Lightning Shell--A People of Cahokia Novel, page 15
“The Underworld Lord is pacing us.” Fire Cat indicated the glow with a tilt of his head. “Can you see him down there? The faint blue gleam?”
Winder craned his neck, peering over the side. “I see water, War Leader. Shadowed as the depths are, I can’t see past the surface.”
“He’s there,” Fire Cat said flatly. “He wouldn’t be pacing us unless there’s a reason.”
In the seat behind Winder, Blood Talon, too, was staring over the side. “I see nothing, Fire Cat. Just murky dark water.”
“We’re going on,” Fire Cat decided.
“Got fast water ahead of us,” Shell Hook called from where he perched in the rear. “Nothing to worry about in daylight, but I don’t want to chance it in the dark. Can’t see the boulders. We hit one of them, we’re going over. Getting dumped in fast water, in the dark, is a good way to drown.”
“I’ll let you off at the next sand bar,” Fire Cat told him.
“It’s my canoe!”
“You can pick it up at the mouth of the Wide Fast, or maybe Canyon Town if we can’t find another Trader to carry us downriver.”
“Now wait a moment! I didn’t sign on for—”
“You heard the war leader,” Blood Talon told the Trader stiffly. “If he says we’re paddling all night, we’re paddling.”
“Squadron First, you’re as crazy as Fire Cat,” Winder muttered. “Tackling that water in the darkness? Insane.”
“You want to be left onshore, too?” Fire Cat asked.
“Not me, Red Wing,” Winder told him. “Since I hired on at Big Cane Town, I’ve seen enough to know that Power guides you and Lady Night Shadow Star. You say Piasa’s down there? That he wants us to keep to the river? I put my faith in you and your visions.”
“Red Wing, if we were meant to drown,” Blood Talon added, “it would have happened back when you capsized my war canoe. Lead on. I’m with you.”
“You are all idiots,” Shell Hook growled. “Fortunately, I can swim. Hope you can. You’re going to need it.”
Fire Cat would have smiled at the dispirited tone in the Trader’s voice, but when it came to the presence of that weird blue glow that now moved out ahead of them? It set every nerve in his body on edge.
If Piasa is here, he wants us to hurry. And that means Night Shadow Star must be …
He couldn’t finish the thought, his heart beginning to pound as he drove his paddle deep, sending the bulky Trade canoe flying after the blue glow that led the canoe into the night.
Twenty-four
Distant thunder shook Night Shadow Star out of the Dream. Brought her awake in the predawn. Her bladder was pressing for relief. Her stomach growled and gurgled. Supper last night had been freshwater mussels they’d collected from the gravel bar that extended out into the river below their camp. For the first night since leaving Standing Willow Village, they’d eaten to satiety. The pile of shells back of the fire stood testimony to the bounty. Not to mention three nice pearls they’d recovered.
She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, pulled the blanket back, and listened to the morning. Frogs were raising a racket on the riverbanks, and predawn birdsong filled the air. The sky above reflected a dull gray, clouds sucking up the coming light. Even through the scent of smoke permeating her blanket, clothing, and hair, she could smell the damp mud, the sweetness of the willows and midsummer blossoms.
Sitting up, she glanced around the camp. The men remained motionless, blankets rising and falling as they slept. Dew had settled on the canoe, leaving the gunwales and stacked paddles gleaming.
Somewhere off to the west, the staccato of an ivory-billed woodpecker, as the war bird hammered on a hardwood.
In her heart, the longing ache for Fire Cat filled her with a physical pain.
She threw the blanket aside, clawed her unruly thick hair back over her shoulder, and pulled her high moccasins onto her feet. Then she quietly made her way past the smoldering remains of the fire and into the willows.
Finding an opening in the brush, she squatted to relieve herself. High water in the not-so-distant past had piled rounded cobbles and gravel in a lenticular bar. Vegetation was just now starting to reclaim the deposit, green shoots spearing up between the river-rounded stones.
