Her powerful Strike Leader did not answer. Blinking sweat from her eyes, Mara squinted through sunlight and whirling blades until she found the plumed helm. But Papewaio could not come to her, beset as he was by enemies. Even as Mara watched him dispatch one with a thrust to the neck, two others in Tuscalora blue leaped over their dying comrade to engage him. Plainly, Jidu’s orders had been to cut down the one Acoma officer, in the hope that his death might throw Mara’s guard into disarray.
Through her pain, Mara admired the merit of such tactics. With the high number of newcomers among the Acoma guard, and little to no encounters on the battlefield, many of these men were fighting with shieldmates who were strange to them. And against the relentless, concentrated attack of Jidu’s finest warriors, even Papewaio was hard-pressed. Mara gritted her teeth. Only minutes remained before the enemy overwhelmed her guard, and the plan she had devised to avoid their massacre had yet to be put into effect.
She gripped the side of the litter, but even that small movement caused the arrow in her arm to grate against the bone. Agony shot through her body; she whimpered through locked teeth and struggled not to faint.
Blades screeched in a bind, seemingly over her head. Then an Acoma guard crashed back and fell, blood spraying through a rent in his armour. He shuddered, his opened eyes reflecting sky. Then his lips framed a parting prayer to Chochocan, and his hand slackened on his sword. Mara felt tears sting her eyes. Thus her father had died, and Lano; the thought of little Ayaki spitted on an enemy spear turned her sick with fury.
She reached out and caught the sweat-damp grip of the fallen soldier’s sword. Using the blade as a prop, she dragged herself to her knees. The sun fell hot on her head, and her eyes swam with pain. Through waves of faintness, she saw that an unlucky arrow had managed to dispatch her precious archer. He lay moaning with his hands clenched over his gut. And the signal arrow that would summon Lujan and Tasido to action sparkled unused at his feet.
Mara groaned. Shouts beat against her ears, and the clash of blade on blade seemed like drum rolls in the temple of Turakamu. Papewaio called an order, and the Acoma still able to fight closed ranks, stepping back of necessity over the still-warm bodies of their comrades. Mara prayed to Lashima for strength and reached out with unsteady hands for the fallen archer’s bow.
The horn bow was heavy and awkward, and the arrow slippery in her sweaty hands. Mara notched the shaft with raw determination. Her hand faltered on the string, and the arrow tilted, sliding. She managed to recover it, but the rush of blood to her head momentarily blackened her vision.
She willed herself to continue by touch. Sight cleared in patches; another man crashed against her litter, his blood pattering into streaks across white gauze. Mara braced the bow and strove against weakness and pain to draw.
Her effort failed. Tearing agony laced her shoulder, and her lips drew back in a cry she could not stifle. Weeping tears of shame, she closed her eyes and tried again. The bow resisted her like iron-root. Tremors shook her body, and faintness stifled her awareness like dark felt. As the cries of the men and the clatter of weapons dimmed in her ears, still she strove to pull a bow that probably would have defeated her strength when she was in perfect health.
Suddenly someone’s arms supported her. Sure hands reached around her shoulders and closed firmly on the fingers she held clenched to leather grip and string. And like a miracle, a man’s strength joined hers, and the bow bent, paused, and released.
With a scream audible_through the noise of battle, the signal arrow leaped into the sky; and the Ruling Lady of the Acoma passed out into the lap of a man with a leg wound, who, but for the grace lent by her cunning, would have died a condemned criminal in the wilderness. He eased his mistress’s slender form onto the stained cushions of her litter. The strip he should have used to bind his own hurt he pressed to staunch the blood from the arrow wound in Mara’s shoulder, while around him the Tuscalora pressed in for the victory.