Red bone's Arc

Chapter 8 of 12

Artemis was right. Three days after the feast, the scouts ran back from the ridge with white faces. Red bone climbed the timber hall steps and looked north. Three war-bands crossed the tundra toward him, their banners flying red against the snow. The three rival chiefs had joined forces at last. His own warriors were still scattered across the wide camp, split between three clans and three fires. They could not form one wall in time. Berry found him on the steps, breathing hard. "They came together," Berry said. "Smart. One camp, one fire, one grave for us all." He gripped Red bone's arm. "Pull the men in. Build a wall around the hall. It's all we can do." Red bone shook his head. "A wall traps us. Three chiefs against three clans—they'll grind us down." He thought of the open ground where he had shamed a chief before. He thought of what the clans respected. Not walls. Not numbers. One man who walked out alone and did not run. "I won't hide behind my warriors," he said. "That's how chiefs lose their men." He called for the white bear. The great beast came through the snow, armor plates bolted across its back, the brown patch dark over its left eye. The crimson hound trotted at its flank, red coat bright against the frost. Red bone took up his axes and climbed onto the war-scarred flat between the camps, the old battleground where broken spears still jutted from the churned earth. He walked out alone into the Battlefield Ruins, bear on one side, hound on the other. His three clans watched from the camp behind him. The three chiefs' host stopped at the far edge. "Three of you," Red bone called across the ruins. "One of me. If you need three chiefs and all your warriors to kill one man, your own people will know what cowards lead them." He planted his feet in the bloody earth. "Come down. Face me one at a time, as chiefs. Or stand there and let your warriors see you hide." The host did not move. Red bone watched their line. He saw it then—the far warriors glancing at their chiefs, waiting, judging. The chiefs whispered among themselves, pointing, each refusing to go first. Minutes passed. No chief stepped down. The white bear roared once and raised its armored bulk on its hind legs. The crimson hound bayed. Along the enemy line, spears began to lower. Men in the rear turned and walked back the way they came. The combined host broke without a single blow. By dusk the three chiefs had fled north with only their closest guards. Their warriors streamed across the ruins and knelt in the snow before Red bone. He had not held the camp. He had swallowed their armies whole and left the three chiefs with nothing to command. But three chiefs still lived, somewhere in the north—and now they had every reason to hate him.