People of the Morning Star (15 page)

She had also asked to marry Makes Three. That Morning Star had immediately consented had been a blessing all the way around. Makes Three, though a Bear Clan man, had been a childhood friend of Chunkey Boy, Walking Smoke, and Night Shadow Star’s. She had truly loved him, and they’d been good for each other. Makes Three had been a natural war leader and brilliant field commander. The only worm in the acorn had been a lack of children. Discrete inquiries of the household staff had assured both Matron Wind and Blue Heron that Makes Three and Night Shadow Star maintained an active and athletic relationship under the hides.

And now she’s unhinged again.

Worry built as Blue Heron’s porters climbed the last stairs into the high courtyard. At this height, the wind blew stringers of rain past her protective cover and spattered her with cold drops. Every time the litter swayed, her heart froze in her chest and her muscles tensed.

At the entrance to Morning Star’s palace, she was thankfully lowered and helped to her feet. Only then did she notice the numbers of people—palace slaves and advisors—crouched in the protective shadow of the high walls.

Whatever this is, it’s bad.

Gesturing her carriers to remain behind, she squared her shoulders, wiped the rain from her face, and stepped through the massive door with its relief-carving of Morning Star.

Inside, the warmth hit her. Thankfully the eternal fire was crackling and burning, sending bright light through the great hall.

She shook out her hair, wet and loose, and walked forward. Matron Wind—looking as disheveled as she, and also only wearing a wrap about her body—stood to one side of the fire, a sour expression on her face.

She noted Blue Heron’s entry and jerked a curt nod. The tension on her sister’s face communicated everything: things were even worse than Blue Heron had anticipated.

“What is it?”

“Assassination attempt.”

Blue Heron almost staggered. “Attempt?”

“We’re to wait here. Morning Star and the
tonka’tzi
will be out in a moment.”

Even as Matron Wind spoke, two warriors emerged from Morning Star’s quarters. The limp body of a naked young woman hung between them and swung with each step. One gripped her tied wrists, the other her ankles. Like a vile paintbrush, the woman’s bloody hair dragged the floor and left zig-zag crimson streaks on the matting.

“Here!” Matron Wind cried. “Put her on a litter! By the Piasa’s balls, are you idiots?”

The warriors, already panicked, dropped the young woman as if she were a sack of corncobs, and hurried out the door.

“He might have wanted his assassin’s body to be carried out like a dead fish,” Blue Heron muttered, worried for her sister’s impetuous act.

“Then they can toss her down the side of the palace mound like the garbage she is.” Matron Wind gestured to the pool of blood leaking from the young woman’s crushed skull. “I was
trying
to keep ahead of the mess.”

“Oh, and as you can see, you’re succeeding marvelously,” Blue Heron added dryly.

“She’s Spotted Wrist’s cousin, Evening Piper,” Matron Wind noted as she squinted at what she could see of the face. “Bear Clan. I know the woman. She was delighted to be chosen for a night with the god. Not the sort to consider assassination. Proud, yes. Self-possessed. She had been monitoring her moons, hoping to catch a child. There’s great prestige in that.”

“Spotted Wrist? As trusted as he is, could this run deeper than—”

“She is not the assassin.” Morning Star stepped out of his quarters, an apron around his hips, but otherwise naked. His hair hung down over his shoulders in a thick black mantle. Blood smears were visible on his hands and arms.

He was followed by Red Warrior Tenkiller. Her brother’s ashen face reflected shock and horror. Normally attired in finery the
tonka’tzi
wore only a breechcloth and a cape.

“Who then?” Matron Wind asked, after touching her forehead respectfully.

“Cut String Mankiller.”

“But he’s Four Winds Clan.” Blue Heron fingered the wattle of skin on her chin. “Is he still alive? Can we hang him in a square and ask some questions?”

“Unfortunately, he’s bled out on my floor.” Morning Star’s expression pinched, and he seemed to stifle a shiver. “I am more interested in how he managed to evade the guards.”

