“Not from here,” Made Man told her, pointing upriver. “Gets pretty swampy on their side. No, they’ll have to go back to get their canoe. We’ve just extended our lead.”
As Fire Cat clambered into the canoe, he said, “We won this one. But they’ve had a taste. They’ve seen their prey. That sort of thing? It really motivates a warrior.”
“They’ll keep coming,” Night Shadow Star said, pulling a thorn from her hand.
“Then we’d better be smarter as well as faster,” White Mat told her.
Fire Cat hoped the Trader wasn’t making an empty boast.
Twenty-six
Enraged, Blood Talon charged along the shore as one by one his muddy, frustrated warriors slowed and vented their anger at the disappearing canoe. When the excitement began, he’d been down at the river, filling a brownware pot with water to add to the corn gruel that bubbled on the fire.
A couple of the men, Three Bow and Whistle Hand, had taken their bows and slipped into the driftwood-and-willow tangle that had protected their camp from the chilly south wind. Their hopes had been to bag something for the pot, be it waterfowl, a raccoon, or best of all, a deer or turkey.
As the rest of his warriors rolled up their bedding, attended to their morning needs, and washed at the water’s edge, Blood Talon had poured his water into the stew, only to hear “Stop!” and “It’s them! Night Shadow Star! Hurry. This way, all of you!”
Chaos broke out. Nutcracker had charged headlong into the tangle of willows, old wood, and vines.
Additional shouts could be heard along with the ululating call of the hunt.
Blood Talon had grabbed for his weapons, among the last to claw his way into the screen of vegetation, battle his way through the mess of old driftwood, and stumble out of the willows onto the narrow beach.
In the heartbeat it took him to orient himself, it was to see a slender Trade canoe lancing its way parallel to the far bank, maybe a couple of bow shots away. Seven people, all bending their backs to the paddles, were driving the craft upstream at a quick clip.
His warriors were charging up the beach, some shooting, others howling with the thrill of the chase.
“You miserable fools!” Blood Talon roared. “You’ll never catch them this way.”
“They’ll have to cross at the next bend,” Wild Owl called back. “We’ll trap them against the current.”
Then the warrior was off and running, slogging through the muddy water, ducking around broken branches and deadfall that stuck out from the bank.
Blood Talon shook his head at the notion; surely the fugitives—if that really was Night Shadow Star and the Red Wing—wouldn’t just paddle into the arms of their pursuers.
But it might slow them down.
Was there a way?
He and his men were charging along the outside of the curve, splashing through shallows, clambering up the places where the fast current had undercut the bank. Tough going, but his warriors were in good shape. If they could make it that far, the river’s next loop would let them cut across the inside, maybe get far enough ahead … No, the quarry couldn’t be that stupid.
Even if they could get ahead, maybe enough to allow several of their warriors to swim across, cut off escape on the other bank …
But then, what was to keep the quarry from simply doubling back, fleeing downriver and leaving him and his men upstream? Not to mention far from their now-vulnerable canoe. Which was unguarded and sitting right there on the beach where Night Shadow Star and her people could push it out onto the water, put a couple of paddlers in it, and race it downriver on the current.
“Halt!” Blood Talon bellowed. “Now! All of you! Get back to the canoe. That’s an order!”
His party of warriors was strung out too far. Those closest to him slowed, looked back, and stopped. Fingering their bows, they shot uncertain glances at the distant canoe. It had beached on the opposite side, the occupants unloading.
To do what?
As soon as the rope was played out and the people on shore began towing the canoe against the current, Blood Talon cursed, kicked the water, and threw his hands up.
“Get back here. Pass it along. That’s a direct order!”
He could just see the last of his warriors disappear around the bend, gesturing, giving voice to their rage, shooting the occasional and totally fruitless arrow as the Traders’ towed canoe vanished around the far curve of the river.
“Back to camp! Now! And anyone who isn’t present after a finger’s time better not come back!”
