Speaker for the Gods, week 12
The Battle of Kaleikaumaka, part 2
“See the fate of my enemies!” Speaker Ka’ena strode down the path from the demolished and burning cluster of huts atop Kaleikaumaka’s terraced topography, upending the rattling water truck he pushed before him to pitch its contents moistly onto the dirt road: the charred carcass of a very large man. Iokepa’s honk of grief confirmed what the whole town suspected. He dropped to the earth, clutching at his skull like the image of his father’s seared remains could somehow be taken back out of his mind. I wanted to comfort the man, to say anything that might stifle his sobs. But there was nothing to say. Colonel Staves crossed his arms and scowled at the smell.
“I have built a wall of fire through which none may pass!” bellowed Ka’ena. “Lay down your arms, traitors and foreigners both! Accept the end has come. Embrace it!” The partisans shifted and some lowered their weapons as their nerve wavered.
“Who will rise to meet me now?” wondered the Speaker, aloud. “Who will be first to swallow the torch?”
Kimo made himself known, stepping forward from his comrades, holding his spear upright with its haft in the dirt. The Molokai kiu chanted his name under their breaths. The partisans backed off nervously, unready to be counted with the wild pierced man they’d never met. In his spattered yellow and black armor Kimo approached Ka’ena, parting the Red Tigers to halt just ten yards from his foe.
“I am Kimo, leader of the Molokai warband. I come to take your land, great Speaker. I claim it for those who lived here before you and who will live here after.”
Ka’ena threw back his head and laughed. He might have retorted, but Kimo picked that instant to lunge and hurl his spear. My heart leapt into my throat, the Speaker caught in a weak moment and victory streaking free from certain defeat as the weapon sailed airborne. But none of us were prepared for the Colonel. He moved with breathtaking speed, a blur streaking two steps toward Ka’ena. The spear crossed the gulf of air and suddenly slewed sideways. Staves went for a clean catch but missed; the shaft struck off his fingertips. The blade nosed down, struck dirt and bounced up to shoulder height before clattering to rest. Staves produced a rapier and approached. A barked command from Ka’ena halted the white man, leaving the Molokai captain standing alone in defiance. He spat curse words I didn’t know.
The Speaker’s face was a mask of fury. Everything was still for a second and the stillness only made it more awful. And then with a low hateful belch—“Ku’oord!”—Ka’ena’s mouth disgorged a stream of liquid fire. It took Kimo in the face and chest, wrapped and consumed him in an instant. His arms went up and an animal shriek rang out. My mind flashed back to the monastery kitchens, cleaning rabbits for stew. Ka’ena closed his mouth to shut off the fire plume, and though his scream faded quickly Kimo took a long time to fall. First to his knees, arms still held akimbo by unseen puppet strings, then to a sodden heap on the earth.
The infernal walls around Kaleikauma evaporated, scorched greenery the only proof they existed. Staves sneered at his men, who had huddled together instinctively at the blast and still looked ashen. The Red Tigers held themselves together while the villagers wailed laments for their fresh dead. Kimo’s tribe set their weapons in the dirt, hoping for a better end than their luna kaua. The battle of Kaleikaumaka was over and it wasn’t yet breakfast time.
I found Iokepa and Hina collapsed in each others’ arms over Uncle Hiapo. He had fallen in the blood-muddied swamp of the melee beneath two other corpses. I helped them free his body, then stood back and leaned on my crutch while the grief poured out of them. Ioane still lay uphill where the Red Tigers rounded up the remaining insurgents. Families filtered out of their homes to claim the dead and inspect their hai’oleo-singed orchards. Wails from the grieving and groans from the dying filled the air. Smoke drove the birds away. With nothing left to keep me here, I limped away from the grieving Io without saying goodbye.
I didn’t make it far before hearing the first “Oy!” called my way. Ignoring it, I hustled faster on my crutch as the second shout whizzed by my ear. It wasn’t until “Ashur!” came that I finally turned around to see Staves tromping towards me.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” he demanded with a blend of rage and confusion. His steely eyes were narrowed, suspicious.
“Wrong place at the wrong time, Colonel. I congratulate you on your victory.”
“That’s why you’re running off, then?” He moved in close and bared small, even white teeth in my face. “I’m not a believer, Ashur, but I know when things go past coincidence and I’ve seen your face too many times for there to be anything but a reason. So,” he took a half-step back and breathed deep, “tell me why I keep seeing your insufferable face.”
“The High Speaker sent me scouting, looking for unrest in the hills. And now I see the situation’s well in hand.”
“And what did you find, great Scout?”
