The dog had led him halfway back to the Great Plaza as it limped painfully along the Avenue of the Sun. Again Fire Cat wondered what had possessed him to grab up the sack that held his armor and ax, shoulder his chunkey lance, and follow the beast.
Is it because you’re tired of losing?
Was that it? He was running away? Fleeing from the lessons and Crazy Frog’s ever-critical eye?
Surely it couldn’t be any hidden vestige of concern about Seven Skull Shield. The man was a disgrace. An irritant. A worthless parasite sucking precious blood from the body of decent society.
The dog had led him through River Mounds City’s maze of buildings to the Avenue of the Sun where it ran east-northeast toward Black Tail’s tomb. The mangy cur stayed just far enough ahead to remain in sight among the endless stream of people, those packing burdens, and travelers. Periodically the dog would stop, glance back to make sure he was following, then limp anxiously forward again.
Once again he was on the verge of giving up when three dirt farmers coming in the opposite direction saw the dog. One pointed and cackled something to the others in their incomprehensible language. A third pulled a folded net from his shoulders and shook it out.
It was common enough: a beat-up and wounded dog, obviously belonging to no one. The mutt was fair game. And Seven Skull Shield’s mongrel was big, young, and undoubtedly tender. Just perfect for the stew pot.
The dog, of course, had stopped, and was looking back at Fire Cat, now perhaps twenty paces behind.
“Hey! Look out!”
But at his voice, the dog actually turned to face him, cocking his head as if trying to figure out just what Fire Cat was worried about.
Even as Fire Cat shouted and started forward, the three spread the net, rushing.
The dog let out a frightened yipe, cowering as the net dropped over its head.
Deftly one of the dirt farmers yanked on the net’s draw cord. The thing drew tight, trapping their prey. Another had extracted a stone-headed hammer from the pack on his back and was raising it high. In an instant he’d smash it down on the dog’s head.
Too far away!
Fire Cat’s move was instinctive. In one fluid motion his arm went back. Whipping his body forward, his chunkey lance arced toward the man and thudded into the packed sand that paved the avenue.
The hammer man froze, staring at the shivering wooden shaft embedded in the ground between his feet.
“Let the dog go!” Fire Cat bellowed.
The fellow, his stone-headed maul still raised overhead, gaped in disbelief at Fire Cat. Shock gave way to anger, and he roared something of his own, starting forward. To Fire Cat’s ear, the man’s mouth might have been full of rocks the way his native language sounded. The stone-headed maul bobbed in menace as the man’s face twisted, his eyes burning. He closed the distance in mighty strides.
Run or duck?
In the few remaining heartbeats before the big dirt farmer could strike, Fire Cat’s arm whipped back. With an underhand pitch he released the chunkey stone. A black blur, it caught the man just below the sternum.
With a sound resembling a crack, the stone drove deep; a ripple shot through muscle and skin. The man’s face rounded in surprise, eyes popped wide, mouth forming a hollow O as his cheeks puffed out.
The hammer dropped from nerveless fingers and thumped him on the back of the neck. Carried by momentum, he missed a step, slamming facefirst into the trampled sand at Fire Cat’s feet.
There he gasped and rolled onto his side. Mouth agape, eyes staring, a racking gurgle came from his throat as he clutched his gut and gulped frantically for air.
His two stunned companions stood frozen, one having pulled the net up so the dog hung struggling just above the ground.
“Let the dog go!” Fire Cat ordered as he pointed.
The one with the net muttered something to his companion, who hurriedly began shaking out the net.
Seven Skull Shield’s dog landed in a pile, whining, trying to protect its hurt leg. Fishing his copper-bitted ax from his bag, Fire Cat started forward.
The two blinked, shot each other a knowing look, and both wheeled and fled headlong into the crowd.
People had stopped to watch. Fire Cat dropped on his knee by the dog, one hand on his chunkey lance, the other patting the dog’s scabbed head. The odd blue and brown eyes looked up in apparent relief.
“I’d say life’s hard on dogs in Cahokia,” Fire Cat admitted. “You going to be all right?’
The dog whined.
A couple of people had bent over the remaining dirt farmer. He’d recovered enough breath to sit up. One hand pressed his stomach, the other the back of his neck where the hammer had whacked him.
Unsure if the dirt farmers were local and might return with reinforcements, Fire Cat retrieved his chunkey stone and lance and followed the dog as it limped off the road, curving around Black Tail’s tomb.
Originally a complex of three mounds that had included a platform temple, an elevated charnel house, and a conical burial mound that had held Petaga’s grave, it had been turned into a single high ridge mound upon Black Tail’s death. Oriented east-west, it lay in perfect alignment, directly on line-of-sight with the Morning Star’s high palace. On the equinox dawn, the living god’s hatchet-like palace roof marked the point where the morning sun first appeared over the eastern bluffs.
The dog hobbled past the shrines and temples to a small hut on a bare hump of a mound.
There an old woman sat, her face a mass of wrinkles, her eyes like hard obsidian pebbles sunk deeply into her skull. She tilted her ancient head, straggles of wispy white hair floating around it like a halo. Her gnarled right hand rested on a desiccated leather Bundle, its exterior scarred and worn, faint images hinting of long-faded paint.
“So you’re the Red Wing,” she said softly as the dog dropped wearily at her feet. “I remember the day your grandfather left Cahokia. Circles within circles. The Spiral come alive.”
“Who are you?”
“Your oldest ally in Cahokia. But come, we’ve not much time. And I don’t walk so well or so far anymore.”
“Not much time for what?”
“Living … and dying.”