, he pitched forward.
Blood Thorn flew out of the gloom and bodily knocked the Kristiano to the ground. Straddling him, Blood Thorn hammered the screaming man’s head with his war club.
Pearl Hand strode out of the brush behind the junipers and stopped long enough to prod the man I’d killed with a toe. She shot me an evaluative glance, saying, “Nice shot. Right through the left eye.”
I blew the tension out with a hearty exhale and took her hand as she hauled me to my feet. “Nice to see you.”
“What were you doing back there?” she demanded hotly. “I waited as long as I dared. I thought you were going to die.”
“Peliqua?” Corn Thrower called.
I turned to where he crouched over the warrior who’d been shot.
“Bear Paw is dead, Peliqua. The Kristiano’s arrow went through his heart.”
I winced. “May the ancestors welcome his souls.”
Blood Thorn and Wide Antler rushed over to see.
“Hilishaya?” I called. He stood as if rooted to the ground, staring in the dim light.
The single blaring note of a Kristiano horn startled us. Three cabayeros stood at the top of the trail, silhouetted against the darkening sky.
“Let’s run!” I shouted, taking only long enough to step back and shove Back-from-the-Dead before me. Corn Thrower tossed Bear Paw’s body over his shoulder and trotted for the safety of the creek bottom.
We’d barely made the brush before hooves could be heard. I was all for running headlong, but Pearl Hand’s order brought me to a halt.
“Let them come,” she called from up the slope. “In this twilight, maybe we can get another one. Vengeance for Bear Paw.”
I pushed Back-from-the-Dead behind a haw bush, saying, “Stay put. Don’t move.”
Then I reached for another arrow, clambering up to find a shooting position.
I could have saved myself the effort. Pearl Hand whistled, pointing. Bark and Squirm in the lead, my dogs burst from the brush, howling, barking, and sounding like fury unleashed. The riders pulled up, mounts bucking and squealing.
Amid the cabayeros’ shouts of rage, the first arrows slammed into their armor. Driving heels into the cabayos’ sides, they ducked low, raced up the hill, and disappeared into the gloom. Pearl Hand shouted, slapping her thighs, chasing after them. The dogs slowly returned, one by one, tongues lolling, tails slapping, delighted with themselves.
I released the tension on my bow, watching as the Orphans collected around Bear Paw’s body.
“How did you find me?” I asked Pearl Hand.
Her teeth flashed. “We looked for the largest concentration of Kristianos, figuring you’d be in the middle of them.” She tilted her head toward the dead Kristianos. “Did you understand all that? What they said?”
“All what?”
“Antonio will pay the man who catches the Concho Negro. Those two thought they were going to be rich. Even if they had to stay out after dark to do it.”
I rubbed my neck, stiff with tension. “He came close a couple of times today. Come on. We’ve got to get the hilishaya back before I fall over.”
And we had a body to prepare; another Orphan was dead.
My body was drained, my feet as heavy and clumsy as lumps of stone. It took incredible effort just to keep my eyes open, and I fought yawn after yawn. The trail back to camp might have stretched across an eternity. I kept stumbling over roots and sticks, Pearl Hand catching me on occasion.
Why am I so tired?
I might have been up for days instead of since just before dawn. But then, I’d never felt the abject euphoria of the morning coupled with the violent terror of the afternoon. I shot a glance back at the hilishaya. He was stumbling along like a man in a dream, partially supported by Blood Thorn. A slack expression dominated his face, his eyes glassy and hollow, mouth hanging open like a fool’s.
I staggered along for an eternity only to have Pearl Hand pull me aside as we approached Fire Falcon’s pickets. She muttered something I couldn’t hear to Blood Thorn and gestured for the rest to precede us.
I blinked stupidly, my souls focused solely on the bedding that awaited my exhausted and depleted body. Sleeping, maybe for days, filled my desires.
As the last of the Orphans passed, followed by the dogs, I forced one of my stone feet forward—only to have a hard hand clap my shoulder and spin me around.
I found myself eye to eye with Pearl Hand. Even in the dark I could see the pinch in her lips, the swell of her knotted jaws. Her shoulders were hunched, fists clenched tightly. Oh, and I knew that hot look in her eyes.
