Twenty-eight

The storm had rolled in at midday. A dark wall of clouds that had come sailing in from the northwest. It brought with it gusting winds, dropping temperatures, and unleashed sheets of cold rain that hissed as they slashed down on the river, the valiant Red Reed, and its exhausted crew. The camp that night was cold, miserable, and wet; a mixture of sleet and rain fell from low clouds.

Despite the welcoming villages they passed, Night Shadow Star couldn’t forget the sight of those Cahokian warriors running along the shore, shooting, cursing. These were Spotted Wrist’s men. Warriors who didn’t stop just because the weather turned a little foul.

In the last glow of twilight, White Mat had passed a substantial village set atop a low bluff, and a finger of time later, steered Red Reed into a sluggish brush-choked stream that entered the Tenasee from the west. Night Shadow Star wouldn’t even have noticed it, given that the mouth was partially obscured by willows and overhanging branches of water oak.

Through the entire day, she’d felt Piasa’s Spirit lurking. Several times, she thought she’d seen his glowing presence in the depths, only to realize it was a trick of the storm light on the water.

The Tenasee itself had changed character; the currents and eddies began taking a hand in slowing their progress, and once a log, bobbing just under the surface, had almost capsized the Red Reed.

Usually White Mat spotted the danger by a careful reading of the water. Snags and obstacles beneath the surface, he’d shown her, could be detected by subtle upwellings and turbulence that betrayed their presence. For some reason this submerged log had waited until Red Reed was right over it to rise and knock the canoe sideways.

Only the veteran hands at the paddles had saved them.

Maybe it had been Piasa’s work, flipping the log up with one of his taloned feet in a jest to ensure they were paying attention. A reminder that the river could kill them as surely as the pursuing warriors.

Throughout that long day, as the clouds moved in and the temperature dropped, she wasn’t the only one throwing anxious glances over her shoulder. They were all expecting to see a Cahokian war canoe appear around the last bend they’d passed.

She shivered, cold to the core, as rain pattered down through the trees and onto her cloak. Her arms were going numb as they used the points of the paddles like poles to push Red Reed up the shallow channel.

Not more than a bowshot up from the confluence was a gravel bar, and it was onto this that White Mat ordered them to set up camp.

The cold rain had slowed, turned to a drizzle, but water dripped from the dark and shadowed branches that interlaced above them.

Night Shadow Star, for once, was happy to huddle and shiver in misery and let the rest attend to the making of camp as they tugged brush out of the way and secured the canoe.

I could quit. Surrender myself to Blood Talon. I wouldn’t have to paddle. Wouldn’t have to ache. All I’d have to do is share Spotted Wrist’s bed, and in return I could be warm, fed, and pampered again.

“Not like being in a village,” Made Man told them wistfully as he built a lean-to, then went about procuring dry kindling from a pack. Using a bow drill, he managed to conjure a flicker of flame, feeding it more kindling.

Meanwhile, Shedding Bird used a hafted stone celt to split some of the branches lying about, exposing the dry wood inside.

The fire smoked, but managed to shoot out feeble light as they set to making camp.

Night Shadow Star rubbed her aching shoulders. Another bout of shivering racked her body. This day she had blisters, but each time her protesting body had wavered on the edge of collapse, she’d forced herself to paddle harder.

A hank of wooden beads had been bartered off to a passing fisherman for a catfish as long as her arm in addition to a sack of freshwater clams. Not much in the way of variety, but it would be filling. And hot. Mostly she wanted hot. Something to rekindle even the tiniest sensation of warmth in her belly.

Mixed Shell, in the light of the fire, used a freshly struck gray-chert flake and began cutting strips from the catfish. The clams they placed at the edge of the fire to roast as the flames began to overwhelm the wet wood.

“We need a plan,” White Mat said as he fixed his rain hat at an angle so the water dripped off the back. The man’s breath rose like a white fog in the cold air.

“Can we outrace them upriver?” Night Shadow Star asked through chattering teeth.

Fire Cat had draped a hard-smoked hide over his head and shoulders. Firelight gleamed in his dark eyes as he studied the fire. “Red Reed is smaller and faster in a short sprint compared to their war canoe. But I counted close to twenty of them. Working in relays, they can eventually catch us over the long run across open water. All they have to do is get close enough to shoot a couple of us down, and we’re out of the race.”

“If they can find us,” Half Root said as she used a stick to turn the clams. She had hunkered down, tending the clams as an excuse to huddle over the flames.

The first aroma of the cooking shellfish tickled Night Shadow Star’s nose, making her mouth water. She tensed her muscles, jaws clamped tight to stop her teeth from chattering. If she just demanded that they let her, she could take the fire for her own. She was Lady Night Shadow Star. A Cahokian noble.

In the forest darkness behind her she could hear Piasa’s laughter. Her jaws were too cold to chance a comment. It would embarrass her too much if the others heard her teeth clacking like a sack full of rocks.

“It’s hard to think they can catch us,” Shedding Bird replied as he propped sticks to support a length of catfish over the fire. “Red Reed’s one of the fastest canoes afloat.”

