People of the Morning Star (32 page)

I know this stone.
She’d seen the like of it before: brown semitranslucent chert, finely chipped to a razor edge. A knife of similar stone had been held by Cut String before Night Shadow Star had driven arrows through this chest. Another had been wielded by a nameless assassin as he came within a whisker of cutting Blue Heron’s own throat.

“And now here,” she mused, cocking her head as she studied the body pieces laid out so carefully on the floor, their throats gaping wide. “Ritually sacrificed,” she murmured. “To appease what Power? Which Spirit world?”

None of which explained the savage brutality inflicted on the slashed remains of the young woman. “What went wrong?”

And what does it mean?

She stepped outside, away from the flies, maggots, stench, and horror, and into the clean afternoon sunlight. Nevertheless the feeling of pollution and filth stuck to her, as if a clinging film. The crowd went silent as she glanced around the bluff-top farmstead with its shabby ramada, worn log mortar and pestle.

Right Hand, High Chief of the Deer Clan, under whose jurisdiction this part of the bluffs fell, stood uncertainly with his sister Matron Corn Seed. She was the titular ruler of the Deer Clan, which remained traditionally matrilineal. The Matron stepped forward, touching her forehead respectfully, and asked, “What happened here, Keeper? Have you seen anything like this before?”

Blue Heron considered, eyes thinning as she weighed her options. Corn Seed looked uncharacteristically nervous. Generally the woman was a rock; now her eyes had a frantic quality. The set of her mouth was almost that of guilt. Power alone knew why? She couldn’t oversee every single dirt farmer on the bluffs. As to being upset, all it took was a glimpse inside that accursed farmhouse, and anyone would have been shaken.

“Witchcraft,” Blue Heron declared in a voice loud enough to carry to the crowd. But for a handful of younger individuals, the rest just stared at her with uncomprehending eyes. Then the few who understood began translating. The word, in several languages, ran through the crowd like ripples from a cast stone.

Making a cut sign for patience, Blue Heron added, “You all listen to me!” She watched the translators as they repeated her words. “Inside are drawings indicating that the witch changed shape and flew away. I want this house and the corpses inside burned immediately. You will bring wood, pile it around the house, and keep a roaring fire burning atop it for four days. Do you understand?”

The crowd nodded as did Corn Seed and Right Hand.

“Then you will scoop up the dirt for a stone’s throw in every direction around the ashes and cover the remains,” she told them. “When you have folded the evil in upon itself, you will bring ashes from the sacred fire in your temples, and cover the mound with a purified ash layer. Only then will you bring in white clay to seal the entire mound. After that, no one shall live within an arrow’s flight of this place.”

People were nodding, eyes wide as they glanced between her and the horrible farmstead.

“Be about it!” Blue Heron ordered, clapping her hands as she spoke.

She watched the people turn away, muttering among themselves and shaking their heads. To Corn Seed she asked, “Who found this, Matron?”

“One of the neighbors. He hadn’t seen the family around for a couple of days and got curious.”

Blue Heron studied Corn Seed as she talked. “Was there any talk about witchcraft? Tensions in the community? Anything that would have led you to believe that something like this could happen?”

Corn Seed spread her arms helplessly. “What could we know, Clan Keeper? These people, this whole community, they’re dirt farmers from somewhere a moon’s travel off to the east. They’re barbarians. Ignorant farmers come to share the glory of Cahokia. This could be some silly ritual of theirs for all we know. Or a personal vendetta. Keeper, we have people packed together here who have been at war with each other since the Beginning Times. Mostly we relocate traditional enemies as far from each other as we can. Half of my time is spent keeping the peace. Honestly, if it weren’t for their belief that chunkey can settle just about every dispute, we’d have a constant war up here.”

“Yes, I know.” Blue Heron rubbed her tired face. Not a hand of time after her return from Evening Star town she’d been called here by a frantic messenger from Corn Seed. All she wanted to do was climb back into her litter and sleep while her porters carried her back to her palace.

