People of the Morning Star (23 page)

Grasping my war club, I ease my way across the porch with a snake’s silence and stop, listening, breathing slowly in the same manner a snake does.

In contrast to the war club in my right hand, the long and deadly chert knife in my left has a light heft, like the deadly serpent’s fang that it is.

Confident that no one watches, I ease the door open and slip inside. There, like a stalking serpent, I wait, allowing my eyes to adjust. I make out sleepers along the wall benches. The fire has burned down to a glowing pit of coals in the center of the room. One by one I study the sleeping forms. Even those closest to me do not stir, but continue to breathe deeply.

Like a serpent through a nest of rodents, I start across the floor, passing the fire pit, veering around the tall clay altar in the rear where the lordly ruler normally sits atop his ornate litter.

Again I pause when I reach the doorway to the sleeping quarters. Looking back, nothing moves, though the shadows seem deeper behind the altar.

Carefully I lower the war club, then insert the thin chert blade to feel for a thong latch. Finding none, I lift the door and ease myself inside.

Again I wait, letting my eyes adjust to the deeper darkness as I catalog the room’s contents. The sleeping bench is against the back wall, and there I see my quarry.

On silent feet I cross to stand above the recumbent form.

The stories of the Beginning Time are told for a reason. What the Morning Star can do, so too, can the Wild One. I must prove myself worthy, capable of following in the god’s footsteps. I expected to feel remorse, some hesitation. Instead, to my surprise, a building anticipation rushes through my veins.

Yes, this night I am the god!

I lean down, setting my war club on the floor. Positioning myself just so, I lower the beautiful stone knife, its carefully sharpened edge keen enough to cut hair. I orient it so that with a single slash, I will sever that beloved throat.

Eighteen

Seven Skull Shield blinked awake. He’d always had that particular skill, as if his souls kept track of the passing night, and alerted him when it was time. If asked, he’d never be able to describe how it worked; it just happened. In this case, he’d ordered himself to awaken halfway between midnight and dawn. Thereafter he’d slept deeply, his belly happily digesting an outstanding meal of roast deer haunch, maygrass cakes, baked persimmons, and acorn mash all washed down with sweetened sassafras tea. If he could say nothing else about the Clan Keeper, her people definitely ate well!

But the time had come to extricate himself from this mess.

He carefully raised his head from the sleeping mat. That intimidating cock-jawed warrior, Five Fists, had given it to him and ordered him to sleep on the floor, just inside the door. A place generally reserved for the dogs.

What had been meant as an insult couldn’t have served Seven Skull Shield better. He’d struggled to keep from grinning in anticipation as he’d accepted the mat.

You poor pathetic fool, Five Fists!

His plans aside, it hadn’t been the sort of slight that would have offended Seven Skull Shield in the first place. For the excellent meal alone he would have been willing to sit on his haunches and bark.

Now fully awake, he grinned to himself and eased the blanket off his shoulder. The blanket he would keep. He’d never owned such a regal piece of the weaver’s art. Woven out of the fine undercoat curried from winter bison hair, the thing was heavy, soft, and uncomfortably warm despite the cold draft circulating around the door.

He’d had ample opportunity to inspect the great room, memorize the locations of the most valuable carvings, ceramics, a fantastic scarlet-feathered cape the likes of which he’d never seen before, and a couple of small red siltstone statuettes that would bring a fortune among the river Traders. All he needed to do was retrieve them without a sound, wrap them carefully in the buffalo blanket, and slip out the door. By morning he’d be hidden in some nondesript warehouse. By tomorrow night he’d be signed onto some Trader’s canoe. Within two weeks he’d be bartering his goods for a fortune in some Pacaha town far downriver.

He started to rise when the barest whisper of a moccasin-clad foot rasped on the matting outside. Dropping flat, he clamped his eyes into slits, emulating the deep breathing of a man asleep.

The door shifted, allowing more of the night breeze to waft over Seven Skull Shield’s face. Then it swung open just enough that a man was able to slip inside. Carefully, the intruder replaced the door just so. Then he waited, standing silently, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness.

So, who’s this?
A household member who’d slipped out for an illicit rendezvous with a married man’s wife?

Seven Skull Shield opened his eyes wider in the gloom, casting a sidelong glance up at the dark form.

If he were a household member, he’d know the layout. He’d have already begun sneaking his way toward his bed.

No, this was a stranger. Seven Skull Shield could sense it. The man was doing exactly what Seven Skull Shield did when he sneaked into someplace where he wasn’t supposed to be. Like this intruder, he took his time, let his eyes adjust, studied the layout of the place.

Not only that, the intruder was too dark, and Seven Skull Shield caught the faintest odor of grease.
He’s painted himself black!

The man turned his attention to Seven Skull Shield, cocked his head, and listened. Seven Skull Shield maintained the easy deep breathing, catering to the illusion.

On cat feet, the intruder eased forward. As he passed the glowing coals in the puddled-clay central hearth, Seven Skull Shield caught the reflected gleam from a long, flaked chert blade. A ceremonial knife! Nothing else had that kind of rippled surface. A long-handled war club hung from the man’s other hand.

Seven Skull Shield shifted, eased his blanket off, and considered. First option was to slip out the partially cracked door with his blanket—but no additional loot—and vanish into the night as originally planned. But that might lead to embarrassing questions if the intruder were up to as much malfeasance as Seven Skull Shield suspected.