The scrape of a branch was her only warning. She rose and turned, finding herself face-to-face with Field Snake. The young warrior had a crooked smile on his lips as he made a shushing gesture with his finger, then said, “Not a word, woman.”
To emphasize his point, he smacked his war club into a hard palm. “You scream? I’ll clip you hard, do you hear? Have to really make you hurt so that when I tell the others you were running, going to try and escape, they’ll believe me.”
“What do you want?”
“What does any man want with a woman?”
His grin turned crafty again, and he gestured toward her with his war club. “It’s been moons, ever since before your brother came to Joara. Had a couple of slave girls that didn’t mind spreading their legs for a handful of shell beads. But the Lightning Witch came, and the old woman who owned them left and took them with her. All the women a man would be interested in left.”
“Too bad. It would take a great deal more than a handful of shell beads to interest me.”
“A lot less, actually. You see, I’ve got the war club, and you’ve got a simple choice: Do I beat you half to death? Or do you lie back, pull up your skirt, and let me do what a man does with a woman? As I hear it, it’s nothing more than what you were doing with Fire Cat. Surely, if you’d stoop to letting your bound man slick your sheath, a warrior’s hard shaft will be an improvement.”
“What would you know of Fire Cat?”
Again that knowing grin, almost insolent as his eyes narrowed. “Oh, all he could do was brag about what he did with you under the covers. You never heard about that, did you? How close he was? It was me who kept him, Winder, and Blood Talon from reaching you that night.”
“What are you talking about?” Her heart skipped. Fire Cat? This young idiot had seen Fire Cat?
“They didn’t want you to know. The Lightning Shell Witch and High Chief Fire Light, they ordered me to keep quiet. That night before you got to Joara, I was sent with a party to find you. And we did. Well, we found your camp up by the rock spring. Had Winder and those Traders captive. That’s when Fire Cat and Blood Talon appeared. Killed all the others. All but me. But I got even. Told them I’d lead them to you. Then I tricked them into following a trail up into the mountains and slipped away in the dark. Left them lost and confused.”
“What?” Her heart continued to hammer away. “He was that close?”
Field Snake shrugged. “People underestimate me. You underestimate me. But not now. Not this morning.” Again he wiggled the war club suggestively. “Lie down. Right over there. On that grass.”
“It’s rocky.”
“What do I care? I’ll have plenty of cushion with you between me and the rocks. Now do it, or I’m breaking your arm. And if you still refuse, I’ll crack some ribs. Or I might just knock you half-silly. I don’t need you conscious for what I’m going to do to you.”
“The others are going to—”
“Take their own turns,” he snapped. “But that’s for later. Piss and spit, woman, do you think we did this for your benefit? Bluefish is still trying to get up the courage, given that you’re Four Winds and all. But me? I’m a long way away from any Four Winds Clan, let alone their authority.”
“I think you’d better—”
“Enough talk. Now. Down on your back and spread, and don’t get any ideas.” He waggled the war club. “I’m keeping this in my hand, laying the handle across your throat. You try anything, and I’ll choke you.”
She nodded, feeling that old familiar revulsion in the pit of her stomach. Step by step she backed to the grassy spot, glanced down at the rock-studded surface. She settled herself onto the lumpy stones, lay back, and tugged her skirt up.
Above her, Field Snake let out a long sigh. “Yes. Never had me a so-called lady before.” With one hand he pulled his breechcloth down over his hips, let it fall. His erection bobbed as he stepped between her legs and dropped to his knees in anticipation.
She ground her teeth as he laid the handle of his war club across her throat. But told him, “You’re right. Nothing I haven’t done before. You won’t need that war club.”
He was leering into her face as he crawled onto her. “I’ll keep the war club. Some women lose all sense when it comes to coupling.”
She pulled her knees up. When he reached down to insert himself, she clutched the nearest fist-sized cobble. Tightening her grip, she smashed it hard into his temple. Even as he jerked at the impact, she hit him again, and again, pounding the stone into the side of his head with all her strength.
He rolled off her and she followed, used the stone to crush his nose.