Was that even Night Shadow Star and the Red Wing? Across the distance he thought he recognized the woman and her slave warrior. But he couldn’t be sure. They’d been wearing slip-over shirts, some kind of cloaks. Not the sort of dress a Cahokian lady from the Morning Star House of the Four Winds Clan would wear.
The woman who might have been Night Shadow Star had bent to the paddle as furiously as the rest of them. A woman of her status would never have allowed herself to participate in such a menial task. Even more, the woman he’d seen knew what she was doing. Plied that paddle like a seasoned river traveler.
He angrily kicked a stick of driftwood out of his way, sloshed back through the shallows, and worked himself into a rage as he finally made it back to the willow screen and forced his way through the tangle to his beach camp.
Just the sight of the canoe brought a swell of relief, and the corn gruel had cooked down in the meantime. It needed another pot of water. As he bent to get it, watched the water flowing into the brownware pot, he realized that he was right back where he started.
Only now—if that really had been them—they knew they were being hunted.
“Of all the stupid stunts to pull,” he growled.
“Thought we had them.” Nutcracker bit off the words the way he did when he was mad and frustrated. “They should have had to cross at the next bend of the river.”
In ones, twos, and threes, the rest of his warriors emerged from the tangle, all looking sheepish, mud-spattered, their skin scratched; and more to the point, the number of arrows in their quivers was considerably depleted.
They were all there now, trying to look busy with other things, avoiding his eyes as he filled the breakfast pot and set the brownware pot to the side.
“Someone tell me. Are you the same smart, canny, veteran warriors I knew up north? The ones who took Red Wing Town without a single loss? The ones who pacified the barbarian chiefs? Remember those warriors? Smart. Disciplined. Did any good sense you used to have up north vanish when you got back to Cahokia? Or just when you turned the bow of your canoe up the Tenasee? Is there something in the water that turned you all stupider than a rock?”
“We thought we had them.” Old Scar pulled at his earlobe, eyes on the distant horizon.
“Are you even sure that was Night Shadow Star? Huh? Did any of you really get a good look across the water? Did you recognize the Red Wing? I’ve stared the man in the face. Fought him. I wasn’t sure that any of those people were who you all think they are.”
“They ran,” Three Bow said in defense. “We called for them to stop, and they threw themselves into the paddles. If it wasn’t them, why would they run?”
“You don’t think that a party of men with strung bows who are pulling arrows out of their quivers might have that effect on a party of Traders? Who knows what the story is here? Maybe a couple of villages are at war.”
“The canoe was like the one that’s been described.” Nutcracker squatted before the gruel pot, used a ceramic cup to scoop up some of the contents. “Same number of people. Just like all the informants have said.”
Blood Talon laced all the sarcasm he could into his voice. “Ah! Good! So, there’s only one canoe on this entire length of river that has seven people in it and is headed upriver. That just made my life so much easier. From here on, when we encounter a canoe, we just need to count. When we have seven, that’s them. Grab them, take them back to Spotted Wrist, and be heroes.”
>
Nutcracker chugged down the hot gruel, ordering the rest, “Come on. Fill your bellies. Then get the canoe packed. If that was them, they know we’re behind them. It’s just going to make the hunt that much harder, longer, and more difficult.”
“Do as the second commands.” Blood Talon stood. “From here on out, I don’t want to hear a word of complaint. No matter how long it takes, just think back to this morning and how you had a chance to nab them without a fight.”
Assuming it really was them.
But even as he considered the question, Blood Talon just had that feeling. Like a tickle along the spine. True, he hadn’t been close enough to get a good look at that warrior—and just how did he know he was a warrior?— or the woman. No, they weren’t dressed as Cahokians, let alone nobles. And yes, the woman was paddling as hard as the rest, but both of the women in that canoe had had their hair in braids. A Cahokian noble would wear her hair up. The women he’d seen wore common garments.
But this was Night Shadow Star.
