Thirty-five

“Time to go now.” Piasa’s voice came as a whisper. Night Shadow Star could feel the Spirit Beast’s breath against her ear as she jerked her eyes awake to the night.

It took her a moment to realize where she was: the Traders’ camp. An abandoned village called Maygrass Town.

A cool breeze blew the last of the clouds from the moon’s face as she sat up, peered out from under the cover of the hides draped on the pole frame overhead.

She took a deep breath, hearing the crickets and insects on the warm night. The perfume of spring flowers carried on the somnolent breeze, mixed as it was with the scents of water, mud, and freshly leafed-out vegetation.

She glanced at where Fire Cat lay sound asleep in his blankets, fought the impulse to reach out and reassure herself by touching him.

The fire popped in the hearth, the faintest red glow around the bottom of the boiling pot that rested at the edge of the coals to stay warm.

“You must leave now!”

Piasa flickered at the edge of her vision, but when she turned her head, he’d already vanished into the shadows.

“Got to go now,” an ethereal voice insisted from air around her. “They are coming.”

She reached out with a foot and shoved Fire Cat. “We have to go.”

In an instant he was awake, reaching for his weapons. “Trouble?”

“A warning from the Spirits. Piasa is most insistent.”

“Thought you and he weren’t on the best of terms these days.”

“We’re not.”

But she didn’t dare tell him the thoughts that had possessed her as they’d traveled farther and farther from Cahokia and all that its environs had meant to her. She’d keep the torture of her temptation to herself. No sense in adding to the burdens he’d already assumed on her account.

The Spirit Beast knew that she balanced on the fine edge of betrayal. Even as she thought it, she could hear her Spirit master’s hiss of displeasure.

“What do you know of sacrifice, Lord?” she muttered to the dark as she stood and began rolling her blanket.

“What are we doing?” Fire Cat asked, crawling out of his bedding.

“We’re leaving. Wake the others.”

“It’s not even midnight,” Fire Cat protested as he glanced up at the position of the stars in the moonlit sky. “You want to take your chances on the river? In the dark? You know the dangers, floats of driftwood, half-sunken logs.”

“Piasa will warn us if there’s trouble,” she lied, hoping the malicious beast would accede to her wish since she was giving in to his.

“The Traders are not going to like it.”

“It’s been five days, Fire Cat. We’re rested, you’ve killed two deer, we’ve caught fish, Half Root’s been diving for freshwater clams, it is time we got back to our duty.”

“Right.” He promptly began rolling his bedding and taking down their shelter.

The others complained, even after Fire Cat threatened them. With grumbles, much stumbling about in the darkness, and no little confusion as things were remembered at the last moment, Red Reed was ultimately shoved into the current. Taking paddles, they got under way. White Mat was in his usual position in the bow, paddling shoulder to shoulder with Shedding Bird.

“It’s too dark. Hard to see the thread of the current,” Half Root groused.

“If Piasa woke Night Shadow Star out of a sound sleep,” Fire Cat told them, “it was for a reason.”

“You put a lot of faith in the lady’s visions,” Made Man muttered.

“When you’ve lived in the shadow of Power for as long as I have, seen the things I have seen, you’ll understand,” he answered.

“I think we do,” Half Root said from the stern. “Downright spooky the way she gets when she hears the voices. Sees all those flashes of light and flickers of movement that we don’t.”

“Half the time we’re in awe,” Mixed Shell said softly. “The rest of the time we’re more than a little scared. Like when she gets that vacant look, sways, her hands in her lap and all filled with visions.”

“We mean no offense, Lady,” Half Root added quickly.

As Night Shadow Star paddled, she said, “It’s no blessing to be half in the Spirit World. I would Trade my Power to live your lives in an instant. You could have it all, the palaces, the wealth, the prestige and servants, the knowledge that you have been chosen because of your birth to be the tool of Underworld Power. In return I could simply be myself, unmolested by voices, free of everyone else’s expectations. No one would be hunting me to make me marry a man I didn’t want. I wouldn’t have to cross half the known world to kill a brother who’s as twisted and evil as any man alive.”

“Thanks, Lady,” Half Root replied. “I think we’ll just stay happy being ourselves.”

“That’s the smart bargain,” Fire Cat told them. “Get us to your town at the Mussel Shallows, and you’ll be the stuff of legends for the rest of your lives. Think of the stories you’ll be able to tell of the time you took Lady Night Shadow Star of Cahokia on the epic journey to her confrontation with Walking Smoke.”

“Assuming we don’t get capsized by a sunken log first because we can’t see the slick it makes on the surface,” White Mat replied.

Night Shadow Star chuckled softly. “I don’t think Piasa will let that happen.” Not yet anyway. “He wants me in Cofitachequi. He’s not going to let anything interfere with that. Until I’m face to face with my brother, you can be assured that this journey has Power on its side.”

“Hope you’re right, Lady,” Mixed Shell told her.

They had progressed down the channel of the Sand River, could see the open water of the Tenasee at the confluence. And there, on the sliver of beach exposed by the falling water, lay five canoes. Three fires had burned low. The dark forms of men sleeping in blankets could be discerned on the pale sand.

“Quiet,” Piasa whispered from behind Night Shadow Star’s right ear.

“Not a sound,” she whispered. “Don’t so much as knock a paddle to the hull.”

Letting the current carry them, they drifted past the sleeping camp. Paddling wide, they cut across, hugging the Tenasee’s far bank as they turned upriver.

“Who were those people? Why were they camped there, of all places?”

“Blocking the river,” Night Shadow Star said with certainty. “Making sure that no one passed them in the night. Perhaps their guard is asleep? Piasa’s reason for waking me when he did?”

“Wonder if they were going to search up the Sand in the morning?” Fire Cat was stroking vigorously with his paddle. “If they’re looking for us, it means that Blood Talon has allies. I wonder who?”

“Tanned Wolf,” Night Shadow Star guessed. “Blood Talon made a fourth choice, Red Wing. Something we should have anticipated. He stopped at Red Bluff Town and talked the High Chief there into using his people to search for us.”

“Blood Talon figured out that he was ahead of us,” Fire Cat mused. “So, of course he would have badgered the local colonists into helping. He would have placed scouts to watch the river, made sure we didn’t pass. Then he would have gathered his men, sent them all searching downriver, having them check camp spots, search villages and inlets, anyplace we might have holed up.”

“Like Maygrass Town,” Shedding Bird said through an exhale. He bent his head around, staring at Night Shadow Star in the moon-bathed light. “And they’d have found us tomorrow morning. Lady, I’ll never doubt you again.”

In the night, Piasa hissed his delight.

So, we’ve escaped the net this time. Now all we have to do is get far enough upriver to be beyond the search.

But how were they going to manage that? Every man, woman, and child between the River of Ducks and the Sand River would be on the lookout for Red Reed, and dawn would come long before they could make that passage.