“Not much since hurting my leg three days back. Got picked up by those freaks,” I poked at my face to describe the men from Molokai. “Made up some lies, and they carried me around with them. We were marching on Kaleikaumaka since yesterday. When the fight started, I hid.”
“Why didn’t they kill you?”
“Told you, I lied. Said I was a spy for Keone and they believed me.”
“I’d have killed you.”
“Absolutely. I would’ve too,” I grinned impishly. He didn’t return it. “Ienith sent you here?”
“The High Speaker,” he corrected, “sent us to this shit village.” He took an imperial pose. “I am to request the military services of the resident Speaker.”
“She’s moved east with the army?”
“No. Fucked up is what she done, and now they got the lass running errands. After a fashion,” Staves shrugged. I knew better than to pry further.
He turned back towards the village and beckoned me to follow. “Come now, we’ve got a Speaker to bag!” Twin rapiers swung unbloodied from his hips. It was a good thing for the insurgents he hadn’t joined the battle. I did my best to keep up.
“We get in yesterday and the Speaker wants to wait ‘til morning. Say fine, fellow’s batshit but who’m I to refuse my boys a free meal and indoor bunks? We’re right about to leave town when everything goes to shit. Lost half my men, when we should’ve been halfway down the valley,” Staves fumed. The uprising, had it occurred just a day later, would have succeeded without a drop spilled. Life contrives such awful coincidences.
“I’m headed East,” I told him. “Was headed, before all this. I’m happy to get out of your hair, check out Noio Koha for more of the same unrest.”
Staves shook his head. “Coming with the Tigers, you are.”
“Please, sir, I don’t want to be a burden. I can’t move too well, with my leg.” This would be just another flavor of captivity. No matter how I labored to get free, this little provincial war sunk in talons.
“Truth is, I’d like nothing better than to be rid of you,” said the Colonel. “But the world keeps bringing us together. I’ve got orders.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I don’t know about your bullshit mission, but it don’t matter anymore. I was told, should we cross paths, to retrieve you. In whatever condition, she said. The High Speaker asked for you.”
We made our way to the village summit. Most of the bodies had been taken away, Kimo’s surviving men roped together into a gang overseen by Red Tigers. A separate group of partisans waited under similar guard, disarmed but unbound. The bright Sun climbed toward late morning and turned the canopy below Kaleikaumaka into a shimmering furnace. Wind did its best to break up the heat; it was a nice Spring day on To’mea. I followed Staves up the muddy ramp to the stockade’s ruins. The Speaker’s hut was a smoking crater in the ground. Ioane’s house had burned to its foundation and everything else on the bluff suffered some kind of fire damage. The water trucks lay in a torched, dozens of iron bolts hiding in the ashes to be plucked out later. Ka’ena had wrapped himself in an orange robe, hands on hips as he surveyed the scene. Red Tigers tended to their wounded comrades; I spotted one of my Ashkandi shipmates but our eyes never met to exchange greetings. Staves approached the Speaker while I waited a few yards behind, waves of fatigue starting to wash over me. It would be a long time and a long march before sleep came again.
The Colonel spoke in Kane, uneven but still better than mine: it’s time to leave, honored Speaker. The battle is finished. With a single shake of his head and a dismissive sweep of a hand, Ka’ena refused. Staves paused and bit his lip, composing a response, his sharp tongue practically thrashing in its sheath. “The High Speaker Ienith Pele’iwa demands—“
Ka’ena cut him off. “Young girls don’t command great men. Hoku’e banishes her greatest warrior to this mountain hole and then leaves him to defend it alone! They can fight their war and lose it themselves. I will protect my people.”
Staves bowed his head, paying tribute but staying firm. “Your people will fall to Keone if you do not fight. Many lives are at stake.”
“Keone; one more pretender in a line of hundreds! He has come already, and I have beaten him,” a bony finger accused the prisoners. “Let him send more pierced men to inhale my flame. You ask me to leave. When Keone already makes war on my land, how can a warrior leave?”
“The High Speaker insists—“
“The High Speaker is a clucking pullet!” Ka’ena frothed. “A girl-child leading an army of men. If she needs my help she may come herself on bended knees to beg.”
“I’m not to return without you.” Staves put a hand on his hip, just an inch above a hilt. Switching to English, he declared, “You can say whatever the fuck magic words you want to her. In person, at the shore. We move, sir.”
Ka’ena advanced on the shorter man and pushed him back with both hands on his chest. “I’ll send your body back instead! You’ve seen me kill these hoa kaua and yet here you stand.”