Instead she turned, looking out from the bluff to the endless city that filled the floodplain. The curls and swirls of meander lakes and marshes contrasted to the patterns of dense settlement. The higher the ground, the more buildings packed it—refuge against the periodic floods that overwhelmed the bottomland every couple of decades.

“What happened to those people in there,” Right Hand interrupted her thoughts, “that wasn’t just witchcraft, Keeper. That was something else.”

“Your dirt farmers don’t need to know that.” She cocked her head to study the Deer Clan chief. “It almost reminded me of an attempt to recall a soul from the Underworld, the way the corpses were laid out in a circle. But what was done to the young woman in there? The slashing and hacking and mutilation? That’s not part of any ritual I’m familiar with, but I’ll ask around. Perhaps Rides-the-Lightning has heard of this.”

“Don’t forget the blood on the walls,” Five Fists reminded.

Blue Heron nodded her agreement. “The first drawings, butterflies from cocoons, frogs from tadpoles, salamanders from mudpuppies, all speak of transformation.”

“And all were ruined with spattered and smeared blood,” Right Hand reminded.

“Almost as if a soul recall were being purposefully profaned.” Her brow furrowed, cold fear running through her. “But what sort of insane
fool
would offend Power this way? This is like slapping the Morning Star across the mouth, throwing feces into the very face of the sun, and pissing on the Powers of the Underworld, all in one!”

Right Hand nodded, lips thinning above the scar that ran down his knobby chin. “It would unleash the winds. No one would be safe.”

She gave him a wistful smile. “How right you are, old friend. But hopefully whoever did this is already dead, struck down by Power for blasphemy and pollution. If we’re lucky, it will be considered an isolated act of witchcraft and buried under a mound. Your people up here will be owl-eyed for the next moon or so. Let me know if you need anything. I can have a Four Winds squadron up here within a couple of hands’ time to help you keep order.”

“Thank you, Clan Keeper.” Corn Seed touched her forehead again, her expression pinched, as if she were biting her tongue.

Blue Heron took a step toward her litter before turning back and producing the bit of flaked stone that had been wedged in the dead woman’s crotch. “Out of curiosity, have either of you seen stone like this? Perhaps a large chert knife?”

Corn Seed took it, holding it up to the light, and squinting. “Looks like a bit of…” She hesitated, face oddly pale. “Where did you find this, Keeper?”

“Whoever did that”—she jerked her head toward the farmhouse—“broke it off his knife while in the process of coring her sheath out of her hips.”

Corn Seed seemed to tremble, swallowed hard, and offered it back. “I don’t know the stone,” she said softly, eyes distant.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Blue Heron told her gently as she plucked the knife fragment from Corn Seed’s unresisting fingers. “And, unlike these dirt farmers, at least you’ve got the protection of your clan.”

Corn Seed nodded, cast an almost desperate glance at her brother, and turned away.

“Enough of terror and death,” Blue Heron muttered as she waved to Five Fists. “Take me home.”

Her words might have been brave, but when she was safely on her litter, she looked back. The farmstead seemed so ordinary, one of thousands. Nothing on the outside hinted at the terror within its now-polluted walls and the screaming souls they contained. To one side, Right Hand and Corn Seed stood, their retainers huddling just out of earshot. She could see Right Hand waving his maimed hand, apparently in anger or frustration. Corn Seed had her head down, no doubt still shaken by the horror she’d seen in the farmhouse.

If you only knew the extent of terror being loosed on us, Matron, you’d never sleep restfully again.

Twenty-six

The heavy chunkey stone slapped into Fire Cat’s hand as he deftly caught it. Then, with a swing of his arm, and a roll of the shoulders, he tossed it high again. The beautiful black stone shot up, just shy of the high ceiling rafters, and plummeted. It dropped into his hand with a solid slap.

Whoever had crafted the stone had been a master. The diameter fit perfectly into the palm of Fire Cat’s hand. Both sides had been ground equally concave and polished until he could see his distorted reflection inside. That the piece had been used often was apparent by the dull scuffing on the rim.

