Tyree
spoke softly into the wind. His words were carried by the wind to
distant ears. Konka and Drinda were riding to the northwest. They both
threw back their bear fur hoods to better hear the wind. Tyree whispered
on the wind of the ambush, told Konka and Drinda what to do. The
sensitive ears of the Kodiak heard Tyree clearly. The Tranca in ambush
could not read the wind.
Tyree’s
eyes were those of the eagle. He saw something flutter one full view
ahead. A “view” was a measurement. It was as far as a Kodiak could see,
and that was a great distance. In the vastness, small measures held
little meaning. The movement Tyree saw was a bit of Tranca battle
regalia—just the very tip of a scarf that the wind held up and
fluttered for Tyree’s eyes to consider. It came out from behind a snow
bank to the left where four Tranca warriors waited. Tyree squeezed his
legs in such a way that told his snow pony to circle to the right around
a huge ice bluff, and to come up behind the other four warriors hiding
there. Tyree stopped behind the Tranca. He was at such a distance that
even if the Tranca turned and squinted at their hardest their vision
would not reveal the far away Kodiak. The Tranca had their spears and
swords at the ready, blades glistening in the last traces of a dull cold
sun that was slowly being swallowed by darkening clouds.
“Wait for
the snow,” the wind told the Kodiak.
They
waited, Konka and Drinda one view to the west, Tyree the same distance
on the other flank. One snowflake fell. It was the size of a hand. Then
snow suddenly came like the waves of the great sea during the thaw. The
three Kodiak knew when to ride forward, the soft sounds of their snow
ponies’ hooves hidden in the wind and in the heavy thumping of the
falling snow. The Kodiak were told when to attack by the wind. The wind
was the Kodiak’s greatest ally.
