By the second finger of time, however, a deep and throbbing ache had started in his crotch where the tendons running from his pubis to his thigh bone had begun to burn. Nor could he feel his arms, extended as they were to the upper corners of the square.
If he tried to sag and relieve the strain on his feet and legs, the pull in his shoulders became unbearable. Nor could he breathe, as it pulled the muscles in his chest to the point he couldn’t suck a breath.
Then, as the night darkened, the chill began to eat into his naked flesh. The shivers had begun just after sundown and now were racking his extended limbs and torso.
And this is just the first night.
They hadn’t started beating him yet. An unsympathetic warrior had explained that on the Keeper’s orders, they were to wait until the next day. That they wanted him and his Quiz Quiz companions to last. The cutting, beating, and burning would commence slowly. And only at the end—he had been assured—would they use clubs to smash his leg and arm bones.
Winder endured a fit of shivers and puffed out a weak breath, seeing it fog before the starry skies.
“Be strong,” Moccasin said in the square to Winder’s right. The warrior had kept repeating it to himself over and over. As if, through the mantra, he would actually believe it.
I wish I had such faith in myself.
In the second square over, Sky Star hung in silence, periodically gasping, as if in disbelief that once again he found himself in such a miserable circumstance.
It was always a possibility.
Winder smiled wistfully into the night and twisted his head against the burning ache in his shoulders. Flexing his thick muscles, he was able to ease the cramps in his legs, and hang. Thankfully, his numb arms couldn’t feel the ropes as they cut into the skin around his wrists.
What I would give to have someone step up and drive a stake through my chest and heart.
How long would it take before the end? Could he keep from screaming when they thrust a burning torch under his penis and testicles? Would he blubber and plead when they held his head and drove a thumb into his eye sockets, one by one, to pry out his eyes? Would he whimper when they sliced open his belly and reached in with a finger to pull out a length of living intestine?
I am a coward.
It was a sobering realization. Storms, the dangerous tricks and perils of the rivers, shiftless chiefs, and political intrigue had never scared him. He’d learned courage when he and Skull had slipped around the underside of Cahokia and survived.
It wasn’t death that he abhorred, but the manner of it. Face-to-face with horror, he now recoiled, his flesh tingling. A sickness of dread lay stone-like and cold in the pit of his gut.
A night bird called.
He craned his neck to the side to see the guard slumped against the bottom of Columella’s mound. Asleep. And looking so comfortable.
What time was it? The sun had gone down a lifetime ago, given the way time stretched.
He hung his head, concentrated on breathing. Allowing himself to hang, he wondered if he could let himself suffocate. If he could pass out, the pull on his chest would keep him from breathing. Death would come quickly, peacefully.
But each time he tried, a last-instant surge of panic caused him to start, shot energy into his legs, and brought him gasping and upright.
He wasn’t aware of when he faded, but somehow, head hanging, he nodded off into a half-dozing state, as if his souls were floating on a lake of pain.
The hand on his head caused him to jerk awake; a gob of cloth was thrust into his mouth as he opened it to scream.
“Shhh!” a low voice warned.
Winder blinked at the dark apparition before him. An inky presence in the night. No, several men. They carefully climbed up on the square, began working on the bindings.
When Winder came loose, he fell limply, the big man in front neatly catching him. The world whirled and pitched as he was tossed over the big man’s shoulders.
Earth and sky spun crazily as the air huffed in his lungs, pressed as they were with his gut over the man’s shoulder. He had a vision of his arms swinging limply with each stride, dark earth rising and falling. The world kept swinging from side-to-side, upside down as his head was.
He was carried quickly and silently across the plaza. South, toward the bluff trail.
Whatever you do, just kill me quickly. The thought repeated like a prayer between his panicked souls.
Again he lost track of time. Eventually his arms began prickling and aching with renewed circulation. Images of dark buildings against a starry, partly cloudy sky imprinted on his staggering consciousness. He was being carried out of Evening Star Town. He recognized the guardian posts as black silhouettes against the night.
