By: Joel 'Cop' Furches
Chapter 2: Devil and the Wind
“In the winter of the year, the white man comes
The old man comes, in the cold and bitter time
We build our fires; we say our prayers to God
And the world dies for a little while.”
“The wheel will spin for another season
The bear will return to the mountaintop
The eagle will soar in the face of God
The glorious princess of flowers will come.”
“But Now is the winter of the year, the old man is here
The fires are built at the feet of God
The sun is low, the grass is gone
And the white man sleeps in the valley beyond.
Death sleeps in the valley beyond.”
It was the first moon in the year of the Beaver when I, Astaquinn, of the Benaquinn, set out on my Spirit Journey. I left the Benaquinn Nation in high winter, for so it was told of me, for my name is Bitter Wind. I took my bow, blessed of God, and my hatchet, blessed of God. I also took my eagle Lolcho, whom God indulges, for he is an eagle, and has a mind of his own. With me I also bore the blessing of my father, Choquatta, leader of the Benaquinn. My father said to me, “Astaquinn, you are the prince of your people, and to be leader when I am gone. You have reached your 33rd season, and you are a man. But God does not bless a man who does not listen to His voice. I named you Astaquinn, the Bitter Wind because your coming marked the death of my beloved wife Disitti. Now this name will lead you out into the bitter winds of winter to hear God’s voice. I send up seven prayers a day that God gives you wisdom, for dark is our land. Dark as it ever has been. And the great tree of life among the Lilliquoi is dying. If I die and you come to lead, you will lead your people either to triumph or to destruction.”
With these words a heavy weight on my shoulders, I knelt in the presence of my father and my Chief to pray to God that he bless my Spirit Journey. My father then passed me his blessed bow, formed of the heartwood of the tree of life, a gift of peace from the Chief of the Lilliquoi. He also gave me his blessed tomahawk, whose stone head he had plucked from the maw of Poi Drodidi when he was a young Brave. With these two gifts I left my father’s presence and made my way to the stream at the edge of our city.
My father’s
house was among the teepees of my people, for he was their Chief, but he was
also one of them. However, my father’s Hoga stood at the edge of the vast field of tents that
served as the dwelling for my people. It
was positioned near the center of our city and at it’s
back stood the great meeting hall of my people.
I passed the totem of the
My path led
me past the pits, walls, and benches of the war counsel. Young Braves worked in the pits and on the benches
and in the crouching hovels of the busy war field. A blanket with the rattlesnake pattern of my
people, red, white, and black fluttered in the wind for which I was named. In my youth such activity in the war field
excited me. It spoke of herds of
Many seasons ago my father had ended the ages of battle my people had seen with the Dead Faces. These greedy trolls had crept onto our shores a hundred seasons ago, or more. They brought with them the Iquie, the stranger that they called ‘horse.’ The horses took to our land like eagles to the sky while the Dead Faces took to our land like snakes to the rocks. They brought more than horses. They brought invention, speaking pictures, and a stunning disinterest in the voice of God. Our people did not immediately fear the Dead Faces. We had been living with the strange giants who lived in the mountains for hundreds of seasons, even shared blood with these unsocial giants. And the giants had the same snowy complexion as the Dead Faces, did they not?
The Dead Faces, however, soon showed that they were as uninterested in us as they were in God’s voice. While I am aware that not all Dead Faces shared in the zeal to kill the Isrean (the Gorgo, giants of the mountain, call us Scraylings, as do the Dead Faces) enough Dead Faces were interested in our annihilation that the war that followed was long and bloody.
Dead Faces felt that the Isrean would fall before them easily, for we did not posses the knowledge of their thundering weapons. In truth, they soon found us a far worthier foe than they could have imagined. Isrean Braves move across the lands without being seen or heard. While the Dead Faces are great inventors, Isrean are great warriors, and the short, weak Dead Faces are slow and dull in comparison.
But even warriors need to eat, and while we were making Dead Faces dead, the Buffalo Herds ran free and the squaws remained unguarded. The toll on the Isrean people was vast. The nations of Kalaboo and Torakit had disappeared entirely. The nation of Dan was now but a ghostly group of nomads. Only the nations of Kliech, Benaquinn, and Lilliquoi remained strong.
