Forty-one

Night Shadow Star watched the Cahokian war canoe slide up on the beach not twenty paces down from where she and Fire Cat sat on Red Reed’s gunwale, their feet dangling in the water.

Fire Cat was as tense as a bent sapling, his hand resting just above his war club where it lay hidden by the hull.

Since waking that morning, she had been living a confusion of thoughts and hearing strange disembodied voices—though she’d struggled mightily to pass herself off as unconcerned about her nightlong need to fill herself with Fire Cat’s body.

The voices had been howling, especially Piasa’s, and she kept seeing flickers of movements, flashes of light at the corner of her vision. Her thoughts had been scattered, her memory replaying one particular copulation: She’d leaped on Fire Cat with a shrill yip, bit him on the shoulder. The coupling had been wild as she hammered her body against his. Then burst into a climax like she’d never known. Over and over the memory repeated, as if her souls couldn’t recall the other times, but had fixed on that one explosive event.

Each time it replayed down in her souls, she could feel Piasa’s rage. Hear his sibilant hiss as it mixed with the sound of people and the clamor of the celebration.

What have I done? Who have I become?

Her thoughts were reeling, confused. One part of her reveled in her mating with Fire Cat. She had relieved a suffocating weight that threatened to crush her. Another part of her experienced a sense of fulfillment as a woman—that she had finally been able to express the love she felt, that even if they died within the next moments, Fire Cat had shared her heart and soul. Then, an instant later, she was consumed by a sucking sense of guilt. That she’d somehow betrayed herself and Fire Cat, that her selfish actions would destroy them both.

That, in turn, led to panic.

How could a person be so torn inside?

“Because now there is no way out for you,” Piasa hissed from the air above her head.

She kept thinking: I’ve doomed myself … and him.

And all the while, she’d been bargaining with Piasa, whispering, “I know what I promised. But I’m not sorry. I will bring Walking Smoke down. If you must punish, take it out on me. Not Fire Cat.”

“And if I do?”

She glanced at the flicker of light at the edge of her vision, whispering, “Then I will never serve you again.”

“I could devour your souls.”

“Without Fire Cat, I have no use for them.”

With all her might, she concentrated, imagining ways she could kill herself. Insisting that her threat was no bluff.

She needed only to stare into Fire Cat’s eyes, send him that shy and intimate smile, and watch the light of love fill his eyes. When she did, she knew she had the courage to defy her lord.

Life without this man was simply not worth living.

“You try me.”

“Then pick a more compliant woman next time, Lord,” she growled under her breath as the Cahokian warriors leaped over the sides of their canoe and pulled it up onto the ash-stained sand of the canoe landing.

“Easy,” she told Fire Cat as his fingers strayed toward the war club. “We’re just harmless Traders. Remember?”

“You would have made a good war chief,” he told her, sticking to Trade pidgin.

“How’s my face paint?”

“A little smudged, but the tattoos are still illegible. And you have grass in your hair.”

She laughed at that. “You look like you spent all night copulating with a bobcat yourself. But then, that’s half the town.”

Blood Talon and Nutcracker were issuing orders, the squadron leader surveying the landing, hands on his hips. With barely a flicker, his gaze traveled over Red Reed where Fire Cat and Night Shadow Star remained seated. They were just a couple among the fifty or so people thronging the hundreds of other canoes. Some were loading packs and pushing out. Others just came to retrieve something from the boats.

“Bring the packs and that Trade,” Nutcracker called. “Take your weapons. Let’s make a good show of it, but I want bows and quivers slung, war clubs on your belts.”

“Old Scar, Whistle Hand, you stay and watch the canoe.” Blood Talon pointed at two of the warriors.

“All right, Piasa,” Night Shadow Star whispered under her breath, “let’s see if we have a deal.”

“What are you doing?” Fire Cat demanded.

She dragged a blanket out and draped it over his battle-scarred legs. That, if anything, would give him away upon close scrutiny. “Stay here. I have to find out something. Trust me.”

She pushed off Red Reed’s side, reached for her small pack of Trade, and started for the warriors. She gave a slight, saucy swing to her hips, head back so that her long hair spilled down her back, her chin up.

“Hey, warriors,” she called in Trade pidgin. “We’ve got Trade. Where you from?”

Blood Talon and Nutcracker stopped short, giving her appreciative glances.

“Now that’s a nice sight,” Nutcracker told his commander in Cahokian. “Too bad she isn’t in my bed on these lonely nights. Hope that Trader over there knows what he’s got.”

Blood Talon shrugged. “Too much muscle for my taste. I like more cushion. Still, I’d Trade a shell gorget for a chance to slip my spear into this one.”

“Hey,” Night Shadow Star continued as she stepped up to them, fully aware the rest of the warriors were gathering around. She kept her smile in place, ignoring the comments they were making about how they’d do what and where in her body. “Where you from? What language is that?”

