“Let them go,” Fire Cat returned, staring down at the terrified young warrior. “Something tells me they’d be more trouble than they’re worth.”
Meanwhile, the Trader stood rooted, a disbelieving look on his blocky face with its sideways-mashed nose. Now he reached up, ran anxious fingers along his jaw. “Good to see you again, Red Wing. I think.”
“Where’s Lady White Willow?” Fire Cat asked.
White Willow?
“That farce lasted only as far as Canyon Town,” the Trader said. “Not that I didn’t know all along. She’s not here. Left in the middle of the night. Said she had a Dream. Me? I should have known she’d pull something like this. Just didn’t think she’d try to skip away until we were closer.”
“Joara’s how far?” Fire Cat asked, still glaring down at the young warrior.
“F-full day’s run,” the young man stammered.
“Why are you here? Who sent you?” Fire Cat slapped his bloody war club into his palm.
“Lord Fire Light.”
“How did he know Night Shadow Star was coming?” Blood Talon wondered. “As hard as we’ve been traveling, it would have taken a falcon on the wing to beat us upriver.”
“It’s the witch!” the youth cried. “Lightning speaks to him. Gives him messages. He sees things in the pooled blood of infants. He asked my lord to send us here. We were supposed to find the lady, destroy the man who accompanied her, and bring her and her possessions back to Lightning Shell.”
“In return for what?” the big Trader demanded, stepping forward. His scarred fists were clenched, the kind of fists that had been damaged on too many human skulls.
“I don’t … Wait, something about a way for Fire Light to get back to Cahokia. Somehow the witch can fix it. Make it happen.”
“Long way from Cahokia to be making those kinds of promises,” Blood Talon mused.
The big Trader asked, “The witch responsible for sending that Casqui to abduct the lady back at Canyon Town?”
The young warrior gave a worried shrug. “I guess. He doesn’t exactly tell us everything. Not that we’d want to know. Do you know what it’s like? Living in Joara? Hearing the screams? We don’t sleep. None of us. And the lord, he’s half possessed, but he’ll do anything for a pardon. Especially now that his sister’s clan matron.”
“Well,” Fire Cat mused. “At least that news has made it this far.”
“What do we do with him?” the Trader asked, indicating the warrior.
Fire Cat glanced around. “Winder, Night Shadow Star’s on her way to Joara, right? Is that a safe assumption?”
“That’s where her brother is.”
“We’ll take her box and Trade, leave the rest.”
“What about him?” Winder asked. “He was sent here to murder me and the porters.”
“He’s carrying part of the load.” Fire Cat bent down, peering into the young warrior’s frightened eyes. “You understand, don’t you? The moment you’re any kind of a problem? If you’re not working your heart out? You’re as dead as they are.”
“Or worse,” Winder bellowed, bending down to glare into the young warrior’s face. “I won’t leave you dead, you weak-shafted little shit. I’ll leave you alive after I rip your balls off your body and shove them down your throat.”
Blood Talon, as a squadron first, figured he’d seen threats before. From the boiling anger blackening Winder’s face, this was a lot more of a promise.
“Let’s go,” Fire Cat barked. “We’ve got to get there before she can get herself killed.”
“She won’t just go rushing in, will she?” Blood Talon asked as he tried the dead warriors’ war clubs out, one by one, swinging them, checking the feel. He’d have liked the one with the greenstone celt set into the end, but the balance was wrong. He settled on a fire-cured hickory club with crosshatches engraved along its length.
“She did last time,” Fire Cat growled as he tossed items back into the box that the warrior had pulled out in his search.
“Not this time,” Winder said, packing his own things. “She’s been telling me that she needs time to plan. That he almost killed her last time.”
“Sounds like you’ve been talking to her a great deal, Trader. I would hope that talk is all you’ve been doing.”
Blood Talon lifted an eyebrow at the tone.