Sixty seasons ago, a great leader arose among the Dead Faces. He accorded peace between our peoples, dividing the great Wheel into sections. As a token of this peace, he made a great gift unto my father. This gift was a relic of Dead Face history both wonderful and terrible. Because of its great value and also its great danger, my father’s wisdom led him to have a great Medicine Man of our people hide this gift away forever.
And for over fifty seasons, the Isreans enjoyed peace, growing strong families, spreading out upon our favored lands.
Then the treacherous Dead Faces broke their treaty. Riding on swift horses and brandishing long Thunder Weapons with great metal blades, they came, sweeping in on hunting parties and traveling groups of Isrean. Even then, my father did not strike back, but held true to the treaty, sealed with the terrible gift. He sent an emissary to the Dead Faces. He was told that there was no great leader in the Valley of the Star. That place now lay in ruin. The great leader of the Dead Faces was now called ‘The Baron’ and could not be found to talk to.
So there I stood, watching with sorrow as my father’s Braves… MY Braves, prepared their cunning weapons of war to ride out once more against the Dead Faces. This was not a war we could win. Even if our warriors could wipe every last Dead Face from the Great Wheel, we would destroy ourselves in the process.
I gathered arrows for my quiver from the War Field, and continued my course toward the little creek at the edge of our city.
The bridge
that led across the creek was well carved and well decorated with beads and
paintings, and also completely unnecessary.
Any child could leap across the creek without effort. Yet I tread upon the bridge, for it was the
work of Satu.
Beyond the creek lay a sandy shore bordered by a bank. Squatting there was a well-constructed Hoga strung about with leather strands that extended to
poles in a wide and intricate weave that covered much of the sandy bank. Many strands bored beading, while others hung
cured skins with paintings. Two pits of
colored sand sat on either side of the Hoga, each
shielded from the wind by a woven guard.
The colored sand within one was now telling the story of the
His daughter was even now dancing before a great fire built in the pit in front of the Hoga. I averted my eyes, for this dance was her praise to God, and I had no part in it. After a time, I felt warm hands on my shoulders, and Satu, the Medicine Man’s daughter turned me around. Her face was soft and amused.
“You came,” she said.
“When I complete my Spirit Journey, we are promised to be wed. Tradition does not require it, but I would like your blessing.”
Though she smiled, her eyes were sad.
“Not a favorable season to journey out.”
“We cannot deny God’s will.”
She looked down from my face, and for a moment, she turned away. When she looked back, she was smiling bravely again.
“I made you gifts.”
“I cannot accept.”
“You have not seen them.”
Tradition spoke very clearly that I might take only those things the Chief blessed me with, the moccasins on my feet, and something to gird my loins. I wore my buckskin pants. Whatever else I needed on my spirit journey, I was to find or make in the wilderness.
“Show me,” I spoke. Satu knew tradition as well as anyone. Her gifts were clever things that skirted the edge of tradition without defying it outright. She produced for me a leather cuff for my bow arm. It was decorated with silver buckles from which hung beaded charms, and painted with the colors of the Benaquinn. This would make an excellent perch for Lolcho. She gave me, also, a bandolier of the tribal colors from which hung a sturdy quiver with buffalo hide lining the inside and soft doeskin on the outside. This she had painted with a bright red sun, as was her way. I took these gifts because they were precious to me.
“I have one other gift for you, great warrior, son of the chief, who fears nothing save for spiders.”
I grunted. Satu spoke a truth. Though I would not show it, I found my courage failing when I saw a spider. I know not why. But I saw in her face she was making a joke to me. It was something about her I did not understand.
“I have taken many gifts already.”
“This one defies tradition terribly, Brave Warrior,” she smiled, and without warning she stood up on her toes and kissed me. I am a Brave of the Benaquinn. I move without being seen or heard. I can catch an arrow in flight with my bare hand. But in that moment my reflexes failed me. I fell into her final gift.
