Fifty-six

Screwing up all the courage Blood Talon could manage, he kept his expression stoic. Tried not to flinch. And prayed that tears would not come to his eyes as Fire Cat daubed a grease-based unguent onto the hideous burns that peeled and bled on Blood Talon’s ribs, under his arms, and on the inside of his thighs.

The old man who’d been torturing him hadn’t gotten to his penis and testicles, or to the point that they’d set his hair on fire. Nor, thankfully, had they pulled his eyeballs out of their sockets, cut out his tongue, or severed his fingers, one by one. Generally, the practice was to wait for that. Build up to the final indignity that left a sightless husk hanging from broken bones where the arms and legs had been smashed.

As to whether the barbarians would have chosen to either pluck his eyes from the sockets, or just burn them out on the end of a fiery stick would remain speculative, and a subject that would return to haunt Blood Talon’s dreams for the rest of his life.

Not that Fire Cat’s miraculous appearance out of the night wasn’t without problems of its own. Blood Talon owed the man his life. This man. The one who had murdered his men and now daubed medicine he’d traded a catfish for at the last village they’d passed.

Looking back at their now-entwined histories, Blood Talon found himself more than a little troubled. In the beginning, Red Wing Town had incited its destruction by remaining a hive of heresy. Then, partly because of Fire Cat’s military brilliance, the Red Wing Clan had destroyed several Cahokian armies, not the least of which was Makes Three’s.

Blood Talon himself had led the raid on Fire Cat’s palace, had helped to subdue the man and saw him safely shipped off for Cahokia aboard a canoe. Then he had helped himself to the spoils, including the degradation and abuse of Fire Cat’s wives, relatives, and children. While he hadn’t sexually violated the young ones, he hadn’t forbidden it, had casually ordered their execution, and had their bodies disposed of in the river.

By the time he and his squadron had returned to Cahokia, the Red Wing—now Night Shadow Star’s slave—had saved the city, not once, but twice, and supposedly had helped to bring the Morning Star’s souls back from the Underworld.

And he could have killed me that day I challenged him on Night Shadow Star’s mound.

But Fire Cat hadn’t retaliated, even though he understood the stakes. The gentle feel of that blade against Blood Talon’s neck remained as clear as yesterday.

But it hadn’t stopped there. The man had precipitated the deaths of so many of Blood Talon’s warriors when he capsized the war canoe: Nutcracker, Three Bow, Wild Owl, Old Scar, and Whistle Hand among them. Comrades from countless war trails. Men whose laughter, smiles, and privations Blood Talon had shared over the years. In a bond stronger than that shared by brothers, they’d trained, fought, shivered, and sweated. The notion that his erstwhile savior had murdered them? It left him confused and wanting to scream at the injustice of it.

“You killed my men.”

“You destroyed my town and family. Sent me into slavery. Would have killed me and taken Night Shadow Star back to that foul master of yours.”

“I was following orders,” Blood Talon whispered past his gritted teeth as Fire Cat used a finger to smear more of the grease onto the underside of Blood Talon’s right arm.

“Funny thing, your orders,” Fire Cat answered. “Who were they to benefit? The Morning Star? The people of Cahokia? Certainly, they didn’t benefit Night Shadow Star, or, I’m sure, the Four Winds Clan. I’m not sure they actually benefited Rising Flame, either. Not in the long view of things.”

Blood Talon made a face, flinched at the bruises on his lips and cheekbones where they’d beat him. “I serve my war leader.”

“Ah yes, the noble Spotted Wrist. In line for the chieftainship of North Star House. Now he’s the Four Winds Clan Keeper, a rising star. And here you are, halfway across the world, your canoe gone, your warriors drowned, and the one man in life whom you could really call your enemy has plucked you from the hands of barbarians. Two-footed vermin who were going to torture you for as long as you held out.” Fire Cat frowned. “What was that all about? Did you ever really get the gist of why they wanted to burn you alive?”

“Part of a burial ritual, I think. And something to do with being Cahokian. I think they wanted to send my soul to their afterlife to serve their dead. Some kind of funeral for a bunch of people killed by a falling tree.”

“Poor choice on their part. You’d have made a pitiful and nasty servant. You don’t have the qualities of soul required.”

Blood Talon snorted a laugh, immediately regretted it as it pulled his bruised ribs and burned skin.

“I suppose you’ll tell me all my failings now?”

“I suspect that you already know them, Squadron First.”

“Where’s the Lady Night Shadow Star?”

“Somewhere upriver, traveling with a Trader. Instead of spending every spare moment trying to catch up, I find myself tending my enemy’s wounds and asking myself why.”

Blood Talon tried to read the thoughts behind that implacable face. “You could go on. I’m all right on my own.”

Fire Cat studied him for a moment. “We’ll reach White Chief Town by midday tomorrow, sooner if you can find the strength to paddle. Word along the river is that it’s a neutral town. Some sort of Power of Trade rules there. Everyone respects the peace. You’ll be safe. Can take the time to heal, broker some sort of deal with a Trader to carry you back to a Cahokian colony. From there they can see to getting you back to your war leader.”

“That’s a problem.”

“How’s that?”

“The war leader told me not to come back unless I had the Lady Night Shadow Star in my company, safe and sound for marriage.”

“Then I guess you’re just running from one bit of bad luck to the next. I’m leaving you in White Chief Town, and, to be honest, if I find you on my backtrail again, I’ll finish what those barbarians back there started.”

Blood Talon nodded, stared out at the night-shadowed river. “Why didn’t you kill me that day? You knew it was a trick, challenging you to train like that.”

“I came close, Squadron First. So very close. But I didn’t know who was playing which of us for what advantage. I assumed it was Spotted Wrist and Rising Flame who wove that little scheme together. And when it comes to Cahokian politics, you have to think several layers deeper than the obvious. So, whoever planned it, or permitted it, was fit to gain one way or the other. If you killed me, they figured Night Shadow Star would fold and marry that overbloated weasel. An error on their part, by the way. My lady isn’t the same delicate flower she was when Makes Three died.

“The other way, if I killed you, would have also given them some advantage. Maybe it would have been some claim against Night Shadow Star? Maybe it would have been justification for your men to swarm me, murder me in their outrage and grief. What no one counted on was that both of us would come out of that alive. Least of all me, and with my honor intact.”

“Do you always think so far ahead?”

“If I did, I’d have left you to those barbarians. Given that—wounded as you are—a ten-year-old girl could paddle with more vigor than you do, and realizing that you might still stab me in the back, I’m thinking I’m not nearly as smart as you seem to think I am.”

Blood Talon fought his urge to laugh again. “I am many things, Red Wing. One thing I am not is ungrateful. If someone sticks a deer-bone stiletto into your back, it won’t be me. And, for so long as I stand behind you drawing breath, no one else will either. Upon that, I give you my word as a Snapping Turtle Clan warrior and squadron leader.”

“Accepted.”

Fire Cat resealed the small pot of grease, handed it over to Blood Talon. “I suspect you’ll need that a lot more than I will.”

“How did you do that? Just Trade that catfish in the last village? Where did you learn that? I’d have thought you’d been Trading all your life.”

“You might give it a try sometime, Squadron First. Trading rather than taking. You might learn a great deal about the world and the people in it.”

And with that Fire Cat turned away to throw another stick of wood onto the fire before digging himself a hollow in the sand to sleep in.

Blood Talon stared thoughtfully at the man, tried to come to grips with his own situation. This man was his enemy. Still an unreconstructed heretic. Somewhere in the future—assuming they ever got home—he would be called on to kill Fire Cat.

And when that day comes…?