Winder pulled his pack strings tight, turned. “Not that I’d have minded doing a little more than talking, Red Wing. And not that I didn’t give it my best, but you and I had better get one thing set straight right here and now. You’re the luckiest pus-sucker alive. That woman loves you in a way I’ve never seen a woman love a man. Not even the way women love me. And if you ever muck it up for her by being an idiot, I’ll hunt you down and gleefully choke the life out of you.”
“You’re as bad as Seven Skull Shield.”
“Who? Skull? You think he’s tough? Compared to me, he’s cottonwood down on the wind.”
“What about these bodies?” Blood Talon asked.
“Might make people shy away from camping here in the future,” Winder noted. “Leaving them to rot right next to the water, pretty as this place is? That’s a bit rude.”
Fire Cat, practically vibrating to be after Night Shadow Star, hesitated. Blood Talon watched his face work. Then he snapped, “Yes, yes, let’s drag them out of here. Maybe down there, onto that rock outcrop. But nothing fancy.”
The look on the young warrior’s face, now that the immediate violence was over and he was helping drag the bodies of his friends, was a study in hatred, revulsion, and growing anger.
Wonder if it wouldn’t be smarter to just sneak up and smack him on the back of the head?
But carrying what they had would be strain enough. And they were already too far behind.
Eighty
Joara had been easy to find. The trails were deeply worn, the occasional farmsteads occupied by helpful people, some of whom spoke a smattering of the colonial tongue: Cahokian.
Just ask, “Joara?” And they’d point to the right trail.
The town itself was a crossroads located in the midst of a web of creeks that ran down from the eastern slope of the Blue Mountains. To the immediate west was the gap that led to Beautiful River and the Wide Fast. To the northwest lay a more precipitous pass through the mountains where a trail descended to one of the many headwaters of the Tenasee. East was, of course, Cofitachequi proper and the trail that led to the great Eastern Ocean.
Joara should have been bustling. The fields—all on fertile soil up and down the creek—were lush, the ears of corn full enough the locals should have been preparing for the Busk: the sacred Green Corn Ceremony. Instead of people preparing for games, fasting, ritual purification, and finally, the feast that would celebrate the relighting of the sacred fires and the cooking of the first green corn, the place was occupied by a few skinny dogs that wandered about the houses.
And of course, there was the palace on the east end of town atop its low mound.
Night Shadow Star had arrived just before dusk after a hard day’s travel, most of it done at a trot.
Rather than rush right in, she’d kept to the forest, eased from tree to tree, taking her time, learning the layout of the town.
As night fell, she slipped in among the buildings, finding ample cover. She prowled from house to house, finding many left as if the people had just walked away. One had a hunting bow still standing in the corner next to a quiver of arrows. Others had jars of tea, bowls of shelled corn, a pot of pitch, blankets and bedding untouched. Weaving on looms left as if the owner had stepped away for but a moment.
A whole town, abandoned.
From dark doorways she could survey the plaza. Watched as warriors—there appeared to only be five—loitered on the palace veranda. The chief—a Cahokian who wore North Star House designs on his apron—was a small man, wiry. Despite the darkness and distance, she immediately recognized the exiled Fire Light. Why would he be here? And since he was, what wa
s his deal with Walking Smoke?
Across from her, the Clan House couldn’t be missed given the flayed human skin hanging from a framework built of sticks standing out front. Two human skulls, missing the lower jaws, had been impaled upon poles at either corner of the building. An inverted elk skull was resting on its heavy rack of antlers, the bone white in the gathering night.
Her heart jumped a beat as she saw movement at the door. Watched the figure of a man emerge from the shadowed veranda.
“Yes!” Piasa’s harsh whisper sounded just behind her right ear.
She eased farther back into the darkness, letting the doorway mask her outline. A cool tingle of fear danced lightly through her as Walking Smoke stepped out, head cocked in that old inquisitive manner. Lightning flashed in the night, and Walking Smoke raised his hands, throwing his head back.
In another white flash, she could see the bent smile, realized something was wrong with the side of his face.
