Sindak spared only enough breath to reply, “This isn’t my day to die … or yours apparently.”
When Deru launched another wave of flaming arrows, the enemy warriors on the Yellowtail catwalks ducked down.
“We have to go now!” Saponi said.
Three heartbeats later, Saponi and Disu hoisted Gonda’s arms over their shoulders and pelted for the gate.
Sindak covered the retreat, calling, “Deru, we’re coming in! Don’t shoot!”
Gonda’s scrambled vision recorded images of the gate, as he was dragged through in the safety of the palisade, and unceremoniously dropped on the ground. The two guards on the gate swiftly swung it closed, but not before Gonda noticed that the mist had picked up the orange gleam from the fires. It had shimmered into a huge gauzy halo over Yellowtail Village.
Sindak, breathless, turned to Saponi and Disu. “Get back to the fight. Follow Deru’s orders. I’ll meet you soon.”
“Yes, War Chief.” The two men ran.
Sindak knelt beside Gonda. The marsh had washed most of the soot from his serious face, but his beaked nose still bore smears of black. “How’s your leg?”
“It hurts!”
“Well, I know that…”
The timbre of screams rising from Yellowtail Village changed, going from pain to breathless shrieks, the screams of men on fire.
Sindak went still, listening, and his expression slackened.
Weakly, Gonda said, “Leave me. I’ll be fine.”
Sindak just nodded. He sprinted away, nocking an arrow as he ran.
Gonda barely had time to catch his breath before his stomach lurched and he threw up.
Twenty-eight
Negano jerked from a sound sleep when screams shredded the cold mist. In one fluid move, he rolled out of his blanket with his war club in his fist, and lunged to his feet. All around him, other sleeping warriors had grabbed weapons and leaped up. Panicked conversations erupted around hundreds of campfires.
It took only a few moments before Negano’s sleep-numbed mind focused on Yellowtail Village where flames roared.
“Dear gods, what happened?”
From Negano’s position on the hillside, he could gaze down, horror-struck, into the village where his warriors dodged toppling longhouse walls or sections of collapsing palisade, shrieking as they ran for their lives. Several men jumped from the palisade with their clothing flaming. A few managed to drag themselves out into the meadow, where showers of arrows, shot from the Bur Oak Village catwalks, lanced their bodies.
“Grab your weapons! We have to get down there to help them!” Snatching up his bow and quiver, he shouted, “Follow me!”
Negano led the charge down the hillside, splashed across the small creek, and up the incline that led to the villages situated on the rise. He didn’t know how many warriors had followed him, but could hear feet pounding behind him.
As he dashed for Yellowtail Village, he saw the logs propped against the gates, locking everyone inside. The burning palisades had effectively ringed the village with flames.
He swung around and saw perhaps three hundred warriors. When he spotted deputy war chief Nesi, he shouted, “Nesi! Form a team, knock those logs down, and get those gates open!”
Nesi and two men charged for the timbers. The gates in front of them flamed, singeing their hair. When they managed to shove aside the logs and throw the gates open, thick blinding smoke boiled out, swallowing them.
Negano threw up his sleeve to cover his nose and mouth and squinted, trying to make out …
Five men came hobbling out, supporting one another, coughing, their soot-coated faces streaked with tears. One man gasped, “They attacked … so quickly … there was nothing we…” He fell into an uncontrollable coughing fit. The warrior supporting him dragged him away from the extreme heat and smoke.
Negano stared through the entry into the plaza. As some of the smoke cleared, he could see a little better. There must have been debris piled everywhere. Stacks of bark, old chunks of catwalks, and useless palisade poles lay in flaming heaps right next to the longhouses. Gods! No wonder the place had gone up like a torch!
Negano shouted. “Nesi, anyone who can still walk can make it out now. Let’s take care of the Bur Oak archers!”
He led his warriors around the eastern side of Yellowtail Village and straight into a volley of arrows. Men went down all around him, shrieking. Hoarse cries, groans, and coughing wavered like a haunted chorus. There had to be five hundred archers on the Bur Oak catwalks! Some were old gray-haired elders and children barely old enough to carry bows, but they shot straight.
Negano managed to let two arrows fly, before he called, “Retreat! Go back!”