The Moon Maid

I swung from my saddle and lay flat against Red Lightning’s near side, while the Kalkar and his spear brushed harmlessly past an empty saddle. Empty for but an instant though. Swinging back to my seat in the instant that I wheeled Red Lightning I was upon the Kalkar from the rear even as the fighting mass before him brought him to a halt. He was swinging to have at me again, but even as he faced me my sword swung down upon his iron bonnet, driving pieces of it through his skull and into his brain. A fellow on foot cut viciously at me at the instant I was recovering from the blow I had dealt the mounted Kalkar, so that I was able only to partially parry with my shield, with the result that his point opened up my right arm at the shoulder⁠—a flesh wound, but one that bled profusely, though it did not stay the force of my return, which drove through his collarbone and opened up his chest to his heart.

Once again I spurred in the direction of the tents of the Or-tis, above which floated the red banners of the Kalkars, around which were massed the flower of the Kalkar forces; too thickly massed, perhaps, for most effective defense, since we were driving them in from three sides and packing them there as tightly as eggs in the belly of a she-salmon. But now they surged forward and drove us back by weight of numbers, and now we threw ourselves upon them again until they, in their turn, were forced to give the ground that they had won. Sometimes the force of our attack drove them to one side while at another point their warriors were pushing out into the very body of the massed clans, so that here and there our turning movements would cut off a detachment of the enemy, or again a score or more of our own men would be swallowed by the milling Kalkar horde, until as the day wore on, the great field became a jumbled mass of broken detachments of Julian and Kalkar warriors surging back and forth over a bloody shambles, the iron shoes of their reeking mounts trampling the corpse of friend and foe alike into the gory mire.

Once, late in the afternoon, during a lull in the battle, I sat looking about the chaos of the field. Red with our own blood from a score of wounds and with the blood of friend and foe, Red Lightning and I stood panting in the midst of the welter. The tents of the Or-tis lay south of us⁠—we had fought halfway around them⁠—but they were scarce a hundred yards nearer for all those bitter hours of battle. Some of the warriors of The Wolf were near me, showing how far that old, grey chief had fought his way since dawn, and presently behind a mask of blood I saw the flashing eyes of The Wolf himself, scarce twenty feet away.

“The Wolf!” I cried and he looked up and smiled in recognition.

“The Red Hawk is red indeed,” he bantered; “but his pinions are yet unclipped.”

“And the fangs of The Wolf are yet undrawn,” I replied.

A great Kalkar, blowing like a spent hound, was sitting his tired horse between us. At our words he raised his head. “You are The Red Hawk?” he asked.

“I am The Red Hawk,” I replied.

“I have been searching for you these two hours,” he said.

“I have not been far, Kalkar,” I told him; “what would you of The Red Hawk?”

“I bear word from Or-tis the Jemadar.”

“What word has an Or-tis for a Julian?” I demanded.

“The Jemadar would grant you peace,” he explained.

I laughed. “There is only one peace which we may share together,” I said, “and that is the peace of death⁠—that peace I will grant him, and he will come hither and meet me. There is nothing that an Or-tis has the power to grant a Julian.”

“He would stop the fighting while you and he discuss the terms of peace,” insisted the Kalkar. “He would stop this bloody strife that must eventually annihilate both Kalkar and Yank.” He used an ancient term which the Kalkars have applied to us for ages in a manner of contempt, but which we have been taught to consider as an appellation of honor, though its very meaning is unknown to us and its derivation lost in antiquity.

“Go back to your Jemadar,” I said, “and tell him that the world is not wide enough to support both Kalkar and Yank, Or-tis and Julian; that the Kalkars must slay us to the last man or be slain.”

He wheeled his horse toward the tent of the Or-tis and The Wolf bade his warriors let him pass. Soon he was swallowed by the close-packed ranks of his own people, and then a Kalkar struck at one of us from behind and the battle raged again.

How many men had fallen one might not even guess, but the corpses of warriors and horses lay so thick that the living mounts could but climb and stumble over them and sometimes barriers of them nearly man-high lay between me and the nearest foeman so that I was forced to jump Red Lightning over the gory obstacle to find new flesh for my blade. And then, slowly, night descended until man could not tell foe from friend, but I called to my tribesmen about me to pass along the word that we would not move from our ground that night, staying on for the first streak of dawn that would permit us to tell a Kalkar from a Yank.

All through the night we heard a considerable movement of men and horses among the Kalkars, and we judged that they were reforming for the dawn’s attack, and then quite suddenly and without warning of any sort, we saw a black mass moving down upon us. It was the Kalkars⁠—the entire body of them⁠—and they rode straight