Star Path--People of Cahokia Read online

  “Sky and Underworld. Opposites crossed,” Fire Cat whispered. “No place on earth has politics as twisted and perverse as Cahokia with its Houses, Power, and clans.”

  She gestured at the grounded flotilla. “With that many warriors and people—assuming any of them make it that far—perhaps you and I should just conquer Cofitachequi and set ourselves up as rulers. After all, we’re forced to take an army and half of Cahokia with us despite my objections.”

  “I would take one of those smaller canoes. That little one over there. Looks like it’s crafted from bald cypress. I’d place you in it, shove off, and head south. Find some quiet glade in the forest far from any town, chiefs, gods, lords, or politics and spend the rest of my days with you, farming, hunting, and watching you smile.”

  His words warmed her as she noticed the canoe he mentioned. Nice thought, but the vessel was much too small to be trusted for a long river journey. “I want a bigger canoe. But Red Wing, Piasa was serious. If we do this thing, destroy Walking Smoke, win this one for the Underworld, it may well be the price of our freedom. Never forget that.”

  “You trust Piasa?”

  “The beast has no reason to lie. I am his to do with as he wishes. His souls are inside me.” She touched her breastbone. “Right in here. He hears my thoughts, knows my wants.”

  “And uses you for whatever purpose he wishes.”

  She stared at the line of waiting canoes, the river’s water lapping at their sterns. The day after tomorrow, they would push off with over five hundred warriors, Traders, recorders, translators, a couple of priests, and the retinue of nobles Rising Flame, Spotted Wrist, and Tonka’tzi Wind insisted upon.

  Many of those nobles were being exiled, removed from Cahokia for having supported the wrong Houses in the chaos that resulted from Morning Star’s near death last fall. Rising Flame and Spotted Wrist were solidifying their hold on the Four Winds Clan, carefully having chosen which individuals to “honor” with the chance to build a new colony on the other side of the world. It was a time-honored tradition, one her own relatives had used over the years to dispose of potential rivals and troublemakers.

  Now she found herself in charge of the whole unwieldy mess. “I don’t like it. I’m saddled with angry and scheming nobles who are stewing in their resentment and a small horde of administrators, not to mention Blood Talon.”

  But Fire Cat seemed oblivious, stepping over to stare at a long and beautifully crafted canoe, also made of bald cypress. The smooth lines, polished wood, and narrow beam made the craft a thing of beauty. “How about this one?”

  “And head south? Try and find that farmstead in the forest?”

  “We can dream, can’t we?” He glanced at her. “We both know that this entire expedition is defeated before the first paddle is even dipped in the river.”

  Eight

  Blood Talon, through years of hard training, had toughened his body. Despite the frost that coated the thatch roofs, the ramada poles, and frozen ground, and the fact that he was dressed only in a war shirt with a split-feather turkey cape over his shoulders, the squadron leader barely shivered.

  In the darkness he moved like a wraith through the packed buildings in River Mounds City. From long practice he made his way through the deep shadows cast by the warehouses. Somewhere in the distance an owl hooted. Maybe up at one of Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies’ temples. Being messengers from the Dead in the Sky World, owls were known to frequent such places of Underworld Power. He didn’t know why. That was a question for the priests.

  The warehouse sat slightly down the slope, isolated from the rest of the buildings. The closest ramadas along the riverfront were dark. Thankfully the cloud cover acted to obscure Blood Talon’s dark-clad form and the pack that rested on his back.

  Two guards stood before the warehouse; both paced back and forth, shivering, sometimes stamping their feet and blowing into their hands. These were men from his squadron. Trained.

  “You will keep these supplies safe,” Blood Talon had told them. “Neither of you will leave sight of this door. It’s the only way in or out of the warehouse.”

  Handpicked, they would do exactly as told.

  Which left Blood Talon the challenge of making it to the rear of the warehouse undetected.