The smell of the river came to him, and he shifted, mumbling against the gag in his mouth.
“Quiet,” the voice told him. “Don’t fight me. You can’t stand yet. Piss in a pot, I know. Takes about a finger of time before your limbs come back.”
“Skull?” he asked into the gag.
“If you’ll promise not to make a noise, I’ll take that out.”
“Yes,” he mouthed into the cloth.
Seven Skull Shield shifted his hold enough to yank the cloth free, then resumed his careful descent of the bluff trail that led down to Evening Star Town’s canoe landing.
“Why are you doing this? Don’t you know what they’ll do to you if they catch you?”
“Better than brothers,” Skull told him wistfully. “Remember all the times you stood up for me? The times you made sure I ate before you did? The beatings you took in an attempt to protect me?”
They had reached the landing with its ramadas, stands, and beached canoes. Water lapped against muddy shores, and the smell of the river reassured. The river was safety, escape. He’d always felt secure when in sight of the water.
From his perspective, hanging over Skull’s burly shoulder, Winder could see the dark shapes of canoes where they’d been drawn up beyond high water. A shadow moved in the night. Barely recognizable as a dog, it rose from one of the canoes. The whine of greeting was immediately shushed by Skull, followed by an order of, “Farts, quiet now!”
The dog complied, standing in the prow of a canoe, his tail wagging.
“They’ll kill you for this, you know,” Winder told him. “They’ll know it was you.”
“Yeah, probably.” Skull eased Winder off of his shoulders, artfully lowering him into the deep hull of a small canoe. “How are you feeling?”
“Like a thousand ants are eating my arms, but I can move them again. Won’t be long before I’m back to normal. Shove this thing out into the river and let’s be gone.”
“You’re going alone.”
“Skull, didn’t you hear a word I said? They’ll put you in that same square you took me out of.”
Seven Skull Shield lowered himself to the canoe’s gunwale, panting slightly from the exertion. “You’re not as light as you used to be.”
“You can’t stay here!”
“We’re not having this discussion again, are we? Fact is, this is my city. My people. And me, I’ll find some way to square it with the Keeper. I’ll probably end up owing her my body and soul, but that’s the price I’m willing to pay.”
“You really trust her? She’s a Four Winds—”
“She’s my friend.”
“You’re an idiot. She doesn’t have a reputation for friends, Skull. Just the opposite, in fact.”
“It’s not something that can be explained. Don’t worry about it. But you do know that you can’t come back. This is it. Cahokia is closed to you. Forever. That’s my price for setting you free.”
Winder winced as he worked his arms. From the feel of the muscles and joints, he knew that in the coming hands of time, they were really going to hurt. “I know.”
Skull reached out, taking Winder’s hand. “Then be well. Take care of yourself. You’ve got everything you’ve ever wanted: status, reputation,
wives scattered over half of the south, and wealth. Go lay with your wives and found dynasties. Play with your children. Teach them to be brave and smart. This was your warning call—that single opportunity and last chance Power gives a man. Heed it. It’s telling you ‘Don’t muck it up with foolishness.’”
“What about you, Skull? Do you have what you want? Where have all of your dreams gone? The woman you love Trades herself to any man who comes along. You have no home, no one but a dog for company. And you sure can’t place any faith in the Four Winds Clan—even if the Keeper was willing to speak for you. They’re as trustworthy as a basket full of water moccasins.”
Winder paused, then added, “Come with me.”
“It’s my city. I belong here.”
“It’s a miracle you’ve made it this long. They’ll kill you in the end, you know. War Duck will figure out who kicked over that pot that put out the fire, fouled up his plans the other night. Or you’ll get crossways with one of the others.”
“It’s a possibility.”