Field Snake let out a dazed scream, flailed, and shrieked. Batted halfheartedly at her with his war club. She ducked it, paused only long enough to lay her hands on a larger rock, and with both hands, pulled it loose and drove it into his face.
Whimpering, he tried to scramble away. She tripped him, got the advantage, and from above hammered the heavy cobble into his head. Then again and again. She was still raising and slamming her bloody stone into his pulped remains as Made of Wood and Bluefish came tearing through the willows.
They stopped short, gaping, as Night Shadow Star drove the stone down one last time onto the flattened and leaking wreckage of Field Snake’s broken head.
Panting, she stood, resettling her skirt as she stared with distaste at the blood on her hands.
Shooting a sidelong glance at the two warriors, she said, “He thought all he needed was a war club to force me. You know how it is, some men lose all sense when it comes to coupling.”
Invincible
Six Toes tells me the people who live here are called Catawba. This is an outlier village, but I know from my time in Cofitachequi that most of their people live in communities up in the mountains and across the divide.
We put in here to rest, to try and dicker for something to eat besides fish, cattail roots, and bladderwort that we have been surviving on since leaving Willow Stem Village.
Not that we have much to Trade—or that we would even have been welcomed here but for Six Toes; he Trades here often.
It is apparent that the Catawba have no real use for Cahokians, more so since apparently a generation ago it was Moon Blade who attacked their old village, defeated their warriors, and caused them to flee to this side of the mountain.
Through Six Toes’ supposed good graces, we were able to barter for a meal of cooked corn, boiled venison stew rich in onions, coontie root, and chunks of yellow lotus.
It cost my warriors some of their jewelry and other small personal items. They were not happy, even less so when I ordered Fire Light to make them hand their things over.
The entire evening reminds me of hawks and ravens. You know how they are over a kill? The hawks sit atop the carcass, stripping off meat and glaring at the ravens hopping around the periphery, hoping for enough of an opening to snatch a bite.
In the end, though the hawks could rip the ravens to pieces, it is always the canny ravens who finally trick the hawks into surrendering the carcass.
And that leads me right back to Six Toes, the supposedly neutral Trader who orchestrated a deal whereby my Cahokian warriors had to hand over precious carvings, beadwork, and shell for a rather mundane meal. Hardly the Power of Trade.
Doesn’t matter that all through that meal, Six Toes kept his expression emotionless as he sat in the back of the rude ramada and conversed with the Catawba chief, his headmen, and clan matrons. I could tell he was among friends. Nor did I need to speak Catawba to understand what he was saying. Though Six Toes was feigning indifference—his voice in a monotone—the Catawba would shoot knowing glances, in unison, at me or High Chief Fire Light. Flickers of amusement or enjoyment would cross their faces.
My warriors, however, suspected nothing, just pursued their meal in surly silence.
Six Toes keeps telling them about how Night Shadow Star eludes me. I understand that, both from Six Toes’ unwitting hand signs and the amused chuckles breaking from the Catawba as they shoot derisive glances my way.
In return, I narrow my eyes, give them the slit-eyed stare that, in the past, has sent anyone who knows me into a quaking fear.
The Catawba just grin.
Very well, Six Toes. I think you have served your purpose.
I return my attention to the wooden trencher and use a bit of acorn bread to soak up some of the last of the soup. A sensation of joyous anticipation is born in my chest.
The Catawba have given us a hut to sleep in for the night. It is a rude bent-pole structure covered with thatch, but it has a central fire and a couple of beds built into the walls. In our original inspection that afternoon, most of the warriors had seen enough vermin crawling around that they’d decided to sleep down on the landing beside the canoe.
Which well serves my plans.
After the meal, as my Cahokians rise to retire, I tell Fire Light, “I need you to sleep with the men. Whatever excuse you need, make it.”
“And leave you alone with Six Toes?” he asks. “Are you sure that’s wise?”
“Oh, yes,” I tell him. “The Trader is going to help me discover some things. Somehow I think he’s going to be more helpful to me tonight than he has ever been.”