  Moving like a ghost, he circled wide, ensured that he could keep the bulk of the building between himself and the guards. Had to skirt around a couple of Traders’ camps, but he managed to slip up to the back of the warehouse. The sturdy wooden box he’d placed there that afternoon remained. Carefully he tipped it on its end. He had tested it earlier to ensure it would take his weight.

  Climbing onto the box, Blood Talon reached up, pulled loose shocks of thatch from their previously severed bindings. Of all the challenges, that had been the hardest. He’d had to think up an excuse for why he’d had to spend a finger of time inside. In the end, he’d offered the explanation that someone had to make a count of the large seed jars to ensure the food ration had been delivered as promised.

  Nutcracker had remained outside with the guards, all the while using a plate-sized slab of sandstone to grate away at a hickory pole he insisted he was turning into a chunkey lance. With the guards holding the wood, the rasping of the sandstone was to cover any sound that might betray Blood Talon’s activities as he cut the cords that held bundles of thatch into shocks.

  Perched atop his box, he was delighted that all it took was a hard push to collapse the thatch. The broken shocks disintegrated under his hands, falling in scatters into the warehouse.

  When he had the hole large enough, Blood Talon bunched, leaped, and braced himself atop the mud-plastered wall. He eased a leg over, squeezed between the split-pole beam and wall, and lowered himself into the darkness. Balancing on the heavy seed jars he’d placed for the purpose, he stepped down.

  The fallen thatch he raked together with his fingers until he had a pile. Then, one by one, he tilted the seed jars, spilling their contents onto the ground.

  From his pack he removed the jar of hickory oil, sprinkled it liberally on the thatch, and then onto the nearest spill of corn. The thick-walled clay jar, he lifted from the bottom of his pack and unwound from an insulating wrapping of dogbane cloth. The thing was hot enough to sear his callused fingers. Nevertheless, he finally managed to undo the stopper and pour hot coals onto the oily thatch.

  He bent, blew on the glowing coals, and watched the flames leap to life. As they began to greedily devour the thatch, Blood Talon climbed up, hoisted himself out into the night, and eased down onto his box. He carefully replaced it on its side again.

  As he stole away into the night, he turned to see the fire’s red glow reflected around the edges of the hole. By the time the guards out front realized what was happening, the roof would be engulfed. Any proof that someone had started the fire would be long turned to ashes.

  Nine

  In the first light of dawn, Blue Heron hitched her way up the steps that led to the Council House Gate on the southern terrace of the Morning Star’s great mound. She should have had her porters carry her litter up the wide staircase, but the thought of them climbing the frosted steps, perhaps slipping and falling, had sent a deeper shiver through her than the cold and damp morning air.

  She’d take her own chances, thank you.

  Blue Heron might no longer be the Four Winds Clan Keeper, but somehow, despite all the commotion, upset, and chaos that had been unleashed by near civil war when Morning Star temporarily lost his soul to the Underworld, she’d managed to hold on to her palace where it stood in the western shadow of the Morning Star’s great mound.

  She had also kept her spy ring.

  Not that she had the political clout that she used to, but she had something just as important: wealth and status.

  In addition, many of her spies had been with her for years. Her network of informants was so deeply ingrained in Cahokian society that for many, passing along information was just the way it was. Since they were in the habit, she was
n’t about to do anything to discourage them.

  Therefore, when a runner had arrived a couple of fingers before first light, she’d been among the first to learn that the precious corn stores had burned. Her agent—one of Crazy Frog’s people—had no clue as to who the culprit was.

  Her best guess: Spotted Wrist.

  He had the most to gain by delaying the expedition’s departure for distant Cofitachequi since his ploy to murder Fire Cat had spectacularly failed.

  Unless she could weasel someone into Spotted Wrist’s hive of close-knit warriors, the new Clan Keeper’s culpability was going to remain speculative. At least for the moment. In the end these things generally came to light provided that she put enough effort into ferreting out the truth.

  She hesitated at the top of the steps and nodded to the two bundled and shivering guards at the Council Gate. Took the moment to catch her breath and massaged her hip where it throbbed. The joint hadn’t fully healed since she was abused by the Quiz Quiz who’d taken her hostage last fall. One of the barbarians had beaten her so badly it was a miracle that her souls had stayed with her body.

