People of the Moon(214)

Bad Cast ducked inside, ran to the shield, and tossed it aside. He clambered down the ladder into the darkness, felt for the second cover, and tossed it aside. Leaning his head over the dark hole in the floor, he called, “Anyone here?”

“Who comes?” a voice answered in his First Moon tongue.

“Bad Cast, of the Blue Stick Clan. Stand back. I’m lowering a ladder.”

He felt around, located the ladder close to where they’d found it before, and lowered it into the depths. No sooner had the rungs thumped onto the floor than someone began climbing.

“What’s happening?” the first young man asked as he emerged.

“Ironwood’s warriors are fighting the First People,” Bad Cast said. “It doesn’t look good. There are weapons in the room above. Hurry.”

Bad Cast assumed the young men who climbed out were the clan war chiefs. In the darkness he couldn’t really tell. Then, bracing the ladder, he helped the elders as they climbed one by one from the lower level. They were old and frail, and he wasn’t sure how they’d make it past the fighting, across the perilous ridge crest, and through the storm to safety.

“Bad Cast?” a raspy voice asked.

He helped an old white-haired man off the ladder. “Elder White Eye?”

“Has Cold Bringing Woman come?”

“Yes, Elder.”

“And the fighting?”

“Not good. We are outnumbered.”

“Then let us not waste time. Lead me to the way out.”

In the confusion of the dark room, he wasn’t sure, but he thought Elder Rattler, Green Claw, and Red Water climbed out before he led White Eye to the ladder. He followed the elder up into Burning Smoke’s room. A wavering shaft of yellow light illuminated the doorway.

One hand on White Eye’s arm, Bad Cast led the old man to the doorway and looked out. Fire still licked around the dead Priest’s corpse. But how could a freshly dead man’s … And then it came clear. The cedar-shake packing in the kiva roof, after moons of dry weather, had caught fire. He could hear people screaming from inside the kiva.

Bad Cast winced, wondering how many might be trapped there, watching helplessly as the fire burned around the plugged exit.

He had helped the old man onto the second level by the time the war chiefs charged into the fight. For long moments, they took the pressure off Crow Woman’s little band of warriors where they’d backed against the room block.

Even as Bad Cast watched, the Blessed Sun’s trained warriors parried blow after blow, ducked and dodged, and clubbed down their opponents. One red-shirted warrior caught Elder Rattler by the arm, threw her down, and crushed her skull with a single blow.

In a matter of moments, the other elders were likewise struck down.

Bad Cast stared in horror, and dragged White Eye back into the shadow cast by the second floor.

“What’s happening?” the elder asked.

“The others, they’re dead. Killed by the Blessed Sun’s warriors.”

“And Ironwood’s people?”

Bad Cast raised his head to see. “Crow Woman led them into one of the rooms. They can’t be attacked, except through the doorway.”

“But they can’t escape, either.”

“No. They’re cut off.”

White Eye sighed. “Then it’s only a matter of time.”

A sensation of sudden despair sent an ache through Bad Cast. “So it would appear, Elder.”

“The Blessed Sun’s warriors need only to hack a hole through the roof of the room where Crow Woman’s people are hidden. Through it, they can shoot arrow after arrow.”

Bad Cast sat back, heedless of the thick flakes that fell around him. “Then we are all dead.”





Wrapped Wrist hadn’t meant to become separated. One minute he was behind Crow Woman, and the next an enemy warrior came charging up. Without time to nock his dart, Wrapped Wrist used them as a cluster of short spears, jabbing them into the man’s belly. The warrior shrieked, trying to backpedal. By the time Wrapped Wrist jerked his darts loose, Crow Woman was gone, and what seemed like a flood of red-shirted warriors were flocking between him and the other warriors.

As First Moon war chiefs emerged from Burning Smoke’s upper room, Wrapped Wrist clambered up the ladder that led to the eastern plaza.

There, too, the battle swirled, Ironwood leading his warriors forward as they fought their way into the plaza. His men seemed to draw from the great war chief’s very presence, their actions heroic as they crouched and loosened flight after flight of arrows into the warriors who emerged from the rooms that lined the plaza. The screams and shrieks of wounded men mingled with the falling snow.