People of the Morning Star (60 page)

Crazy Frog shook his head, sighing. “Of all the people in the world, who would have thought
you
would turn out to be a hero?”

“Heroes usually have to suffer terrible hardships and sacrifices before they die in most unpleasant ways.” He made a pained face. “So let’s agree I’m no one’s hero, all right?”

Crazy Frog chuckled dryly. “I hold your Keeper to your promise.” Then he glanced off to the side, saying, “What do you think?”

Seven Skull Shield cocked his head as a dwarf stepped out from the shadows behind a large seed pot. The little man was dressed in expensive fabrics. An iridescent raven-feather cloak hung over his narrow shoulders; his hair coiled in a tight bun atop his head, pinned with a conch-shell columella.

“So this is the thief we’ve all been hearing about,” the dwarf said, his voice wary and high-pitched. “My old adversary, the Keeper, has taken a peculiar twist in the selection of her agents.”

“But then,” Crazy Frog told him dryly, “so have you.” He paused, then gestured grandly. “Seven Skull Shield, I give you Flat Stone Pipe the dwarf. A small man of large—”

“Yes, yes,” Seven Skull Shield waved it away. “The Evening Star matron’s famous little spy and bed toy. But, tell me, spy, what are you doing here?”

“Apparently, the same as you, thief. Trying to stop Walking Smoke and save people who are important to me.”

“It may not be easy explaining your involvement in this to the Keeper, little man.”

Flat Stone Pipe absently fingered the extraordinary reliefs of cosmic spider carved into the side of the storage chest beside him. “Oh, I doubt that. Your Lord Walking Smoke captured Evening Star House this morning. His Tula warriors control the palace. He has lady Columella, that dolt High Dance, the lady Lace, and all the Four Winds children captive inside. He’s sent a messenger summoning Lady Sun Wing, and I imagine he’s laid additional traps and snares around the city to trip up any potential adversaries.”

Seven Skull Shield narrowed his eyes as he thought this through.

Crazy Frog noted, “He has what? Less than twenty Tula warriors? He won’t be able to hold out if the Four Winds squadrons are called up to assault the palace.”

Flat Stone Pipe’s expression pinched. “So far, no one knows he controls the palace outside of those held captive inside, and those of us here. I’m hoping Walking Smoke will keep quiet long enough for us to act.”

The dwarf glanced up at Seven Skull Shield. “I said that because as soon as Walking Smoke thinks he’s running out of time, he’s going to start cutting the throats of every man, woman, and child he’s holding in there. And as he pours out their blood in sacrifice, he’s going to begin the ritual to call Piasa into his body.”

“Assuming it actually works,” Crazy Frog mused, eyes distant.

“Whether it works or not”—Flat Stone Pipe pointed a stubby finger—“it makes no difference if you’re one of the hostages having your throat sliced open. Either way people I care for are going to end up dead.”

Fifty-six

This can’t be happening to me … to us.

The thought kept running around and around Columella’s souls like some sort of worried rabbit. She sat on the eastern bench, fingering the rattlesnake’s head carved in the upright post that supported the cross pieces in the frame. She had watched, stunned, as the barbaric Tula ripped down wood carvings of the Morning Star, Bird Man, and the curled Four Winds Clan insignia. They stripped off the copper, tossing it into a growing pile. They didn’t bother with the shell inlay, giving up after shattering most of the pieces they tried to pry out of the inset. The immaculately carved reliefs and sculpture were broken up and thrown into the central fire. The trophy weapons and shields had come down to burn; the skulls and long bones of Evening Star House’s long-conquered foes had been tossed into the flames where they splintered, whitened, and cracked.

Even the stone carvings of Morning Star, Snapping Turtle, Eagle, and Falcon had been consigned to the fire, and now lay, white hot, among the glowing coals and calcined fragments of human bone. Surely any Spirit Power they once contained had been purged from the sacred stone.

A physical pain pierced her heart as the symbols of her world were consumed.

