Modified only slightly from accounts taken from Cheyenne oral histories. Dialogue added.
The Cheyenne chiefs had given the order; no prisoners were to be taken that day, no mercy was to be shown to the enemy. And the warriors who rode in among the trees just above the Kiowa camp had all heard it.
What they found there delighted them. Scattered throughout the woods were young Kiowa and Comanche men and women, lovers; some in various states of undress, many entirely nude. One of the first Cheyennes to ride in almost immediately came upon one such nude couple seated together under a tree. The warrior, a Comanche, rose quickly, but the Cheyenne, after counting coup on him with his quirt, drove his lance through the center of his chest. In front of the horrified eyes of his attractive young Kiowa lover, he collapsed to the ground, blood gushing from the wound and from his mouth, quite dead.
The seated girl started to rise, but immediately one of the Cheyennes rode up beside her and, extending his lance, pressed its point hard against her belly, just below her navel. She stopped and looked up at him, wide-eyed. She knew the ways of the Cheyennes; he'd allow some of his fellows to count coup on her, and after that she'd be taken captive. The mounted Cheyenne met her eyes, gave her a half-hearted smile.
Then, without further warning, he drove the lance down with all his strength; the heavy flint head sank deeply into her naked belly. She stared down at herself, at the lance piercing her and at the spouting blood, amazed. The Cheyenne pushed the weapon a bit deeper, then yanked it out. As he did, another Cheyenne came rushing up and dismounted, landing lightly beside the girl. Immediately, he drew his knife and grabbed a handful of her hair.
In spite of the wound in her belly she tried to fight, flailing at him with her arms. Laughing, the second Cheyenne held onto her hair, pulling her head back, and swung his knife over and down, plunging it deep between her ribs, just under her breast. She groaned; her body arched upward, blood streaming from her chest. Ripping his knife out, the warrior started hacking at her scalp; when he'd removed it he let her fall to the ground. She breathed on for several more minutes, her limbs twitching and her body shaking, before she finally died.
Mere seconds after she'd met her end, another young girl came bursting out of the woods. She too was one of the Kiowa lovers the Cheyennes had surprised, and she too was entirely bereft of clothing. When she saw the dead girl she stopped in her tracks and gave a loud cry. The warriors immediately turned their attention toward her.
And she to them. "Come on, then!" she yelled challengingly. She put her hands on her hips and threw her shoulders back, pushing her firm young breasts into high relief. "You have killed my sister--will you leave me standing here alive to mourn her?"
The Cheyenne lancer nudged his horse forward. "We will not, little friend; our chiefs have said that all of the Kiowas are to die this day!" Reaching out for her with his lance, he pushed the point against her breast and ripped it across, drawing a little blood. "After we have counted our coups upon you!"
The girl didn't move, even as her breast was cut; and when the other Cheyenne rushed in with a yell to slash her thigh with his knife, she merely watched him do it, her face expressionless. The mounted warrior waited until his companion had finished, then came closer yet. The girl still held her ground, and the Cheyenne started poking her body with the lance, not too hard, but hard enough to cause little beads of blood to appear on her breasts, her stomach, her thighs.
"She is brave," the standing warrior commented as the horseman ground his lance into the girl's chest and, rather than flinching away, she leaned into it a little, keeping herself upright against his pressure.
"It is so," the horseman agreed. "Let us give her her death, then."
"I am ready," the girl said coldly.
Stepping behind her, the dismounted warrior put an arm around her neck and pulled her body against his; then, bringing his knife up and over, he plunged it into her lower chest, twice in quick succession. While she stiffened with the pain of these wounds, the Cheyenne on the horse stabbed his lance into her breast, pushing her and the other warrior backwards a little. Instinctively, the Kiowa girl grabbed the shaft of the spear but the Cheyenne pushed harder, driving it deeply into her chest. The other man let her go and the horseman drove her on to the ground with his lance; she squirmed there for a few seconds, impaled on the lance, her warm blood flowing rapidly out onto the soil. Only when her body had finally stopped twitching did the two Cheyennes take the time to scalp her.
They'd just remounted, the girl's scalp dangling from one's waistband, when a pony roared by. The Kiowa mounted on it was dressed only in a breechcloth, and a naked young woman was in the process of settling herself in behind him. Yelling, the two Cheyennes started after them.
Breaking free of the trees, the couple glanced back. The Cheyennes were closing on them, their faster horses overtaking the overloaded Kiowa one. Both saw their pursuers take out their bows and string arrows to them. With a determined look on her face, the Kiowa woman pushed herself back a little ways from the man and sat up very straight, protecting his body with her own.
Seconds later, the Cheyenne arrows started to fly. The first two missed, but the third one thudded into the woman's back, catching her just below her shoulder blade on the right. She grunted and stiffened, but she kept her position even as her blood started to flow. Another arrow flashed forward, burying itself in the small of her back, a little to the right of her spine. More blood appeared, but she held on, kept riding.
A third arrow tore into her flesh, high in her back, near her neck; she started sagging, falling to one side. Riding up alongside the fleeing couple, one of the Cheyennes tried to shoot past her and hit the man, but his arrow struck the girl again, in her side this time, just under and outside her left breast. With a loud groan, she slipped from the horse, her hands clutching futilely at the Kiowa's back, and landed hard on the ground.
As she started fighting her way back to her feet, her companion slowed his horse and glanced back at her; blood was running from her mouth as well as from the four arrows piercing her. Evidently deciding that she was done for, he speeded up his pony again, trying desperately to outrun the pursuing Cheyennes. One of them went on after him; the other pulled his pony up beside the wounded and staggering girl.
