Star Path--People of Cahokia

by W. Michael Gear

  Blood Talon made a face, flinched at the bruises on his lips and cheekbones where they’d beat him. “I serve my war leader.”

  “Ah yes, the noble Spotted Wrist. In line for the chieftainship of North Star House. Now he’s the Four Winds Clan Keeper, a rising star. And here you are, halfway across the world, your canoe gone, your warriors drowned, and the one man in life whom you could really call your enemy has plucked you from the hands of barbarians. Two-footed vermin who were going to torture you for as long as you held out.” Fire Cat frowned. “What was that all about? Did you ever really get the gist of why they wanted to burn you alive?”

  “Part of a burial ritual, I think. And something to do with being Cahokian. I think they wanted to send my soul to their afterlife to serve their dead. Some kind of funeral for a bunch of people killed by a falling tree.”

  “Poor choice on their part. You’d have made a pitiful and nasty servant. You don’t have the qualities of soul required.”

  Blood Talon snorted a laugh, immediately regretted it as it pulled his bruised ribs and burned skin.

  “I suppose you’ll tell me all my failings now?”

  “I suspect that you already know them, Squadron First.”

  “Where’s the Lady Night Shadow Star?”

  “Somewhere upriver, traveling with a Trader. Instead of spending every spare moment trying to catch up, I find myself tending my enemy’s wounds and asking myself why.”

  Blood Talon tried to read the thoughts behind that implacable face. “You could go on. I’m all right on my own.”

  Fire Cat studied him for a moment. “We’ll reach White Chief Town by midday tomorrow, sooner if you can find the strength to paddle. Word along the river is that it’s a neutral town. Some sort of Power of Trade rules there. Everyone respects the peace. You’ll be safe. Can take the time to heal, broker some sort of deal with a Trader to carry you back to a Cahokian colony. From there they can see to getting you back to your war leader.”

  “That’s a problem.”

  “How’s that?”

  “The war leader told me not to come back unless I had the Lady Night Shadow Star in my company, safe and sound for marriage.”

  “Then I guess you’re just running from one bit of bad luck to the next. I’m leaving you in White Chief Town, and, to be honest, if I find you on my backtrail again, I’ll finish what those barbarians back there started.”

  Blood Talon nodded, stared out at the night-shadowed river. “Why didn’t you kill me that day? You knew it was a trick, challenging you to train like that.”

  “I came close, Squadron First. So very close. But I didn’t know who was playing which of us for what advantage. I assumed it was Spotted Wrist and Rising Flame who wove that little scheme together. And when it comes to Cahokian politics, you have to think several layers deeper than the obvious. So, whoever planned it, or permitted it, was fit to gain one way or the other. If you killed me, they figured Night Shadow Star would fold and marry that overbloated weasel. An error on their part, by the way. My lady isn’t the same delicate flower she was when Makes Three died.

  “The other way, if I killed you, would have also given them some advantage. Maybe it would have been some claim against Night Shadow Star? Maybe it would have been justification for your men to swarm me, murder me in their outrage and grief. What no one counted on was that both of us would come out of that alive. Least of all me, and with my honor intact.”

  “Do you always think so far ahead?”

  “If I did, I’d have left you to those barbarians. Given that—wounded as you are—a ten-year-old girl could paddle with more vigor than you do, and realizing that you might still stab me in the back, I’m thinking I’m not nearly as smart as you seem to think I am.”

  Blood Talon fought his urge to laugh again. “I am many things, Red Wing. One thing I am not is ungrateful. If someone sticks a deer-bone stiletto into your back, it won’t be me. And, for so long as I stand behind you drawing breath, no one else will either. Upon that, I give you my word as a Snapping Turtle Clan warrior and squadron leader.”

  “Accepted.”

  Fire Cat resealed the small pot of grease, handed it over to Blood Talon. “I suspect you’ll need that a lot more than I will.”

  “How did you do that? Just Trade that catfish in the last village? Where did you learn that? I’d have thought you’d been Trading all your life.”