“It’s not the canoe,” Fire Cat told him, “it’s the manpower. We can distance them with that initial burst of speed, but they have endurance on their side. They can pull a third of their warriors out, let them rest, and rotate refreshed warriors onto the benches. Once we’re spent, it’s only a matter of time before they overtake us.”

“Then how do we deal with them?” Half Root flipped one of the clams, water spattering on her rain hat from the trees above.

“We have to not be found.” Fire Cat extended his hands to the fire. Night Shadow Star could see the blisters. She wasn’t the only one who’d pushed as hard as she could.

How did he do it? Every muscle in his body had to be screaming like hers were, he had to be just as chilled to the bone, and yet he sat poised like a statue.

“The problem with that,” Made Man said, “is that there’s only this one river, and they know we’re headed up it.”

“They even know where we’re going,” Night Shadow Star said between shivers as she watched the catfish begin to sizzle. “The only thing we can do is beat them to Cofitachequi. Get there before they do.”

“Won’t work,” Fire Cat told her. “We made good time from Cahokia, and they had to have left at least a day behind us. They already caught us once, they’ll do it again. They’re faster. Just accept that.”

“So, what do we do? Head back downriver?” White Mat asked. “It’s that or get caught, right?”

“We could go back,” Shedding Bird said thoughtfully. “At the confluence with the Mother Water, turn upstream to the mouth of the Southern Shawnee River, take it up to its headwaters. You’d have to travel overland to the headwaters of the Tenasee. It would be longer, more complicated. Especially across the uplands.”

“And maybe even more dangerous,” Made Man said. “Those people up there don’t take kindly to strangers. Let alone traveling Cahokians.”

“Think tactics,” Fire Cat told him. “We’re going to have to play fox and rabbit with them. The only thing we have going for us is that they don’t know where we are. So put yourself in Blood Talon’s position. He knows we’re close, and he will have pushed hard today, hoping to make up that couple of hands’ time he was behind us. I’d guess he’s pulled in at that last village we passed just before dusk.”

“We’re going to spend a really cold and miserable night because there’s a chance that he’s there. Blood and spit, I could sure enjoy being in a nice dry house this night,” Half Root groused. “But what about come morning?”

“Come morning, we’re going to let them pass,” Fire Cat told them. “They’ll be on the river at first light.” He gestured around. “We’re out of sight, and they’ll be expecting us to have traveled ahead, to have made shore at the next village. Not to be back in the forest like this.”

“I don’t understand,” Night Shadow Star said through her shivers. “Eventually Blood Talon will figure out that he’s ahead of us. He’ll lay a trap. Catch us on his own ground.”

“That’s the tricky part,” Fire Cat agreed, looking around at the others. “But he’s a Cahokian warrior. Our advantage is that we have White Mat, Shedding Bird, Mixed Shell, Made Man, and Half Root. Not to mention Red Reed.”

“Traders,” Night Shadow Star filled in. “People who know the river.”

“Blood Talon doesn’t have a chance.” White Mat had a smug smile on his lips as he blew frosty breath into the firelight.

Everyone noticed when Night Shadow Star’s shivering shook her whole body. This time she couldn’t silence the chattering of her teeth.

“Come on,” Made Man told her, offering the first of the catfish. “You first. Eat up. To have come this far, given who you are, and to have done it without so much as a single complaint, you can crew on my boat anytime.”

“Seconded,” Shedding Bird added solemnly.

The food did help. And she knew they all let her eat the lion’s share.

It was later, when the blankets were rolled out and she stared down at the sodden protection they were going to afford her for the night, that the cold and exhaustion finally caught up with her. Blood Talon was out there. She was as cold as she’d ever been. Feeling defeated. Tears finally came.

“You all right?” Fire Cat asked, appearing in the night beside her.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this cold and miserable.”

“Yes, you were. Once.”

“When?”

“When I pulled you out of the river after you tried to kill Walking Smoke.”

“How did I survive?” But she remembered. His body, atop hers, his warmth driving the cold from her naked flesh.

“Fire Cat…” She couldn’t finish—not when she’d been possessed by that image, where it led to in her fantasies. How it would feel if she ever had his body against hers again.

“You’re safe,” he told her as he pulled her into his arms. “Cold as it is tonight? We need to sleep together, share the warmth. Trust me, those thoughts will be the farthest from our minds.”

Which was a lie, she knew.

She reached down, took her blanket, and doubled it with his. When he laid himself down, she curled around his back, snuggled close to his warmth as he pulled the doubled blanket around them.

“Beware,” Piasa whispered out of the night.

“Oh, go drown a fish,” she told the shadowy beast where it paced just beyond the fire’s light.

But as she lay there with her body pressed against Fire Cat’s, her heart beat hard, a tingle began to warm her loins. Every fiber of her being was throbbing. What if she asked? Would Fire Cat be willing? Was he as acutely aware of her as she of him? Was he, too, lying there with his heart in his throat?

And if he was, he’d never allow it to show. Yet again she cursed his incomprehensible sense of honor.

It would be so easy if he’d just roll over, drag her close, and slip his hand between her thighs. That was all it would take.

But he wouldn’t.

So she spent that entire night too uncomfortable to sleep. The rough gravel poked up into her hips, shoulders, and thighs, which left her awake, frustrated, and longing to make love. If there was any consolation, it was that she was marvelously warm the entire time.