Long and
bitter cold was my journey into the wilderness of the
A Spirit Journey has many rules once you are upon it, but the overriding rule is to survive. I set Lolcho to the sky, commanding him to spot for me a great deer, while I tracked along the ground. The Westlands were cold now, and I needed a blanket. Lolcho was a great companion, but it was the winter of the year, and the Westlands are sparse, so Lolcho spent much of his time hunting down small prey to feed his appetites.
Nevertheless I was able to track a deer, a great buck, who had wandered too far into the choking wood, crashing through the vines and briars, leaving a distinct trail for me to follow. When I found the beast, he had his great antlers wrapped in the underbrush. When I spotted him, he was lying askew on the undergrowth, his body partially suspended from the ground where his head was wrapped in underbrush. His breath was coming fast and hard, and the air was full of the smell of his sweat and struggle. And also his fear.
He smelled me as soon as I spotted him, and his struggles began again. With a mighty heave he wrenched vines and briars away from their moorings and began tugging them in a long arch. I did not hesitate to draw an arrow and notch it into my blessed bow. The deer before me would meet an unfortunate end, but such was his service to me and to God. As I drew the arrow across the bow, I felt the power of the bow, such as I had never felt in a weapon before. The heartwood was strong, and it took all my strength to draw it. I sighted the animal quickly, locating the groove between its neck muscles where the arrow would end its life immediately and painlessly. The shaft flew straight, slicing through the deer’s neck as if it were not their and continuing on to burry itself to the feathers in the trunk of a tree. My aim was true, the powers from the deer’s brain to its body had been cut, and it went immediately limp, blood spurting and pouring from both ends of the hole in its muscular neck. I sat and began to clear a spot for a low fire. The blood would flow for a time, yet, and this would make the process of dressing the deer easier, as there would be less blood remaining in the body. I had not seen Lolcho for some time, but I knew the scent of my kill would draw him back. He would nibble most contentedly on the fresh venison. For now the challenge became constructing a fire. The fire must be hot enough to cook meat, low enough to not attract attention, and smokeless enough to not give me away. It also needed to be clear of the dry underbrush around it. I dug a pit for the fire, so that I could bury it along with my spore later on. I was blessed with an abundance of dead wood on the ground that would burn hot as coals, but not high, and would not make much smoke.
Once my fire was made, I skinned and dressed the deer. I found I would have to remain here for the next day or so. I would not be able to completely cure the deerskin, but I could make a passable blanket within a day. I could also smoke the meat from the deer and have plenty to keep me within my purse.
The evening became later and later as the sun sunk into the great abyss of the west, and still Lolcho did not reappear. I had by this time removed all the meat from the deer’s bone and hung its hide where the smoke from my fire blew onto its still damp underside. I took to calling for my bird. Still he did not reappear. I sat and folded my legs, sending prayers up to God with the smoke of my fire, please return Lolcho, my bird and my friend, whom you love.
It was long
into the night when I heard the high squeak of my eagle’s voice. In the darkness I saw him swoop in, and I
lifted my cuff for him to land.
Something large and white hung from Lolcho’s
beak. Lolcho
had caught a seabird. Here in the far
Tradition demands that the first bird you capture on your Spirit Journey guide your actions and your thoughts, if not for life, at least through the remainder of the Spirit Journey. For birds are the creatures closest to God, and also the first creatures God put upon this earth.
I could not eat this bird, for it was God’s sacred gift to me. Lolcho knew this too, for he handed me the bird with great dignity, and I saw he had killed it without drawing any blood. I plucked the bird clean of feathers, placing two in my hair, braiding them in with strands of leather I cut from the deer hide. I then adorned my tomahawk, blessed of God, and my bow, blessed of God with these feathers. I placed two of the feathers on the front of my belt. Later, when Lolcho had picked the bird clean of meat, I placed its skull on the front of my belt as well.
That night God sent me a vision. I saw a sea cliff, white and covered with soaring birds, swooping into the water and bringing out a bounty of fish. Above this cliff, dark trees began to grow. Perverse things, these black wood trees were dead as they grew and poured poisonous snakes from every hole and hollow. These snakes hungered for the eggs of the birds, but the large and valiant seabirds protected their young, snapping up these snakes in their sharp beaks and dropping them out over the water whenever they crawled from the protection of the dark trees.
