People of the Morning Star (46 page)

You’ve been my favorite for years, little sister. But eventually you’re going to have to grow up. Given the terrible events of the last seven days, it may be sooner than later. I won’t be able to help you then. These black waters in which we swim will be too deep.

She felt the growing child in her womb shift, pressing on her bladder for a moment. She took a deep breath, irritated that the life within her didn’t have the decorum to pick a less auspicious time. She shifted to ease her discomfort.

“The inescapable conclusion,” Blue Heron exclaimed, “is that whoever is taunting us has a tie with Yellow Star mounds. We could have discounted the arrow maker’s identification of the Tula bows. After all, what’s an arrow maker’s judgment worth? But when we send for the
amayxoya
, and he’s immediately killed to prevent us from learning anything about the Tula? I may be simple, but that is pretty convincing to me.”

“I’m still having trouble with this.”
Tonka’tzi
Wind touched the tips of her fingers together. “Why these Tula? What have we ever done to them? A people I’ve never even heard of? Yes, I could understand if it were some barbarian tribe on the eastern coastal plain, or in the southern or northern forests, who had been displaced by one of our colonies. But we have not, and will not, infringe on the territorial rights of our allies. And Yellow Star is an ally.”

Takes Horn Fivekiller had been listening as his translators whispered in his ear. Now he spoke, the translators saying, “Perhaps this is a means of breaking that alliance?”

Blue Heron, fingering her healing throat, shook her head. “I think not, my good friend. Though I almost wish that were the case. If it were, we could foil the plotters with a simple reaffirmation of our alliance and good will. Strengthen it, in fact.” She touched her chin respectfully to augment her words.

That’s a good trick, one I need to remember.

Lace, to show her agreement, nodded and touched her own chin.

“No,” Blue Heron continued, still speaking to the Yellow Star emissary. “The strike is aimed at us, and only at us. The
amayxoya
’s death, through tragic, was incidental. Your good friend and leader, unfortunately, either knew, or may have known, something that would have damaged the assassin and his plans.”

“But what?” the translators asked as they repeated Takes Horn’s question. “His last words were ‘The young walk.’ Of course the young walk. They also swim and run. He was trying, through the blood, to tell me something. I have struggled, laid awake, and tortured myself, but cannot imagine what it might be.”

“Perhaps it will come to you,” the
Tonka’tzi
said wistfully. “Or perhaps we may yet uncover the plot on our own. Surely the assassin will make a mistake.” She glanced up at the darkening smoke hole overhead. “For tonight I think we’ve done enough. Tell those who are waiting at the bottom of the steps that we shall take up their claims and requests in the morning.”

With that she raised her head and arms, calling out the blessing of the Morning Star upon all who were present.

Lace gestured, signaling White Squash, her household chief to collect her porters. Then she waited as the people present prostrated themselves, bowed, or lowered their heads depending upon class and status.

Only after the
Tonka’tzi
had been carried out did her porters lift her litter and bear it from the room and out into the dusk. From the look of the clouds, it would be another rainy night.

She pursed her lips, considering the recent events, as the litter was born through the massive wooden gate. Her bearers started down the ramp. The great plaza, in evening shadow, still hosted a couple of stickball teams as they raced back and forth, apparently having more fun than success, since they could barely see the ball when it was pitched.

At the foot of the stairs, the crowd made way for the
Tonka’tzi,
a squad of warriors marching out in formation as they bore her aunt toward the Four Winds Clan house. By the time Lace was carried to the bottom, most of the crowd was filtering away into the darkness. The Traders were packing up their wares, the pilgrims singing their chants and leaving offerings at the base of the Morning Star’s great earthen pyramid.

Her own warrior escort fanned out. The outermost scouts took position no more distant than an arrow could be shot.

“Lady?” White Squash began where she walked beside the litter. “I have news. Your husband has returned from his clan business up north. He arrived with a couple of friends this afternoon and sent a runner. I didn’t have the time to inform you, as busy as your schedule was.”