“Cahokian,” Nutcracker told her in pidgin, cocking his head and smiling. “We’re from Cahokia. Under direct orders from the Morning Star. We’re looking for a woman.”

“Apparently you’re very good at your jobs. You’ve found one. Cahokian, huh? You know the living god?”

Nutcracker jerked a thumb at Blood Talon. “The squadron first here, he sits at the living god’s right hand. We’re his finest warriors.”

“Then you’ll have his finest Trade.” She arched a challenging eyebrow. “I have spoonbill feathers, stingray spines, yaupon, even southeastern copper”—she pulled out a nugget—“which is worth ten times what that poor stuff from up north is worth.”

“What about for you?” Nutcracker asked, lips breaking into a knowing leer. “Say, you and me, for a hand of time? That brush over there would have some nice secluded spots.”

She tossed her head toward where Fire Cat waited. “My man might take offense. Now, if you’d been here last night … Well, you know how it is when the moon rises on the night of the lunar maximum. We were both a little wild last night. Today? Sure, but I’d want your canoe in exchange.”

“Our canoe? Just to slip my shaft into your sheath?” Nutcracker laughed. “What do you want for that piece of copper? The Morning Star’s palace?”

“Sure. You got a deal,” she told him with a disarming smile.

“How about some information?” Blood Talon asked, clearly irritated to be delayed. “We’re looking for a Cahokian woman, travels with a warrior. She’s Four Winds Clan. You know who they are? She has spirals tattooed on her cheeks. They’d treat her specially, and her slave looks like a battle-hardened warrior. Tough man. Pretty scarred up. Traveling with five Traders, we think the Traders might be Yuchi.”

“Lot of Yuchi Traders, look around,” she rejoined. “You, war chief, you sure—”

“Squadron first,” Blood Talon interrupted.

“—you don’t want to Trade for this copper? Since you don’t have the Morning Star’s palace with you, you got art? Maybe a gorget? Some of those remarkable Cahokian fabrics?”

“This woman we’re looking for,” Blood Talon insisted. “She’s called Night Shadow Star. Her slave is Fire Cat, he’s a Red Wing. You tell me where I can find them, I might just be tempted to Trade you this canoe.”

“You serious? You’d Trade that canoe for this woman?”

In Cahokian, Blood Talon told Nutcracker, “We can always get another canoe.” In Trade pidgin, he told her. “Find me the woman, the canoe is yours.”

She cocked her head, narrowed her eyes. “The living god must want them pretty bad if you’d Trade a big bald-cypress canoe like that. How long will you be here in Rainbow Town?”

“Overnight. We’re headed upriver in the morning. Put the word out. I mean it. You find Night Shadow Star for me, I’ll make you one of the richest women on the Tenasee. Now, nice talking with you, but we have to be on with our duties.”

As he turned away, Blood Talon added in Cahokian, “As if you could find Night Shadow Star, you southern swamp slut.”

The rest of the warriors laughed, winking, shooting her lascivious grins. Nutcracker was bold enough to reach out and cup his hand around her right buttock before giving it a squeeze. Her startled reaction brought more jeers from the rest of them as they filed past.

How dare a common warrior take such a …

Her reaction was instinctive. She barely stopped herself from ordering him back, telling Blood Talon exactly who she was, and demanding the second’s death on the spot.

“Careful,” Piasa’s voice whispered.

“Close. Too close.” She had to bury the part of her that was still Night Shadow Star. She was a Trader. Only a Trader. She forced her heart to slow, made her expression blank. Got her breathing under control.

As the Cahokian warriors headed up the slope, Old Scar, one of the guards, walked up, saying slyly in pidgin, “I’d Trade. I’ve got a string of shell beads here, given to me by the Morning Star himself. Now, we’d have to be discreet, but you could have these for a couple of fingers of time over in those bushes.”

He pulled a sweat-stained necklace from under his war shirt.

She gave him a bitter chuckle. “Those are freshwater clamshells. Not even cut round. The way I hear it? The Morning Star only wears necklaces made from perfectly cut shell Traded all the way up from the Gulf.”

She turned, sauntered back in her saucy walk, aware that Old Scar and Whistle Hand were still watching.

“Well?” Fire Cat asked, his fingers playing just out of sight within reach of his war club.

“They’re headed upriver in the morning. Offered that big canoe in Trade for you and me. That’s a lot of incentive, provided it wasn’t a trick.”

“But they didn’t know you?”

“Didn’t have a clue.” She frowned. “But I learned what I wanted to know. Piasa could have turned me over to them, but he didn’t. That was the test. I think, Fire Cat, for the moment, you and I have dodged the arrow of fate.”

“Let’s just hope we keep dodging it.”

Piasa laughed from so closely behind her left ear that she couldn’t help but spin, expecting to see the Spirit Beast. She only found empty air.