Not more than a hand of time after I retire to the hut and build up the fire, Six Toes ducks through the door. He glances around, asking, “Just you?”
“Just me,” I tell him. “The others are down at the canoe landing. But you are going to help me tonight. I need to see.”
“See what?” he asks, turning toward his pack where it lies atop one of the beds.
“I need to know where Night Shadow Star is. I need to discover a way of healing this pain in my shaft and stones. I need to look past the horizons, and discover what Power has in store for me.”
He is still bent over, pulling at his pack strings when I slam my war club into the back of his head. Accompanied by the hollow sound of his snapping skull, he drops like a pile of meat.
“To do that,” I tell his twitching and dying body, “I have to remove your organs and see what is reflected in the blood pooling in your rib cage.” I pause. “Or did you think that traveling with a witch didn’t have its downsides?”
I have plenty of time.
We will be gone long before the Catawba find the body. And on the way, I will take enough Trade with me to compensate the warriors for the trinkets they’ve lost.
I do hesitate long enough to wonder how Cahokians will be greeted the next time they come to the Catawba.
But that, I tell myself as I pull out my sharp chert knife, is not my problem.
I hear the distant rumble of thunder as I make my first cut.
Twenty-five
Night Shadow Star took immediate advantage of her companions’ stunned reaction. As they stood over the young man’s body, she plucked up the naive fool’s war club, tested it, and found the weight a bit more than she would have preferred. Fanning it before her, she turned on Bluefish, declaring, “That bit of twitching and dying garbage said you wanted to be next. That as soon as he finished with me, and you could get up the nerve, it was going to be your turn.”
She stalked up to the wide-eyed warrior, took a slashing cut through the air not a hand’s width short of his face. The man backheeled, recovered, and put his hands out in surrender as he cried, “No, Lady, no!”
She pressed forward, chasing him back through the willows into the camp, where he almost collided with Summer Ice.
“Right now,” she thundered, “we end this. I am Lady Night Shadow Star. Not anyone’s bed toy. Come on, Bluefish. You want me? Stand still you pus-gutted worm! Unless you’ve got a good reason, you’re dying like that simpering maggot Field Snake.”
“Wait! Stop! On my honor! I’ll never touch you. I swear!” Bluefish staggered back, slipped on some of the loose mussel shells, and almost fell into the fire. His hands were still up, a pleading desperation matching the terror in his eyes.
“On your knees,” she snapped. “Touch your head when you’re talking to a Cahokian noble. Now! Or I crush your skull like an eggshell. You serve me! Night Shadow Star of the Morning Star House of the Four Winds Clan. From this moment on, I am your lady.”
“Yes!” Bluefish dropped to his knees, bowed his head, and touched his forehead in a gesture of obeisance.
Night Shadow Star shot a sidelong glance at the confused Summer Ice, who was gaping at the scene like an idiot. “And you, warrior? Do you serve me, or do you serve yourself? Choose.”
Summer Ice, still clueless about what was going on, asked, “Serve you?”
At that moment Made of Wood stepped out of the willows, a grim look on his face. “We serve you, Lady.” To Summer Ice he added, “That fool Field Snake tried to force the lady. She left him with his head flattened into mush.”
Then Made of Wood respectfully touched his forehead. “At your service, my lady.”
Nor had they said a word as she dragged Field Snake’s body to the river, shoved it out into the current, and called, “As I promised, my Lord! An offering for our safe passage. Take this two-footed fool for your own.”
Field Snake’s corpse, floating low, was seized by the current, whirled around, and carried to the center of the river. As they watched from shore, a great ripple formed around the body. She swore a clawed foot dragged the dead youth down into the depths.
“Did you see that?” Summer Ice whispered. “Something seized him. Pulled him down.”
“I serve my Lord,” she told them, “and you serve me. Don’t forget it.”
That day she clambered into the rear of the canoe and took up the steering paddle. Then they set out, riding the fastest current downriver. She could hear Piasa, whispering, his voice muffled but filled with satisfaction.
