Daughter of the Empire

The Force Commander crouched and scribed a crude map in the dust with his dagger point. ‘Like this, Lord. The trail from Holan-Qu narrows at a small crest, enters a narrow clearing – the dell – next to a spring, just before rising to another crest, then falling to this trail, about six miles above here.’ He gave facts without mentioning the ambush the Lady had sprung to bring Lujan and his men into Acoma service.

 

‘Good place for a trap,’ Buntokapi muttered. He scratched at an insect bite.

 

Keyoke said nothing. He waited, patient in a manner only Mara might have understood, while his master loosened his sword belt and stretched. ‘Still, we must wait for Lujan’s report. Wake me when he arrives.’ Buntokapi folded his arms behind his head and closed his eyes.

 

With a look of veiled exasperation, Papewaio rose. Keyoke followed him saying, ‘I will post sentries, Lord.’

 

Buntokapi grunted approval and the two officers left their Lord to slumber. Within the hour a shout from the sentry heralded Strike Leader Lujan’s arrival in camp.

 

Buntokapi started awake without being called. He sat up, scratching a fresh collection of insect bites, as the dusty Lujan came before him and saluted. The former outlaw had run for six miles and yet showed no outward signs of exhaustion, other than being short of breath. Keyoke and Papewaio joined him as Buntokapi grabbed his helm, jammed it over his tangled head, and pointed cryptically at the scratches in the dirt. ‘Show me.’

 

Lujan hunkered down and with his own dagger added details to the little map Keyoke had drawn. ‘Six companies of fifty men have come over three different routes to this dell, my Lord. They marched here, here, and here.’

 

Buntokapi stopped with his hand poised over the reddening welts on his leg. ‘They did not come up to the higher vale, the one with the small lake?’

 

‘No, Lord.’ Lujan hesitated.

 

Buntokapi gestured impatiently in the gathering dark. ‘Well, what? Speak.’

 

‘There is something here that . . . is not right.’

 

Buntokapi scratched his stomach, lifting his breastplate with his thumb. ‘They don’t move like bandits, hen?’

 

Lujan smiled slightly. ‘No, more like trained soldiers, to my eye.’

 

‘Grey warriors?’ Buntokapi got heavily to his feet.

 

‘Perhaps,’ said Keyoke.

 

‘Ha!’ Buntokapi’s tone turned bitter. ‘Minwanabi, or my mother bore a stone-headed pup.’ To the senior officers with him he said, ‘Before I wed I knew of the feud between Jingu and the Acoma. And my father recently warned me to expect a sudden strike.’ He frowned. ‘I swear he knew this attack was coming.’ Buntokapi paused significantly, but did not share whatever else he concluded upon the matter. His voice took on a sullen note. ‘Lord Jingu thinks his men the best in the Empire and your Lord a stupid bull. And he seems to have grown cocky enough to risk my father’s ire. Yet he is not so strong and arrogant that he dares to show his true colours, heh? We shall show him he is wrong on the first two counts.’ He barked a rude laugh. ‘And right on the last.’ He looked at Keyoke. ‘I think you have a plan already, heh, Force Commander?’

 

Keyoke’s lined face remained expressionless as he set his dagger to the lines representing the place where the trail narrowed this side of the vale. ‘We could hold them here with little trouble, I judge, my Lord.’

 

Buntokapi fingered the tassels of his scabbard. ‘Better we let them come into the vale, send a company behind them, and trap them there.’

 

In the rapidly falling light, Keyoke studied the drawing, recalling each detail of the land remembered from his last patrol. Quietly he ventured his opinion. ‘If we sneak a company along the ridge above, we can have it in place by dawn. The bandits then could not retreat, and a quick sortie into the dell from this side might rout them.’

 

‘Good, but I think we do not charge.’ Frowning intently now, Buntokapi qualified. ‘We sit quiet, like frightened little birds, heh? They will go past us, deep into the little clearing, and we will leap up and rain arrows and rocks upon them, until they break.’

 

Lujan nodded in appreciation. ‘Still, they will break out.’

 

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