In acid tones she demanded, “By the Piasa’s balls, Black Shell, what possessed you?”
I’d been the target of her rage a couple of times. Given a choice between a tongue-lashing from Pearl Hand or a Kristiano slave collar? . . . Well, you get the idea.
“Possessed me?” I answered weakly.
“Are you so tired of life?” She barely controlled her voice. Her face jutted closer to mine, her eyes flashing. “Because if you are, I will gladly bash your silly brains out if you ever do this to me again!”
“Do what?”
“Blood and pus!” She was literally shaking, pointing back toward Anhaica. “What did he do to you? Cast some spell, knock you in the head so hard that any good sense you had leaked out? What?”
“Huh?”
“Black Shell, I wake up alone, to hear that you’ve gone off with Back-from-the-Dead to conjure Power to destroy the Kristianos? With that priest? He hates you! Did you take leave of all your senses? Or did he drug your tea?”
“I don’t . . . I didn’t drink anything. The Power . . . it was everywhere . . .”
“But for me, you’d be dead!” she said, fuming. “Or worse, captured! Then what? I just spend the rest of my life knowing that the man I love more than life is suffering his way to an early death? You didn’t even tell me what you were doing. You left me there, asleep.”
I ground my jaws as her hot glare burned into mine. Her mouth worked and she swallowed hard. In the moonlight, I could see the gleam as a tear leaked from the corner of her eye.
“How do you think that makes me feel, Black Shell?”
My gut sank, a sick feeling sucking at my souls. “I’m sorry. Fire Falcon asked me to go see the hilishaya.”
“Fire Falcon! Oh, that makes me feel so much better.” She slapped her thighs, turning away, head down.
“I’m sorry.”
For long moments, she stared off into the night, refusing to meet my imploring gaze.
“What if I hadn’t come?” she whispered.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do,” she whispered, not even bothering to look at me as she pushed past. “Don’t you ever do this to me again.”
And she headed off down the trail, anger projected by the swing of her hips and her pounding steps.
I sighed, staring at the dogs. They were glancing back and forth between me and Pearl Hand’s retreating form, wondering who to follow.
“Should have just let those Kristianos shoot me,” I muttered.
For a solid week we endured a cold and soaking rain. Pearl Hand and I, along with the Orphans, moved our camp back into the forest close to the creek where we could build crude shelters. The conditions were miserable, the wood wet, and despite the good intentions of the Apalachee, the food was even worse.
If anyone had any doubts about the Timucua, they’d been erased by the rescue of the hilishaya and the sacrifice of Bear Paw’s life.
In a stunning gesture of respect, Fire Falcon delegated eight warriors to escort Bear Paw’s corpse back to Uzachile under the White Arrow so that his body could be prepared by kin. Bear Paw, at least, was assured that his souls would make the journey to his ancestors.
In the aftermath, by ones and twos, tascaia and nicoquadca came by, offering gifts of war arrows, bows, captured Kristiano artifacts, and ornaments.
The difference in the Apalachee was apparent. The monster had burned thirty captives that day. From all over the forest, warriors had watched in horror as their people were tied to the posts and the woodpiles lit.
One of the carriers who’d been captured was mutilated and left on the hilltop as Tascaia Fine Shell had been before him. He, too, was carried back to deliver his message: If the attacks didn’t stop, more would be burned alive, and the mutilations would continue.
In the beginning, de Soto might have been the invader; the Apalachee had considered him a challenge to be overcome—more of a nuisance or pest to be rid of. After the burnings, the fighting took on a brutal and merciless quality. You could see it in the warriors’ eyes, a hard glittering hatred that burned within them like sacred fire.
I thought about it, wondering. I’d seen men driven to that kind of encompassing madness. My Orphans were that way. Life, beyond the killing of de Soto, had no meaning, had even become inconceivable. But to see an entire Nation so gripped?
I tried to make sense of it one day as I poked our smoking fire with a stick. Unlike so many, we had a hierro ax. The sharp edge allowed us to split wood down to the dry center.
Pearl Hand and the others were out scouting, keeping an eye on the Kristianos. Me, I needed time to put things into perspective. I looked down at the pouch where the sepaya now rested in silence. It would have been nice if it had started to glow, jumped around, or done something to come to my rescue the night Pearl Hand had vented her anger on me.
