People of the Morning Star (12 page)

“And if we don’t by summer solstice, we should send a party to discover their fate,” Red Warrior said pensively. He’d thought the Morning Star half-mad when he ordered the massive expedition to colonize the far side of the eastern mountains. He’d known little about the country, other than it was said by Traders to be a fertile plain drained by great rivers that ran down to swampland and finally the eastern ocean.

“Next,” he called.

The guard admitted a mud-spattered runner. The young man, wearing nothing more than a breechcloth and holding the painted rod of office that allowed him to pass, dropped respectfully on his belly, face down to the matting.

“Rise,” Matron Wind ordered. “What news?”

He never raised his head. “Great Sky, the Red Wing Clan captives will land at River Mound City this afternoon. I am sent to ask what disposition to make of the prisoners.”

Tonka’tzi
Red Warrior fingered his chin and leaned forward in his litter. “They are to be bound to poles and carried here straightaway.” Turning, he asked, “Dead Bird? Inform the Morning Star. See to the construction of squares.” He turned back to the runner. “How many of them?”

“Four,
Tonka’tzi
. Three women including the matron and two of her daughters. One man. The war chief, Fire Cat.”

Red Warrior grunted to himself. Red Wing town had been a constant thorn in his side: a reminder of the great wars before the resurrection of Morning Star. Worse, the place had been a weeping pustule of heresy. Not only had the leaders and people of Red Wing town scoffed at the resurrection, but they’d incited the wild northern tribes against Cahokia. Red Wing squadrons had even joined the forest tribes in the raiding of Cahokian colonies along the northern frontier.

“And the town itself?” Matron Wind asked.

“Completely ours, Matron. Spotted Wrist executed everyone he captured who belonged to Red Wing Clan. The bodies of the heretics were then cut into pieces and thrown into the river as an offering to the Spirit Beings of the Underworld. The war chief immediately burned the old temple to purify the taint. A new layer of earth will cover the old, and he will engage the surviving townspeople in the construction of a new temple to Morning Star. Those members of the Four Winds Clan who accompanied him have already been installed as rulers.”

Red Warrior exhaled in relief and allowed himself to share a victorious glance with his sister. “Very well. Do you need anything else?”

“No,
Tonka’tzi
.”

“Then take this vigorous young messenger, reward him with food and drink, and be about your duties.”

“Yes,
Tonka’tzi
.” Dead Bird stepped forward, touched his forehead in respect, and led the messenger out.

“Who’s next?”

“A delegation from the High Sun Chief of the Yellow Star nation,
Tonka’tzi
. The Supreme Sun, the Kadohadacho of
Kadadokies
tribe, sends his sister’s son, the
Amayxoya
Frantic Lightning Mankiller, bearing gifts and the good wishes of the Yellow Star nation. The official reception will be in the next quarter moon with all the appropriate ceremony and feasting. The noble Frantic Lightning has requested a more informal meeting
Tonka-tzi.
One without so many hungry ears.”

“Has black drink been prepared?”

“Yes,
Tonka’tzi.
”

“Well, send him in.” He was always curious what the Caddo were cooking up down in the southwest. Whatever they wanted would fill in the hours until he could wander down and inflict a little misery on the Red Wing captives. Payback for what the heretics had dished out over the years. Would this Fire Cat be the terrible and resourceful warrior he’d been reputed to be?

By the Piasa, after what he did to Makes Three, I for one, will be glad to see him bleed.

And perhaps Night Shadow Star could balance her debilitating grief with the red Power of vengeance as she gutted the man. Anything to get back the once-clever woman who’d been so thoroughly destroyed by Makes Three’s death.

Seven

“Be brave, my son,” Fire Cat’s mother called as they were lifted, gasping in pain, from the war canoe. The sleek craft had been pulled up on the sand among a thousand others. Across the roiling surface of the great Father Water, and atop the high bluffs, he could see a huge and magnificent city.

