People of the Morning Star (67 page)

The Tula tried to jerk his arm down in an attempt to drive the knife into Seven Skull Shield’s side. Sensing it, he slapped the blade sideways, hearing the brittle stone break musically, the majority of it sailing away.

“Now you worm-shit maggot-shafted shit, you’re mine! Gonna stomp your stomach, beat your brain with a stick…”
He hammered his head into the Tula’s mashed nose again, rose, and drove his elbow full into the man’s mouth. Teeth broke; the Tula’s jaw snapped with a crack. Again and again, he jacked his knee into the Tula’s crotch, and saw the man’s eyes go wide and pain-dazed.

“Gonna rip your pus-dripping shaft from your body, use it like a flail and stuff it down your putrid throat, you maggot-brained filth!”

And then, to his irritation, a war club flashed from the side of his vision and drove itself into the crown of the Tula’s head.

At the snapping of the skull, Seven Skull Shield felt the Tula’s body stiffen, quiver, and still.

“Gonna beat you, burn you—”

“I don’t know what’s worse”—the Keeper sagged to the floor beside him, the bloody war club in her hand—“being held by the hair with a knife to my throat, or listening to that howling nonsense when you’re fighting.”

Seven Skull Shield rolled to his side, wincing at the pain in his elbow. Fire burned along his ribs, and when he looked down, his shirt had been half cut from his body, his side a sheet of blood.

“I really hate these Tula.”

“Where have you been?” The Keeper stared at him through exhausted eyes.

“Slipping around unseen with that little dwarf of Columella’s. There’s a hidden passage into her room. Took a while to get everything soaked with hickory oil. I’ve been setting fire to the back of the palace.”

“You did well. This place is going up like a torch. We’ve got to get out of here.”

He glanced around, seeing Fire Cat staggering on his feet, blood running down the side of his head, a splintered war club in his hand. The Red Wing was headed toward the rear and the worst of the fire.

Little Flat Stone Pipe was tugging for all he was worth, trying to drag a crawling Columella toward the doorway. Chief High Dance sat bound, screaming for someone to help him.

The woven-cane wall was now a solid sheet of flame. Balls of fire rolled up and along the roof, bits of burning thatch falling from the thickening smoke above.

Seven Skull Shield batted at a glowing ember that landed on the Keeper’s head.

“Help me.” The Keeper pointed. “Sun Wing may not be worth it, but she is my niece. Help me carry her out. And then there’s the children. They’re Columella’s and that fool High Dance’s, but that doesn’t mean they deserve to burn for it.”

Seven Skull Shield crawled over to Sun Wing, tossed her limp form over his shoulder, and wobbled to his feet.

“Hey! You fool! It’s
burning
back there!” he yelled as he watched Fire Cat staggering into the maelstrom.

“She went this way!” Fire Cat shouted back over the roar of the fire. “She and that brother of hers.”

“There’s a crawl hole under the bed. But it’s too late! You’ll cook back in that room!”

And to Seven Skull Shield’s surprise, the Red Wing shot him a weak grin. “Well-done or raw, thief, don’t let the dogs eat me.” Then the man ducked his head, and charged blindly through the door and into the burning room.

*   *   *

This is a mistake!

Fire Cat figured it out too late. The heat stunned him, his skin burning, his hair singeing as he cowered behind the nonexistent shelter of his arm.

Some deep-seated animal instinct made him drop to the floor, thankful to find air rushing along the matting.

He blinked, staring around. Neither Night Shadow Star nor Walking Smoke were there.

Columella’s bed was a roaring pyre.

He glanced back just in time to see part of the cane wall fall, blocking the doorway he’d just dived through. No way back now.

“A crawl way,” he repeated before a bout of coughing wracked him. Gritting his teeth he levered himself forward with his elbows. Heat burned the back of his head and neck; but for the soaking blood from his scalp wound, his hair would have exploded into flame. Prickling pain seared his shoulders above the armor, his buttocks, and the backs of his legs.