As I watched, I saw a new creature, one that looked like a rat, but was slender and sleek like a serpent, with white fur and red eyes enter among the snakes. This creature led the snakes forth in a massive wave down the side of the cliff, striking and biting birds with their poisonous fangs. The battle was bloody, but the snakes never stopped coming, and soon the birds lost their numbers and were overrun.
But as the snakes consumed the eggs of the seabirds, I saw one bird hatch. So small was this hatchling, yet it had its pinfeathers, and it took to wobbly flight. God breathed kindly on this bird and His wind carried it up and up and up, over the dark deadwoods and into the land.
I almost thought the bird would make it, but then I saw a snake coil out from the tree branches, dragging the hatchling down. This snake was young, and did not have his fangs, so the bird fell, but was not poisoned. Then over the bird towered the serpent-rat and with a single lung, it broke both the bird’s wings. Weak and flightless, the bird waddled out into the dark land beyond. Soil clung to its feathers until it was black, and still it wandered.
Then I awoke. It was clear God wanted me to journey east.
The path eastward that I chose to follow ran downward into the lowlands of the Benaquinn nation. I had chosen to camp at the spot of my vision for two nights, using the time to weave a belt for myself upon which to hang the bird skull and feathers and also to cure the deer hide so that I could shape it for a blanket. I also made for myself many arrows with hard, straight shafts and smooth, sharp heads. I then placed the remaining feathers of the seabird on the arrows to send them flying smooth and straight.
When I journeyed forth, I took to the treetops, bounding branch to branch. This took much energy, but it also served a quick passage, and left few tracks as chopping through the underbrush would not have done.
I prayed
each night to God, that he would show me the meaning of my vision. My mood was high, and Lolcho
began catching more prey as we speeded toward the
This all changed on the seventh day.
Lolcho flew in sharp and hard. Seeing him coming, I took rest on a wide branch I had just lit upon. In the straining distance I could make out the light that comes at the end of a forest, and I was satisfied, for my legs were sore from leaping, and I would be glad to walk again. I held out my left hand, and Lolcho plummeted upon the cuff without grace. I could see his eyes were wide and bright with fear. He chirruped several sharp squeaks, and though I did not speak his tongue, his meaning was clear: Beware, danger ahead. I signed with my hand that Lolcho should fly to the edge of the forest, and there wait for me, keeping watch and taking flight should danger threaten him. Lolcho did not like this plan, and nipped me on my finger to tell me so. He drew blood, and I knew his intent was serious. I frowned, reminding Lolcho that he was only a bird, an exceptionally clever one, but a bird nonetheless, and I was a great Brave and prince of the Benaquinn. I would be cautious, but he must obey. Lolcho granted me my sovereignty and flew onward.
Before I went forward, I knelt on the wide branch in meditation, closing off my skin so that I made no smell, and blurring weakened eyes, so they would not see me. When the meditation was done, I leapt to a tree ten strides away, grabbing at the springy outer branches to slow my fall, then snaring a wider branch and climbing spider-like to its top. The crow already on the branch did not notice my arrival, and made no warning cry as I flew onward. I made my way toward the edge of the forest, taking my leaps carefully and clinging deerskin to bark so that I passed as a shadow over the forest. As I neared the edge of the wood I smelled battle in the air. But not the battle of Braves and buffalo, it was the scent of blood and of the Dead Face’s Thunder weapons.
Lolcho waited for me at forest’s edge and his look said “I told you not to come.” Indeed, I wish I had not come, for the sight that spread before me was maddening to behold. The plain was sandy, covered with large clumps of tall, dead grass and brush. Spread in every direction lay the bodies of a thousand Braves, and also of a thousand Dead Faces, dressed in dark, the ones called Riflemen. Without thought, I found three arrow spread between my fingers. I notched them all at once. Lolcho’s wings began to spread and flutter, and I signaled him sharply “Do not fight along with me.” Lolcho looked back in defiance, but folded his wings.
