People of the Morning Star (45 page)

A convenient section of woven matting provided cover, yet allowed Bleeding Hawk to stare through the lattice as the thief Traded a bit of shell to obtain a leaf of tobacco from yet another of his endless associates. More laughing and joking ensued before the thief bit off a section of leaf and walked off chewing it.

After what seemed an eternity of delays, that moment of glee began to grow in Bleeding Hawk’s breast. Better and better! The thief was making his way straight for the tightly packed warehouses above the canoe landing. And somewhere in that random and chaotic warren of buildings, away from the workshops and Trader’s stalls, the unconcerned fool would be entirely alone and vulnerable.

Stepping behind a latrine screen, Bleeding Hawk paused just long enough to pull his beloved bow from the tanned-hide case that hung from his back. Bracing it with his foot, he used his hip to bend and string it. Then he pulled the rawhide quiver from the case and slung it over his shoulder.

As he passed the last of the workshops, he nodded and smiled at the workers who looked up from their grinding, sanding, cutting, and carving. All the while, he kept his distance, comparing what he knew of this district to the direction the thief seemed to pursue.

Blessed be Power, I know this place.

He needed to close the distance now. The warehouses, granaries, and storage facilities were packed tight here. This was the highest elevation on the levee, the least susceptible to floods.

All Bleeding Hawk required was a narrow passage, time enough to whip an arrow from his quiver, and a momentary glimpse of the thief’s broad and unprotected back.

The next passage would fulfill all those requirements. To his absolute delight, the warehouse where they stayed was but a couple of buildings over. If the thief went right where the next plaster-walled building blocked the way, it would lead to a dead end, but surely, the …

No, to Bleeding Hawk’s amazement, the man took the one-way turn into the dead end. Why? The explanation leaped into Bleeding Hawk’s brain: a man had to empty his water somewhere. It had been all morning that he’d been following the fool.

Bleeding Hawk drew his arrow, nocked it, and sprinted around the curving wall of the warehouse. Even as the narrow alleyway appeared, he was drawing, taking his bead on the long Cahokian war arrow.…

Bobcat, old friend, I send you this foul maggot’s soul!

Thirty-nine

Seven Skull Shield would have grinned if his mouth hadn’t been full of tobacco juice. He continued rolling and crushing the quid between his molars, filling his mouth with the rich tang. Sister tobacco’s magic fingers were stroking his muscles, bones, and blood with her enchanting tingle.

Anyone who didn’t know the doorway was there would have thought someone entering the dead-end passage had just up and disappeared. Through the crack, he could see the man’s dark shadow as it passed. His stalker walked on cat feet, so quiet was he.

After he’d passed, Seven Skull Shield eased the doorway aside on its silent leather hinges, and stepped out behind the warrior.

I can just back away and …

How silly that he could even think it? Too much was just plain too much. He stepped forward, taking the stalker’s measure: tall, muscular, wearing a hunting shirt from which dangled a half-full quiver of very familiar arrows. Folded over his shoulder was an empty bow case. The stalker moved like a wary lion, his bow up and drawn, the long braid forward. And that unusual bow? It had been made of dark hardwood laminated with layers of horn, both ends of the staves having an odd double curve.

A Tula bow?

As the stalker cleared the last of the wall’s curvature, he stopped, frozen, the bow held so steady he might have been stone. The dank smell of feces and human urine hung in the air, the sounds of the city distant. The man grunted an exclamation of surprise.

Seven Skull Shield juiced his tobacco for the last time and spit just as the Tula began his turn. The stream of tobacco-laced saliva took the man full in the face.

And then Seven Skull Shield was on him, bellowing, “
You foul piece of walking shit!
” He piled headlong into the warrior, barely aware of the arrow as it released and dug a groove out of the plaster wall to the left.

“I’m gonna break you!”
Seven Skull Shield bellowed. “Gonna
stomp
you!” He head-butted the Tula in the face. His knee rose like a hardwood stump; the Tula’s body shuddered as it slammed into his crotch. “You
rat-choking
maggot meat!”

Grabbing the stunned Tula by the throat and dragging his face into each blow, Seven Skull Shield continued to head-butt him. He delighted in the pain and flash behind his eyes as he felt and heard the bones breaking in the man’s nose and cheeks. Blood and tobacco juice splattered his forehead as he drove it into the Tula’s face.

“Think you can hunt me? Shoot
me
in the back! In my own city?
Worthless dog shit! I’m gonna kill you!”

He felt the man’s grip slacken on the bow, heard it clatter to one side. The Tula was pawing at something on his rope belt. From instinct, Seven Skull Shield shifted, knowing the move from old.

He tightened his hold on the Tula’s throat, screaming, “No you don’t! Foreign bit of trash! Come here? To
my
Cahokia? Think you’re gonna stick me!” Seven Skull Shield’s left hand caught the Tula’s wrist, stopping the bone stiletto before it could be driven into his side.

Pus and vomit! The Tula was as strong as bull buffalo!

Screaming like a war eagle, Seven Skull Shield stared into the Tula’s half-dazed eyes, dripping as they were and half blinded with blood and tobacco juice. As the Tula tried to squirm out of Seven Skull Shield’s grip, he levered the man off his feet. Together they crashed onto the smelly filth that filled the blind passage.