“That’s Cahokia?” he wondered, puzzled that they were on the wrong side of the river.

His head rang as he was slapped hard by one of the Cahokian warriors. “Idiot, that’s Evening Star town. You’ll see Cahokia soon enough … but I don’t think you’re going to enjoy it.”

His sisters wept as they were lashed to long poles cut from saplings. Then he, too, was dumped on his side in the filthy sand and bound to a slim carry pole.

“Not Mother, no.” He winced as his mother, Matron Red Wing, was similarly bound; her disheveled gray hair hung loosely. The expression on her face spoke of abject misery.

“Power has abandoned you, you piece of sweating filth,” one of the warrior remarked callously. “You’re going to your death hung like deer. The squares are waiting. If you’ve got any guts left, perhaps you’d better suck them up.”

Somehow, by marshalling all of his courage, Fire Cat kept from screaming as four warriors laid hold of his pole and lifted. His weight sought to pull his shoulders out of socket.

Both of his sisters shrieked like gutted puppies as they were lifted unceremoniously. Mother just whimpered, and the growing crowd who’d assembled laughed, jeered, and called insults.

Fire Cat barely caught a glimpse of their faces, his own agony taking precedence.

The journey to Cahokia took a long day; the burly warriors who bore his bouncing body on the pole traded off as they jogged along. The entire distance people ran up, spitting on Fire Cat, his mother, and sisters. They were pelted with feces, fish guts, garbage, and even had pots of urine dumped on them. Occasionally one of the warriors would roar, lashing out when someone grew careless with his aim.

“Heretics!” “Animals!” “Filthy foreign trash!” Insults were called as they passed. The escorting warriors did little to stop the abuse, only admonishing the crowd against the use of clubs or fishing spears.

Along that entire distance the broad trail never left sight of farmsteads, temples, palaces, and granaries. The sheer number of people they encountered, or who stopped to watch the last of the Red Wing Clan pass, shocked and amazed him.

Were all the people in the world in Cahokia?

Periodically he heard his sisters sobbing and pleading, but for the most part, he kept his jaws locked as filth trickled down his flesh. His throat was parched from thirst, his last drink having been the night before on the canoe. The agony of hanging, and the tight straps eating into his wrists and knees, left him delirious. If he managed to relax, his head bounced, almost popping his neck. The stench of the excrement dripping from his skin burned in his nose.

Can there be any pain worse than this?

And if there was, how could a living body stand it? But he’d seen it, inflicted it himself when he tied captives in the square.

And now it shall be my turn.

Somehow, he had to endure, had to grit his teeth and not scream as they burned his penis and testicles from his body. Not whimper as they cut bits of skin away and poured boiling hickory oil on the raw muscle beneath. Could he keep from shrieking as they pulled his eyes from his head? Could he die with the stoic courage a Red Wing war chief should?

Mercifully he passed out for part of the way, only waking groggily as his body slammed on the ground, the impact of his head on hard clay shooting lights behind his eyelids.

He blinked, asked, “Who? What?” as the warriors untied him. He laid there limp and dazed while his breechcloth was ripped away. Through blurred vision he caught vague images of tattooed warriors as they lifted his senseless body. He watched them extend his flaccid arm and bind his right wrist to the upper corner of the square. Then his left. Another warrior supported him around the waist as his legs were tied. Finally they stepped back, and his body sagged, pulling painfully down on his arms. He’d been tied to hang like a big X in the upright wooden-frame square.

“Give him water,” a woman’s voice ordered. “And a little food. If he and the women pass out completely, they could suffocate.”

Fire Cat forced himself to pay attention, stiffening his legs to support himself. He shot glances to both sides, seeing the timbers and how his wrists were tied at the top corners, ankles at the bottom.

Leaning his head out, he could discern White Rain and Soft Moon, their faces obscured by their filthy hair, their bodies stripped bare. To his left he could just make out his mother, her square a little farther away. She’d shaken her gray hair back so she could study her captors through half-lidded eyes.

