A battle is nothing but confusion, my friend.
Maybe this is how the world was destroyed. Confusion took charge in the absence of leadership.
Yes.
But the fear-struck people would not move from their huddle.
“Stay here!” he called down to his granddaughter.
“No, Poppa!”
Don’t say it, please. Because even if you do, I still need to do this.
The Old Man dropped to the ground.
My legs feel weak and far away.
That is just fear, my friend.
He stumbled forward to the wild-eyed prisoners. Waving with his hands, he urged them to take cover alongside the tank.
Out in the tall grass he could see the Boy battling three horsemen. He swept his club into the legs of one horse, and a second later raised it high above his head to strike down its fallen rider. The other two horsemen wheeled about trying to bring their spear points to bear.
Again the Old Man heard the distant boom of cannon.
“Please!” he beckoned the terrified people.
All at once they ran forward screaming and crying, like a stampede of frightened animals. Or a hurt child wailing, racing for the comfort of its mother’s arms.
The Old Man could see their bloody backs and torn clothing, their haunted tearstained faces.
“Thank you,” someone sobbed. A woman holding a small child. “Thank you.”
There was a series of deep thuds as the earth shook about them and seconds later it was raining dirt.
The Old Man turned to see the Boy who danced away from the last standing horseman, limping away from a striking axe that glanced off his manhole cover shield. The Boy retaliated, dragging his mace from the ground and slamming it into the man’s ribs, crushing them.
Again the Old Man could hear the cannons bellow their dull
Someone screamed, “Oh no, please not again!”
Thuds. Sudden and terrible. Near and close.
Dirt falling from the sky.
How can I save them all?
How can I get us out of this place?
This is too much for just me.
The Boy was running toward them now.
How are we going to get these people out of here?
The Boy loped past the tank, disappearing around the gun barrel, his broken feather flying out from his hair as though it had followed him everywhere he’d ever gone. Would go. Even if it was to his death.
What is he doing? Where is he going?
“Wait here!” the Old Man shouted at those huddled about him. Then he climbed up onto the tread, keeping the low flat turret between him and the cannons on the hill. When he peered over its edge he saw the Boy running now, no longer limping, he was running, running forward to meet the ashen-faced warriors who were coming down the hill for them.
There must be a hundred of them, at least.
The Old Man watched the warriors surge out from the gates and leap through the tall grass, waving their machetes, screaming as they came on.
The Boy raced to meet them.
His mace circling above his head.
He’s going to give you the time you need to get out of here, my friend. So I suggest you go now.
“Get up on the tank,” he called down to those huddled at its sides. He had to say it again and a moment later they were all climbing up onto the tank, pushing children down inside the hatch. Everything in chaos.
Children screamed.
Men swore.
A woman begged for someone to leave her behind.
The Old Man watched helplessly as the Boy ran forward to meet the oncoming mass of ashen warriors.
He is braver than anyone I have ever known.
And…
He will be killed for sure.
What can I do for him, my friend Santiago? What can I do to help this Boy?
Nothing, my friend. Nothing.
To the south, the Old Man saw dark figures coming up out of the earth.
More horsemen, dark riders to encircle us.
Moments later the dark riders were charging forward.
They have been down in a riverbed that must run through this plain, and now they are coming to attack us from behind.
The Old Man climbed into the driver’s seat at the front of the tank.
The cannon fired once more.
But this time the rounds fell amid the charging horsemen. The dark riders.
Wait!
The dark horsemen thundered past the tank.
The Old Man could see the Boy. He’d crashed into the line of ashen-faced men, swinging his mace in wide arcs as they fell back from him.
Encircling him.
Pressing down on him.
Wait!
One of the dark horsemen who’d been thrown from his mount by the falling artillery rounds remounted and dashed past the tank, whooping like a Plains Indian, long black hair streaming behind, almost touching the flying tail of the chestnut mare. And in that hair a long gray feather, following in the wind.
Like the Boy.
Green eyes turned and smiled for the briefest of moments at the Old Man, and then the dark rider was gone, riding forward into battle. Riding forward to fight by the side of the outnumbered Boy.
WHEN THE BATTLE was over the Old Man watched as the outnumbered dark horsemen climbed the heights, vaulting the low bric-a-brac wall, falling on the artillerymen, cutting and stabbing.
The bodies of the ashen-faced warriors lay in the tall grass and at the foot of the hill and up along its dusty slopes.
The Old Man and his granddaughter left the tank. Looking among the bodies. Looking for the Boy. And they found him.
He was drinking water from a water skin held up to his mouth by a large, bloody horseman. The Boy’s massive arm was shaking. The bowling ball mace and the manhole cover shield lay in the dust. The crushed bodies of slavers scattered in a wide arc about him.
The Boy, standing, spoke haltingly in a strange language to the bloody horseman between gasping pulls at the water skin. The Old Man could make out only a few of the many words.
“What’s he doing, Poppa?”
The large horseman suddenly embraced the Boy. A feather, long and gray, just like those of the other horsemen, like the broken feather in the Boy’s hair, lay on his shoulder, resting against a bloody scratch.
“I think…” said the Old Man. “I think he has found his people.”
“Oh,” she said.
