Jamestown (The Keepers of the Ring) by Angela Hunt, Angela Elwell Hunt Page B

took flight, and Fallon turned his head and concentrated upon listening. Someone moved in the woods. A great many people, judging by the disturbance of the birds.
    He leaned forward upon his hands and knees and crept behind a fallen log as he peered into the woods. Under the mushrooming canopy of trees a group of warriors advanced. They carried brightly decorated war axes and shields. Even from here, Fallon recognized the bright red designs of Powhatan warriors.
    Fallon turned and sprinted toward the village.
     
     
    Breathless, he raced into Gepanocon’s hut with the news. The werowance listened with the smiling, patient attention adults give children, then gestured abruptly and told his elders to send warriors to hide the four Englishmen.
    “What of the others?” Fallon demanded, ignoring the protocol that directed that he be silent until the chief addressed him. “You must leave your warriors here to protect the women and children.”
    “My men will return when the English are safe,” Gepanocon answered, rising to his feet. Moving with unusual quickness, he grabbed his war axe and pushed past Fallon.
    Fallon watched in disbelief as the chief and his warriors hustled the four Englishmen from their hut and hurried them through a secret door in the palisade walls. “That’s right,” Fallon remarked critically as the chief and his men fled. “Make a palisade too strong for the enemy to come in, and you cannot get out. Run, chief, and may your greed and cowardice preserve you.”
    Gepanocon doubtless intended to hide the men again in the sacred caves, and Fallon knew the warriors did not have time to escort the Englishmen and return. The enemy warriors were just outside the front gate, and they would not wait for Gepanocon’s treasure to be hidden.
    Fallon left the chief’s hut and ran to find Gilda and Noshi.
     
     
    Serving as war chief for this battle, Opechancanough did not hesitate to attack Ritanoe. Usually he and his braves hid in the woods for hours to judge the strengths and weaknesses of an enemy camp, but Gepanocon had revealed all by opening his village to the traders. Opechancanough would not waste time at Ritanoe, for he wanted most of all to capture the Englishmen, and Gepanocon would surely try to hide them.
    The old men and women of the village made a futile effort to close the tall gates of the palisade as the enemy streamed from the forest, but the walls were easily pushed aside. Inside the village, women and children screamed and ran from the huts that the Powhatan set ablaze.
    Walking behind his warriors, Opechancanough searched for the clothed men and felt his anger rise as he stalked from hut to hut only to find frightened women and children. In one hut he found raw copper and tools to work it, but the grass mats spread upon the floor were empty. This maddening inability to find his quarry drove him past the point of endurance, and Opechancanough ordered that all in the village should be killed.
    His warriors obediently pulled the women and children forward to meet the knife, but Opechancanough held up a hand. Standing among the knot of survivors was an unusual boy, with red hair and fair skin. He wore leather breeches and a full shirt, and Opechancanough felt his heart beat faster as he walked over for a closer look. Could this stripling be one of the survivors of Ocanahonan? Surely one so young could not be the source of Gepanocon’s copper weapons.
    The boy stood with his hands on the heads of two dark-haired children, and as if by command, all three kept their heads lowered before him. “Look at me,” Opechancanough commanded, and only the older boy’s head rose. He glared defiantly at the war chief.
    Opechancanough felt the corner of his mouth twitch in a half smile. The boy’s skin was pale and pink from the sun, his nose sprinkled with the brown spots common to the skin of the clothed people. His face was clear, and his body tall like a fast-growing weed, but the troubled blue