Of her beautiful palace, only the woven-cane wall behind the dais still stood, the intricate design reflecting pale shadows where once-stunning reliefs had hung. She’d waited for most of a year while the craftsmen wove the complicated patterns. For all she knew, Walking Smoke left it standing because it was too cumbersome to tear down.

And perhaps, like her, he placed too much value on keeping his privacy in her personal quarters behind them.

Just this side of the fire a low dome had been lashed together out of cane and blankets before hides were laid over the whole. To her practiced eye, it looked like a sweat lodge.

Even as she pondered it, Walking Smoke emerged from her sleeping quarters, rubbing his eyes and yawning. He wore only a breechcloth, the Four Winds tattoos on his muscular young body stood out vibrantly on his light brown skin. The Morning Star House pattern with its forked-eye design, to her amazement, had been altered. Now a third point, creating the three-forked design of the Underworld had been added to the tattoo.

Walking Smoke yawned again and absently scratched as he studied the plaster walls.

“What’s he doing?” High Dance asked.

“He didn’t tell you?” she shot back. “All those clandestine meetings? All the careful plotting and sneaking you did? Even after you learned he was dangerous you couldn’t let go, could you, brother?”

“Stop!” he said through gritted teeth. “As if you did any better with your shifty dwarf.” He shot her a sidelong glance. “But then he’s a smart one, isn’t he? Haven’t seen him around since Walking Smoke trapped us in here.”

“Be patient.” She narrowed her eyes as Walking Smoke called out orders in Caddo, and two of the Tula, using antlers, began fishing the stone statuary from the coals.

“What’s this? He’s really going to sweat? Here! In the middle of our palace? Using our burned statues for heat?” High Dance wondered.

“Why not?” she asked dryly. “Or did you figure he’d walk out in the plaza like everyone else?”

“Now what?” High Dance tensed as two more Tula dragged a tall boiling jar from under one of the sleeping benches and placed it on the floor just back from the sweat lodge’s entrance.

Another Tula had rounded up one of the water jars. Flipping back the blankets on the sweat lodge, he placed it inside, then walked over to where the slaves huddled against the back wall. He joined three of his companions who stood guard.

Walking Smoke sauntered around the room before stopping to size up the children, one by one. None would meet his eyes. He shook his head, as if in self-argumentation, and turned his attention on the slaves.

He pointed at Cold Water, a longtime slave who had served her for years. She’d obtained him as a young man, and valued his big body, though a wound to the head at the time of his capture had always left him a little slow.

Now the Tula made whistling and hooting sounds as they rushed forward and grabbed Cold Water, who kicked and fought as they dragged him over the matting to the middle of the room.

A war club lashed out, the wet smack loud in the silence.

Columella tensed, half rising. But High Dance, despite his tied hands, managed to drag her down. “Don’t get in the middle of this, Sister. Don’t call attention to us.”

“But Cold Water—”

“Is already stunned and quivering,” High Dance gritted.

She watched in horror as the slave’s head was lifted by his hair; his eyes rolled back and fluttered in his head. The Tula positioned him over the corrugated cooking jar.

A long brown-chert blade appeared in one of the Tula’s hands. Columella gasped as it was drawn quickly across Cold Water’s stretched throat.

She heard her children cry out and glanced down the bench to see them cringing, hiding their eyes, crying in horror. They’d loved Cold Water. He’d always taken care of the children, his big dumb heart delighted to look after them.

Now his blood jetted red through the wide slit under his chin. She could hear it splashing and trickling into the corrugated jar. So deep and clean was the severing cut, and so skillfully did the Tula catch the flow, that no blood bubbled up from Cold Water’s nose or mouth.

Then, to Columella’s horror, she watched the Tula hoist Cold Water’s feet ever higher until they held him almost vertically above the pot to drain every last bit of blood from his body.

Walking Smoke smiled lazily and walked over to the sweat lodge. Slipping his breechcloth over his hips, he let it slide down his legs and stepped out of it, naked.

For some reason, he glanced at her, gave her a wink, and shook his head. “Sorry, Matron,” he called. “You’ll have to remain in frustrated denial. It’s all about purity, you see.”