  “You might give it a try sometime, Squadron First. Trading rather than taking. You might learn a great deal about the world and the people in it.”

  And with that Fire Cat turned away to throw another stick of wood onto the fire before digging himself a hollow in the sand to sleep in.

  Blood Talon stared thoughtfully at the man, tried to come to grips with his own situation. This man was his enemy. Still an unreconstructed heretic. Somewhere in the future—assuming they ever got home—he would be called on to kill Fire Cat.

  And when that day comes…?

  Fifty-seven

  Life in the cage had turned from dull misery to outright torture. Where the bindings restricted the blood flow, Seven Skull Shield’s hands had swollen. Looked terrible. The ache in his back and legs just got worse. He couldn’t sleep. At best he could take catnaps, at least until something went numb and he toppled forward, which jerked his arms painfully backward and strained his shoulders.

  Unable to stand straight, every muscle in his back, shoulders, and neck pulsed with pain. His captors never gave him enough to drink, leaving him in a constant state of thirst; his hunger was barely cut by the few morsels they passed through the bars.

  Worse, naked and restrained as he was, he had no ability to protect himself when the warriors “entertained” themselves. The constant baiting with pointed sticks, burning brands, and the occasional strike from a war club continued. His skin was scabbed, burns untended. So far, he’d been able to keep them from poking out one of his eyes by twisting his head away. But losing strength as he was, groggy as he was getting, the day would come when he didn’t see the stick coming as it speared for his eye.

  Worst of all—because of the way the cage was constructed—the warriors could swing a club through the bars. The blows to his head, shoulders, knees, and elbows were bad enough, but one clever warrior had figured out how to aim an uppercut from down low. If Seven Skull Shield didn’t hunch and twist just right, the stone-headed club would hammer into his genitals. His unusual endowment was already a source of amusement and ribald jests; the warriors now made Seven Skull Shield’s privates their favorite target of abuse. Each successful blow to his swollen and bruised penis and testicles brought tears to Seven Skull Shield’s eyes.

  Night had become his only limited refuge. During those few hours his tormentors were asleep. He could allow himself the sanctuary of Dreams. In them, he was a boy, slipping through the back ways with Winder, his empty stomach his only concern.

  Or he would once again be sneaking carefully into some lesser noble’s palace, tiptoeing past the sleeping chief to reach out and remove some precious statue, a well-crafted bowl, or a remarkably woven blanket from its place of honor. The sleepers still undisturbed, he would pick his way through the great room, past the household staff, careful to drop the occasional morsel of food to the household dogs. That was the thing about dogs. It took time and stealth, but with food they could always be turned into allies.

  Then came the Trade down at the canoe landing. His stolen goods—worth a fortune in the south—would earn him the kind of wealth that kept him in food, drink, and enjoyment for days.

  But most of all, he Dreamed of Wooden Doll. Not so much of the magic their bodies made when they were locked together, but of later when they lay with their limbs entangled, arms around each other, talking, laughing. In the Dream, her eyes expanded, became dark pools that sucked him in. Adrift in the depth, he sank into her, floated down into her soul to a place where he was warm, safe, and beloved.

  Which was about the point at which he’d start
to topple over, the short tether pulling his arms painfully behind him. Jerking awake, he’d pull his shoulders half out of their sockets, struggle to find his balance. By then his legs, cramped beneath him, would be numb from restricted circulation.

  The fading memory of Wooden Doll’s eyes would shift into Willow Blossom’s. Her soft delight, that eager smile that he’d thought was just for him would hang in the back of his souls, mocking, taunting, torturing him.

  I loved her.

  In the end, the question was always left for him to ponder: How had she taken him in so completely?

  “Was I really that much of a fool?”

  But the dark palace beyond his cramped cage gave him no answer. At least, not until morning when the warriors would arise, begin cooking their breakfast, the odors of simmering stew teasing his growling, empty stomach. The knot of thirst tight and desperate in this throat.

