The Dawn Country(96)

Their clubs collided with arm-numbing force, and the man’s superior weight drove Sindak back five steps before he recovered, side-stepped, and slammed his club into the man’s chest. As the man stumbled backward, gasping, Sindak took the opportunity to cave in his ribs.

Then he charged for the fracas around the fire. His gaze instinctively searched for Towa … but his friend had vanished. Gannajero was gone, too. Towa hadn’t dragged her off to protect her, had he? Despite their chief’s orders, the old woman deserved to be dead a thousand times over. And Towa knew it just as well as he did.

“Sindak?” Wakdanek cried. He was fighting a losing battle against three warriors, trying to keep them from getting to the canoes and the children. They were taking turns swinging at him, forcing him backward while they laughed. Sindak’s gaze briefly flitted to the canoe, noting that he didn’t see Baji or Zateri. Were they hiding beneath the packs?

Sindak swerved for Wakdanek just as an arrow zizzed by his ear. Blessed gods! He gasped in surprise, thinking it was meant for him, but the arrow neatly sliced through the chest of one of Wakdanek’s opponents. Cord. He was still alive! The enemy staggered, looked down at the brightly fletched shaft protruding from his lungs, and a bizarre smile lit his face before he collapsed to his knees and started howling.

With only two left, Sindak shouted, “Take the canoe. Get the children out of here!” and leaped a war club aimed at his knees. Before the man could recover, Sindak crushed his right hip and was spinning for the last man. “Go, Wakdanek!”

The big Healer leaped forward, shoved the canoe away from the shore, and ducked a whistling arrow as he madly paddled out into the current. The other canoe sat alone on the bank.

The last man roared and charged Sindak. Sindak skipped sideways. The momentum of the man’s rush carried him past. Before Sindak could batter his brains out, an arrow slashed through Sindak’s left shoulder and punched through the other side just above his collarbone, pinning his cape to his chest and rendering his left arm useless.

“Ha!” his opponent crowed. “You’re a dead man.”

Panic seized Sindak, but he managed to lift his club to block the warrior’s next blow.

As the man lifted his club again, he bellowed, “Now, Hills coward, die!”

Sindak jerked when an arrow pierced the back of the man’s skull. The warrior staggered, and his mouth opened as though to scream, but he just fell facefirst to the ground and started shuddering spastically.

Cradling his wounded arm, Sindak ran for cover. He got into the trees through a shower of arrows and dropped to his knees behind a head-high pile of deadfall. In the snow, he saw the small tracks of two children. They’d been running.

“Think about it later,” he whispered to himself as he propped his club against a fallen log and gripped the blood-slick arrow that pierced his shoulder. He gritted his teeth to prepare himself, snapped the tip off, then reached behind him for the fletched shaft. When he jerked it out of his back, it was as though the cry was ripped from his throat by a jagged fish hook. The pain left him panting breathlessly.

From the edge of his vision, he saw several of the enemy warriors fleeing into the forest.

Fighting nausea, he forced himself to pick up his club again. He saw Gonda get stabbed in the side, but the wound didn’t slow the man down. Gonda jerked the deerbone stiletto from his legging and plunged it into the throat of the man on top of him; then he rolled and scrambled to his feet just as another warrior swung his club at Gonda’s head. Gonda ducked and drove himself headfirst into the man’s stomach, bowling him backward, where they both collapsed to the ground. As they grunted and gasped, struggling for the club, Sindak searched the clearing. Dead men scattered the ground. CorpseEye had cut a swath through the enemy. No one was left standing.

Where is Koracoo?

Was she down? He didn’t see her. Had she followed someone into the forest? Baji and Zateri?

No … there were no adult tracks mixed with those of the children.

Terror chittered through Sindak’s souls. Koracoo wanted Gannajero dead … and Towa was sworn to protect her. Had she gone after Towa?

Gonda let out a hoarse cry, pulled the club from his opponent’s grasp, and brought it down squarely in the middle of the man’s skull. The sodden crack echoed through the trees. As though completely spent, Gonda collapsed on top of the dead man. He just lay there for several moments, breathing, before he rolled off and began probing the stab wound in his side.

Soft whimpers erupted behind Sindak, and he turned to see Gitchi staggering up the trail. Blood covered the wolf puppy’s head, and one of his eyes had swollen closed. He kept stumbling, wobbling, obviously clubbed. The wolf braced his shaking legs and lifted his nose to sniff the breeze, looking eastward; then he let out a low growl.