Fire Cat gasped as he struggled to keep his balance on the lower pole. Then he looked out at the crowd that continued to build. An older woman of perhaps fifty summers, her hair tied in a tight bun, stepped close. She studied him with thoughtful eyes. Her cheeks were tattooed with starbursts, and an elegant weasel-hide cape made from white winter hides hung from her shoulders. She carried a small copper-clad rod, and her red skirt was stunningly adorned with the swirling design of the Four Winds Clan. A brilliant splay of exotic scarlet feathers rose from her hair.

“So you’re the great war chief who defeated Makes Three?” she asked.

He tried to swallow down his dry throat, and only gagged.

“Three times you defeated the Morning Star’s armies and broke his squadrons, young fire brand. Did you think you could prevail forever?”

“Oh, hush,” Mother rasped weakly from her square. “It’s me you want, Blue Heron.”

Fire Cat watched Blue Heron saunter over and extend an arm, lifting his mother’s head to stare into her eyes. “It’s been too many years, old rival. I’m almost sorry to see you here.”

“Sorry, too,” Mother whispered hoarsely.

Blue Heron stepped back. “Feed and water them like I said. No one touches them until Lady Night Shadow Star has inspected them.”

Fire Cat heard the muttered assent of both the gathered warriors and the crowd.

But how long would it be? And how would he keep from shaming himself when the real torture started?

*   *   *

Pursing his lips, Seven Skull Shield leaned his head back and blew perfect smoke rings toward Wooden Doll’s high roof. He was reclined, naked, one knee up, on her lavishly comfortable bed. Built into the dwelling’s back wall, it was thick with wolf, buffalo, and fox hides.

In the light of the central fire, Wooden Doll bent over the woodpile by the doorway and plucked up another piece. Seven Skull Shield admired the view. Maybe thirty summers old, she had long legs, very round buttocks, and a delicious back. A tall woman given Cahokian standards, she turned, flipped her thick black hair over her shoulder and tossed the firewood into the flames as she sauntered back to the bed.

She’d made a practice of how to walk, giving just the right sway to her hips, placing one foot ahead of the other to achieve a graceful balance. Fully erect, head held high, her shoulders back and square to emphasize her high breasts, each stride proclaimed that she was all woman, and more than any man could handle.

“You’re smiling,” she told him as she seated herself on the edge of her bed and reached for the stone pipe he smoked. Taking it, she raised it to her full lips, and drew. Her eyes slitted in pleasure, her cheeks hollowed to accent her perfect facial bones and the triangular set of her delicate jaw.

She held the smoke and then, tilting her head back, blew it skyward before handing the pipe back.

Seven Skull Shield drew as the tobacco burned out and reveled in the tingling Power as Sister Tobacco’s spirit ran through his body.

Wooden Doll had fixed her gaze on the little black statuette of Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies. Her gaze was thoughtful, then she glanced back at him. “So, old friend. You offer a statue in Trade for my services, but what, exactly, are you expecting in return? Just to share my bed on occasion? A night here and there? Or are you looking for more?”

Seven Skull Shield fingered the pipe, a beautiful thing made from a red mudstone quarried a moon’s journey to the southeast. The craftsman who carved it had fashioned the front into an eagle’s head, the bird’s folded wings were engraved along the sides.

“What if I told you I wanted more?” He accented that with a leer that he knew would bait her.

She took the pipe from his thick fingers and knocked it against the bed frame to free the dottle. “I’d say you were a fool.”

“Living with me wouldn’t be so bad, would it?” He emphasized his point with a forefinger. “We have a history. We helped to make each other. We’re alike, you and I. We’ve known that from the very beginning.”

Wooden Doll’s lips bent in a crooked smile. “The very beginning? That day I first laid eyes on you? I saw you standing there, that basket over your shoulder, one leg forward. I knew right then that any man with that much insolent challenge behind his eyes would end badly.”