  He’d lost track of the days since his capture. Time had turned into an eternity of pain. The pain, now a constant, had numbed his soul, drained his senses, weakened him to the point that tears came unbidden and heedless of the moisture they wasted to the air.

  “So, there he is.” The contralto voice intruded on Seven Skull Shield’s wheeling thoughts.

  He blinked, looked up to see Clan Matron Rising Flame staring down at him. Beside her stood Spotted Wrist, resplendent in a bloodred cloak, his hair in a high bun pinned with a polished copper headpiece. The man’s beaded forelock hung down over his forehead. The sharp eyes were mocking, disdainful.

  “There he is. In his proper place at last.”

  “What could Night Shadow Star have been thinking? Asking this creature to act as her agent? I’ve had people check. She really did leave this bit of trash in charge of her palace.”

  “Matron, you’ve got to understand. That whole line of Black Tail’s lineage is possessed and insane. If Chunkey Boy hadn’t been consumed by the Morning Star’s Spirit, he’d have become another Tharon. And we all know what kind of monster Walking Smoke turned out to be. Night Shadow Star, in her own way, is just as possessed and incomprehensible. Unlike her brothers, she may not have been evil, but she’s always been disruptive. Never understood her place.”

  “She was a wild thing when she was a girl.”

  “Played chunkey, shot a bow, wrestled like she was just another boy. Failed to act responsibly like a proper female should. For a while her father feared she’d run off to be a warrior, as much as she favored her bow.”

  “Knowing all that, and you still want to marry her?”

  “It’s not like taking her to my bed would have been an act of undying love or done without full knowledge of the trouble she was capable of causing me. All I needed was her name and to have shot my seed into her sheath. After that, a wife’s been made a wife. Doesn’t matter what happens later. By keeping track of her woman’s flux during those first months, I would have ensured I bedded her during her heat. Once a child is planted in her … Well, if she ever comes back, we’ll see. Until then, she might have humiliated me, but she’s also out of sight and out of mind for the majority of the dirt farmers and Earth Clans who’d care.”

  Rising Flame bent down, her curious gaze on Seven Skull Shield. “What? No witty comeback? Interesting, isn’t it? You always wanted to be front and center in Four Winds politics. Now look, here you are, living in the Keeper’s palace. Which, when I think about it, has always been your ultimate goal.”

  “Not mine,” Seven Skull Shield rasped. “Piasa’s. He sent Blue Heron after me way back when.”

  “Then let me guess.” Rising Flame arched an eyebrow. “You just couldn’t ever get away. Figured you were on a mission blessed by Power. You, a clanless orphan. Oh, I know all about you after that charade with the Quiz Quiz War Medicine last year. You might have bought your way out of a square, but I think your time has run out.”

  “Did you really think you could be one of us?” Spotted Wrist asked.

  “What could have possibly possessed you?” Rising Flame asked.

  Seven Skull Shield gave her a saucy grin through his bruised and swollen lips. “Don’t think you’d understand. It’s a bit beyond your experience. Something you’ve never known.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Friendship.”

  “I’ve had plenty of friends.”

  “Good as you are with that lie, you’ve been telling it to yourself for years.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  The quick way she said it made Seven Skull Shield’s smile widen until it opened a crack in his lower lip. “Sure, Clan Matron. Out of respect, the war leader here and I will nod, wink at each other, and let you keep that mask front and center for the rest of the world to see.”

  “Impudent bit of maggot puke, isn’t he?” Spotted Wrist noted, crossing his thick arms.

  But Rising Flame was watching him, eyes thoughtful, her souls apparently considering something.

  She said, “Where are your friends now, thief?”

  “Doing just what I’d want them to.”

  “And that is?”

  Seven Skull Shield chuckled. “Too bad you don’t have a competent Clan Keeper. But then, I suspect he would just as soon forget about that stolen Koroa copper, wouldn’t you, Keeper?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Seven Skull Shield shot another grin at the woman. “The day will come when you really need to remember he said that.”