  Bad business, that. If she’d had her way, an army would have been sent downriver to burn the vermin out of their lands, towns, and fields. Rising Flame and Wind had vetoed the idea, having hanged the leaders in a square to be tortured to death and sent the rest of the rank-and-file warriors packing in disgrace.

  Lavender hung above the bluffs on the eastern horizon and shaded into deep purple in the west. The image was of a bruised sky: ominous and a presentiment of trouble to come.

  Below her—beyond the clutter of litters, porters, and awaiting embassies—the Great Plaza was stirring to life. Traders, craftsmen, and vendors of all kinds had braved the darkness and chill to arrive early for the best spots to set up their stalls. Or in the case of the poor, just to throw out a blanket upon which to place their wares, food, and other Trade.

  Frost had turned the Morning Star’s perfectly groomed chunkey courts hoar-covered and pale in the morning light. Ice crystals shimmered on the beaten grass, and the central World Tree pole looked like a giant spear where it rose in the center of the Great Plaza.

  As far as she could see, the city was emerging from the night in a patchwork of farmsteads cluttered around mound groups with their raised temples and palaces. A haze of brown smoke, like a blanket, hung low over the city, fed by a thousand morning cook fires as people warmed themselves and heated breakfast. So thick was it this morning that she could barely make out Black Tail’s tomb at the bend in the Avenue of the Sun. Beyond that, River Mounds City, the Father Water, and Evening Star Town were obscured.

  Walking through the gate, she plodded to the Council House where it stood on the west side of the courtyard. News of the burned warehouse would spread like wildfire. So far as Blue Heron knew, it would only be her, her sister Wind, and Five Fists, the Morning Star’s head of security, who had been alerted. And they only knew because she’d sent Dancing Sky to alert Five Fists and dispatched Soft Moon to appraise Wind of the situation while Smooth Pebble made a quick breakfast and helped Blue Heron get dressed.

  Entering the Council House door, she was pleased to find a fire had been kindled and was crackling its way up to a roaring blaze.

  Tonka’tzi Wind stood before the fire, her hands offered to the heat. A thoughtful look possessed her age-lined face as she stared into the leaping flames. She’d wrapped her hair tightly into a bun at the back, pinning it with polished copper feathers that caught the light in bronze splendor. A fabulous spoonbill-feather cloak hung from her shoulders.

  “Good morning, sister,” Blue Heron greeted as she stepped over to the fire and mimicked Wind’s posture as she basked in the fire’s warmth.

  “There’s no chance that this is a mistake? The food stocks are really burned?”

  “Crazy Frog’s not exactly the most trusted of my sources. If it were something with a political angle, like information that would compromise a competitor of his or High Chief War Duck’s, I’d have my doubts. In this case, he wanted me to know first, expecting, correctly, that I’m going to reward him for the privilege.”

  “The Morning Star is going to be mightily displeased. Think there’s a way we can discover who did it? Prove it?”

  “Proof? No. We both know who had the most to gain by this.”

  Wind smiled wistfully, her narrowed eyes gleaming in the reflected firelight. “Spotted Wrist will argue that it could have been any of the Houses or clans, that not all of the nobles ‘honored’ by the chance to carve colonies out of the eastern wilderness are happy about the prospect.”

  “Of course he will,” Five Fists agreed from the door as he entered the Council Room. The old warrior had a thick bear-hide cloak over his shoulders; the warm war shirt he wore fell to just above his knees, and tall trail moccasins shod his feet. One of the warriors who’d accompanied him down from the Morning Star’s palace closed the door, ensuring they’d be left in private.

  “Good morning, Tonka’tzi,” he greeted Wind. Then nodded at Blue Heron. “And to you, Keeper.’

  “Not these days, but I appreciate the gesture,” Blue Heron replied.

  Five Fists grinned, the effect anything but reassuring given his offset jaw. “Mark it up to habit. In this room we know who has Cahokia’s best interests at heart.”