You wanted me to save the hilishaya. Why? What role is he to play in the future?
We had delivered Back-from-the-Dead—exhausted to the point of staggering—to Fire Falcon. But the next morning he turned up missing.
So, did he run out on you? In the end was he so broken by the experience that he’s gone into hiding?
The thought left me grinding my teeth. Now, more than ever, his people needed him. Each day his warriors were being killed in ones and twos, battling to their last breath to wear down the monster. Where was their hilishaya?
With a bitter anger, I jabbed the fire, seeking to vent my frustration on something.
“Black Shell?” a soft voice asked.
I looked up from the shelter of our lean-to, and there he stood. Rain pattered off a bark hat and dripped from an elk-hide cloak around his shoulders. His tattooed face was drawn, a gleam in those once fearsome eyes. A long hunting shirt was belted at his waist, and beneath it an apron hung down past his knees. I noted the badger-hide bundle he held before him, something long wrapped within.
“So, you’re back?”
He nodded, his expression curiously humble. “I’ve been away. Out in the forest. I had to make sacred ground, pray, fast, and speak with the Spirits. In the end, the Little People came. I listened to their wisdom and was given a task.”
I relented enough to gesture that he should come in out of the rain. The Little People had been around since the Creation. Mostly they avoided the world of men, hiding among the forest shadows, in hollows under fallen trees and in the ferns that grew along the banks of streams.
They appeared only to the greatest of hopaye, healers, or sometimes to the dying. It was said that they were tremendously wise, thoughtful, and often malicious if given the chance.
He settled himself beside me, careful to keep from dripping on our bedding. Not that it would have mattered, as everything was damp. For a long time he stared at the fire, watching it sizzle as stray raindrops penetrated past the overhang. The badger-hide bundle rested under his smooth brown hands, cradled as though precious.
“I’d begun to think you might have deserted us.”
He nodded, water dripping from the edge of his rain hat. “How do you think Breath Giver views us? We are, after all, his Creation, imbued with so many gifts. And at the same time we stumble over our own pride, our arrogance, and our stubbornness.”
“Nothing in Creation is perfect.” I shrugged. “Not even the Spirit Beasts. That’s all part of will, I guess. Our ability to think and act for ourselves.”
“We learn, but at the cost of so much pain. I have prayed for Bear Paw. Asked that his souls be blessed on their journey to the Uzachile’s afterlife.”
“Thank you.” I gave him a hard stare. “Hilishaya, have you figured out what you’re going to do?”
An amused smile curled his lips. “I’m going to do what I should have done long ago.”
“And that is?”
“Anything I can to help destroy the monster.” He smoothed the badger fur. “Our warriors need me. They need to see me praying, making medicine, brewing black drink, and blessing them as they sacrifice themselves to save the world.”
I closed my eyes, sighing in relief.
“Black Shell?”
“Yes?”
“You saved my life when I should have paid the ultimate price for my pride. I watched you—a foreign Chicaza trader—step forward and offer your life for mine. You and Bear Paw have laid an unbearable debt upon my shoulders, one I will never be worthy of.”
I waved it away. “Just do your best for your people.”
“I had to save myself before I could save them.” His gaze went back to the fire. “And I owed you a piece of copper.”
He handed me the heavy badger-hide bundle. Shooting him a skeptical glance, I unwrapped the soft fur, finding the ancient turkey-tail mace he’d carried to battle the Kristianos. As I touched it, I felt a tingle: The thing pulsed with Power.
He continued. “It took all of my courage to go back and find it. I hid during the day, searching the route we took as we fled. The second night, almost at dawn, it finally considered me worthy. I heard it call to me.” He paused. “And I found myself.”
“This is worth much more than the piece we played for, and your people might need it.” I tried to hand it back. He declined.
“Not even that sacred mace is fair exchange for what you have done for me and my people. As I said earlier, no matter what I do for the rest of my life, no matter how hard I try, I shall never be completely worthy of the faith you place in me.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself.”
“Follow your own advice for once, Black Shell. Out of all the Nations, Horned Serpent chose the worthiest man he could find. I have been honored to know him.”
And with that, he stood. It shocked me to my toes when he touched his forehead in the ultimate sign of respect and walked off into the rain.