“Yes, Lord. Now speed us along. And do not forget that I am trying to keep our bargain.” A pause. “And that includes Fire Cat.”
Winder craned his neck, peering over the side. “I see water, War Leader. Shadowed as the depths are, I can’t see past the surface.”
“He’s there,” Fire Cat said flatly. “He wouldn’t be pacing us unless there’s a reason.”
In the seat behind Winder, Blood Talon, too, was staring over the side. “I see nothing, Fire Cat. Just murky dark water.”
“We’re going on,” Fire Cat decided.
“Got fast water ahead of us,” Shell Hook called from where he perched in the rear. “Nothing to worry about in daylight, but I don’t want to chance it in the dark. Can’t see the boulders. We hit one of them, we’re going over. Getting dumped in fast water, in the dark, is a good way to drown.”
“I’ll let you off at the next sand bar,” Fire Cat told him.
“It’s my canoe!”
“You can pick it up at the mouth of the Wide Fast, or maybe Canyon Town if we can’t find another Trader to carry us downriver.”
“Now wait a moment! I didn’t sign on for—”
“You heard the war leader,” Blood Talon told the Trader stiffly. “If he says we’re paddling all night, we’re paddling.”
“Squadron First, you’re as crazy as Fire Cat,” Winder muttered. “Tackling that water in the darkness? Insane.”
“You want to be left onshore, too?” Fire Cat asked.
“Not me, Red Wing,” Winder told him. “Since I hired on at Big Cane Town, I’ve seen enough to know that Power guides you and Lady Night Shadow Star. You say Piasa’s down there? That he wants us to keep to the river? I put my faith in you and your visions.”
“Red Wing, if we were meant to drown,” Blood Talon added, “it would have happened back when you capsized my war canoe. Lead on. I’m with you.”
“You are all idiots,” Shell Hook growled. “Fortunately, I can swim. Hope you can. You’re going to need it.”
Fire Cat would have smiled at the dispirited tone in the Trader’s voice, but when it came to the presence of that weird blue glow that now moved out ahead of them? It set every nerve in his body on edge.
If Piasa is here, he wants us to hurry. And that means Night Shadow Star must be …
He couldn’t finish the thought, his heart beginning to pound as he drove his paddle deep, sending the bulky Trade canoe flying after the blue glow that led the canoe into the night.
Twenty-four
Distant thunder shook Night Shadow Star out of the Dream. Brought her awake in the predawn. Her bladder was pressing for relief. Her stomach growled and gurgled. Supper last night had been freshwater mussels they’d collected from the gravel bar that extended out into the river below their camp. For the first night since leaving Standing Willow Village, they’d eaten to satiety. The pile of shells back of the fire stood testimony to the bounty. Not to mention three nice pearls they’d recovered.
She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, pulled the blanket back, and listened to the morning. Frogs were raising a racket on the riverbanks, and predawn birdsong filled the air. The sky above reflected a dull gray, clouds sucking up the coming light. Even through the scent of smoke permeating her blanket, clothing, and hair, she could smell the damp mud, the sweetness of the willows and midsummer blossoms.
Sitting up, she glanced around the camp. The men remained motionless, blankets rising and falling as they slept. Dew had settled on the canoe, leaving the gunwales and stacked paddles gleaming.
Somewhere off to the west, the staccato of an ivory-billed woodpecker, as the war bird hammered on a hardwood.
In her heart, the longing ache for Fire Cat filled her with a physical pain.
She threw the blanket aside, clawed her unruly thick hair back over her shoulder, and pulled her high moccasins onto her feet. Then she quietly made her way past the smoldering remains of the fire and into the willows.
Finding an opening in the brush, she squatted to relieve herself. High water in the not-so-distant past had piled rounded cobbles and gravel in a lenticular bar. Vegetation was just now starting to reclaim the deposit, green shoots spearing up between the river-rounded stones.
The scrape of a branch was her only warning. She rose and turned, finding herself face-to-face with Field Snake. The young warrior had a crooked smile on his lips as he made a shushing gesture with his finger, then said, “Not a word, woman.”