“I know you’re out there!” he called. “I can feel you! Like I felt you last night. You know. I had you by the waist. Held you tight. I was just about to drive my shaft all the way into that warm and soft sheath of yours!”
He laughed, almost cackled.
The warriors on the chief’s palace veranda had stepped out, watching in curious silence.
Night Shadow Star took a deep breath. Tried to still the pounding inside her. What kind of magic was that? Had he really been there?
Once again lightning flashed across the sky.
“I need you to come to me,” Walking Smoke called. “It’s this Power. Playing us. Sky Power, Underworld Power. They expect us to kill each other.”
He circled around, staring this way and that. “Where are you?”
Well, at least he wasn’t headed her way at a run. She shifted the copper-bitted ax. She’d shoved the slim hickory handle through the rope belted at her waist. Ensured it would be easy to rip free at a moment’s notice.
“Think about it,” Walking Smoke cried into the darkening night. “We’re gaming pieces. But what happens if we change the game? Underworld crossed with Sky World. Male and female. White and red. Brother and sister. Not just any brother and sister, but the most important ones in the world!”
She made a face.
“You want to end this?” He lifted his hands in the gloom. “Come to me, sister. What if instead of killing each other, we melted your Power into mine? You and me. In union. Our Power mixing, becoming stronger and stronger. Together.”
“You’re still a twisted and abhorrent excuse for a human being,” she whispered under her breath.
“I’ve just given you the key,” Walking Smoke bellowed. “The reason they fear us so much. The reason they want us to murder each other. The moment we merge our Power, we destroy them!”
The warriors in front of the palace looked uncomfortable as they shifted back and forth.
“I’ll be inside,” Walking Smoke told her. “I have roast meat and black drink on the fire. However you want to do this, I am ready. Let’s finish this once and for all.”
With that, he turned, walked back into the building, leaving the door open so that the glow from the fire inside could be seen.
Night Shadow Star sagged back into the darkness.
Now that she was here, faced with his madness, her courage had fled.
She dropped her face into her hands, wishing Fire Cat was with her. She’d always been brave when Fire Cat was at her side.
Remember? That’s who Piasa thinks is going to finish this.
“Just walk across the plaza. Walk in the door, and all I have to do is drive my ax through his skull.”
She flexed the muscles in her right arm, ran her fingers down them. She’d never been stronger. Day after day, she’d paddled, carried a pack, climbed up and down tortuous trails in mountain country.
Walking Smoke would have been here, playing the part of a witch. Lounging, eating well, being lazy. Of her two brothers, Walking Smoke had always been the one to take the easy route.
“He won’t be expecting my strength. My agility.”
“Come to me,” his words echoed in her memory.
And in that instant, a slow smile crossed her lips.
That’s what Walking Smoke, the Thunderers, and Piasa were counting on.
Eighty-one
Night was falling, and the trail, pointed out by the captive warrior, whose name was Field Snake, kept climbing, the way more treacherous as it wound along a ridge. Given the thick canopy of intermixed oaks, hickory, maples, beech, and the few giant isolated pines, there was no way to orient, barely enough sunlight through the occasional hole in the canopy to so much as get a hint of which way was which.
“Just a little farther,” Field Snake kept insisting. He was panting, sweat running down his hide, trickling down his back and skinny ribs. He’d done a solid job, Fire Cat thought. Pitching in, carrying his end of the box. And he’d insisted that taking this trail, across the ridge rather than down the creek to its confluence with Joara Creek and then back north, would save a couple of hands of time.
As the light was now fading, Fire Cat wondered. He could see the growing skepticism on Winder’s and Blood Talon’s faces as they labored up the steepening trail. The footing was tougher, and they had to clamber over roots, lift and snake the packs and Night Shadow Star’s box around the dangling vines.
“If this isn’t the right way…” Winder told Field Snake.
“Do you think I want to die?” Field Snake retorted. “If I lied, you’ll make my death miserable. So, yes, this is the short way. ’Cause the sooner we’re there, the sooner you’ll let me go.”
