CHAPTER Twenty-TWO:

cHALLENGES

 

            Tyree went to the Tranca main army. Tyree asked for volunteers to join his Verdanta force, and over three hundred men stepped forward. These, Tyree had counted on. They were the husbands of women already in the Verdanta contingent. Tyree told the men that he needed twelve hundred, which meant he had to get nine hundred more volunteers. He got one. Tooka stepped forward.

            “Tooka!” Tyree laughed, “My comrade from the rain catcher raid!”

            “You may reject me,” Tooka shrugged. “Nine migrations ago you had a sword at my throat.”

            All had heard the story, and a grumble rumbled through the gathered warriors like a lion through the snow.

            “But you’re not telling the best part,” Tyree grinned. “It was your own sword!” This time a titter of manly laughter danced through the throng. “And I was sitting on your chest,” Tyree added, “like a farmer on a rabbit.”

            The laughter of the warriors was bigger, more supportive of the Kodiak, now.

            “Welcome, Tooka,” Tyree said opening his arms wide, “I know for certain that you are brave, for it takes a brave warrior to set an ambush for a Kodiak, as Tooka here did.” Tyree then looked to where Shuyah was watching from the doorway of her hut. “My own wife did the same thing—waited in ambush to kill me. It’s how we met.”

            A great wave of laughter rippled through the throng and Shuyah smiled. A warrior stepped forward from the husbands’ group. All, save Tyree, knew him well. He was the tallest Tranca Tyree had ever seen, and Tyree had put many a strapping Tranca warrior beneath the ice. But this man was ice, battle scarred and with a great warrior’s bearing. He introduced himself to Tyree.

            “I am Thrabok,” the big man said in a voice so deep and resonant it could have caused avalanches. “I have killed Kodiak. I prefer killing Logalla.” His weapon of choice was a massive broad axe, his booming voice reaching all. “I see the Verdanta mission as one of great danger. A fight where true warriors might prove themselves.”

            “Now you’re not telling the best part, Thrabok,” a reluctant warrior shouted out. “Half the warriors on your side will be women!” Again, the others laughed heartily.

            “Women with no experience in warfare!” another shouted.

            “What more could a true warrior ask?” Tyree shouted back, taking Thrabok’s lead. “A dangerous mission with over a thousand helpless women to protect!”

            Again, the Tranca men laughed. This time it was one of pure testosterone-fed warrior zeal, and they began to come forward, more than the number Tyree needed.

            Shuyah continued looking on from her doorway. She was most proud of the way her husband had swayed the reluctant men, used their own pride and honor, and prejudices, to lead them down their path to glory. Now, Tyree had the men he needed, the most eager and battle hungry of the lot.

            The next day, Tyree asked for workmen and old people. Once the word was spread, all who showed up knew what was being asked of them. They would be part of the ruse to convince the Logalla that a typical group of Tranca were being left in Verdanta. Tyree first chose two hundred workmen, strong backs to dig pitfalls. He had more than enough Tranca elders to choose from, but was surprised to find Koleefus standing at his elbow.

            “I will select who is to go,” she said.

            “Only those who are most fit,” he whispered.

            “I know,” she whispered back testily.

            And thus, Koleefus and four hundred fairly fit old people became volunteers in the Verdanta contingent.

            That night, Tyree had to ask of Shuyah the most terrible of requests. He waited until they were alone and walked her to the edge of camp where the moon danced across the snow for their pleasure.

            “The Verdanta contingent lacks one element the discussion of which I have been avoiding,” Tyree said.

            “I know,” Shuyah sighed. “I have seen this moment coming since we devised the Verdanta strategy.”

            “Yes,” Tyree said, gripping her hand firmly, but warmly, “we must have children in the decoy group. They must come from the volunteers.”

            “The old people and the children,” Shuyah asked, “they will be left behind in Verdanta until the war is done?”

            “Defended by five hundred warriors,” Tyree shrugged. “That’s all we can spare. The children, the old people. They are crucial to the ruse, but they can’t be with us on the mission. We will allow any of the volunteers, mother and father, to leave the contingent if they think it’s too much of a risk for their children. But—”

            “But you and I, parents split between the two armies,” Shuyah ominously said, “we have no such option.”