She smiled at that. “Thank you.” As desperate and confused as things had become, sleeping next to him would be reassuring. She’d been so frightened since the attacks began that she’d actually allowed two armed Four Winds warriors, kinsmen, to stand just inside her door for the last couple of nights.

“I’ve had a special supper prepared. Fresh venison tenderloins are being slow roasted with beeweed seasoning, some of those peppers Traded up from the south, and fermented corn. Sassafras and raspberry tea will be served with cattail bread and cranberry syrup sweetened with honeysuckle nectar.”

“I notice a couple of his favorites there.”

White Squash glanced sidelong at her as they passed Night Shadow Star’s palace. “I thought a celebration might be in order, my Lady. There’s been more than enough fretting and danger to go around. Nor do we know when the terror is going to end.”

“When we catch the plotter and kill all of his Tula assassins,” she replied shortly, and rubbed her forehead. “Forgive me. Maybe it’s being pregnant, but I feel so helpless. Everything has me worrying to the point I’ve chewed my lip raw.” She chuckled hollowly. “Maybe I should be more like Sun Wing. She’s either fascinated or horrified. She doesn’t seem to feel this sense of growing fear.”

“That why you’re not sleeping?”

Lace placed her palms on her swollen abdomen. “Do pregnant women ever sleep? I just want this to go away. I imagine eyes in the night, watching me as I sleep. I dream that my guards are murdered, their throats slit where they stand by some unseen attacker. This menace, he exists as a shadow … a darkness that fills every corner of the room. But when I raise an oil lamp, he flits from one to another, darker, corner.”

White Squash looked up skeptically. “You haven’t been listening to your sister, have you? That’s how Night Shadow Star describes Piasa.”

“No.” Lace shook her head. “This isn’t Piasa. It’s him.” She hesitated. “I can almost see his face. I know him, White Squash. I swear. It’s just at the edge of my souls, like a shadow mist. And each time I spin around and stare, the figure dissipates into smoke.” She stopped, feeling her souls shift with certainty.

“Lady?”

“No. It’s nothing.” But it wasn’t. She almost had it. Just awhile more, she closed her eyes, willing the sense of …

“Lady? We’re here.”

The image that almost formed evaporated as her litter was placed on the ground before her palace. The structure was nothing like Night Shadow Star’s huge and opulent palace. Nor did that bother Lace. Overbalanced by her belly, she walked up the ten paltry steps to the top of her mound, touched her chin respectfully as she passed the guardian posts, and was thankful for the sacrificed dog that had been buried beneath the top of the stairs. The canine’s Spirit was there to guard against intruders.

At the same time she watched her warriors marching out to surround her low mound, two taking position by her door, and one each positioning himself at the corners of her palace.

Her two living dogs greeted her at the door, tails wagging.

“Were the two of you good today? You didn’t cause Fine Silt any trouble? Didn’t raid the venison or bread as it cooked?”

Apparently not, for neither dog betrayed even the slightest hint of guilt. They rubbed enthusiastically against her legs, panted, and waited to be scratched.

Entering she smelled the food, and started forward, wondering where Fine Silt might have been.

Lace passed the fire, seeing it was burning brightly. Meanwhile White Squash went about checking the cooking pots where they bubbled and filled the air with tantalizing odors.

Lace removed her cape as she stepped into her sleeping quarters and stopped short. In the dim light she could barely make out the line of people prostrate on her floor. Her husband, Heavy Cane, stood awkwardly just to the right. And behind him, a shadowy second figure.

“Husband? What is—”

“Call White Squash in here.” His voice sounded horrible and strained. And, as her eyes adjusted, she gasped. The odd shape at his neck was a long, thin, chipped blade—the kind of ritual knife they had all become too familiar with.

From behind Heavy Cane, a familiar voice, in a most reasonable tone, said, “Please, if you like your husband alive, make no alarm. If you scream, you both die. Now, call the delightful White Squash in here. And if you don’t behave, I’ll cut that darling little child right out of your womb.”

