Had Piasa himself arisen from the Underworld and asked Fire Cat to plan a more disagreeable afternoon, he would have been hard pressed to do so. Nevertheless the thief’s insistence that he reach down and cling to that pride that simmered at his core kept him, barely, from breaking down or striking out violently.
It was bad enough that he had to maintain his discipline as he followed Night Shadow Star and her new husband, pacing beside the hated kukul borne by the Itza warrior named Burning Ant.
Somehow he had to keep the pain out of his eyes when he met Night Shadow Star’s stoic gaze. He had to stand firm when he only wished to scream and unleash fury with his war ax. But along with his pride, he fundamentally understood that if he failed her again, Night Shadow Star would collapse in despair—that for whatever reason, she clung to his projected strength, lie that it was.
Steadfast, he endured the reception, heedless of the empty wishes proffered to Night Shadow Star by the high chiefs of various Houses, matrons, and Earth Clan chiefs. Then came the feast, and finally the long descent to the Avenue of the Sun, where the huge crowd was held back by what looked like half the Four Winds Clan squadrons—the warriors in long formations that kept the way open as the newlyweds were carried atop their litters to the large white-clay-capped mound where the tonka’tzi’s palace was in the process of being rebuilt.
After Tonka’tzi Red Warrior was murdered last spring, his palace had been burned. Since then a new layer of white clay had been added, raising and enlarging the mound. The first posts had been erected to create Tonka’tzi Wind’s new palace, but the flat at the top created the perfect elevated stage.
Thirteen Sacred Jaguar had requested the location for the ritual combat as a fitting honor to his new wife’s clan. Tonka’tzi Wind had initially objected, given that the mound had just been reconsecrated after her brother’s murder. She supposedly had relented when reminded that it would be symbolic of Four Winds authority and Power when the foolish Itza went down in defeat. After all, what chance did the southern foreigners have against the very best in Cahokia? Which, essentially, meant the best in the world?
Fire Cat himself had no doubts about the outcome as he followed the litters up the newly laid squared-log steps that led to the mound top. Thirteen Sacred Jaguar and Night Shadow Star would be seated upon a raised platform hastily constructed for the affair. The actual combat was to take place at the head of the stairs so that the huge crowd could observe the action.
Those who spilled their blood, Horn Lance had noted, would be sanctifying the newly capped mound, covered as it was with white clay.
Fire Cat didn’t know any of the Cahokian warriors, but just from the look of them, each was battle-hardened, scarred, and fit. They stood in a small knot, mature men in their early thirties. Wooden and leather helmets covered their heads; arm guards, chest protectors, and shin guards filled out their body armor. Each carried a shield and a beloved war club, those being the terms of the fight.
As the Itza warriors climbed the stairs, they made a most unusual spectacle with their plumed helmets, folding shields with abstract facial designs, feathered arm and leg guards, and curious carapace armor. Their war clubs looked long and slender, the business ends cased in what looked like decorated bark scabbards.
“How do they expect to win with such skinny and delicate-looking clubs?” someone asked. “A good war club has weight at the end. Those things look so light they’ll barely give an enemy’s skull a knock.”
As Horn Lance was handed one of the clubs by Swirling Cloud, the first stirrings of premonition sent uneasy fingers through Fire Cat’s gut. Not a year ago, he’d derided the notion that Cahokia could ever take Red Wing Town. A quarter-moon ago he’d have scoffed at the notion his lady would be married to a strange foreigner in fewer days than he had fingers. A mere two days ago, he’d have laughed at the notion that a Natchez could beat him at chunkey.
Now, watching the Itza as they prepared, his sense of alarm built.
“Lady,” he said, leaning close to Night Shadow Star’s litter, “you must stop this.”
She actually turned, the first break in her graven expression all day. “What’s wrong, Fire Cat?”
“Something. I don’t know. But if there is a way, stop this now.”
“Dressed as the Itza are, with all those feathers? And though their clubs are still cased, they don’t seem the slightest bit dangerous. With one good counter-blow they look like they’ll shatter.”
“Then why have they not been uncased? Lady, the Itza are too sure of themselves. Figure a way; stop this now.”
Horn Lance, where he stood beside Thirteen Sacred Jaguar, couldn’t have heard their whispered words, but apparently he read Fire Cat’s expression.
In a loud voice, he shouted an order in the clucking Itza language, and his warriors, led by the snake-tattooed Red Copal, leaped into formation. Horn Lance stepped into position in the middle, Dead Teeth and Red Copal to his left, Split Bone and Shaking Earth to his right.
He barked another order. With a single swing of their clubs, they sent the bark scabbards flying.
“Wait!” Night Shadow Star cried as she raised her hand.
So unexpected was her protest that Thirteen Sacred Jaguar jerked his head around, almost dislodging his soaring headgear.
Night Shadow Star, rose, calling, “If the joining of our peoples—”
“Attack!” Horn Lance called in Cahokian so that there was no misunderstanding.