She turned to face him, a resigned expression in her eyes; he grinned and drew his bow. For a few seconds their eyes locked. Then, from very close range, the Cheyenne shot an arrow into her stomach.
The impact staggered her backwards; she grabbed at the arrow with both hands while the blood started to spurt. The Cheyenne dismounted with a yell, grabbed the girl's hair, and drew his knife. She sank to her knees, and he began savagely hacking at her scalp, peeling it away from the top of her skull.
Even as the blood poured into her face, she refused to scream. Her assailant finished scalping her, then left her kneeling on the ground while he hung the bloody trophy on his horse. That done, he came back and rather casually started pulling his arrows out of her body, replacing each one in his quiver as it came free.
She didn't even try to fight him. She grunted and trembled as each one tore loose, but even when the last one was out, she was still breathing. The Cheyenne, as casually as ever, drew his scalping knife again and, rolling her over on her back, drove it into her lower abdomen. Her hands moved toward it, but he ripped it upwards, opening her body with it. Blood exploded outward; her internal organs glistened wetly in the ragged cut. She stiffened, gasped in one more breath, let it out, and began relaxing in death. About then the other Cheyenne came riding back with the man's scalp; he had not, after all, managed to escape.
Slwoly, the two Cheyennes started riding off to join the others. Passing a pile of brushwood, they saw some movement, slowed their ponies; two Kiowa girls, as naked as the others, realized they'd been spotted and stood up, holding out their hands in a supplicant gesture. These two were quite young, teenagers, very pretty girls. One was noticeably older than the other, perhaps seventeen or eighteen to the other girl's thirteen or fourteen. The Cheyennes grinned at each other, dismounted, went to them. They weren't aware of the day's carnage; they didn't try to run away.
"I am sorry, friends," one of the Cheyennes said in Kiowa. "Any other day I would take you to my lodge, but today the chiefs have decreed death for all the Kiowa. So it must be; I must kill you."
The girls looked at each other, then glanced around as if measuring their chances of escape--which were virtually non-existant. "Let us then die with honor, my friend," the elder of the two girls said to the other. "As warriors would, as our fathers and brothers would." With these words, she stepped forward and put her hands on the shoulders of one of the Cheyennes. Her eyes were clear, there was no trace of fear in them. "Kill us, warrior," she said. "If you must."
He drew his knife; her eyes didn't waver. "I must," he told her with a smile. Then he stabbed her, in her left side, below her ribs.
She didn't even flinch, and she stood quite still as he drew the knife free, letting her blood spill out freely. Almost immediately he drove it in again, into her stomach this time. She merely sighed and leaned forward on him, holding his shoulders for support, and began softly singing a death-song. Again the knife came out, and again it went in, higher this time, between her ribs. Her song broke for a second as the blade slipped into her body, but she soon resumed it. He kept it in her this time, working it around vigorously. Her song became weaker, faded away; her eyes remained open, watching his as he twisted the knife inside her.
Silent now, she started to sag; he ripped the knife free once more and let her slide down to her knees on the bloody ground. Blood spurted in repeated pulses from her chest, flowed from her abdomen. She would've fallen, but the Cheyenne grabbed her hair, held her up by it. Placing the edge against her forehead, he sawed in; blood now streamed over her face, as well. He continued until he'd taken her scalp, then let her fall. She was very close to death; they waited and watched until her movements had degenerated into a few random twitches.
They then turned their gaze on the other girl, who was still standing by the brushpile. One of the Cheyennes extended his hand to her; she took it willingly, allowed herself to be led out until she was standing beside the other girl's mutilated corpse.
Her hands at her sides, she stood watching them. She looked very young, her naked body showing that she was just in the process of transforming from child to woman; her breasts were but soft swellings. "You will kill me now?" she asked after a moment.
The Cheyenne holding the bloodied knife smiled. "All Kiowas must die this day."
She looked down at her dead friend and shrugged. "Kill me, then. I will die bravely, as she did."
Smiling still, he stepped up close to her, the bloody knife still in his hand. He touched it lightly against the skin of her bare belly; she glanced down at it, then looked back up at him. "You are but a child," he commented, moving the knife's point around on her skin until it dropped into her navel. "What do you know of bravery?"
"Bravery," she said quietly, "is accepting what is, what must be. I cannot stop you from killing me; I know that. So I will accept it. You will see."
He pressed the knife more tightly against her belly, pushing the point further into her navel but drawing no blood. "You will not beg for your life, then?"
"No," she answered. She looked down at the knife again. "There is no need in waiting, warrior; if you will kill me, then kill me, kill me now!"
Almost affectionately, he put his left arm around her waist. She raised her arms over her head and arched her body backward slightly, as if offering it to him. Watching her face, he began increasing the pressure on his knife and pulling her body tightly against it at the same time.
Her eyes grew quite wide; she caught her lower lip with her teeth. Silent still, she watched the knife, saw a little trickle of blood beginning to drain from her navel. Her skin breached, the blade started sinking slowly and softly into her. She made no sound, she did not move; her face remained quite expressionless. The Cheyenne kept pushing, slowly and steadily, until the entire blade had vanished into her belly.
The Cheyenne's smile had faded; leaving the blade buried inside her, he nodded. "It is true," he said. "You know much of courage." He looked over her shoulder at the other warrior, nodded to him. This man drew his knife, stepped up to them quickly, and stabbed her in the back.
She shuddered, made no cry. While the first man held her, the second pulled his blade out and stabbed her again and again, alternating between the two sides of her upper back. Blood spurted; she sagged, causing the knife in her belly to drag upward. The first man finally ripped his knife out of her, and while the second stabbed her back yet again he plunged it into her right breast. She sighed, made a loud rattling noise in her throat, and collapsed. They waited until they were sure she was dead before taking her scalp.