Blood Talon had helped to capture the Red Wing with the understanding that Night Shadow Star could torture him to death, and instead she’d taken him into her bed. She’d been born to a Sky clan, and now served Piasa. Rising Flame had ordered her to marry Spotted Wrist, and she’d ignored it. She was supposed to be in charge of the Cofitachequi expedition, and she’d run off with Traders.
Given all that, why was he surprised she was acting like a common-born Trader? Since when had she ever done anything the way she was supposed to?
“Let’s move, people. Something tells me this just got a whole lot more difficult.”
Twenty-seven
The first time Matron Slender Fox had made love with her brother, Sliding Ice, had been when they were children. She had been nine, and Sliding Ice was just turned eleven. It had started because they’d hidden under one of the beds as part of a game, only to hear two of the household slaves, Slip Fish and Fern Flower, sneak into the room. The two adults had frantically stripped off their clothing, leaped onto the bed, and Slip Fish had driven himself into Fern Flower with a vigor that strained the leather strapping and had the bed’s pole frame creaking. The event ended in a chorus of delighted yips and barely stifled squeals.
After the slaves had left, Sliding Ice had turned to her, saying, “I wonder what that’s like. She sounded like I’ve never heard a woman sound.”
“And he kept whispering, ‘Yes, yes,’ over and over.”
“Must be wonderful. I can’t wait to try it.”
“We could, you know. Try it. Just to see. We’re going to have to learn how sometime. You heard War Leader Black Stick. How he made fun of Tied Root. Said he couldn’t pleasure a woman if he had a thousand years to learn. Well, you wouldn’t want that, would you?”
“You could tell me what made you feel good.” Sliding Ice had frowned. “And it’s not like we’re lowly Earth Clan or dirt farmers. We’re Four Winds Clan. Nobles. I don’t want people to make fun of me just because I don’t know how to pleasure a woman.”
“A woman needs skill, too, you know. Someday I’m going to be high matron. I should know what’s good and what isn’t.”
Besides, Slender Fox had always found a certain excitement in the forbidden. And somehow, over the years, on rare occasions when she was feeling particularly frustrated, stressed, or just felt the physical need, she would arrange to have the palace empty. What she and Sliding Ice did on those nights wasn’t love, but a physical release that still carried the added excitement of being forbidden.
Sliding Ice had indeed become expert at coaxing pleasure out of a woman’s body, and she suspected that he kept a little extra in reserve just because it was her. In the end, he knew her needs in ways no other man ever had or would.
That night he had taken her from orgasm to orgasm. The warm and tingling glow was fading from her pelvis, thighs, and lower back as he slumped onto her body, breath shuddering in and out of his lungs. “How’s that?”
“Never better, brother. No wonder White Phlox doesn’t want you taking a second wife. She’s probably afraid the word would get out, and you’d have a line at the door to your personal quarters.”
Craning her head, she thought she heard a dog lapping water. Then wind in the thatch overhead drowned the noise. Couldn’t have been. She’d personally secured the great room door and latched it with a thong. Anyone trying to enter the palace would have given her and Sliding Ice plenty of warning.
“All these years, I’ve wondered why this was forbidden.” She wrapped a lock of his hair around her finger. “Coupling as brother and sister is supposed to result in evil Spirit-infested children with deformities. That man Jenis, the Ilini, remember him? He planted that child in his own daughter, and when the baby was born she looked normal enough.”
“She was only three when Jenis was found out and they burned the girl alive. Maybe the evil hadn’t had time to manifest itself. And don’t forget Tharon. You know the stories about all those monsters he sired. And that’s why we don’t ever want to get found out. If anyone so much as suspected—”
“Too late,” a voice announced in the darkness.
Before Sliding Ice could scramble off her, a heavy weight landed atop them, driving the breath from her lungs. Sliding Ice bucked, grunted, crying out, only to receive a hard cuff to the head. The impact of it banged Sliding Ice’s skull against hers. Hard enough that lights flashed behind her eyes.
By the time she could fill her lungs, a couple of loops of thick rope had been wound around their bodies, locking them together, binding them to the bed frame.