  Rising Flame waved Spotted Wrist’s protest down. “The Morning Star was embarrassed. Had to send additional copper to the Koroa embassy. Bigger pieces, of even greater value. What would a common thief like you know about it?”

  Seven Skull Shield shrugged, ignoring Spotted Wrist’s building anger. “Common thieves hear about uncommon thieves all the time. Famous people get noticed when they’re skulking around.”

  “Are you insinuating that I had anything to do with the theft of that copper?” Spotted Wrist’s face had turned an angry shade of red, his eyes almost popping from his face. “Guards! Beat this piece of walking vomit until he understands his place.”

  Seven Skull Shield caught that crafty glint as Rising Flame gave the war leader a new and calculating appraisal.

  As the Keeper’s warriors came trotting across the room, war clubs in hand, anticipation in their eyes, Seven Skull Shield chuckled to himself.

  This was really going to hurt, but he’d just planted a weed in the new Keeper’s garden.

  I wonder if I’ll live long enough to see it flower?

  Fifty-eight

  The River Trail, clinging as it did to the steep slopes, crossing creeks, winding over boulders, and around the boles of giant trees, ran from White Chief Town to Canyon Town. Making the passage took Night Shadow Star and Winder two hard days.

  For Night Shadow Star, the trail came as a revelation. She’d never known such country. She’d thought the sight of whitewater back at the Mussel Shallows a remarkable vista, but it paled in comparison to the stunning canyon through which she now climbed, scrambled, and ascended. The smells of the forest, the roar of the river below, and the fantastic heights rising around her were magical, especially given her limited Cahokian upbringing.

  Night Shadow Star was delighted that—scoundrel that he might be—Winder knew what he was doing. She’d thought the number of porters he’d Traded for had been excessive, perhaps hired out of pique for her stinging words during the catfish supper.

  Turned out every man was needed on the rough trail that paralleled the Tenasee. Just below them the river thundered, roared, and crashed through the narrows, only to run smooth for a short distance before the next cataract turned it wild.

  The Rage was aptly named: a section of tortuous whitewater that seemed impossible to equate with the same placid Tenasee she and Fire Cat had paddled up. And then the Suck, a swirling and awe-inspiring whirlpool where the river dropped between great stony outcrops and literally twisted around itself. She could believe that the Spirit of an evil c
hief was entombed there, and his anger remained manifest in the roiling depths.

  They camped that night at sunset. Ate cold food for supper and breakfast and were on the trail again as the morning broke at false dawn.

  She wondered if Winder wasn’t punishing her, pushing to see just where her breaking point would be. As though trying to expose her as some sort of fraud.

  Doggedly, though her legs ached and her feet hurt, she kept to the trail. When fatigue’s painful fingers began to eat into her muscles, tendons, and bones, she forced herself to look up, to marvel at the steep-sided canyon. How, she wondered, did the oak, hickory, and maples cling to such places? Where the forest couldn’t find root, the outcrops of exposed bedrock—the bones of the mountains—were weather-rounded, glistening, gray in the light.

  She inhaled the rich scents of the forest, admired the thousands of wildflowers that lined the grass-thick sides of the trail. Let herself drift in a world she’d never have dreamed existed.

  And longed for Fire Cat.

  Time after time she would glance back along the trail, almost desperate to see his muscular form trotting effortlessly over the tricky footing. That smile would be on his face, the subtle humor in his eyes.

  Piasa has promised. Walking Smoke for Fire Cat.

  Fire Cat himself had promised: “I will meet you in Cofitachequi.”

  Instead the only people she saw were locals, or the occasional Trade party. Either Winder or the approaching Trader would—depending upon the trail circumstances—yield the way, allowing passage on the precarious sections. She’d never seen such amicable greetings called between strangers, as if they shared some common bond on the tenuous trail. But pass they did, each porter bent under the load of his pack, his or her bare brown feet seeking purchase in the dark soil or among the thick roots or rough stones that laced the way.