“The girl?” Matron Wind gestured to the corpse as the two warriors rushed in and, avoiding Morning Star’s eyes, placed the woman carefully on a rain-wet litter. “Was she in on it?”

“Perhaps. He killed her with the first blow.”

“You must have moved fast to have avoided the second,” Blue Heron said thoughtfully, still leery of a trap.

“He didn’t wish to kill this body with a club,” Morning Star said as he walked over and extended his hands to the fire’s warmth. “It was to be accomplished ritually.”

The warriors lifted their litter, bearing the dead woman from the room.

“Huh?” Blue Heron scowled at the blood pooled on the matting. “How?”

Night Shadow Star’s voice took her by surprise as she emerged from the door, and said, “With this.”

Blue Heron gaped at the sight: Night Shadow Star stood naked, her hair rain-soaked and hanging in strands that trickled water down her smooth brown skin. Outside of her taut nipples, she seemed oblivious to the cold. The wicked-looking knife she held before her glistened in the firelight. A master craftsman had knapped it from a single long piece of semitranslucent brown chert.

“Thank the Creator you’re not dead,” Matron Wind blurted.

Blue Heron felt cold wind blow through her souls. Night Shadow Star’s eyes possessed an eerie look, large and glistening. The effect was as if they were oddly inhuman. Her face, so perfectly formed, remained expressionless. The woman’s wet hair seemed to be touched by a breeze the way the long black locks moved. And more unsettling, why was she naked? Last Blue Heron knew she’d been in Rides-the-Lightning’s care as he fought to recall her souls. Now, here she stood in the light of the fire, her athletic body bronzed by flickers that glinted gold in her thick mat of pubic hair.

Night Shadow Star held the knife out like an offering. The viciously hooked blade at one end glinted in the light.

“Does anyone recognize that knife?” Red Warrior asked.

“No.” Blue Heron studied it. It wasn’t the sort of thing a person could forget. “Sister? Do you?”

Matron Wind shook her head. “Never seen it before. If it was Four Wind Clan’s I’d know it.”

“So,” Red Warrior pondered, “what could possibly entice Cut String Mankiller to act against the Morning Star?”

“He’s from Evening Star town, isn’t he?” Blue Heron studied the knife. “And he’s Four Winds Clan by birth?”

“I think so.” Matron Wind glanced at Morning Star. “Did he say anything? Give you a reason?”

Morning Star had been standing to one side, positioned where he could watch their faces. Now, in an emotionless voice, he announced, “He said only that he’d see me soon.”

Night Shadow Star’s voice had a peculiar resonance, the sort that might have mimicked speaking down a long cane tube as she said, “You see only the reflection. Like the surface of a still pond. You must go deeper … into the very darkness.”

Matron Wind frowned. “Niece, I don’t understand.”

“No … you don’t.” Night Shadow Star cocked her head, as if hearing a distant voice. “I have to go now. Any longer, and he’ll be dead.”

She turned, fixing her eerie gaze on Morning Star. “Do we have an accord? You agree to the terms?”

He nodded, something unsettled in his expression. “As you wish.”

“I’ll take Five Fists.” And with that, Night Shadow Star tossed the brown-chert knife to her father; Red Warrior barely reacted in time to snatch it from the air. She turned in a whirl of damp black hair and strode purposefully for the door.

The
tonka’tzi
’s expression looked shocked and confused. Five Fists nodded when Morning Star gestured he follow Night Shadow Star.

“Accord?” Matron Wind asked. “What terms?”

“Patience, Matron. Even the most ancient of enemies can make alliances when they face a mutual threat.” Morning Star might have been staring into an eternity only he could see.

“An alliance!” Blue Heron sputtered. “With whom?”

“What threat?” Red Warrior demanded. “What was Night Shadow Star doing here? And without so much as a skirt? I don’t understand—”

Morning Star cut him off with a slash of his hand.

“She saved my life,” he said simply. He turned his preoccupied gaze on Blue Heron, and she recoiled at the turmoil reflected there. “We shall need your assistance, Clan Keeper. No one knows the patterns of intrigue as well as you.”