  “You were the one who got Rising Flame declared matron,” Wind reminded.

  Five Fists shot her a look. “The living god plays his own game. I only follow orders. For his own purposes, or perhaps for the needs of Power, he has made his choice. But our immediate problem is the burning of the expedition’s food. This will set the departure back several weeks. Require additional levies on the Earth Clans, necessitate that they surrender more of their dwindling winter reserves. And worse, they’ll have to confiscate additional food stocks from the dirt farmers in their districts. Supplies are already tight in many areas in the city. It will stir unrest.”

  “As if we haven’t had enough as it is,” Wind mused.

  Blue Heron gave Five Fists a meaningful glance. “Pick your unrest. We need to get the discontents out of here. The longer they’re here, the more trouble they’re going to brew up.”

  Five Fists’ lips twitched with distaste. “Tonka’tzi, how soon could you replace the burned corn? Get the expedition out on the water? Even if they were short a couple of weeks’ worth of ration?”

  “Five days?”

  “Make it three.”

  “Can’t. Cahokia’s a big place. It’ll take a day to send the runners out. Two days—assuming every chief complies immediately—to gather the sacks of corn, and at least two days for the outlying areas to pack it all down to the canoe landing.”

  Five Fists made a face; it did nothing for his already unpleasant features. “I will explain the situation to the living god. If Morning Star so inclines, I will dispatch a couple squadrons of warriors to hurry the Houses along, and perhaps to knock some heads in the process.”

  Blue Heron pulled at the wattle under her chin. “I think I can have the expedition on the water in two days.”

  “How?” Wind looked startled. “You been holding something out on us?”

  Blue Heron arched a challenging eyebrow at Five Fists. “I need your promise. You’ll give your word. Both of you. If I get this done, you’ll back me up. I’m going to have to go way out on a limb … one that could be cut off behind me.”

  “What limb?” Five Fists couldn’t hide his skepticism. “If you’re asking us to get you reinstated as Clan Keeper, that’s out of our hands. That’s up to Matron Rising Flame.”

  “I’m well aware of where the authority lies in that regard. No, I need you to swear on your souls that if I can fill the expedition’s granary in two days, you’ll see that every last kernel of corn, every last sack of dried squash, every nut down to the last hull, is repaid, in addition to another tenth portion in payment for the loan.”

  Wind and Five Fists glanced back and forth sus
piciously.

  “Just who are we borrowing this from?” Wind asked. “I know for a fact that you don’t have enough stocked away in your granary to cover that much.”

  “I don’t, but Columella does. It’ll empty the Evening House granaries, leave her destitute if we renege on the deal.”

  “And she’ll do this?” Five Fists asked warily.

  “She might,” Blue Heron replied. “If I ask her. But I’m not asking until I have both of your promises that she’ll not only have every morsel replaced, but another one portion in ten thrown in for her trouble. And it will be delivered to her warehouses within ten days.”

  Five Fists had a distasteful scowl on his face. Wind had crossed her arms, staring thoughtfully at the fire.

  “That’s just a single day’s delay,” Wind finally said. “Might have been that much of a postponement even if the storehouse hadn’t burned.”

  “The added benefit is that it keeps Spotted Wrist off balance. He thinks he’s gained at least a week to finally figure out how to force Lady Night Shadow Star to marry him.”

  Wind gave Blue Heron a crafty wink. “You have my word. All the food returned, and one part in ten more as payment.”

  “Mine, too,” Five Fists agreed. “Even if I have to send warriors to seize it from anyone foolish enough to try and evade the levy.”

  “Then I need a batch of your best porters and a warrior escort,” Blue Heron told them. “The sooner I get to Evening Star Town, the faster I can talk Matron Columella into this.”

  “What are you going to promise her?” Wind asked.

  “Absolutely anything she wants.” She gave Five Fists a cunning smile. “I’d offer her my life as a guarantee, but that might be too much of a temptation for you. You could cripple Evening Star House on the one hand, and finally get me permanently out of your hair on the other.”