            “No, we don’t.”

            “We can’t ask the others to risk their children if we don’t risk our own.”

            “Yes—we can’t consider our hearts.”

            “So is often the way of leadership.”

            They folded into each other’s arms and embraced deeply. Clouds began to darken the moon. The chill wind of winter was making itself known over the plain and, across the endless snow, wolves howled distantly.

            The next day Tyree gathered his Verdanta contingent and, with Valaar at his side, asked the married couples to volunteer their children. Babies would not be endangered. Babies in the decoy mission would be bundles of arrows wrapped in blankets and carried by women. Each family conferred, and all stayed on. Now the ruse to put the Verdanta contingent into place was set. It was a bold plan, and one with great risks. They would wait until the height of winter; until the wind and snow were on their side. Shuyah and Tyree would use the time to prepare further for what promised to be a long and bloody campaign.

            Tyree took half his troop out into a secure location of rolling snowdrifts with stands of brush and evergreen, terrain similar to where they’d be fighting. The enemy were half the men who volunteered for the Verdanta contingent. These were led by Konka. The Tranca men didn’t like being ordered about by a Kodiak any more than the women did, but Shuyah had put them under the three Kodiaks’ command, so they begrudgingly obeyed.

            Tyree had showed the Tranca women how to arrange ambushes with bow and arrow, and how to make spring traps among the trees. The workmen learned to dig huge pitfalls that would swallow the enemy. This was training. The arrows had blunt tips, the pits had no sharp spikes at the bottom, and the spring traps didn’t have the deadly tines they would bear just for Logalla throats.

            On the first day, Konka’s Kodiak senses helped the Tranca men avoid the pitfalls, encircle the ambushers and only Tooka forgot to duck when he set off a spring trap. The spring trap Tyree had shown the women how to make was one taught to him by his grandfather. It sprang a horizontal tree branch across the pathway. In the coming battle, the branch would have many carved wooden spikes tied to its length. Its deadly arc would be at the throat level of a rider on horseback. The one that caught Tooka in the throat was harmless, but Tooka still couldn’t talk for several days, much to everyone’s delight.

            Tyree instructed Konka to lead the men in good-natured taunting of the Tranca women. Konka needed no encouragement to do so. Drinda, also in on the plan, talked up how her legion of Tranca women would one day make the men eat yellow snow. None upon the snow had words with which to refer to these manipulations of human psychology, but the Kodiak were particularly adept at it. This was couched somewhere in their philosophy of always doing what was morally right. Of course, they didn’t have a word for or any understanding of philosophy, either. In creating competition between the two ranks under his command, Tyree accomplished two things: he brought out the competitive spirit of the Tranca women, and he made the male warriors over confident. Thus both sides would learn from the experience.

            As each exercise came and went, the Tranca women became more and more skillful. They got downwind of Konka on one occasion and bombarded his unit with blunt arrows. Another time, over a hundred men were caught in pitfalls dug by the workmen and snares set by the women.

The Tranca women learned to rely on Drinda. Her Kodiak senses matched and countered Konka’s. Tyree put the best archers into the ambush ranks, the best trackers into the scouts, and the brawny workmen dug snow pits for both sides.

            After several days, the women were allowed to go on the offensive, and the men set traps and ambushes. Midway through the training Tyree mixed the men and women together equally into two armies of fifteen hundred each. All snomads, even the hulking workmen, were excellent riders. They would keep up with the army as always. Still, the warriors were at another level. They formed two legions, one commanded by Drinda, one by Konka. Tyree and his clansmen then trained them all in Kodiak battle tactics. They worked together smoothly and did so immediately. They had unified into a small, deadly force, these men and women of the Verdanta contingent. By the final days of training, Tyree would have them at their peak. The two armies held combat exercises daily, and especially in times of heavy snowfall, for most of the war would take place during winter’s worst blizzards.

 

LOOK FOR CHAPTER 23: “DECEPTIONS”

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