A roar went up from the crowd below, and the Cahokian warriors, taken somewhat by surprise, dropped instinctively into a defensive formation, shields up.
Fire Cat had his first glimpse of the Itza’s weapons. Long-handled, with a slim flat blade, they were nearly as tall as the warriors wielding them. Something glittered along the thin edges, catching the light in a vitreous shine.
As the Itza warriors carefully approached the defending Cahokians they began chanting.
At the same time, Thirteen Sacred Jaguar rose from his litter, barking something to Burning Ant, who started forward with the kukul. At the sight of the standard, the Itza warriors called out in joy, singing, half dancing as they closed on the Cahokians.
“Squadron! Rush!” the Cahokian squadron first called.
In perfect precision, his five warriors charged forward, shields aligned. The tactic was sound. Break the Itzan advance, hammer their light shields aside, and crack a few bones as their opponents broke and retreated. By keeping tight, wheeling, advancing, and maintaining integrity and formation, Cahokians had crushed all comers for generations.
As if choreographed, the Itza warriors split. Horn Lance, in the center, backed slowly, his wary eyes on the advancing line of shields. The remaining Itza, in teams of two, circled eagerly to either side. The flanking warriors skipped lightly around the Cahokians, their long thin weapons feinting at the shields, then flicking low before they leaped back.
As they did, the squadron first called, “Left! Attack!” sensing that Red Copal and Dead Teeth, menacing the Cahokian’s left, were slower. The instinctive call was correct, but the two warriors guarding either Cahokian flank were already limping, blood welling on their bare thighs. At each touch, the Itzan weapons had laid open long gaping wounds.
The Cahokian on the right stumbled and went down.
A cry of dismay rose from the spectators.
Instinctively the squadron first ordered a move to cover the man. The Itza had already circled like eager coyotes, leaping in, slashing, dancing away. As before they struck for the bare thigh, just above the knee.
For the most part the Cahokian warriors managed to block the blows, but working in unison, the Itza reached past the guarding shields. In the wake of each stroke, a bleeding gash was left behind.
Fire Cat stared in a sort of paralyzed horror as the Cahokians were lamed, bleeding and hobbling as they tried to keep formation.
The first warrior who’d fallen was struggling to put pressure on his wound. Red Copal leaped close, swung his thin blade, and neatly cut the downed warrior’s throat before skipping away.
“Stop this!” Night Shadow Star barked. “You’ve proven your point!”
“My lady,” Swirling Cloud said, bowing his head and touching his forehead respectfully. “They fight in honor of your marriage. There is no point, as you call it, to be made. This is a blessing for you and the ahau.”
“I said, stop!” She rose from her litter, fists balled.
Thirteen Sacred Jaguar barked something, his questioning look going first from Night Shadow Star to Horn Lance.
Not that it mattered. The final Cahokian standing was the squadron first, and blood was streaming down both of his legs. As he turned to block an attack from his right, Red Copal flicked his long thin weapon in from the left, neatly slicing the squadron first’s throat open.
The last Cahokian raised his shield where he lay in a spreading pool of blood. Four of the Itza Danced in, striking, one severing the warrior’s hand from his forearm with a swinging blow, another flicking his blade across the man’s throat.
At the same time Burning Ant was singing, raising the kukul high as if to allow the fanged snake to better observe the bleeding corpses.
Thirteen Sacred Jaguar now rose from his litter, stepping over to kneel above the squadron first’s corpse. He reached his hands into the gaping throat wound. Then, his fingers covered with blood, he stood. Burning Ant lowered the kukul, and Thirteen Sacred Jaguar wiped his bloody fingers across the snake’s mouth, as if feeding it. The colorful snake’s jade-green eyes seemed to glow from an inner fire.
Frozen in stunned fury, Fire Cat heard Thirteen Sacred Jaguar praying joyously, repeating the words Waxaklahun Kan, itz, and ch’ulel over and over.
All thought gone, Fire Cat started forward, driven by insane rage. All he could see was that slope-headed face peering from the elaborate mask, eyes dancing in rapture. He would drive his copper-bitted ax right between those eyes, knock that gaudy, high-plumed mask off the Itza’s head before he split the man’s skull.…
“Fire Cat?” a firm hand grasped his arm.
He had half raised his war club to strike down whoever dared to restrain him, startled to find himself staring into Night Shadow Star’s desperate eyes. He froze, heart thundering in his chest.
“I can’t lose you, too. That would kill me.”
Her words hit him like a stone from above.
The Itza warriors, sensing threat, had placed themselves around the ahau, their long-handled wooden swords at the ready.
Fire Cat blinked, seeing the weapons up close, realizing those deceptively thin edges were inset with deadly obsidian blades. So that was the secret.
“Stand down, Fire Cat,” Night Shadow Star pleaded. “Please.”
The desperation in her voice penetrated his fog of pain and defeat.
“Yes, Lady.” But all he wanted to do was charge the Itza, bellow his rage, and show them the true meaning of courage even as they cut him apart.