“Listen to yourself! You’re not one of them! You’re an orphan. Clanless. Not even human in their eyes. Even a dirt farmer has more status than you do. I’ll give you half of what’s mine. Think, man. I’m offering you a home, status. It will be like it was. Just you and me.” He reached out, pleading. “Piss in a pot, if you want a palace to live in, I’ll build you one. Just come away with me. Save yourself.”
For a long moment, Seven Skull Shield bowed his head in thought, then sighed. “Time only runs one way, old friend. We’ll always have what we had back then. We kept each other alive.” He waved around at the dark canoe landing. “Looks like we still do. But I’ve got to see how things play out here.”
“They’ll hang you in a square!”
“Yeah, probably. But until then, I’m going to play it for all that it’s worth.”
And as Seven Skull Shield said that, he pushed Winder’s canoe out into the river, adding, “Paddle’s down at your side, old friend. There’s food and water in the fabric sack. Give my love to the south!”
“You’re a fool,” Winder called as the current spun the dugout around.
“That’s what you told me last time you left,” Seven Skull Shield called back.
“You ever need anything on the lower rivers,” Winder told him as he fished for the paddle, “you look me up. I’m the best guide down there.”
To his relief, his strength, feeling, and dexterity had returned to the point he could grasp the paddle, swing it out, and point the canoe downstream.
When he looked back, Seven Skull Shield was a mere dark shadow on the bank. One that faded into black and disappeared.
Sixty-four
Night Shadow Star came awake in the darkness. As if she could sense the coming of dawn, she sat up and listened. The night birds and a few late-season insects could be heard in the surrounding trees. Out just beyond the hide lodge that Squadron First War Claw’s warriors had put up for her, the fire popped a couple of times. Someone was snoring not more than a pebble’s toss off to the side. The breeze faintly rustled the leaves surrounding the little glen.
She took a deep breath—smelled tanned leather, buffalo-wool blankets, and dew-damp earth. Pulling her cape around her shoulders, she yanked her skirt over her hips and tied it.
Before she could crawl to the door, Fire Cat had risen from the blankets where he slept guarding the entrance. “Lady? Is all well?”
“It’s…” She made a face. “Peaceful. I don’t understand.”
“Understand what?”
“I haven’t slept this well for nearly three moons now. The quiet in my souls. Something’s wrong.” And then she placed it. “The Tortoise Bundle. Not since the golden cavern and the battle…”
“Yes?”
“I was dying. I remember when it left me.”
“Why would it leave you? That makes no sense. Do you think it was the Morning Star? That he sent his agents, perhaps Five Fists, to steal it while you were in the Underworld?”
She shook her head, trying to remember. “One moment it was there, telling me I was weak and unworthy. And then … yes, I felt it go. I was … abandoned. A part of my souls empty.”
Fire Cat sighed, slumping back on his butt. “If you ask me, that’s a relief. It was tearing you apart. And if you will remember, when Lichen thrust it into your hands, she said it was only for a short time.”
“For the moment it has chosen you, daughter of the Underworld.”
But how long was a moment to an eons-old Spirit Bundle?
“We have to get back,” she told him. “Wake the others. Dawn is coming. I can’t stand not knowing. It’s as if I can sense…”
He frowned at her perplexed expression. “By Piasa’s balls, sense what?”
“In the emptiness the Tortoise Bundle left behind I sense intense pain and fear.”
Fire Cat didn’t hesitate. Leaping to his feet, he called, “Get everyone up. We’re heading out. My lady orders that we be in the canoes by dawn. At canoe landing by midday at the latest. Let’s move, people!”
She slowly stepped into the frosty morning, cocking her head toward the stars, seeing the constellation of Cosmic Spider high in the black sky, the three gleaming stars of the spider’s midriff gleaming.
Tell me this isn’t some new disaster!
But even as she thought it, an image formed in the eye of her souls: the niche in her personal quarters, and it was empty.
The Tortoise Bundle was gone.