She bit off a hot retort, forced her gaze away from his, and realized her mouth had gone dry. By clenching her fists she was able, for the moment, to still the shivers and terror that ran along her bones.

Where the Tula still struggled to elevate Cold Water’s body, the flow from his gaping neck was now down to a threadlike stream. One of the Tula thumped Cold Water’s chest over the heart, and a couple of breaths later, another gush of blood drained from the severed arteries.

“Why?” High Dance rasped. “In
Hunga Ahuito
’s name, why?”

To her relief Walking Smoke had ducked into the sweat lodge and sealed the interior. She could hear the explosion of steam as he poured water onto the white-hot statuary stones and began his sweat. He was singing to himself, some sort of Power song.

She whispered, “It’s just … barbaric.”

That’s when the Tula finally dropped Cold Water’s body to flop loose-limbed on the floor, his dead eyes seeming to lock on hers with a pleading she couldn’t stand.

Every eye in the room was on the Tula as two of them lifted the pot and walked over to the south wall. Dipping their fingers in the hot blood they began drawing on the naked plaster. Crude though the work was, dripping and poorly rendered, she nevertheless recognized images of tadpoles, caterpillars, mudpuppies, frogs, butterflies, salamanders, and long red snake images.

*   *   *

Sun Wing’s litter was born up the trail from the canoe landing by eight strong men. Calling on the authority of the Morning Star House, Feather Wand, her head of household, had simply ordered canoes to be made ready. Sun Wing, her litter, and porters, had been ferried to the great river’s western shore.

The sun had set by the time they started up the steep bluff trail; she glanced up at the mottled clouds that darkened the sky. Two slaves bore smoky, resin-ball torches to light the way as she was carried past the two-headed eagle guardian posts and into Evening Star town proper.

Passing through the temples, society houses, and around the charnel mound, her porters trotted across the dark plaza. As she was carried past the World Tree pole Sun Wing touched her forehead in respect. Her porters bore her to the base of the stairway ramp in front of Evening Star House palace where High Dance and Columella held sway.

Two heavily armed warriors and a single man holding a staff of office stood by the guardian posts at the foot of the stairs leading up to the palace.

Sun Wing’s porters lowered her litter to the hard-packed clay. Feather Wand helped her to her feet before he turned, lifted his staff of office, and announced, “The Lady Sun Wing, of the Morning Star House, of the Four Winds Clan, of the Sky Moiety demands audience.”

The two warriors, both young Tula, tightened their grip on their war clubs while the third man stepped forward and raised his own staff, saying, “High Chief High Dance and Matron Columella are involved in ceremonies and purification, and will not be disturbed until mid-sun, two days from now. That is the order of the Evening Star House.”

Sun Wing stepped forward, motioning Feather Wand back. The two Tula warriors gave her a slit-eyed inspection that unsettled her—the kind of look wolves gave a whitetail deer fawn. To the man who carried the Evening Star House staff, she said in a low voice, “Go inside and tell my brother that Lady Sun Wing, his sister, is here.”

“By order of the Evening Star House—”

“Do you know who I am?” she snapped. “Go tell him Sun Wing is here. Do it!”

The man hesitated, clearly afraid.

“I know you were hired for this. Tell Walking Smoke, or White Finger, or whatever he’s calling himself, that his sister is here, or he’ll have you skinned alive.”

The man murmured something to the Tula, then turned, almost running up the steps.

Not even twenty breaths later, he was back, crying, “He’ll see you, Lady. But you alone.”

She turned to Feather Wand. “Stay here. I’ll call you when I need you. It may be awhile so don’t worry.”

“Yes, Lady.”

Taking a moment to ensure her hair was pinned properly, and to arrange her skirt and cape, she then climbed the stairs, back straight, moving with all the regal grace expected of a Morning Star House lady.

Two more warriors were waiting at either side of the closed door, bows and quivers of arrows at hand, war clubs slung. They, too, watched her with those same predatory eyes. She forced herself to ignore them as if they were nothing more than bugs.