Justice and Utu (15 page)

Four men were about thirty yards to their right, pouring musket fire into the sea, where water was still cascading. Then they saw Mat and Damien.

A man in ship's officer's garb, a stout man with a bushy beard and bellowing voice, thrust a pistol in Mat's direction. The weapon belched, and a ball fizzed past Mat's ear. The rest of the men began to reload as more pursuers emerged from the houses.

The thrashing sound in the water tore at his conscience.
How can we help her? The whole town is roused!
It was maybe an hour to sunset, although the skies were still pale and visibility clear. He looked at Damien. ‘We've got to go back for her!'

Damien pulled him behind a tree as more shots came. Wood splintered and the air seemed alive with shot. ‘She's already gone, Mat! She's in the water! It's us we've got to worry about!'

Mat glanced out at the bay. A large ripple was churning past the nearest ships.

He's right.

‘She's going to be the death of us,' Damien shouted. ‘Stick to Evie, at least she's quiet. Come on!'

They pelted southwards, splashing through shallows and around the first curve of the rocky headland.

With a roar, the enemy soldiers came after them.

They made Matauwhi Bay about ten seconds before another wave of pursuers swept down the track they'd first taken into the settlement only an hour or so before. The cordon of pursuers fanned out and fired at them, but they made the undergrowth in time and ran on down the track. The pursuers did not give up, though. They spread out in good order and gave chase. Mat and Damien had no choice but to keep running south. Worse, a light sailboat had been launched, bristling with gunmen, and it was surging on a nor'westerly breeze as it overtook them. In ten minutes or so, the sailors would land somewhere ahead, and Mat and Damien would be trapped.

Another clearing opened before them, and as they broke cover Mat saw something that made his hair stand on end. The two boys staggered to a halt, out of breath and suddenly out of ideas.

A Maori warrior, naked but for a flaxen piupiu, and carrying a heavy patu, stood on the other side of the clearing. His face was a mask of moko, his hair caught in a warrior's topknot. He opened his mouth and roared out a challenge.

A dozen more warriors emerged from the thicket behind him, and charged across the clearing straight at Mat and Damien.

N
EAR
O
KIATO
, B
AY OF
I
SLANDS
, S
ATURDAY EVENING

W
iri led Donna Kyle and Will Hobson through the increasingly tangled and steep paths that led from the water's edge. His thoughts were on the young men. Mat had matured a lot in the past year, and Wiri trusted him to be responsible; it was Damien who worried him. He prayed Mat's maturity would keep the other boy's recklessness in check. All they had to do was get in, talk to Sload, and get out. It shouldn't be that hard.

His own mission was somewhat trickier.

Behind him, Donna and Hobson conversed in low tones, amiable but challenging. Daring little sallies and ripostes, fencing with each other. Almost flirting.

I need to warn Hobson about her
. But there was no time right now. They had to make contact with the man he needed urgently.

‘You'll always find him near Kororareka,' Puarata had told him some seventy years ago, during an obscure mission in
Aotearoa. ‘He can't keep away … Hone Heke.'

We need a big war-party, to sweep in and deal to Asher Grieve and Sebastian Venn. Hobson doesn't have enough men for the job. But Hone Heke does.

Hone Heke had married Hariata, the daughter of the famous and powerful Hone Ringia of the Nga Puhi tribe, making himself a chief of considerable standing, but he was a new man, an upstart in the eyes of rival chiefs. New men are seldom welcome among their new peers. They upset the ‘natural order'. They give dangerous ideas to other would-be usurpers. It didn't help that Hone Heke was every bit as dangerous as they feared. Cunning, clever, charismatic, moody. He could flash from laughter to savagery in a heartbeat. Occasionally he had allowed Puarata to enter his tribal lands, and even aided him. Other times he'd tried to kill him, and Wiri, too.

Wiri frowned as he remembered the last time he'd been here. That hadn't gone well.
But our need is great.

About ten minutes later, they found a clearing with a pou-kapua, a Maori carved pole, set into the middle. It was daubed in faded ochre, the timber dried out and cracked, but it still had a menace to it. Wiri picked up a rock and hammered it against a boulder, so that the sound cracked and echoed about them. ‘Hone Heke! It is Wiremu! Hear me!'

He called six times, and then sat down to wait.

Hobson looked about him, sweating faintly. He took off his plumed hat with some reluctance, and sat on the boulder. Donna Kyle perched beside him, and threw an enigmatic look at Wiri, as if to say, ‘This man may be my salvation, so don't get in the way.'

