A November Sky

Chapter Nine

I was high in a pine at the village edge, practicing my archery with a borrowed bow, when Ahanu returned from the newworlders' camp, prodding a newworlder forward with a stick. The white man's hands were tied behind his back, his shirt ripped along one sleeve, his boots and dark leggings damp as if Ahanu had marched him through the river. The newworlder turned to avoid a particularly hard blow, and I gasped. Though he'd grown a scraggly beard across his cheeks and jaw, I would recognize Johnsmith's sky-blue eyes and brilliant yellow hair anywhere. Ahanu kicked out the backs of his knees and Johnsmith went down hard, his face a sweaty grimace. Blood dripped from a long cut on his brow.

Ahanu raised the thunder stick high. "The oussawack nimatew bleeds." The yellow man. The men of the village whooped and cheered. The women peeked from behind their baskets and fires. Ahanu prodded Johnsmith through the village, weaving between the huts and longhouses, moving inward to the Great Long House.

I dropped from my pine tree, landing in a crouch. I slung my bow over my shoulder and jogged to intercept Kocoum and my father at the longhouse. Father swept the reeds aside as Ahanu got close. Johnsmith was the first through the doorway, followed by Ahanu, then Kocoum. Father waited, reeds held aside, for me to enter. Once I was through the doorway, father dropped the reeds closed behind him. Black spots danced over my vision, and though the sky vent splashed the longhouse with light, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust.

Kocoum paced at the front of the longhouse, near the raised platform he used for senats. Ahanu stood watch from the doorway. Johnsmith rubbed his red wrists, free from his restraints. I hadn't seen anyone cut the ropes.

Kocoum paused beside the platform but did not sit down. It was a matter of pride to never look up to the enemy. "Your people," he said, his newworlder slow and halting. "You are their leader?"

"I—well, yes. There's a commander above me, but I'm—" Johnsmith cleared his throat and rubbed his hands up his arms, for once bare of his metal skins. "I'm their captain."

Kocoum nodded. "You are werowance." Johnsmith looked to me for confirmation, and Kocoum growled. He prowled across the hut and stood between us, hiding me from the newworlder's sight. Kocoum gestured to the thunder stick and a long, straight metal blade propped against the wall near Ahanu. "My people thought you a god, waving your weapons, threatening my chiefs, taking all the corn and food from my villages, that which I would have freely given." Kocoum stalked to my father, who passed along a handful of blue beads. Kocoum held them in the air, shaking his fist. "Do you think throwing these at my people's feet makes it a trade?"

My breath fled. Kocoum had told me none of this.

"My men needed food." Johnsmith's voice was steady. Proud, as if this justified stealing from my people.

"And they would have it. In the fall, at harvest." Kocoum tossed the beads to the dirt floor. "I have no corn to spare. You will hunt for yourselves." Kocoum paced, his hands clasped behind his back. "Ahanu tells me you are not the Musqua, that you call yourselves the Eldur."

"The moosk-wa?"

Kocoum waived an impatient hand. "Musqua. They came from the great sea, calling themselves conquistadors. They burned through much of this land and took many of my people."

"The Spænska," Johnsmith muttered. "My people are at war with the Spæn—the musk-wa."

"If you are at war, why have you come?"

Again, Kocoum stood between me and Johnsmith. I slunk along the wall to get a better view.

Johnsmith wiped a hand over his brow. "My commander's armies are losing. We need resources. Gold. Things our island cannot provide. I've been sent here to find them."