“It’s … you,” she choked, the mists around her souls parting with a terrible certainty.

Forty-one

The hollow terror in Blue Heron’s stomach knotted and twisted like a physical pain. With a flickering torch in her hand, she stared in abject horror at the room’s contents. Her instinct was to call for a squadron of warriors and, once surrounded by them to run, flee, as fast as possible from Cahokia. When she made it—if she made it—to the canoe landing, her impulse was to take the first worthy craft she could find, and launch it into the river. Only after a moon’s travel, born wherever the river carried her, would she land, hopefully to disappear into the forest where no one would ever find her again.

But even then, will I ever be safe?

Would any of them?

She stared at the line of bodies in Lace’s sleeping quarters. White Squash, Fine Silt, Bread Woman, Blue Flower, and the rest were laid out like an offering, their blood pooled and drying into black on the intricately woven mat floor.

And then there was the gruesome display pinned to the wall above the bed. The way the torch flickered, a trick of the light seemed to make it move and wiggle like a thing alive.

That … That … Words failed her.

The urge to shiver, to break down and weep, weakened Blue Heron’s spine. Tried to turn her knees into water.

Can’t. Got to be strong.

Never had she resented and hated the fact that so many looked up to her than at that moment. The entire world expected her to be the central supporting pillar of Four Winds strength, and all she wanted to do was run screaming from the memories.

“Aunt, I just got your messa…” Night Shadow Star’s voice trailed off as she stepped into the room. Her gasp of disbelief was followed by a dry swallow.

“I was on the verge of retiring for the night.” Blue Heron’s voice came out strangled. “A terrified warrior came charging out of the night. Said he’d gone to deliver a message from the
Tonka-tzi
to the Lady Lace. The warriors were standing at each corner of the palace as prescribed, but the two who were supposed to be monitoring the door were missing.”

“Those are the two just inside the door with their throats cut,” Night Shadow Star observed unsteadily.

“It’s raining, black as charred pitch out there,” Blue Heron noted, her eyes still locked in horror at the thing hanging from the wall above the bed.

“Where is Lace?”

“I don’t know. But that thing above the bed? I’m pretty sure it’s Heavy Cane. It’s almost hard to tell, but he would be about that size. Even with what’s been … uh, sliced away, you can tell it was male.”

Night Shadow Star staggered sideways to prop herself against the door frame. The Red Wing had appeared out of nowhere, one hand bracing her. He was staring at the wreckage in the room with dark, narrowed eyes, a hardness in the set of his mouth.

“Niece? Are you going to be all right?”

Night Shadow Star barely managed a faint nod, and kept swallowing as if to forestall the urge to throw up.

Blue Heron didn’t blame her. The smell itself would have gagged even the bravest warrior.

“Has … Has Mother been told?” Night Shadow Star ran the back of her hand across her lips. “Or the Morning Star?”

“Not yet.” Blue Heron blinked against the misery. “I’ll attend to it as soon as we decide what to do here.” She hesitated; her soul-sick gaze fixed on Heavy Cane’s corpse with its oddly flayed skin and the weirdly severed muscles that hung from the bones like perverted, and too-fat, fringe. Pegs had been driven through the wrist bones to pin them to the wall like outspread wings. From a single remaining patch of scalp, the long, blood-soaked hair had been tied to yet another peg to keep the skinned head from lolling.

“This is evil, Aunt.”

“What does Piasa say? He’s still whispering to your souls, isn’t he?”

“Cold terror, Aunt. That’s all I feel.” She turned half-frantic eyes toward Blue Heron. “All the Powers in the Underworld are shaken.” Her delicate brow lined. “Do you understand what that means? Do you understand what kind of evil is loose among us when it’s scaring Piasa, Horned Serpent, and the Tie Snakes? Even the souls of the dead are shivering and cringing.” She fought tears. “Who can do that, Aunt? Who has that kind of Power?”