Sixty-five
Seven Skull Shield stood in the cool darkness and watched Winder’s canoe fade into the night as the river bore it south and into the blackness.
He tilted his head back, taking a deep breath of the chilly air, thick and wet as it was with the scents of the river, of the landing, mud, and wet charcoal from old fires.
Farts stepped over and nuzzled his hand with an inquisitive nose, batting it this way and that. For the moment Seven Skull Shield could only wonder if the dog was urging him to steal a second canoe and drive off in pursuit.
A dark shape fluttered around above his head—one of the last bats of the season in search of whatever insects he might have drawn.
Seven Skull Shield smiled slightly, raising his voice and calling out, “Well, there you have it. He would have built me a palace. It would have been like old times. What do you think, Keeper, should I have gone?”
A dark head popped up from behind the large Trade canoe that sat canted on its side just up the bank. He could see other people shifting as they emerged from hiding, fanning out, aware that they had been discovered.
Blue Heron gasped, grunted in pain, and raised herself to her feet, hobbling out around the shadowed canoe’s bow. She shuffled carefully in the dark, making sure of her footing. Huddling under a blanket, she made her way to Seven Skull Shield’s side, stared out at the inky black waters swirling before them. On the distant shore, at the canoe landing, low fires marked Traders’ camps.
“How’d you know I was here?”
“Farts gave it away. Kept looking up your direction and wagging his tail. If it had been someone he didn’t know hiding behind that canoe he’d have stood at alert. Maybe growled. I just had to count off the people he likes—it only takes about three fingers—and I came up with you as the logical choice.”
“Bad calculating on his part. I don’t like your dog.”
“Then don’t tell him. He likes to maintain his delusions.” A pause. “You heard what Winder and I said?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know why I had to let him go.”
“Would he have kept his word? Given you all of those things … built you a palace? Made a home for you?”
“That’s the thing about Winder. And maybe me, too. When we were running wild as kids we didn’t have anything. No food, no home, no kin. Just rags for clothes. We only had each other and our word. That’s what got him in trouble here. He told the Quiz Quiz he could do the job they asked. When I made it all
go wrong, he just couldn’t quit. Since he couldn’t save himself, I had to do it for him.”
She stared at the river in silence, as if digesting his words. “You know, there will be questions. A price to be paid. I am no longer the Keeper. I’m just here on Rising Flame’s sufferance. I hope you figured that into your decision. If you didn’t, you might want to plop your body in one of these boats and head south after Winder.”
Seven Skull Shield reached down, flopping Farts’ ears back and forth. “What do you think, dog? There’s a price to be paid.”
“Don’t joke, thief. Winder was right about the Four Winds Clan. We are a nest of vipers. Rising Flame insisted that three hang—including your friend Winder. He was, after all, the smarts behind the trouble. He did abduct me from Columella’s plaza. Caused me considerable discomfort, even if he did stop Moccasin from beating me to death. He took me.”
“Um … I know. I’m sorry for that. On Winder’s behalf, I can tell you it wasn’t supposed to go so wrong. He hadn’t planned on me and Flat Stone Pipe.”
“I’m not joking, thief. Rising Flame will want your pus-dripping corpse hanging in that same square you and your thieves cut Winder down from. I’m no longer Keeper, and as to how much weight my pleas might have—”
“I’d say it would take quite a ransom to cover Winder’s life, wouldn’t you?”
“It would. And yes, I’ve told you that you could take anything you wished from my palace, but it will get out that you did so. I won’t be made a fool of. It’s too dangerous. And there’s more than just your hide at stake.”
“You’re right,” he agreed, ignoring the dog and crossing his arms against the chill. “It would have to be something symbolic, a ransom price that had real Power and prestige behind it. Something that made a statement.”
She tilted her head, studying him in the darkness. “If you’re thinking of stealing a couple dozen statues of Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies like you did last time, let me tell you—”
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