“Who are you?” Sliding Ice cried, half panicked as he thrashed against the bindings. All he succeeded in doing was to hurt her.
“Stop it!” she ordered. “Hold still.”
Looking up past her brother’s head, Slender Fox could only make out the dark shadow of a man. He loomed above them, staring down. When Sliding Ice tried to slither forward, the intruder made a tsking sound with his lips.
“I wouldn’t do that. No, you stay right there. Seriously, there are a great many worse places to be than naked against a beautiful woman’s body. And your sister? There’s not a man in Cahokia wouldn’t mind being bound up tight with her. Especially after a session like you two just had.”
“What do you want?” Slender Fox asked in her hardest voice. The paralyzing flood of fear was being replaced by the first fingers of panic.
“Who, me? I want all kinds of things. It took a good friend of mine to finally figure it out. She says I can’t live without having a challenge. That I need the excitement. Like tonight. Sneaking in here like this. See, it’s kind of a gamble.”
“You know who we are?” Sliding Ice demanded indignantly.
“Sure. You’re Lord Sliding Ice, who’s punching his shaft into Matron Slender Fox’s ever-voracious sheath. Daring of you, given the penalty for such doings with one’s own sister.”
“You know what’s going to happen when we catch you?” Slender Fox asked in her most calculating tone. Who was this man? Why couldn’t she place his voice?
“That’s the gamble part. Suppose someone comes back? Wanders in the door. I’m betting I can get out of here, disappear, before they can get you untied and you can call out the guards to run me down. But then, that leaves you with the problem of having to explain why you’re both naked, tied up in Slender Fox’s bed the way you are, and smelling the way you do. Wonder what clever explanation you’ll try and concoct.”
The panic was now steady and enveloping as it rushed through Slender Fox’s body. “I asked you what you wanted. Why are you here? Why are you doing this? Surely we can come to some sort of agreement.”
The man’s long silence just added to her terror. If she were discovered thus, it would be all over. There had to be something she could do to—
“You’ve got corn, right? Storehouses with dried squash? Baskets full of goosefoot seeds? Those big sacks of dried beans?”
“You want a storehouse fu
ll of food?” Sliding Ice muttered incredulously. “For yourself?”
“Well, no, not for myself.”
At that juncture, the sound of the door opening into the front room sent ice into Slender Fox’s veins. Someone was coming. Out in the great room she heard one of the cooking pots rattle as it was knocked against its neighbor. Then came the sound of slurping again. Most definitely a dog.
“You got ’em?” a voice asked in the dark.
“Sort of bound them up like fish in a net. Say, that’s an idea. We could wrap them in a net, drop them just like this on the Grand Staircase on Morning Star’s mound. Be a little cold, but they could huddle together for warmth. Should have seen how they were staying warm when I got here. Very athletic. But with lots of gasping, moaning, and frantic breathing.”
“No, thanks. I never was much into watching.”
That voice, old, female, slightly slurred from missing teeth. Something about it …
Then the old woman’s dark form was leaning over the bed. “What do you say, Matron? Do we opt for the net? Or just wait until Wolverine, maybe the household staff, comes back? Your choice.”
“I will burn you alive for this!” She let the rage loose, using threat and bluster as a tonic for desperation.
“You have a choice. Order your storehouses emptied and sent to Evening Star Town to compensate them for what they donated to supply the expedition, or within the next hand of time, you and Sliding Ice are going to find yourselves the center of most unwelcome attention.”
“I’ll kill you!” Sliding Ice bellowed in his impotence.
Slender Fox clamped her eyes closed. Pus-rotted gods! It had been her hope that Columella would be deposed over the donation of those stores. Now she found herself caught against her brother’s trembling body, still wet with their combined fluids.
“How do I know that … that…”
“That I won’t betray your secret?”
Slender Fox waited, the sensation like that of knowing a terrible weight was about to come hurtling down from the heights to crush her.
Star Path--People of Cahokia Page 16