"Don't stay too long," Duwan the Elder said. "We will have the hours of the night. It is the enemy custom, as you well know, to attack at first light and then to pause at midmorning while fresh troops are moved up. When that pause comes, take the opportunity."
"That is my plan," Duwan said. "Now, father, please wait here while I bring my mate to you. Guard her and my mother well. Find a warm cave in the western hills and save a spot near the fire for my bed." No further words were spoken as they clasped arms and his mother embraced him. Then he went down the canyon wall and found Jai carrying wood for the fires.
"It is time," he said.
"Oh, Duwan—"
"Come." He took the firewood from her, tossed it to the ground and took her arm. Once again he climbed the steep wall, pulling her along with him, until they stood just below where his father waited.
"If you do not come to me," she said, clinging to him, "I will arm myself and seek out the nearest enemy and send many of them ahead of me into death."
"You will stay with my father and mother," he said sternly. "You will help train the army. You will teach newcomers the way, the proper foods, the truth of Du. In that way you will honor me best." He shook her, both hands on her shoulders. "Promise me this."
"Yes, yes," she said. "I promise. But promise me that you will not die just for the sake of stubbornness, because you do not wish to flee from the face of the enemy. Promise me that you will escape when the enemy pauses in his first attack."
"Yes," he said. He held her close and then pushed her up the steep hill. But he held onto her garment and pulled her back. "Once before I sent you away," he said, "and you came back. What do you hold most sacred?"
"My love for you," she whispered.
"Then, on that love, I want your word that you will not come back into the canyon. Promise me that, regardless of what happens, you will not come back. If I am to die, and that is not in my plan, I do not want the sadness of knowing that you threw your life away as well. Promise me."
"On my love, I promise," she whispered.
To Duwan's surprise, he slept. Around him those who had volunteered, who had begged to be allowed to fight at his side, slept or gazed at the fires, anticipating the morning. They were few, only enough to man the defensive positions in the very narrowest part of the canyon. Duwan awoke with a hand on his shoulder.
"Master, the sky lightens in the east."
He rose. He chewed tender life organs from a fixed brother, drank from the steam which, fortunately, came from the east and was, thus, not stinking with the blood and rot from the dead as it was farther down the canyon to the west. He saw to the positioning of his bowmen. They had the last of the arrows and they had been selected for their skill with both bow and sword, so that when their few arrows had been fired they could take up the blade and fill the gaps in Duwan's thin line.
Gradually the darkness faded. And then Du appeared over the eastern hills and from down the canyon they heard the grunted, guttural marching chant of the enemy. The bright uniforms of the enemy were soiled, but still impressive as the first elements emerged from a dense forest and passed near the young grove where Duwan's grandmother lived on. Then the enemy force began to be constricted as the canyon narrowed. Some marched in the shallow stream, slipping now and then on the rocks. Duwan stood, straight and proud. He had come to know the insignia of the various units of the enemy conqforce, and he recognized the markings of the elite Arutan home guard. It was Hata's own unit that was making the initial attack. He looked for Hata and saw him, near the center. More then once they had seen each other on the field, but had not, as yet, come face to face.
Shouted orders from Hata halted the unit at a distance calculated to tempt Duwan's archers into wasting arrows at extreme range. Duwan stood motionless. There was a brittle air of expectancy in the morning chill. No one moved. All was silence. When it became obvious that Duwan was not to be tricked into wasting arrows, there were more orders from Hata and enemy soldiers began to advance in staggered formation, running, swerving from side to side.
"Hold," Duwan ordered, lifting one hand toward his archers. He saw several of the archers notch arrows and half-draw the bow, and he kept his hand up, holding them back. "Swordsmen," he bellowed, "take these few. Archers, hold!"
The tactic had been used against him before, and he was ready for it on that last morning. He had positioned his archers high, so that they could fire over the heads of those engaged in sword to sword combat below them. His swordsmen met the running, weaving advance and the clash of iron on iron rang and echoed from the canyon walls. He did not hear, but saw Hata give the order for the main advance, as the enemy began to fall to the swords of his best bladesmen. He waited until the mass of Hata's force was in fatal range of the bows and then lowered his hand and saw the arrows flash darkly outward and heard the grunts, moans, screams of agony as they found their marks.
"Fall back to your positions," he shouted to the swordsmen engaging the first advance below him and his warriors disengaged and scrambled back to find their assigned places between trees, behind boulders, places chosen to make it impossible for more than one enemy at a time to face them. Duwan's usual place was at the center and he met the rush of an enemy with an almost casual thrust and then kicked the quivering body aside to make room for another. And then the morning became endless repetition. The clash of metal. The moans and screams of the dying. Duwan protected his position with a fierceness and rage that piled the dead in front of him, leaving, at times, a blank spot in the enemy line, since none cared to face him. He smelled the battle, the sweat, the blood, the acrid stench of fear, and he heard the thunder of the enemy captains'
voices, and the shoutings of his own leaders.
Sweat rolled into his eyes and he wiped it away with the top of his shortsword wrist while parrying a thrust by an enemy. Blood smeared from the contact, not his own. The enemy leaped forward as if eager to impale himself on Duwan's shortsword and was given his desire and then Duwan was moving to his left where a swordsman had fallen. Now the battle reached a peak. Hata's own unit was a prideful group, and for many days now they had been repelled by a force of pongs. They had come with Hata's harsh words burning in their ears, words of reproach and shame, and they were determined not to leave the field with a single pong standing.
One by one the defenders fell, and there were several times when Duwan felt that all was lost, when screaming guardsmen breached the line and threatened to fall on the defenders from behind. But each time his warriors rallied, threw themselves into the breach, pushed the enemy back.
The enemy pullback began at the center, where Duwan was the anchor, and spread until there was no longer the sound of sword on sword, only the moans and cries for aid from the fallen. Duwan saw Hata standing at a distance, his arms crossed over his chest, glaring hatred. Now was the time. Now was the time to pull his own remaining warriors back into the trees, to send them climbing up the steep walls, taking their last chance for escape and for life. Now it was time for him to follow them, to lose himself in those dense stands of tall brothers in the hills and slowly and carefully to make his way westward, there to rejoin his family and Jai. He looked across the body strewn battleground to see Hata still standing, still glaring at him, and at Hata's side there appeared Elnice of Arutan, dressed in a crimson copy of the guards' uniform. He looked at her for a moment, then turned to give his orders to begin to fade back into the trees. At that moment a shout of warning came from his rear and he ran back to see a sprinkling of color on the steep walls of the canyon. His heart leaped in alarm, not for himself, but for Jai, for his mother and father, for the enemy had come to his rear in force and were now sliding and slipping down the canyon walls. They had not tried that since the first days, when they had lost many men. To get into position to come at him from the rear they had had to move during the night. Had they known of his plans? Had they come upon the small groups who had left the canyon and destroyed them one by one? No, surely he would have heard had that happened. He could only hope that they had not started their movements until late at night, that his mother and father and Jai and the others were safely away.