Far and far, near the center of the bloody field stood four men. These, I thought, must be the last survivors of this battle. They were all of them Dead Faces, and three were Riflemen. The forth was a man who made my eyes burn and my heart cold. He was tall for a Dead Face, and his hair hung long and white. He did not dress as the Riflemen did, but wore a white shirt and black vest. He had strapped at his waist the small Thundersticks, whose range was short. These men stood beyond the reach of a normal bow, but I had been using my father’s bow from moon to moon now, and I knew its power. These Dead Faces would pay for their destruction of my people. Aiming for the three Riflemen, I let my arrows fly, then dropped to the ground, and rolled on my shoulder. I heard two shots.
Looking up, I saw to my wonder that the white-haired man held his Thundersticks, and had somehow shot two of my arrows as they flew. The third had struck home, and the Rifleman it hit was dead. The other two had dropped to the ground, scanning the plain with their rifles and only the white haired man still stood.
Across the plain, their conversation drifted toward me as I crouched in the dead brush at the edge of the forest and slowly brought three more arrows to the ready. They spoke in the Dead Face tongue, which my father had forced me to learn at an early age by taking me on scouting parties to the Dead Face trading posts. I now blessed his wisdom in doing so.
“Geez, I thought we’d killed all these Red Skins! Do you see who just shot at us?” this was one of the Riflemen who now lay down in the grass where my aim could not reach him. If he was asking his question to the standing man, that white haired killer made no noticed. I could feel his every intent fixed on me. It struck me that I had been very foolish in giving myself away. I should have followed these men with patience, perhaps waiting until they were asleep.
“Stand to your feet and scan the field with me, you quivering cowards. The arrows came from the direction of the forest. Our quarry will either run, or fall upon us and die.” The voice that came from the white haired man’s mouth was dead and crumbling like fall leaves on the winter forest’s floor. His men began standing unsteadily and drew their fearsome weapons up to sight along the barrels. I knew immediately what this cunning Dead Face was playing at. His skill with the Thudersticks would ensure his safety. I could never fell him with a single arrow. He was creating targets out of his men to draw me out. I could also play that game. I placed three more arrows in my mouth.
I called gently to Lolcho and held my hand up, signaling to him to fly out quickly, then drop and hide among the grass. Lolcho is an eagle, and does not know fear for battle. He accepted my task immediately, rushing out with great flaps of his wings and crying in his high and chirping voice.
The three men shot their glances up toward the eruption of chirps and feathers that had just flown fiercely from the forest edge. At that same moment I rose from the clump of grasses and fired my arrows.
My aim was true, and my range was great. Two arrows slapped the Thundersticks from white-hair’s hands while the third struck a Rifleman through the heart. He fell down without a word. But before he struck the ground I had drawn and fired my second volley. One arrow struck its target, the last Rifleman fell immediately.
Only the white-haired devil stood, his gaze fixed on me across the field, a small and terrible smile forming on his face. I glared back at him. In his hands he now held two of my arrows. He had pulled them from the air before they could strike. I knew now that this was no common Dead Face. This was a devil in disguise.
“I applaud your gambit, Isrean. Using the bird as a distraction was clever. Very clever, indeed. And no man has ever disarmed me. You alone hold that pride. Your death will bring your father honor.” The Dead Face spoke to me in my own tongue with none of the sputtering or slowness most white-skins affect when they trouble themselves to speak Isrean. His voice floated the long distance between us.
“If I die this day, it will only be after you enter the gate.”
The Dead-Face shrugged and snapped my arrows over his knee, tossing their shattered shafts aside with carelessness.
“You are young, Brave, and your arrows are slow. I have, this day, killed fifty-seven Isrean warriors. You will be just another in that number.”
“The will of God is with me.”
“God has abandoned you and your people. If He truly held you so precious, would he have allowed this?” the white-skin gestured to the bloody battlefield. “The day of the Isrean is done in the West Wheel. Now it belongs to the men.”
“Do all your people feel such poison, Dead Face?”
He made no answer. We watched one another for any twitch. I stood as stone, he as granite.
