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that the Raiders had no horses. He glanced again at the warrior with the arrow stuck in his head, lying still at his feet. He gripped the iron knife tighter as he looked back across the chasm to see his uncle do battle with the horrible Northern Raiders.
    When Black Horn got just inside arrow range, he veered to the left, and Shadow knew his uncle was going to circle the Raiders before dismounting to fight. He started in the east and bore south, then west, the way Father Sun circled Mother Earth. The circle, once closed, would make his medicine powerful.
    The Raiders had arrows notched to bowstrings, but only watched Black Horn ride, preferring to wait for a closer shot. Their only hope was to kill him and run before the other Burnt Meat warriors arrived on foot.
    The curtain of dust closed around the enemy warriors, and Black Horn paused to raise his lance and scream. Now he would dismount, Shadow thought, and charge the enemy single-handedly with the lance. That he should watch this fight filled him with more excitement than he had ever known, and the skin all over his body seemed to soak in the chilling cry that Black Horn sent rattling across the high ground. If only his father were here, that Shadow might see him go to battle as well! His grandfather and his pony were dead, and the boy of nine winters hungered for vengeance older than his own days upon the earth.
    The war cry trailed away on a breeze that had sprung from the cold highlands, and now Shadow saw something he would remember as long as he lived. His uncle, seized by some new medicine, rode his horse into battle. This was not the way of his elders. The True Humans had always fought with their own feet on the ground, but Black Horn was part of the horse now, and the horse part of him, and Shadow could hardly believe how courageously he rode among the five Raiders.
    Through the body of Black Horn, the spear magically took on the power of the pony. When he thrust it forward, underhanded, it went like a kingfisher plunging into the water, and its flint tip hit the same warrior who had been struck in the jaw by Black Horn’s axe, driving all the way through the man and sticking in the ground behind him.
    The Northern Raiders, stunned by this mounted attack, let Black Horn ride past them untouched. Now he turned and prepared to attack them with nothing but the white flint knife he had once taken from the dead body of a Crow enemy. This was glorious, for Black Horn still carried his bow and arrows, but chose to fight the enemy attackers hand to hand, for they had dishonored him by raiding the party he led. The Northern Raiders, seemingly charmed by the powers of the horse warrior, still did not send their arrows. They had expected Black Horn to dismount, Shadow thought, and the horse magic was confusing them.
    What happened next seemed like something from a bad vision. Black Horn drove his pony among the enemies again, and one of the raiders reached for the reins as another raised a stick—a very long and very straight stick—putting one broad end of this stick against his shoulder. A flash of orange light like a hundred flint sparks pushed a black cloud from the stick the way a man would blow tobacco smoke from his mouth, but quicker, darker, and with more evil power than any man could muster.
    Black Horn rolled backward off his war pony, and as he hit the ground, a clap of thunder came from out of nowhere, for Shadow did not yet understand that the terrible Fire Stick possessed its own thunder.
    Everything seemed to hang in silence for a moment, and the warriors coming to help Black Horn lost their courage and stopping running. Shadow’s heart sank into the fear of all unknown evil as he watched. His grip loosened around the handle of the iron knife and he watched helplessly as one of the Raiders rushed to finish his uncle.
    But Black Horn’s courage was legend, and he fought flat on his back, even in the shadow of the warrior carrying the