I really have to warn him … if he'll even listen.

 

A long chuckle rolled out of the undergrowth, and then a ring of warriors stepped into the clearing. Even Wiri had not sensed their presence. They were toa of the Nga Puhi tribe, heavily armed, with a mixture of guns and the more traditional bludgeoning weapons of the Maori. They were lightly clad, their hair tied up. Ready for battle.

It had taken them only fifteen minutes to hear his challenge and gather.

They circled closer, pulling fierce faces, the men posturing before each other, each daring to come closer, to pose more brazenly. With a hungry growl, one stalked up to Donna, his tongue rolling, his eyes drinking her in.

‘At what point do I start shooting?' Will Hobson enquired coolly, although he was sweating profusely.

Donna Kyle faced the warrior with narrowed eyes, her mouth held as if she were about to spit.

‘Don't,' Wiri warned them both. His eyes flickered about, and settled upon a man at the back, in a full-length feather cloak, a battered European hat perched at a rakish angle. His distinctive moko pattern left a diagonal slash of clean skin beneath both eyes to under his nose, lending his face a predatory aspect. ‘Rangatira Hone Heke, I seek your aid.'

The chief's eyebrows lifted, and he held up a hand, causing his warriors to go still, although their menace was no less. Hone slid forward with his characteristic sideways gait, his eyes narrow. ‘Wiremu the Immortal seeks my aid? My aid!
C'est incroyable!
' he added. ‘The man who, when last he came
here, slew our tohunga, now seeks my aid. Have you lost your wits, toa?'

The warriors hissed, and a number of the younger, rasher ones inched forward, weapons quivering, faces contorted with ferocity. Wiri pirouetted on the balls of his feet, his mere suddenly in his hand. ‘Puarata commanded it. I had no choice.'

Heke weighed his words with a faint wag of the skull. ‘I have heard this song before, I think. They say Grey heard it also, and gave you pardon.'

‘Let me take his head,' snarled the largest of the war-party.

Wiri inclined his head in the direction of the speaker, measuring him. A bull of a man, the one who had menaced Donna. He remembered him, too. A feral beast in human form. ‘Any time, Rongo.'

The burly warrior waggled his tongue at Wiri.

‘I didn't know you cared,' Wiri told Rongo mockingly. The words made Heke smile. The chief liked clever words, Wiri recalled. He'd talked the other chiefs into signing Hobson's treaty, just because he could. He had been first signatory.

‘What aid do you wish for, Wiremu the Immortal?'

‘Sebastian Venn and Asher Grieve are in Kororareka. They have stolen the Treaty.'

Hone Heke visibly flinched, his eyes blinking. ‘
My tiriti?
They have taken
my
tiriti?'

‘It is so,' Will Hobson threw in, still holding his pistol in readiness.

Heke looked at Hobson with a puzzled expression. ‘Englishman, are you the son of Mr Hobson?'

‘I
am
Hobson.'

Heke laughed, demurring. ‘No, you are not he. The governor is a sick, old man, near death. You are a son or nephew, whom I have not met before.'

‘I am Captain Will Hobson, of HMS
Rattlesnake
. We were battling piracy in the Indies, sir, until we were summoned here by a remarkable young man. I am here to bring this Asher Grieve to justice, and restore the Treaty.'

Heke still did not look like he believed Hobson, but he did not press the point. ‘So my tiriti really is stolen?' His face contorted. ‘My tiriti. I signed it first. Without my lead, none would have signed!' He straightened and flexed his shoulders, looking affronted. ‘I shall restore it!'

Wiri exhaled. ‘Thank you, Rangitira Heke,' he began, but Hone Heke interrupted him with a flourishing gesture that finished with a finger jabbing at Wiri.

‘We shall restore my tiriti, but I have not forgiven Wiremu for his deeds, nor Donna Kyle hers,' Heke snapped. ‘Rongo, kill him, then the woman is yours.'

Rongo beamed like a child given candy.

Predictably unpredictable.
Wiri glared at Heke. ‘We don't have time for this, Rangitira.'

Heke just grinned. ‘There is always time for love and death, toa.'

Hobson pulled Donna to one side, his pistol still in his hand, while Wiri exhaled ruefully.
I should have seen that coming
…

‘I hear you are not so “immortal” now,' Rongo jeered, as he circled, hunched over like a bear. The other warriors pulled back into a loose circle containing the carved pou-kapua, the boulder, and the two fighters. Will Hobson and Donna Kyle
were herded to the edge. None dared touch Donna, but the threat was implicit. She stood regally beside Hobson, her hand on his arm.