The way he had spoken to me reminded me of the story-plays of the elders. Lottitti, the trickster rabbit would amble into the circle and tell Tynto the dog that the sky had fallen upon his house and injured his children and wife. We would all laugh as Tynto fell for the obvious ruse and Lottitti would then steal his magic stick. This man with the snowy hair reminded me of the actor in the rabbit mask and deer-hide blanket adorned with the trickster’s decorations. He spoke the words as if they were his own, but my feeling was that someone else had placed them in his mouth. This was a man of actions, not words.
The white-skin blinked. I charged forward, my moccasins pounding the ground in silence. My arm moved like a serpent, just as I had been taught, just as I had practiced in so many hunts. It dove toward my quiver, and then swung up, smoothly stringing an arrow and pulling taut my bowstring in fluid motion. I let the arrow fly, then dove into the snaking sandy path that wove between the tall clumps of brush. Dead men and horses lay all about me like great obstacles in my path.
The bodies around me were of my brothers, the Benaquinn. I saw them all in the pall of death, all brave warriors, many I had seen just before I left on my Spirit Journey. They lay now with large holes in their chests or faces, their dead eyes looked up at me in accusation. To come in contact with them living while I was on my Spirit Journey would have been in violation of the rules, and would have assuredly added many moons to my Journey. This I could have endured. As I looked on the dead field of fallen Isrean, I was filled not with hate or vengeance, but rather with a sorrow as deep and endless as the night sky. This was the beginning of the end for my people. The white devil may have been a demon born in lies, but this much I felt in my cold bones: our time in this West Wheel was short. Perhaps our faith in God had failed. Perhaps God had forsaken us. Whatever the case, neither my father’s wisdom, nor my strength was enough to fight this tide of death that would soon wash over all of the Westlands. And when the Westlands fell to the Dead Faces, and the nation of the Benaquinn had fought its final battle, the Lilliquoi would fall quickly. With the Lilliquoi gone, no one would be left to tend the Tree of Life. That great tree, thousands of seasons already drawn up and grown into its vast branches, would rot from the inside and die. The land would fall to chaos, a future so grim not even the mighty inventions of the Dead Faces could defend their souls. Nor would the Gorgo, in their isolated towns high in the snowy mountains escape the chaos that would soon come.
We, the Isrean, had walked our seasons on the mountain spine. Beneath us on one side lay the chasm of savagery. War within our nations and tribes bred hatred and a rejection of the ways of God. On the other side lay the pit of obsolescence, a trap of which we were unaware before we came face to face with the white-skins from across the great water. We had come to an understanding of nature that allowed us to live within its fickle and changing womb. While we had spent our many seasons looking to find this balance and teach our children of it, the Dead Faces had spent their generations fighting nature. They had fallen to the charms of their own deception, that it was possible to create a world of men, great cities that the powers of nature and the will of God could not touch.
My arrow, well aimed and swift though it was, had not touched the white-haired devil. I shot a glance above the brush and we locked eyes. He had recovered his weapons and held them with easy assurance at his side. Before our eyes had fully met, his hands were in motions, springing to ready and triggering those fearsome machines to belch thunder and smoke. I dove back into the brush, rolling and leaping above the tangled gray mesh of branches to fire another arrow, and another. With practiced grace, the white-haired devil took two calculated steps, each like an old dance, swinging his weapons about in uninterrupted fire. He swirled, splitting my two arrows from the air and continued swirling as he proceeded to fire upon me. I dove too late, and the unseen lightning from his weapon split the skin of my left arm deep, drawing blood and pouring fire through my veins. I prayed silently for strength, and pushed the pain far back in my mind as I had been taught to do.
I crawled over the corpse of a dead horse, its belly split deeply by some Dead Face weapon. I had moved swiftly toward my enemy. He was only thirty paces from where I lay. I placed my bow upon my back. My aim would shake now that the blood was pouring from my arm. I drew instead my blessed tomahawk. My speed would have to be great if I was to plunge the stone head, sharp as any blade of metal, into the chest of the white-haired devil.
I leapt up, and began my headlong rush at my enemy. From my throat poured forth the great war cry of my people. This cry gave me courage even as it froze the blood in the veins of both animal and white skin.