When Field Green had seen him pick up the stone, she’d almost cried in horror. For whatever reason, he’d responded with a hard squint that in his old life would have promised mayhem and murder.

By the Piasa’s balls, anything was better than this endless waiting. Field Green had immediately charged off toward Night Shadow Star’s private rooms in the rear, ducked through the heavy hanging, and frozen. Then she’d slowly backed out, ashen-faced, and swallowing hard. She’d given Fire Cat the kind of look that should have shriveled his souls. For whatever reason, the woman had gathered the household staff, ordering them to clean everything, restack the pottery, dust the statuary, carry in firewood and water, carry out the ashes sifted from the burning coals, and straighten the bedding.

Through it all, Fire Cat played with the stone, tossing it high, and catching it. He was beginning to feel the burn in his muscles, the skin on his palm red and sore.

But the control was still there.

Wonder if I’ll ever play again?
He’d been good, one of the best in Red Wing town. As if he’d had any choice, being his uncle’s heir and the only son of the Red Wing Matron. He’d barely been able to walk when Uncle first put a little clay chunkey stone in his tiny hand.

Around him the room suddenly went quiet, the slaves and servants freezing where they worked. All eyes had gone toward the rear of the room.

The falling stone smacked into his hand.

Night Shadow Star stood in the rear doorway that led back to her private bed and the shrine. She held the door hanging with one hand, the other propped on the door frame. Her hair was down, falling over her shoulders in a tangled wave that seemed to accent her enlarged eyes and almost slack face. She stood watching him—a hardness reflected in her clamped jaw and the way her full lips pinched, as if in pain.

Has there ever been a more beautiful woman?
he wondered as he took in her full body, long legs, and wide shoulders. And how could such a gorgeous woman be wrapped around such a tortured soul? He could see it in her eyes, in the way she stood:
dancing with the Datura again.

The servants were staring anxiously between Fire Cat and Night Shadow Star, expressions horrified. She just pinned him with those hollow and shining eyes, head tilting slightly as if hearing some distant voice in the room’s complete silence.

“Leave us,” she ordered, voice barely more than a rasp.

Forest finches didn’t scatter any quicker when a sharp-shinned hawk flew over.

Fire Cat took a deep breath and held the stone up propped on his thumb and forefinger. “Whoever made this knew his business.”

No expression crossed her face, her almost vacant gaze sucking at him. Then she stepped forward, each step balanced and languid as she strode up to him.

Stopping no more than a pace away, a tear broke free and coursed down her left cheek as she reached out and gently lifted the stone from his hand. Then she slapped him hard across the cheeks.

Fire Cat turned his face with the blow, lessening the impact. Shaking it off, he gave her a wry smile. “I apologize for upsetting you.” He gestured at the stone. “A piece like that should be held, used, not left on a shelf like statuary.”

“I should kill you for even laying a finger on this.” She cradled the stone between her breasts.

He inclined his head slightly. “I won’t touch it again. Hard as that will be for me. It has an allure, perfect balance.”

Her slim fingers slipped across the polished stone in a caress worthy of a lover. He started to step away when, voice catching, she asked, “How did he die?”

“In war, Lady.”

“How did you defeat him?”

“Are you sure you want to hear this?”

Her head tilted to expose the soft angle of her cheek. “He says I must.”

“Who says? Morning Star?”

“Piasa,” she whispered, her eyes growling larger, lips parting, as if the beast had just stepped into the room.

Fire Cat glanced uncertainly around and swore a cold draft had just blown through.

She’d fixed her dark gaze on his, waiting, fingers lightly stroking the stone.

He took a breath, oddly hesitant to inflict yet another hurt upon her. “We’d been warned that they were coming. Word came up the river when they passed River-Washed-Mountain. Our scouts were in place when the Morning Star’s squadrons landed two-day’s march downriver. My orders were that no one was to alert them, that they believe they’d caught us by surprise.”