To emphasize his point, he smacked his war club into a hard palm. “You scream? I’ll clip you hard, do you hear? Have to really make you hurt so that when I tell the others you were running, going to try and escape, they’ll believe me.”
“What do you want?”
“What does any man want with a woman?”
His grin turned crafty again, and he gestured toward her with his war club. “It’s been moons, ever since before your brother came to Joara. Had a couple of slave girls that didn’t mind spreading their legs for a handful of shell beads. But the Lightning Witch came, and the old woman who owned them left and took them with her. All the women a man would be interested in left.”
“Too bad. It would take a great deal more than a handful of shell beads to interest me.”
“A lot less, actually. You see, I’ve got the war club, and you’ve got a simple choice: Do I beat you half to death? Or do you lie back, pull up your skirt, and let me do what a man does with a woman? As I hear it, it’s nothing more than what you were doing with Fire Cat. Surely, if you’d stoop to letting your bound man slick your sheath, a warrior’s hard shaft will be an improvement.”
“What would you know of Fire Cat?”
Again that knowing grin, almost insolent as his eyes narrowed. “Oh, all he could do was brag about what he did with you under the covers. You never heard about that, did you? How close he was? It was me who kept him, Winder, and Blood Talon from reaching you that night.”
“What are you talking about?” Her heart skipped. Fire Cat? This young idiot had seen Fire Cat?
“They didn’t want you to know. The Lightning Shell Witch and High Chief Fire Light, they ordered me to keep quiet. That night before you got to Joara, I was sent with a party to find you. And we did. Well, we found your camp up by the rock spring. Had Winder and those Traders captive. That’s when Fire Cat and Blood Talon appeared. Killed all the others. All but me. But I got even. Told them I’d lead them to you. Then I tricked them into following a trail up into the mountains and slipped away in the dark. Left them lost and confused.”
“What?” Her heart continued to hammer away. “He was that close?”
Field Snake shrugged. “People underestimate me. You underestimate me. But not now. Not this morning.” Again he wiggled the war club suggestively. “Lie down. Right over there. On that grass.”
“It’s rocky.”
“What do I care? I’ll have plenty of cushion with you between me and the rocks. Now do it, or I’m breaking your arm. And if you still refuse, I’ll crack some ribs. Or I might just knock you half-silly. I don’t need you conscious for what I’m going to do to you.”
“The others are going to—”
“Take their own turns,” he snapped. “But that’s for later. Piss and spit, woman, do you think we did this for your benefit? Bluefish is still trying to get up the courage, given that you’re Four Winds and all. But me? I’m a long way away from any Four Winds Clan, let alone their authority.”
“I think you’d better—”
“Enough talk. Now. Down on your back and spread, and don’t get any ideas.” He waggled the war club. “I’m keeping this in my hand, laying the handle across your throat. You try anything, and I’ll choke you.”
She nodded, feeling that old familiar revulsion in the pit of her stomach. Step by step she backed to the grassy spot, glanced down at the rock-studded surface. She settled herself onto the lumpy stones, lay back, and tugged her skirt up.
Above her, Field Snake let out a long sigh. “Yes. Never had me a so-called lady before.” With one hand he pulled his breechcloth down over his hips, let it fall. His erection bobbed as he stepped between her legs and dropped to his knees in anticipation.
She ground her teeth as he laid the handle of his war club across her throat. But told him, “You’re right. Nothing I haven’t done before. You won’t need that war club.”
He was leering into her face as he crawled onto her. “I’ll keep the war club. Some women lose all sense when it comes to coupling.”
She pulled her knees up. When he reached down to insert himself, she clutched the nearest fist-sized cobble. Tightening her grip, she smashed it hard into his temple. Even as he jerked at the impact, she hit him again, and again, pounding the stone into the side of his head with all her strength.
He rolled off her and she followed, used the stone to crush his nose.
Field Snake let out a dazed scream, flailed, and shrieked. Batted halfheartedly at her with his war club. She ducked it, paused only long enough to lay her hands on a larger rock, and with both hands, pulled it loose and drove it into his face.