The Dead Face was ready for me as I rose. I could see in his eyes that he knew my position all along, that he was playing nothing more than a game of pebbles with me. A game I was soon to lose. As if the world was compelled to move with a slowness for just a moment, I saw his weapons swirling in those thin arms and thin fingers toward me. I saw his dead face, a face far deader than any white-skin I had ever met, focusing on me as an eagle focuses on a rabbit. My war cry must have penetrated to whatever heart may yet lie in his chest, because for just a moment his finger froze, hovering over the trigger or his weapon and a look something like fear flickered across his eyes. And then it was gone. I was many paces short and his grip was tightening, his weapon honing in on my heart. I summoned my strength and threw my tomahawk at him just as he fired the shot.
The Dead Face saw my weapon flying from my hand as he fired. He pulled aside and the power of his weapon ripped through my shoulder. I spun and began to fall. As I fell, I saw him swat my tomahawk aside with the back of his hand. His hand flew open and the weapon fell from it. Blood began to run down the back of his hand. I hit the ground and saw without much interest that the sand beneath me was speckled red with my splattered blood. The world stretched beneath and above me as the horizon was turned on its side. I felt the sand beneath my ear, and in it I heard two beats, my heart and the boots of the white-skin, as he walked toward me.
I pulled myself up on my shoulder. I was wounded, not beaten. I could still rise, I could still kill this white-skin with my very hands if I needed to. I found no strength for my legs. Run then. Run and fight another day. I pulled myself toward the forest edge, now hundreds of paces behind. It was too far. The Dead Face was not upon me yet. Perhaps I could hide in the brush, or lie as dead. In my heart I knew this would not work. I was too weak to slip into the brush without noise, too weak of mind to do the necessary meditation to conceal myself entirely. This man was one who would shoot his dead enemy just to ensure they would not rise again. I slumped to the ground in defeat.
The shadow of the white-haired devil fell across me. I braced myself for the end. It did not come as inevitably as I thought it might. He stood a moment above me. I tried pulling myself up. He gently laid his boot on my shoulder and then pushed me viciously down into the sand. His foot remained there, grinding my wounded shoulder down. I did not cry out. I would die with honor.
And still he stood above me.
“You fought well. I must confess, I find your people more difficult to kill then your average man.” He spoke in the language of the Dead Face. I sensed he was talking more to himself than to me. He seemed at ease; as if he had dropped his mask and was speaking from his cold heart.
“Have you heard of the white-man’s Bible? Doubtful. It’s amusing that preachers and Bible-thumpers think they have all the answers. They’ve most of them never heard you people talk. You believe in God more strongly than any white man, but you don’t even have books.” He laughed. He was not, I feel, actually amused. It seemed more like he was trying it out to see how it felt. It did not hold his interest, because he stopped quickly and continued talking.
“It’s all meaningless, anyway. We all came from darkness and chaos. Even the good book says so. Even your legends say so. And then we go back into darkness and chaos. If we’re lucky, then at the end, there is nothing. You’ll soon find out for yourself, you lucky bastard.” He leaned down close to my ear, now digging his knee into my shoulder. I could feel his long white hair tickling along the back of my neck, could smell his scent. It was the scent of death. “God is the great creator,” he whispered, “Which is rather selfish of Him. In fact, it’s His own fault the world will end in chaos. He created, but he only gave us the power to destroy. And of men, I’m the best destroyer you’ll ever meet. In fact, I’m you’re destroyer.”
The Dead Face rose, giving me one last vicious dig with his boot. He pulled his weapon from its pouch and I heard the click as he readied it. Some part of my mind urged me to roll, for my father’s sake, roll, and fight like a cornered wolverine. Yet still I lay, my will gone, hopelessness in its place. As the Dead Face’s finger tightened on the trigger, I heard a rush of wind, a rush of wings, a high squeak of eagle-song. The Dead Face roared, and I saw his feet stumble. Straining to look above, I saw him swat at the enraged eagle that clawed at his face like an angered demon. A shot rang out, and I felt my body leap below me, as the white-man’s metal scoured through my body. As the world faded to black, I heard a second shot.