Staves took a step back from the shove, gathered his weight and took a long breath. Two steps forward drew him very close to the Speaker, his nose almost in the braided beard. “My men are already dead for your delay. This town’s nothing to me and even if it were I’d still take you down the valley. ‘Cause they’re paying me, see? Silver. And. Gold. I won’t take a ‘no,’ and if it weren’t for your magic tricks you’d be tied right there with those ugly fucks.”
“Looking to die, red flower? Take all your white men far away from ko’u kaiaulu, or here I swear I shall destroy your minds and burn your bodies.” Ka’ena spat under his breath, smoke issuing from his mouth. “You’re finished, lehua. Leave now and never come back.” He flicked the Colonel’s jacket breast with a long yellow fingernail.
Staves planted his fist in the Speaker’s gut faster than I could register the motion. Ka’ena doubled over from the force and a crimson elbow followed at the base of his neck. He hacked out a long stream of mucus, unable to breathe. He tried to push Staves away with his long leathery scarecrow arms but hadn’t the strength. His mouth gaped wide but no words came. The Colonel held the Speaker back with his left arm while the right flashed to his waist. The draw, the turn and the thrust: all seemed a single movement. Staves pulled his rapier and plunged it into Ka’ena’s throat. No flourish—straight through the neck, past the bone and out the far side like a swimmer parting water.
There was a gasp that might’ve been mine. For a ghastly moment the Speaker stood pinned like a sunny yellow butterfly. Then gouts of flame shot out either side of his neck, venting with a steamy hiss through the holes Staves had opened with such force that the Colonel fell backwards on his rear. Ka’ena dropped to a knee, blood coursing down his robe, struggling to free the blade as though something could still be done for him. The razor edges cut his hands to ribbons and they slipped off to rest in the ground. Blood, smoke and cinders ran from his mouth as it formed god-words he could no longer speak. At long last Speaker Ka’ena collapsed face-first into his own warm pool. The rapier’s hilt rang softly striking the dirt.
“Did you fucking see that?” Staves demanded, still on the ground and leering with delight. “Never in all my days. Shit! Amazing.” He got to his feet. All we assembled were rooted to our spots. A black boot went on Ka’ena’s back, offering leverage for Staves to yank his sword free. After a quick inspection for damage, he wiped it clean on the rumpled yellow robe.
“Colonel,” one of the Red Tigers managed. “What’re we going to do?”
Staves rolled his eyes at the question. “What d’you think? We’re going back to camp. Muster up. Start running the prisoners ahead while I finish with these…” he looked between the stunned locals, forced a wolfish grin. “Fine people.”
Mercenaries scampered about, making ready to march. Staves scratched at the back of his graying head, surveying the smoky disaster we’d separately stumbled into.
“All right, then!” he yelled in English to the crowd. “Who here understands what I’m saying?”
“I hear you.” Io’s voice surprised me. He stepped forward, having somehow avoided the round-up of insurgents. “Iokepa, wai kalepa.” A finger of ice ran through my veins—just speaking to Staves put him in terrible danger.
“Good man! You see, Mister Iokepa, I’ve no interest in your business. I don’t know why your people fought the Speaker, but can’t say I blame them at this late hour,” he fanned a hand at the fresh corpse. “All I know is, my men died in this lousy place and I’m keen to leave you to your own mess. There’s just one thing,”
“What do you need?” Io asked, keeping his jawline stern but clearly conflicted. One enemy had just killed the other, but Staves was still the High Speaker’s man and thus still an enemy.
“The water gets going again. Full production, starting today. The lowlands are parched and the High Speaker Ienith Pele’iwa commands this. You can have your shitty village. We need the water.”
Io nodded slowly. “Most of our trucks are burned, but we can produce at a lower rate. Kaleikaumaka’s under our control now—none of your men on our land.” I doubted he’d comply once we left.
“Take it up with the next Speaker they send. Goodbye, son. Keep your friends outta trouble,” he nodded at the partisans, turned heel and started walking without another word. I took a last look at Iokepa but he didn’t meet my gaze, staring up instead at the compound’s ruin, at the blasted misery his home had become since two old men set out one morning to hunt pua’a.
I limped to catch up with Staves but couldn’t match his speed. “Ienith wanted the Speaker for the war,” I called. “Didn’t she?”
“I don’t ask the Lady for details where they’re not needed.” The Colonel didn’t look back.
“Would’ve been better to talk him down. He might have helped us all out of a bad spot.”
“Could he? Didn’t seem much inclined,” the Colonel snickered. That was the end of that. We descended into the Halawa valley, bound for its mouth. Smoke still hung in a pall over the jungle canopy as Kaleikaumaka faded behind us into memory.