Nevertheless, air, fresh air, was roaring in from under the bed.

Got to hurry!

Like an ungainly worm he scuttled forward, winced in fear, and thrust his body beneath the burning bed. His mad scramble was panicked—and probably the fastest crawl a human had ever made, but he found the passage.

Panic seized him. His shoulders wouldn’t fit. The armor had hung up.

I’m burning alive!
The pain was like he’d never felt and a scream vented through his tight throat.

Before the last of his senses left, he managed to wiggle his shoulders through at an angle. Panting in fear and pain, he dropped down, following the narrow tunnel beneath the wall, and up. He emerged under a clever, grass-covered door on the backside of the temple mound.

Wondrous, cold, wet, glorious rain pattered down on his hot and singed hair; it beat on his blistering face. He sucked the cool wet air into his fevered lungs and gasped as he hung half out the doorway. Behind him the palace was roaring as the fire burned through the roof.

Where did they go?

And what had it meant? He’d been in a knockdown, tight-balled battle for his life with three Tula. He’d only got the slightest glimpse. Night Shadow Star had been smiling, a sensual invitation in her eyes as she took Walking Smoke’s hand and coaxed him back toward Matron Columella’s smoke-filled and burning room.

Why?

Neither her body nor his had been in the inferno. He had seen that much before he’d had to slit his eyes and dive for the floor.

Rain was washing the blood down from his torn scalp. If he’d ducked but a blink later, the Tula would have cracked his skull for good.

So, they got out. Probably the same way I just did.

And he could see it: the slicked down grass where two bodies had slid down the mound.

Fire Cat gulped another thankful breath of cool air and levered his body out of the opening. Like those before him, he began to slide. The wet grass was more akin to ice as he rocketed down the steep slope, hunched into a ball, and took the impact at the bottom. Still, it knocked the wind out of him, and for a moment, he lay in agony.

When his breath came back, he sucked it in, tested his limbs, and found nothing broken. Climbing to his feet, he could see the trail. Fresh tracks stippled the mud: a man’s bare feet and woman’s in moccasins headed east.

Fire Cat blinked and wiped at the water and blood trying to blind him, then fought through a dizzy spell as the world spun. Hammering a fist into his nauseous stomach, he staggered out onto the trail, hurrying after Night Shadow Star.

The skin on his back might have been flayed down to raw meat and exposed nerves. Where the rain had once felt so good, now it soaked his hemp-fiber shirt where it touched his blistered skin. With clumsy fingers he undid the straps and almost fell as he lifted the armor over his head.

He couldn’t believe it as he tossed it to the side. The back was charred.

If that had been my skin, as agonizing as the rest was, I’d have never made it.

The armor’s protection had saved his life.

He chuckled to himself, throwing a glance over his shoulder where a fountain of fire leaped high from the dying palace to do battle with the rain.

Dizzy and blinking, he studied the trail and pushed his weary feet into a stumbling trot. The way led through buildings, and right up to the edge of the steep bluff. Rain pattering on his head, he saw where they’d started down. Looking out over the edge, he could see them as they slipped and slid down onto the sandy beach below.

“All right, Lady. Service has brought me this far. Let’s see just how much farther it’s going to take me.”

Sixty-three

After having tossed Sun Wing outside to safety, Seven Skull Shield coughed and batted at the falling embers as he went back in search of Blue Heron. The inside of the palace was filled with smoke, the heat unbearable. And most horrifying, he could smell human flesh cooking as sections of roof burned through and dropped onto the dead and dying warriors scattered around on the mat floor. Some were Tula, others Four Winds, but they all burned and screamed and smelled the same as their flesh crackled, hissed, and popped.

Columella had managed to get to her knees beside the Keeper. Together with Flat Stone Pipe they worked futilely to free the children.

Seven Skull Shield, seeing their fumbling attempts, shouted, “Go! Get out. We’ll get the children.”