Whimpering, he tried to scramble away. She tripped him, got the advantage, and from above hammered the heavy cobble into his head. Then again and again. She was still raising and slamming her bloody stone into his pulped remains as Made of Wood and Bluefish came tearing through the willows.
They stopped short, gaping, as Night Shadow Star drove the stone down one last time onto the flattened and leaking wreckage of Field Snake’s broken head.
Panting, she stood, resettling her skirt as she stared with distaste at the blood on her hands.
Shooting a sidelong glance at the two warriors, she said, “He thought all he needed was a war club to force me. You know how it is, some men lose all sense when it comes to coupling.”
Invincible
Six Toes tells me the people who live here are called Catawba. This is an outlier village, but I know from my time in Cofitachequi that most of their people live in communities up in the mountains and across the divide.
We put in here to rest, to try and dicker for something to eat besides fish, cattail roots, and bladderwort that we have been surviving on since leaving Willow Stem Village.
Not that we have much to Trade—or that we would even have been welcomed here but for Six Toes; he Trades here often.
It is apparent that the Catawba have no real use for Cahokians, more so since apparently a generation ago it was Moon Blade who attacked their old village, defeated their warriors, and caused them to flee to this side of the mountain.
Through Six Toes’ supposed good graces, we were able to barter for a meal of cooked corn, boiled venison stew rich in onions, coontie root, and chunks of yellow lotus.
It cost my warriors some of their jewelry and other small personal items. They were not happy, even less so when I ordered Fire Light to make them hand their things over.
The entire evening reminds me of hawks and ravens. You know how they are over a kill? The hawks sit atop the carcass, stripping off meat and glaring at the ravens hopping around the periphery, hoping for enough of an opening to snatch a bite.
In the end, though the hawks could rip the ravens to pieces, it is always the canny ravens who finally trick the hawks into surrendering the carcass.
And that leads me right back to Six Toes, the supposedly neutral Trader who orchestrated a deal whereby my Cahokian warriors had to hand over precious carvings, beadwork, and shell for a rather mundane meal. Hardly the Power of Trade.
Doesn’t matter that all through that meal, Six Toes kept his expression emotionless as he sat in the back of the rude ramada and conversed with the Catawba chief, his headmen, and clan matrons. I could tell he was among friends. Nor did I need to speak Catawba to understand what he was saying. Though Six Toes was feigning indifference—his voice in a monotone—the Catawba would shoot knowing glances, in unison, at me or High Chief Fire Light. Flickers of amusement or enjoyment would cross their faces.
My warriors, however, suspected nothing, just pursued their meal in surly silence.
Six Toes keeps telling them about how Night Shadow Star eludes me. I understand that, both from Six Toes’ unwitting hand signs and the amused chuckles breaking from the Catawba as they shoot derisive glances my way.
In return, I narrow my eyes, give them the slit-eyed stare that, in the past, has sent anyone who knows me into a quaking fear.
The Catawba just grin.
Very well, Six Toes. I think you have served your purpose.
I return my attention to the wooden trencher and use a bit of acorn bread to soak up some of the last of the soup. A sensation of joyous anticipation is born in my chest.
The Catawba have given us a hut to sleep in for the night. It is a rude bent-pole structure covered with thatch, but it has a central fire and a couple of beds built into the walls. In our original inspection that afternoon, most of the warriors had seen enough vermin crawling around that they’d decided to sleep down on the landing beside the canoe.
Which well serves my plans.
After the meal, as my Cahokians rise to retire, I tell Fire Light, “I need you to sleep with the men. Whatever excuse you need, make it.”
“And leave you alone with Six Toes?” he asks. “Are you sure that’s wise?”
“Oh, yes,” I tell him. “The Trader is going to help me discover some things. Somehow I think he’s going to be more helpful to me tonight than he has ever been.”
Not more than a hand of time after I retire to the hut and build up the fire, Six Toes ducks through the door. He glances around, asking, “Just you?”
