Once he had been known as Fire Cat Twelvekiller, high war chief of the Red Wing Nation. He, his mother, and two sisters—who were now slaves of Clan Keeper Blue Heron—were all that remained of the Red Wing Clan of the Moon Moiety. Years back his ancestors had fled Cahokia. They had been supporters of Chief Petaga and the priestess Lichen during the great civil war that had rocked Cahokia in the days before the first supposed resurrection of the Morning Star.
Fire Cat’s people hadn’t believed the mythical hero from the Beginning Times could be incarnated into a human body, and Fire Cat still didn’t. To him the Morning Star was, and would forever remain, Chunkey Boy, the oldest of the old tonka’tzi Red Warrior Tenkiller’s sons, brother to Night Shadow Star. Maybe not the worst of the lot—Walking Smoke had taken that distinction during his violent rampage—but still a bitter and rotten piece of fruit fallen from a diseased family tree.
Granted, Chunkey Boy played the fraud for all it was worth. Maybe some part of his sick souls had actually come to believe the masquerade. The teeming thousands who inhabited Cahokia—from the nobles down to the immigrant dirt farmers—had swallowed the hoax whole and unchewed.
In the gray light of predawn, Fire Cat grasped a finely crafted black chunkey stone. Just large enough to fit into the cup of his hand, the disc-shaped stone had been concavely ground on both sides. The piece had once belonged to Night Shadow Star’s husband Makes Three. That she had “gifted” it to Fire Cat after he saved her life still amazed him.
His left hand gripped a perfectly balanced javelin, lovingly crafted of white ash. It, too, had once belonged to Night Shadow Star’s husband. Perhaps it was a measure of Fire Cat’s heresy that he could use them without a second thought. A man’s chunkey gear was painstakingly imbued with a Spiritual essence—a bit of the player’s soul. If the pieces had any resentment that their previous owner’s killer now wielded them, it surely hadn’t surfaced in the performance of the pieces. The stone rolled true; at his cast the javelin flew like a thing alive, seeking the fleeing stone.
Fire Cat took his position, hefting the stone as he looked down the narrow chunkey court. The Four Winds plaza courts faced away from the Morning Star’s hulking mound with its high palace. It was bad enough living in the abomination’s shadow without having to see it while he practiced.
Fire Cat took a deep breath. Imagining the throw, Fire Cat started forward at a run, his right arm dropping back. In perfect stride, he bowled the chunkey stone. The round disc kissed the ground in a smooth release.
In the next stride, he transferred the lance, arm back, and with a mighty lunge, launched it after the rolling stone. The lance arced through the sky, spinning just fast enough to stabilize itself as it dropped toward the slowing stone.
The point drove into the clay no more than an arm’s length from where the stone finally toppled onto its side.
Not a perfect cast—one had to hit the stone, which automatically won the game—but good enough to beat most of the opponents he might face. Were he ever to play the Morning Star, however? Well, he’d have to be a lot better than this.
He walked down, retrieving his lance and the black stone.
“Not bad, Red Wing,” a voice called.
Fire Cat glanced over to see the miserable thief, Seven Skull Shield, as he appeared out of the misty morning. Burly arms bare, a smirk on his ugly face, the miscreant wore only a brown fabric hunting shirt and breechcloth.
“What are you doing up at this hour, thief? Running from some jealous husband? Or did they catch you trying to steal corn from the altar in Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies’ temple?”
Seven Skull Shield gave him a dismissive look. “Sorry. Actually, I thought I’d come over early, watch Night Shadow Star take her time getting dressed. She’s what? Almost twenty now? The notion of a ripe body like hers not having a man on top of it just seems like a violation of the laws of Creation. Since there’s no other man around, I might even volunteer to fill in.”
Fire Cat fingered his chunkey lance, eyes narrowing. “Do you know why you’re still alive?”
Seven Skull Shield’s expression looked deceptively mild. “Because I’m smarter, craftier, and meaner than most of the clod-headed dolts I have to deal with? Or maybe because Power is saving me for the moment I get to share Night Shadow Star’s bed? If someone hadn’t killed her late husband, it wouldn’t be an issue but … Wait! Wasn’t it you who killed her husband?”