Each child had been bound separately, making the task that much more difficult. And worse, they were hysterical, screaming, kicking, throwing themselves against the ropes. And once untied, their bloodless arms and legs wouldn’t support their weight. Each one had to be carried to the door and literally pitched outside like a sack of cattail roots before going back for another.

“We’re not going to get them all!” Blue Heron screamed at him where she tried picking one of the tight knots apart that held a ten-summers-old girl.

Seven Skull Shield ducked instinctively as another section of roof let loose in the back and slammed into the floor with a thump. An explosion of sparks shot upward in twisting fire.

“Aragh,” he growled, “enough of this.”

“We can’t
leave
!” Blue Heron cried. “They’re children!”

He shot her a soot-streaked grin. Positioning himself over the bench, he filled his lungs with the smoky air and gripped the outside pole that ran between the supports. Bowing his back, he bent his legs and heaved, bellowing,
“Worthless shit-infested pus-sucking wood! Give! You foul worm-riddled piece of dung-dripping.…”

With a crack, the length of bench broke free, Seven Skull Shield and the children tumbling loose. Instead of trying to free them, he simply roared, threw his back into it, and dragged the whole mess backward. He could see the Keeper, doing what she could, tugging on the last child in line.

He blinked, coughing, ever more desperate for breath. Every muscle in his body might have been pulled in two; sweat was dribbling soot and blood into his face. Then he was in the cool rush of air from the door. Almost a gale, it blew in to feed the flames.

Hard hands grabbed him by the shoulders and tugged, and with the help, he was through, warriors pouring past him, grabbing hold of children, lifting.

Together they staggered out into the blessed rain, a line of men carrying the children—still bound to the pole—down the long ramp stairs.

Seven Skull Shield gasped, coughing black phlegm from his throat and using his fingers to blow soot-laden snot from his nose. In the process, he finally noticed his lacerated elbow; inspecting it, he plucked one of the Tula’s broken teeth from one of the bleeding punctures.

A tug at his hunting shirt made him look down. Flat Stone Pipe, his too-round face smeared black, was looking up at him.

“He’s not worth it, probably. But High Chief High Dance is still in there. I can’t get him by myself.”

“Come on, then.” Seven Skull Shield reached down, wincing as he lifted the little man to his shoulder. On wooden legs he started up the stairs, feeling the trembling in his muscles. “I swear by big swinging breasts and fat bouncing buttocks, I’m going to sleep for a quarter moon when this is finished.”

“I’ll find you the bed,” Flat Stone Pipe agreed. “And put the woman in it for you.”

They’d made the top, finding two warriors standing just back from the door, arms up against the heat.

“You’re not going back, are you?” the older one asked.

“Chief High Dance is in there!” Flat Stone Pipe pointed with his short arm, his stubby finger out.

Seven Skull Shield made it to the door, had just started to look in, when the whole of the roof came crashing down.

No matter how exhausted the rest of him was, his instincts were still quick. Even as he turned and ducked, he had Flat Stone Pipe’s small body shielded.

As a gale of fire, sparks, and smoke jetted from the doorway a single terrible scream could be heard. And as quickly, it ceased.

*   *   *

As she made her way down the narrow cut, Night Shadow Star carefully placed each foot, testing the wet soil for purchase. For the moment she wished she were barefoot like Walking Smoke, whose toes found better grip in the slick mud.

This way!
Piasa had whispered in her ear. And directed her to this slit of a gully eroded into the steep bluff. A trail of sorts existed here. People, after all, constantly scrambled up and down the bluff face from the river. Portions of this one, however, proved treacherous in the falling rain; a rivulet of muddy brown water was already rushing in the bottom.

“You did this,” Walking Smoke told her angrily. “It’s the same as when you stuck your finger in my eye when we were little!”

She caught a flicker of Piasa as he crept effortlessly down the slope to one side. “You did it to yourself, Brother.”