And at that moment, two more warriors emerged from the Morning Star’s room. These bore the body of Cut String. Blue Heron gaped at the three arrows, neatly driven through the dead assassin’s back.

The fletching, she noticed immediately, was Five Fists’. But how had he allowed anyone, even a trusted man like Cut String to get so close?

“Night Shadow Star did that?” The woman had been wet, obviously from the rain. Which meant she’d come straight here from Rides-the-Lightning’s? She’d known?

“Yes,” the Morning Star whispered softly, as if reading her thoughts. “Chaos is shifting like an evil smoke. And we are caught in its eddies and swirls. Something terrible is brewing, and unless you find it and stop it, Clan Keeper, Sky, Earth, and Underworld will be burst open like a dropped pot.”

Ten

The faintest graying of dawn barely penetrated Fire Cat’s stumbling mind. Some distant part of him recognized the event, but the rest of him had gone numb; the breath in his weakening lungs was barely enough to keep him awake. And when that failed, he’d go limp, the stretching of his arms pulling his chest tight. Lack of air would send a panicked signal through his souls, and he’d jerk upright, gasping.

Just die,
he told himself. As it was, he could no longer feel his hands or upper arms. The terrible pain that was his body had been deadened by the cold rain that soaked his skin and leeched the last warmth from his claylike flesh.

Hands of time had passed since he’d last called to his sisters. Even then he’d received no answers.

Mother, however, somehow had managed to rasp back, “Save your breath, son. They’ll be coming with torches and knives in the morning.”

Why haven’t they already?

Throughout the day, the guards had remained vigilant, keeping the throngs of passersby from doing any more than looking, pointing, or shouting insults.

They’re waiting for something. Someone.

He blinked, trying to clear the droplets of water that ran down his forehead.

Some presence made its way through the numb ache, and with what little energy remained in his sodden flesh, he raised his head.

I’m dying now. First Woman has come for me.

She was inspecting him with eyes from another world, large and dark, almost luminous with Power. Mist lay thick in her long hair, graying it in years beyond the perfect triangle of her face. She had a full-lipped mouth, her nose straight and balanced between delicate cheekbones. The woman’s broad shoulders and muscular arms reminded him of a swimmer’s. Cold-hardened nipples seemed to strain from high, round breasts, and her waist narrowed before flaring in a perfect curve of hips. The woman’s long legs were slim and muscular, adding to the illusion of otherworldliness.

“Take me,” he croaked. “I’m ready.”

Her expression sharpened, her eyes still boring into his. “Do you give yourself to me fully, Fire Cat?”

“Take me.”

How would she do it? Suck his souls from his tormented body? Reach out with her Spirit hands and tear his heart from his chest? He’d once heard that the souls could be drawn out of the body the way a spindle whorl spun thread.

“You are not afraid?” she asked.

He managed the faintest shake of his head. “Ready … to die.”

She cocked her head the slightest, eyes narrowing. “I have paid a terrible price for you. Don’t make me regret it.”

He blinked, confused by the anger in her words, the bitter hatred in her dark eyes. “Price?” He could barely mouth the word.

Just
stop
the pain!

“If you give yourself to me, your life becomes mine. Do you swear to follow my orders, no matter the consequences?” The words seemed to thunder in his head.

“Yes,” he croaked. “I swear on the graves of my ancestors.” If a Spirit like First Woman pulled the souls out of a body, were they ever allowed to make the journey west in search of the Land of the Dead?

“Done,” she whispered as if disappointed. Then she turned, saying, “Cut them down.” She pointed at Fire Cat. “Take this one to my palace and attend to him.”

She indicated the other squares. “Five Fists you will bear the Red Wing women to the Morning Star’s palace. The Morning Star will give you instructions there.”

“Yes, Lady.”

The words didn’t make sense in Fire Cat’s reeling and confused thoughts. He struggled to lift his head. First Woman should just reach out and rip his souls away. He should die there in the square, leaving nothing but his senseless corpse for the Cahokians to savage.