“Just me,” I tell him. “The others are down at the canoe landing. But you are going to help me tonight. I need to see.”
“See what?” he asks, turning toward his pack where it lies atop one of the beds.
“I need to know where Night Shadow Star is. I need to discover a way of healing this pain in my shaft and stones. I need to look past the horizons, and discover what Power has in store for me.”
He is still bent over, pulling at his pack strings when I slam my war club into the back of his head. Accompanied by the hollow sound of his snapping skull, he drops like a pile of meat.
“To do that,” I tell his twitching and dying body, “I have to remove your organs and see what is reflected in the blood pooling in your rib cage.” I pause. “Or did you think that traveling with a witch didn’t have its downsides?”
I have plenty of time.
We will be gone long before the Catawba find the body. And on the way, I will take enough Trade with me to compensate the warriors for the trinkets they’ve lost.
I do hesitate long enough to wonder how Cahokians will be greeted the next time they come to the Catawba.
But that, I tell myself as I pull out my sharp chert knife, is not my problem.
I hear the distant rumble of thunder as I make my first cut.
Twenty-five
Night Shadow Star took immediate advantage of her companions’ stunned reaction. As they stood over the young man’s body, she plucked up the naive fool’s war club, tested it, and found the weight a bit more than she would have preferred. Fanning it before her, she turned on Bluefish, declaring, “That bit of twitching and dying garbage said you wanted to be next. That as soon as he finished with me, and you could get up the nerve, it was going to be your turn.”
She stalked up to the wide-eyed warrior, took a slashing cut through the air not a hand’s width short of his face. The man backheeled, recovered, and put his hands out in surrender as he cried, “No, Lady, no!”
She pressed forward, chasing him back through the willows into the camp, where he almost collided with Summer Ice.
“Right now,” she thundered, “we end this. I am Lady Night Shadow Star. Not anyone’s bed toy. Come on, Bluefish. You want me? Stand still you pus-gutted worm! Unless you’ve got a good reason, you’re dying like that simpering maggot Field Snake.”
“Wait! Stop! On my honor! I’ll never touch you. I swear!” Bluefish staggered back, slipped on some of the loose mussel shells, and almost fell into the fire. His hands were still up, a pleading desperation matching the terror in his eyes.
“On your knees,” she snapped. “Touch your head when you’re talking to a Cahokian noble. Now! Or I crush your skull like an eggshell. You serve me! Night Shadow Star of the Morning Star House of the Four Winds Clan. From this moment on, I am your lady.”
“Yes!” Bluefish dropped to his knees, bowed his head, and touched his forehead in a gesture of obeisance.
Night Shadow Star shot a sidelong glance at the confused Summer Ice, who was gaping at the scene like an idiot. “And you, warrior? Do you serve me, or do you serve yourself? Choose.”
Summer Ice, still clueless about what was going on, asked, “Serve you?”
At that moment Made of Wood stepped out of the willows, a grim look on his face. “We serve you, Lady.” To Summer Ice he added, “That fool Field Snake tried to force the lady. She left him with his head flattened into mush.”
Then Made of Wood respectfully touched his forehead. “At your service, my lady.”
Nor had they said a word as she dragged Field Snake’s body to the river, shoved it out into the current, and called, “As I promised, my Lord! An offering for our safe passage. Take this two-footed fool for your own.”
Field Snake’s corpse, floating low, was seized by the current, whirled around, and carried to the center of the river. As they watched from shore, a great ripple formed around the body. She swore a clawed foot dragged the dead youth down into the depths.
“Did you see that?” Summer Ice whispered. “Something seized him. Pulled him down.”
“I serve my Lord,” she told them, “and you serve me. Don’t forget it.”
That day she clambered into the rear of the canoe and took up the steering paddle. Then they set out, riding the fastest current downriver. She could hear Piasa, whispering, his voice muffled but filled with satisfaction.
“Yes, Lord. Now speed us along. And do not forget that I am trying to keep our bargain.” A pause. “And that includes Fire Cat.”
