'Yes,' said Cuwignaka. 'And when one so swears, then one is to believed, is one not?'
'Yes,' said Hci. 'One is then to believed.'
'No one would betray the shield oath,' said a man.
Hci trembled.
'Are you so fond of Yellow Knives?' asked Cuwignaka. 'Have you not forgoten them?'
Hci looked at Cuwignaka. His hand, inadvertently, went to the whitish, jagged serration at his face, the residue of the canhpi's slash years ago.
'You probably know Yellow Knives as well as any man in the camp,' said Cuwignaka. 'Do you truly believe they desire peace?'
'No,' said Hci.
'Act,' said Cuwignaka.
'Would you truly swear by your shield?' asked Hci.
'Yes,' said Cuwignaka.
Hci rose to his feet. 'Agleskala,' he said, 'go to the council lodge. If Watonka is not within, use the powers of the Sleen Soliders. Empty the lodge.'
'What are you going to do?' asked Cuwignaka.
'I am going to blow the whistle of war,' he said. 'I am going to fetch the battle staff.'
There was a scream from somewhere among the lodges to our left.
The sun seemed suddenly dark in the cloudless sky. The sky itself seemed blotted out with swift torrents of terrible forms. It was as though a storm had suddenly materialized and come alive. Over our head there was the snapping and crackling of a thousand thunders.
'It is too late!' I cried.
'It is the Kinyanpi!' I heard. 'It is the Flighted Ones! The Kinyanpi!'
Chapter 21
YELLOW KNIVES
One of the Sleen Soldiers, rising to his feet, spun awkwarly, kicking dust, the arrow having entered through the chest, its point protruding about his left hip.
Hci looked upward, wildly.
The tarn alighted, its talons seizing Agleskala. It its strike I think hs back was broken. Hci and I stumbled backward, swept to the side by the strokes of the wing, the blows of the air. We could scarcely see for dust. The rider, clad only in a breechclout, his body bright in purple and yellow paint, thrust towards us with the long tarn lance. In the movement of the tarn, again taking flight, the thrust was short. Hci and I, from the dirt, looked upward. A hundred feet in the air the body of Agleskala was released.
'Weapons! Get weapons!' cried Hci.
An arrow struck near us, sinking almost to the feathers in the dirt.
I smelled smoke. I heard screaming.
'Kaiila!' called out Hci. 'Get kaiila!'
'Run!' cried a man. 'There is no time to make war medicine!'
'Arm yourselves!' cried Hci. 'Get kaiila! Rally by the council lodge! Fight!'
'Run!' cried another man.
'Run!' cried another.
'Look out!' I cried.
Another tarnsman, low on the back of the mount, it swooping toward us, oly a few feet from the ground, lowered his lance. I seized Hci and dragged him down. I saw the feathered lance, like a long blur, sweep over us. Then the bird was climbing again.
'Tarnsmen cannot take the camp,' I said. Lodges were burning. Women were screaming.
The men who were with us had scattered.
'Do not touch me!' cried Hci, in fury.
I removed my hands from him.
'The people will run to the west!' said Cuwignaka.
'They must not!' I said.
We saw a rider on a kaiila racing towards us. Then, suddenly, he reeled from the back of the beast. He struck the ground, rolling, scattering dust. We ran to him. I lifted him in my arms. His back was covered with blood, filthy, now, too, with dirt. 'They are in the camp!' he gasped.
'Who?' demanded Hci.
'Yellow Knives!' said the man. 'Hundreds. The are among the lodges!'
'They have come from the west,' said Cuwignaka, grimly.
'Watonka must die,' said Hci.
I put the body of the man down. He was dead. A woman fled past us, a child held in her arms.
Hci rose from our side and went into the lodge of the Sleen Soldiers. I looked upward. This section of the camp was no longer under direct attack. The primary interest of the tarnsmen, I had little doubt, would have been the council lodge and the area about it. The lodge itself, because of its size, would be conspicuous. Too, they had doubtless been furnished with a description of it by Watonka or those associated with him. It was no wonder he was not eager, this day, to enter the lodge.
'I am going to Grunt's' I said. 'My weapons are there. He has kept them for me. Too, Wasnapohdi is there. She may need help.'
'There is a lance in my lodge,' said Cuwignaka.
'We will get it on the way,' I said. This was the same lance which had been fixed, butt, down, in the truf beside Cuwignaka near the scene of battle several weeks ago, He had been staked down naked, to die. About the lance, wrapped about it, had been a white dress. It was that which he now wore. I had freed him.
We saw two men running past.
'Let us hurry,' I said.
Chapter 22
CUWIGNAKA REQUESTS INSTRUCTION
'Use the lance!' I cried.
We had turned, startled, not more than a few yards from our lodge, from the interior of which Cuwignaka had recovered the lance.
The rider on the kaiila, bent low, his lance in the attack position, charged, dust scattering back from the pounding paws of the kaiila.
Cuwignaka ducked to the side, lifting and raising his arms, the long lance clutched in his fists. There was a shiver of wood as the two lances, Cuwignaka's on the iniside, struck twisting against one another. The point of the other's lance passed between Cuwignaka's arms and his neck. The man was taken from the back of the kaiila by Cuwignaka's lance. The kaiila sped away.
'He is dead,' said Cuwignaka, looking down.
'Free your lance,' I said.
Cuwignaka, his foot on the man's chest, drew loose the lance.
'It is safer in such an exchange,' I said, 'to strke from the outside, finding his lance away, trying to make your strike above and across it.'
'He is dead,' said Cuwignaka.
'If hehad dropped his lance more to the right you would have moved into it,' I said.
'I killed him,' said Cuwignaka.