Fire Cat ground his teeth. “On the day I split your skull open and dump your guts out on the ground, I will laugh and sing with joy. Why are you here, thief?”
“Did the warriors the Keeper ordered out show up last night?”
“They did.” Fire Cat continued to nurse his rage. “They wouldn’t say why they were sent, just that there might be a threat to Night Shadow Star. I took extra precautions, sleeping at her door.”
“Might be nothing.” Seven Skull Shield glanced speculatively up at Night Shadow Star’s slope-sided mound with its opulent palace. “Just a warning. Better to be safe, especially after what that two-footed maggot Walking Smoke put us—”
“Thief!” a worried voice called.
Fire Cat turned to see Smooth Pebble, the Keeper’s berdache, approaching in the growing light. She came at a half run, waving her hand.
“Greetings, Smooth Pebble!” Seven Skull Shield called back. “What’s your hurry?”
“I’m instructed to find you!” She pulled up, panting, though it hadn’t been that much of a run down from the Keeper’s palace. “There’s been a murder.”
The thief seemed to tense, his expression curiously strained. “Who, Smooth Pebble? Someone important?”
“Depends on who you consider to be important. It’s a foreigner. Some Natchez noble.”
Seven Skull Shield’s blocky face turned pensive. “Well, that’s certainly in the south.”
“What’s going on?” Fire Cat demanded, propping his lance as he hefted the stone and wondered what it would feel like to use it to crack Seven Skull Shield’s head open.
“Murder,” the thief told him with an evil grin. “But, for once, it wasn’t directed at her.” He pointed with a knobby finger.
Fire Cat turned to see Night Shadow Star as she appeared between the two magnificently carved guardian posts: Horned Serpent on the right, Piasa on the left. They stared down from the mound top at either side of the stairs, as if watching her descend through their shell-inlaid eyes.
At sight of Night Shadow Star, Fire Cat’s heart skipped a beat. She seemed to float down the stairs, an apparition not of this world. Her long black hair hung down over her shoulders like a glistening black mantle. A form-fitting dress clung to her perfect body. The fine features of her face seemed pinched, her large eyes dark and possessed of otherworldly Dreams.
“Glad you dislike her so,” the thief muttered under his breath, a sidelong glance fixed on Fire Cat.
“I can’t help who Power has bound me to serve,” Fire Cat gritted back reflexively. “I’m the last of the Red Wing. I take my vows seriously.”
Smooth Pebble was watching the interchange through wary eyes.
Fire Cat chafed under their stares.
“The story is that you were dying in the square when Night Shadow Star appeared out of the night and asked if you’d bind yourself to her. I heard you thought she was a vision: First Woman come from the Underworld to collect your souls for the journey to the afterlife.”
Fire Cat winced. She’d appeared out of the predawn drizzle, naked and ethereal. A creature of unbelievable beauty, with water beading on her smooth brown skin, her dark hair falling about her broad shoulders in wet strands.
“Do you swear to follow my orders, no matter the consequences?”
“I swear on the graves of my ancestors,” he’d rasped through his misery.
To Seven Skull Shield, he said, “Thief, let’s tie you up, beat you black and blue for days, starve you, let you thirst, and hang you in a square for a couple of days and see just how clever you remain.”
He straightened as Night Shadow Star walked up, oddly uncomfortable that he held the chunkey stone.
“It’s begun,” Night Shadow Star said simply. “Thief, the Keeper requires you.”
“But I don’t know where—”
“The Natchez embassy along the Avenue of the Sun. Go.” She extended a slender arm.
Seven Skull Shield shot her an uncertain glance, then turned on his heel and left at a trot.
Smooth Pebble asked, “How did you know, Lady?”
Fire Cat saw the faintest change in Night Shadow Star’s expression—the one she got when Piasa was whispering in her ear. This morning it sent gooseflesh along his skin.
“He wants to change the Power,” Night Shadow Star replied as if it made perfect sense. “He wants to change everything.”