Wiri sighed, and shed his shirt so that Rongo could not grab it. The Nga Puhi jeered at Wiri's smaller build, but Wiri knew his own strengths, and they weren't in pure size. Rongo snarled a ritual challenge, slapping his thighs, hulking towards Wiri like a troll. His grunting voice became deeper, throatier. His eyes rolled back in his skull, and flashed with a lurid inhuman green.

Yes, I remember you, Rongo. They say you have turehu blood. Rightly, it seems.

The warrior was built like a small hill, but when he moved, it was like wildfire. Between two heartbeats he had covered the gap between them, and his heavy patu blurred towards Wiri's skull.

Wiri swayed aside, felt the wind of the blow, and flashed his own edged mere at the Nga Puhi champion's face. But Rongo was already ducking under the slash, slamming his elbow into Wiri's chest. Wiri let the painful impact impel him into a roll that took him out of reach, and he crabbed sideways, slashing and cutting to re-establish distance.

He's bigger than me. He's stronger, too. Is he faster? That would not be good …

Rongo leapt onto the boulder, bellowed like a gorilla, and then flew through the air at Wiri. A raking hand sought a grip, to pin him and allow him to batter at will. Wiri darted aside, lashing out with a foot at the warrior's stomach.

He might as well have kicked the boulder. He fell off the impact, and had to roll as Rongo plunged at him, seeking a
grappling hold. His mere gashed Rongo's shoulder, drawing a line of blood from the tattooed skin. The blood wasn't red.

Rongo laughed. ‘You can't hurt me, “Immortal”.' He leered at Donna. ‘Does the witch give good sport?' He licked his lips, and charged.

Wiri again had to dart away, sparring desperately on either side of the totem, evading massive swipes of the stone patu that would have shattered his bones or skull had they struck. Rongo roared, knocked the pou-kapua askew with his forearm, and stalked around it. He darted side to side, forcing Wiri into swift evasive movements while regaining his own breath.

Can I win this?

Wiri pushed aside his doubts, and sucked in oxygen, seeking to put the now-askew pou-kapua pole between them again. Rongo followed, baring his teeth. There were far too many of them. The two warriors circled each other warily. Heke's war-party roared Rongo on, although the rangitira watched with a detached manner, as if this were all just an amusement to him.

All at once Rongo's patience snapped, and he flew at Wiri.

Wiri feinted right, then swerved back towards the tilted pou-kapua, ducking under a blow and running up the skewed pole, making it tilt further as it took his weight. Rongo roared and followed him, bringing the pole crashing down, uprooted earth flying. Wiri leapt clear, pivoting and kicking backwards. His foot took Rongo on the side of the head, slamming him sideways. Rongo fell on the far side of the fallen pole, cursing.

As he scrambled to get up, Wiri slammed his mere down on Rongo's wrist.

Bone shattered, and Rongo's patu spiralled from his grasp. Rongo roared in agony. He went to get up again, slowly this time, blinking as his own patu came flying towards him: Wiri had caught it as it fell from Rongo's grasp, and in one spiralling movement had hurled it back at Rongo's face.

The stone club impacted like a rock hitting water. Rongo's nose splashed blood in an arc as his feet jolted backward, and he thudded full-length to the turf. He groaned dazedly as Wiri leapt the log and straddled him, mere waggling in his hand theatrically, poised to strike if required.

‘Enough!' Heke stepped in quickly. ‘Rongo is mine to slay, not yours.'

Wiri looked about him, at the rest of the Nga Puhi watching him with bared teeth and twitching trigger fingers. ‘And I am not yours to slay at all,' he replied, with all the bravado he could muster.

Hone Heke raised one eyebrow, and adjusted his hat. ‘A good fight,' he commented, as if he'd just witnessed a fine shot in a tennis match. ‘Entertaining.' His warriors awaited his word, their eyes on Wiri's slowly fluttering mere. ‘Wiremu, you slew your old master. Do you need a new one?'

‘I have a new master,' he told the rangitira. ‘Her name's Kelly.'

Hone Heke laughed shortly. ‘Ah, we are all slaves to our women, yes! My wife Hariata, she is my Sun and Moon.' He embraced Wiri quickly, lightly, and then laughed again, and bent over Rongo. ‘My poor champion, I think he has learnt a lesson.' He stood again, and clapped Wiri on the shoulder. ‘Come, we have deeds of greater renown to do. My tiriti must be recovered.'