Child of the Dawn Read Free

They rallied around Tepua.  
    "Go to my pahi ," Tepua told them. "Straight through the trees and down the beach." She ordered one of her warriors to see that they got aboard safely. Ignoring the escort captain's pleas that she go with the departing women, Tepua plunged ahead with Curling-leaf and began to search for others who needed help.  
    She felt Curling-leaf take her hand, and this time the grip was firm and steady. The spirit had come back into Curling-leaf's eyes. Now she looked more like an Arioi, despite her shredded garlands and the soot smudges over the red sap on her face.  
    "The others are hiding," Curling-leaf said. "We have to find them." She beckoned Tepua through a grove of breadfruit trees. Overhead, waxy leaves of deep green hue spread a thick canopy.  
    "Arioi? Hiding? Why aren't any of them fighting?"
    "With what?" Curling-leaf answered angrily. "Our weapons are gone! While the whole troupe was performing, the creature who calls himself high chief had them stolen."  
    "Who is this man?"
    "He was a minor chief. After you left, he led a rebellion against Knotted-cord. Now he takes the name of Land-crab and rules as high chief."  
    Tepua, bewildered, followed her friend across the leaf-carpeted grove. It surprised her that an unexpected rival had risen against the former high chief. And this Land-crab had done something far worse, something unheard of. Arioi were under the protection of their patron god and immune from attack, even during outbreaks of war. A covenant of peace reigned at all Arioi performances; this was a tradition that the most exalted chief had never violated. Until now.  
    'The usurper chose a good name," said Curling-leaf bitterly. "He sits on us like a fat crab on a heap of coconuts, and tears us apart with his claws."  
    Well, this Land-crab would see what it was to anger Oro, Tepua thought, clenching her fists.
    "Look! More of our friends," cried Curling-leaf. Tepua gathered another group of Arioi refugees and sent them to her pahi . She and Curling-leaf continued searching, finally reaching the smaller thatched houses of the Arioi women's compound. The neatly swept yards surrounding them were empty. Not even a stray chicken appeared in the shadows beneath the breadfruit trees.  
    Tepua saw daylight glimmering through the latticework walls of the houses. Clutching the spear in her damp fist, she approached the one house where she thought she heard rustling. "Who is in there?" she demanded, but got no answer.  
    She edged closer, toward the hanging mat that half-covered the doorway. Again she spoke a challenge, and this time heard another sound, a scraping. Or was it weeping?  
    With her spear-tip, she thrust aside the mat and looked inside. A lithe female figure wearing a red-dyed sash sprang to meet her. The woman had an eel-jawed knife clenched in one fist. Her unpainted face was twisted in rage. Tepua knew the features and lowered her spear even as the other checked her attack.  
    "Aitofa!" Tepua cried as she realized that she had burst in on the chief woman of her Arioi lodge. Then she saw the bright smear of blood on Aitofa's arm and the clumsy, loose bandage that she had been trying to tie around the wound with one hand.  
    Tepua threw down her weapon and ran to help Aitofa. The lodge leader looked as hard and stern as ever, but there was a certain weary despair in her eyes. She was a slender woman, heavily tattooed, her legs entirely black from ankle to thigh.  
    "You returned at an evil time," said Aitofa while Tepua retied the bark-cloth bandage. "We had no chance against Land-crab's treachery."  
    "But why did he do this? I have never heard of such—"
    "We mocked him in our performance."
    "That is our privilege!" Tepua was outraged. It was the right and even the duty of the Arioi to restrain chiefs by use of satire.  
    "He either does not understand that or chooses to ignore it," said Aitofa, with a return of her usual