Which, Fire Cat, had to admit, was sound reasoning.
A half a hand of time later, with the light failing, he wasn’t so sure. Darkness came fast in the deep forest. The way was even steeper than before. They were clambering over outcrops of worn sandstone now, the roots and vines thicker.
The only sound was the call of the evening birds and the occasional late chattering of the squirrels.
At a steep ascent, the slope falling off at the edge of the trail, the gloom so deep it was almost dark, they slowed, Field Snake at the front.
Fire Cat didn’t see the details. Just the shadowy blur of motion. Field Snake set the box down, turned. Looked like he was moving a fallen branch out of the way. Bent as he was, slightly elevated on the trail, he put all of his body weight into the swing.
Winder barely had warning, but got an arm up. The section of awkwardly balanced branch skipped off his forearm, knocked him on the skull, and whistled off into the dark.
With that, Field Snake leaped off the trail, sliding and kicking his way down into the darkness.
Blood Talon went after him, crashing down through the leaf mat.
“Pus and blood!” Winder cried as Fire Cat leaned over him.
“Let me see.”
“Little pus-sucking maggot smacked me a good one. Piss in a pot, it’s bleeding like a throat-cut turkey.”
Down the slope more thrashing could be heard. Fire Cat peered over the side, seeing nothing but dark shadows.
Fire Cat made a pad from a square of cloth, used it as a compress to stanch the blood as the world around them turned from gloom to dark.
“Where are you?” Blood Talon called from below.
“Here,” Fire Cat bellowed, his rage building. “You find him?”
“Can’t find my spitting hand in front of my face!”
The thrashing of distant leaves could be heard.
“I think we’ve been tricked,” Winder muttered. “I’m hunting that little shit down and tearing him apart, slowly and surely.”
“Tricked in the worst way,” Fire Cat said through gritted teeth.
Somewhere out there, Night Shadow Star was on her own.
Eighty-two
Seven Skull Shield had to admit, Blue Heron had taken to her new circumstances with a great deal more aplomb than he had imagined she would. And, if ever a person�
��s circumstances were reversed, it was now. The woman beside him looked anything but like the onetime Four Winds Clan Keeper.
No, indeed, the Blue Heron walking down the avenue that separated Morning Star’s great mound from Night Shadow Star’s, the various society houses, and finally the mound upon which she used to live wore an old hemp-fabric skirt. A square flat-bark sun hat perched atop her gray locks, and a cape made of woven cedar bark hung on her shoulders. She bore a light load of sticks held together with a leather strap; the sort of kindling used to start fires.
For his part, Seven Skull Shield was fine in his usual hunting shirt, a rope belt around his waist with the pouches he favored for carrying this and that. That was the great thing about being Seven Skull Shield. He was used to looking like nine out of ten of the men he passed on the avenue.
Blue Heron stopped short at the base of her mound and looked up. The stairs—squared logs set into the ramp—still led up to the eagle-post guardians. But beyond that, there was nothing. No imposing roof rising toward the sere sky.
She took a step toward the stairs.
“Don’t,” Seven Skull Shield told her. “Put one foot on that step, and anyone watching will know you’re no dirt farmer come to Trade firewood. Such a thing would never cross a low-status woman’s mind.”
“You’re right, of course.” She continued to stare longingly up past the top of the staircase. “Word is that they found only one body, mostly charred, on the veranda just outside the door. Had to be Big Right. That rot-balled warrior told me he was ‘napping.’ Must have really hurt him if he didn’t wake up when they started the fire.”
“Good thing you sent everyone else away.”
She nodded thoughtfully, turned, eyes seeking the high bastion that stood on the southwest corner of Morning Star’s palisade.
Seven Skull Shield followed her gaze, saw the single figure who peered over the bastion’s clay-covered wall. Sunlight glinted on polished copper, shone through an eagle-feather splay on either shoulder. Only one person would be atop that bastion and dressed like that: Morning Star.
Star Path--People of Cahokia Page 47