Seventeen

“What, by Piasa’s hanging balls, is wrong with you?” Spotted Wrist thundered as he stomped before the fire in his palace great room. Warriors, various household staff, and a couple of messengers from Matron Red Temple of the Fish Clan tried to look in every direction except toward Blood Talon.

For his part, the squadron first stood at attention, chin up and out, fuming and burning on the inside.

“Well?” Spotted Wrist demanded, stopping to glare into Blood Talon’s eyes.

“We followed orders, Keeper. From the canoe landing, we marched straight to Night Shadow Star’s palace. We searched the place from top to bottom, figuring the lady had to be hiding there. When it was apparent she wasn’t in the building, I extended the search, sending warriors to Blue Heron’s, the Four Winds Clan House, the tonka’tzi’s, the Council House, and even to the Earth Clans healer’s looking for her.”

“But not the canoe landing?” Spotted Wrist’s lips were quivering. Always a bad sign.

“We had just come from the canoe landing! Why would we have gone back? Surely if Night Shadow Star had magically appeared at the canoe landing, one of our officers would have immediately sent a runner, don’t you think?”

“I think fine.” Spotted Wrist looked as if he were having trouble breathing. “You, apparently, do not. I have to go to the Morning Star’s palace and be humiliated in front of half of Cahokia. By a common thief, no less. A thief who not only knows that I’ve been made a fool of by Night Shadow Star, but that she’s taken a canoe and headed for Cofitachequi.”

Blood Talon blinked, tried to swallow. “She what?”

“You heard me. She sent a messenger, some clanless bit of human trash, to inform the Morning Star that she’s gone to Cofitachequi to deal with some problem of the Morning Star’s. The rumor is that it’s Walking Smoke.”

“That’s crazy!” Blood Talon protested. “She’s a noble. One of the highest-ranking women in the Morning Star House of the Four Winds Clan. She wouldn’t just leave in a canoe. Not by herself. Not without an escort befitting her rank and status. She’s the head of the entire expedition. She has responsibilities.”

Spotted Wrist kept clasping his hands into angry fists. “You didn’t know her as a girl. Didn’t witness the kind of wild things she and her brothers did. Insane, undisciplined, and in many cases unconscionable. Had she and her brothers been anyone’s brat offspring but Red Warrior’s? If we hadn’t had the power to cover for the crimes, the rapes those boys committed, the disrespect with which they acted? The situations they dragged their sister into?”

“Excuse me?”

“We covered for them.” Spotted Wrist frowned. “Running away like this? It’s exactly the sort of thing she’d do. I thought she’d changed. Seemed like it, anyway. She wasn’t the same reckless girl, but a deeper, almost haunted woman. And she’s got the Morning Star wrapped around her finger. Doesn’t matter that she claims to serve Underworld Power. She can get away with anything again. And I won’t have it!”

“Yes, Keeper.”

Blood Talon waited until the Keeper turned away. Only then did he allow himself to take a deep breath and try to cool his suddenly hot body. Pus and blood, but he wished they were back in the north. Cold, miserable, and barbaric as it might have been, at least there was an enemy he could deal with up in those trackless forests. Villages he could burn. People he could kill.

Here? Trying to deal with this recalcitrant woman? It didn’t matter how hard he tried, it kept turning to sand under his feet, making him look like a hopeless fool.

He managed to pull in a deep breath. If Night Shadow Star had—for some unearthly reason—taken a canoe and headed off downriver on her own, it meant she was no longer in Cahokia. No longer his problem.

Blood Talon could relax and go on about his usual business of keeping his warriors in line, training, drilling, preparing for whatever war-related duty arose next.

Surely, with Night Shadow Star gone, there would be no need for a large military escort for the expedition. That could be managed by whatever noble they’d now put in charge. No one remaining was of the profile, status, or rank that would demand an entire squadron of …

“You will take your twenty best warriors,” Spotted Wrist’s declaration broke Blood Talon’s concentration. “You will find the fastest canoe you can, and you will pursue her. Find her. And bring her back.”

Blood Talon’s heart missed a beat, then began to hammer against his breastbone. “Er, Keeper? Excuse me? Go find her?”

“You do understand speech, don’t you, Squadron First? At least you did. Once upon a time. Before you lost your wits and became the addle-brained fool I now find before me. Remember that man you used to be? Competent? Trustworthy? No task too difficult to tackle and persevere at? Whatever happened to that man?”

He came to Cahokia where he was asked to play silly games hunting a supposed wife who is smarter than you, War Leader.

But Blood Talon kept his mouth shut. Finally suggesting, “There are other men who might be better suited to chasing down a fugitive woman on the river, Keeper. My experience, as you just noted, is better applied to maintaining the squadron and the preparations that may be—”

Spotted Wrist whirled on his heel, pointing a hard finger. “You go get her, Blood Talon. Whatever it takes, you bring her back to me alive and unharmed or don’t bother to come back. Get on about it. I don’t care if you have to follow her all the way to Cofitachequi. Bring her back or be sure you die in the process. Fail me, and you will wish you’d cut your own throat.”