Second, he could call an alarm, grab as much as he could in the ensuing confusion, and beat-feet for the landing. But that, too, entailed way too many potentials for disaster.

Meanwhile, a sense of indignation began to chafe against his irritated souls. Never before had he been
invited
into such a wealthy and influential person’s house, one literally bursting with rare items, any one of which could be Traded for a year’s worth of lodging, food, and willing nubile young women. Even more aggravating, he’d awakened just in time to help himself to the largess, and what happens? This pus-sucking interloper slips in to spoil the whole thing.

“Maggot,” Seven Skull Shield mouthed silently as he rose to his feet and ghosted after the intruder.

You think you’re going to cost me the greatest opportunity for loot that life and fortune has ever thrown my way?

Creeping silently was a skill Seven Skull Shield had perfected over the years. Tiptoeing had kept him alive in more situations than one. An amorous lover just didn’t live long if he couldn’t quietly escape another man’s wife’s bed. So, too, had he learned to blend into the shadows, slip thongs off door latches, pry apart thatch and matting, and numerous other methods of entry necessary to the unique art of sneaking around strange houses in the night.

The black-painted intruder went straight for the Clan Keeper’s room in the rear. From the way he moved, the fellow was no ordinary farmer or craftsperson, but a trained warrior. His movements were spare, no effort wasted, totally balanced and poised.

He’s going to pause at the door.
Seven Skull Shield side-stepped and crouched in the shadow of the Clan Keeper’s raised dais in the rear of the palace. And, as expected, the intruder paused, glancing back to make sure the room’s occupants remained undisturbed.

Is the light good enough that he’ll notice my blanket’s empty by the door?

Apparently not. The intruder lowered his war club to the floor, and using both hands, slipped the long chert knife through the crack and lifted, obviously severing any thong on the inside. Then he carefully swiveled the door to one side, picked up his club, and vanished into the blackness.

Seven Skull Shield made a face, battled the sudden urge to just grab a couple of the better pieces of copper and pottery and run for it, and shook his head as he tiptoed to the Clan Keeper’s doorway.

As he’d anticipated, the intruder was just inside, again demonstrating his skill as he let his eyes adjust further to the gloom.

Seven Skull Shield closed his eyes, willing himself to be one with the darkness. He sensed the intruder’s movement, and slipped in after him.

The hunt had grown serious now. No way out. Seven Skull Shield’s heart began to pound, a tickle of energy spiking in his muscles. Opening his eyes to the darkness he ghosted after the intruder.

To Seven Skull Shield’s surprise, the man stopped before the Clan Keeper’s bed and carefully lowered the war club to the floor. Like a hawk over a sleeping rabbit, he positioned himself. Then, in an instant, he clapped a hand over the sleeping woman’s mouth and pressed the long stone knife to her neck. In a thickly accented voice, as though repeating from memory, he said, “Greetings from the one you threw away!”

Seven Skull Shield’s fingers closed on the man’s war club. Pivoting on one foot, he swung the vicious club up, and drove it smack into the base of the intruder’s neck where it rose from the shoulders. Vertebra cracked and snapped under the impact. The black-painted man dropped the way a heavy wet stone slipped through greased fingers … full onto the Clan Keeper’s breast.

Seven Skull Shield reached down and muscled the twitching corpse off of where it pinned old Blue Heron to her blankets. A scream of terror ripped from the old woman’s throat, and outside the door, the palace erupted in shouts and confusion.

Nineteen

The ordeal was excruciating. Blue Heron wasn’t sure which was worse, the pain from Rides-the-Lightning’s ministrations, or reliving the terror of her near execution.

She sat on her raised dais, her blankets wadded into a knot behind her. The crackling fire illuminated her ornate walls, the sleeping benches, boxes, fine baskets, and highly polished brownware jars.

“Don’t flinch,” Rides-the-Lightning muttered. His gray-blind eyes stared emptily as he sewed her up by feel. “It just makes it more difficult.”

She grimaced as he slipped another cactus spine through the bloody cut that transected her throat. When the assassin had jerked under the death blow, the incredibly sharp blade had sliced her skin.

“You try having your throat cut in the middle of the night, you old…” No, she couldn’t say it. No matter how angry and frightened she might be.

“Any deeper,” Rides-the-Lightning reminded yet again, “and it would have severed your windpipe. You’re a very lucky woman.”

She made a fist, and shot a sidelong glance at where Seven Skull Shield was standing off to the side, a calculating animation behind his dark eyes.

Fire and vomit! Now I’m indebted to the likes of him?

She needed but close her eyes, however, and the terror flashed like white light behind her eyes. The hand clapping to her mouth, the sharp edge of the knife pressing into her throat, and that soft voice,
“Greetings from the one you threw away!”
sent a shiver through her.

“Stop moving!” Rides-the-Lightning insisted again as he wound thread around the cactus spines to pull her severed skin together.

How could a blind man sew with such perfection?

“It burns!”

“Of course it does! They’re cactus spines. Pain enhances healing. Just be glad—”

“Yes, yes.” She winced as he pushed her chin up again.

With a sidelong glance she could see Clay Bell and Fire Temper, her supposed guards, standing by the door. Both gripped their war clubs and looked sheepish. They’d been asleep in their beds to either side of her door, of course.