As they hit the ground, Seven Skull Shield had brought his knee up, landing so his weight drove it down like a ram onto the man’s genitals. The Tula shrieked, twisting away like a writhing rattler. The man had obviously wrestled, was going to break loose. Just a matter of time …

“You pus-weeping infected sheath!
Back-shooting
,
worm-eating maggot!”
He spit the tobacco quid fully into the Tula’s gory face then opened his mouth wide and bit. He sank his teeth into the Tula’s cheek and lower lip as the man tried to turn his face away.

Unable to shout, Seven Skull Shield could only growl and squeal his rage as he chewed, ripped, and jerked at the resisting flesh.

The Tula was kicking, bucking, and doing no little squealing of his own. Unlike Seven Skull Shield’s enraged vocalizations, the Tula’s sounded like sheer terror.

The man was clawing futilely at Seven Skull Shield’s hair, winding his fingers in and pulling desperately. His trapped right hand flexed and strained as he tried to drive the deer-bone stiletto into Seven Skull Shield’s side.

Which was when Seven Skull Shield let out a particularly wild shriek through his nose and mouth and let loose with his right hand. Before the Tula could react, he’d driven a hard thumb as deeply as he could into the man’s left eye. He felt the orb tear loose, then pop wetly.

The Tula’s scream might have come from a dying animal; his legs kicked in spasms. Then whimpering sounds broke from his throat as Seven Skull Shield did his level best to rip the tissue in his teeth from the man’s head.

“I think that’s enough,” a somber voice called.

Seven Skull Shield let his rage slowly drain, turned loose of the bloody remains of Tula lip. He spit blood-soaked saliva into the half-conscious Tula’s ruined face.

When the Tula wouldn’t release the stiletto, Seven Skull Shield braced himself, levered the man’s arm up, and broke the elbow over his knee.

Only when he had the weapon in his hand, did he rise, panting and drained. The Tula, gasping and choking, curled into a fetal ball around his broken arm, his one good eye clamped in agony.

“Who is he?” Black Swallow asked where he stood blocking the narrow alleyway.

“Tula assassin,” Seven Skull Shield said through panting breaths. The adrenaline of battle still surged through him. “One of many.”

In the narrow confines behind Black Swallow a collection of men were taking turns peering past one another. Most were grinning at the wreckage.

“Remind me never to make you mad,” one muttered.

Another whispered, “Blood and pus, Seven Skull Shield, from the sound of it I thought someone was torturing a pack of dogs back here.”

“And what’s with all the head-butting?” Black Swallow asked. “Looked to me like you were doing a better job of beating yourself up than he was.”

“Yeah, well, my head’s the closest thing I’ve got to a big rock.” He realized blood was trickling down his face. Probably from repeatedly smashing his forehead into the Tula’s broken and bleeding nose. He dragged his sleeve over it.

“What do you want done with him?” Black Swallow asked. “When you dropped by my Trade stall, you said I’d get paid back for my broken fingers. How does that work?”

Seven Skull Shield wiped more of the Tula’s gore from his lips and chin. “I need all of you to help me. We need to get this pus-licking maggot to the Four Winds Clan Keeper. I think the wealth you’ll carry home will more than make up for those fingers.” Seven Skull Shield reached out and laid a hand on Black Swallow’s shoulder. “I didn’t handle that business with the statuettes very well. Time to make amends.”

“After the way I was treated, why should I?”

“The best reason of all: wealth.”

Black Swallow glanced at the writhing remains of the Tula. “Yeah, well, I was going to take a splitting maul to your head, but after seeing what you did to him, I’ve reconsidered any such foolish flights of fantasy. No matter how tempting they may be.”

Seven Skull Shield chuckled and gave him a bloody grin. “Me? I’m harmless as a suckling puppy.” He glanced at each of the men, aware they didn’t get the humor. “Come on. Let’s get him to Blue Heron. And we’ve got to do it smart and quick. We don’t want this guy’s friends to recognize him. Cause if they do, they’re gonna do their best to kill us and him before we can get him there.”

One of the other men cocked his head skeptically as he studied the Tula. “Seems to me you didn’t leave much left to recognize.”

Forty

With her father’s death, and her aunt’s elevation to become the new
tonka’tzi,
Lace’s position in the Council House had changed. Now her litter rested on the elevated clay platform beside her aunt’s. She occupied the spot normally reserved for the clan matron. Nor was she unaware of the implications. The expectation had been that Night Shadow Star would have been elevated to the dais should anything have happened to either Red Warrior or Matron Wind.

But Night Shadow Star’s souls had broken at the news of Make’s Three’s death. Instead of a gradual recovery from her grief—if Rides-the-Lightning could be believed—her souls were now possessed by Piasa.

The same killer who had apparently tried to murder the Morning Star and the Keeper, and who had successfully slit her father’s throat in his own bedroom, was now stalking them and committing mayhem throughout Cahokia.

Nor could the leaders of the Four Winds Clan be in any way assured that the other Houses weren’t involved. Plotting was the normal state of affairs between the Houses, but now, after the assassination attempt on Night Shadow Star, anything was possible.

And onto this stage, Lace had been thrust, having lived barely eighteen summers, pregnant with her first child, and feeling completely terrified and unprepared.

Nevertheless, she listened as Blue Heron and the Yellow Star war second gave their report to the
tonka’tzi.
The attendants all stood in their places along the walls. She could hear the recorders in the rear; their fingers rattled among the beads in various jars as they dug for whichever color and size they needed.

From the corner of her eye, she could see Sun Wing where she idly twisted a loop of her long black hair around a finger and studied the Yellow Star war second, Takes Horn, from half-lidded eyes. The pout on her lips told Lace that her sister considered the man nothing more than a worthless barbarian.