Sixty

Fire crackled and spat sparks up toward a night sky that dazzled with constellations. Stars, gleaming against a background of black, frosted the heavens in glittering waves. The familiar sight of Horned Serpent dominated the southern sky, the great winged serpent staring down with a beaming red eye.

Moonrise was still a couple of hands of time away, and the forest above Fire Cat and Blood Talon’s camp was alive with night insects, frogs, and nightjars, though their symphony was partially masked by the roar of the Tenasee where it pounded and surged in the narrow canyon below.

Camp had been made on a restricted flat where the trail crossed an outcrop of bedrock. That it was often used for such was readily apparent, not just because the ground was beaten down to dirt, but when they’d arrived the firepit had still contained glowing embers from the previous night’s campers.

All that had been necessary was to climb the steep-walled canyon, find wood, and descend back to the level spot to rekindle the flames.

Blood Talon sat with his back to a beech tree, the bark polished from hundreds of previous backs that had taken repose there. Across the fire, Fire Cat sat cross-legged, a frown marring his face as he used a chert flake to peel bark from a willow stem. He had cut a number of them in anticipation of the chance to make more arrows.

“I really appreciate that you didn’t leave me in White Chief Town,” Blood Talon told the man. Then he winced, shifting his position slightly to ease the burns on his left side. He had grown tired of the pain. Warrior he might have been, tough, inured. Didn’t mean he wasn’t on the point of tears for most of his waking hours. Not that sleep came easily, as he was limited to flat on his back to avoid irritating the burns.

Fire Cat glanced up from his arrow, eyes thoughtful. “I must be getting soft. That or so homesick I couldn’t stand the thought of not hearing the occasional word in my own language. Besides, you were almost to the point of dropping to your knees and begging.”

“Not to my knees. It would have hurt too much.” Blood Talon glanced away. “I’ve hanged men in squares before. Led the festivities with the torch and knife. Laughed as they screamed. Pitied them as weak and cowardly when they pleaded for death. Always figured that if I was ever in their position, I’d bite my tongue off before I cried out. That down deep inside, at the core of my souls, I could take it.”

“I didn’t notice you screaming.”

“No.” Blood Talon glanced down at his hands, grimy from the trail and with dirt under the nails. “They’d just gotten started. Hadn’t been at it for more than a finger of time, I suppose. It was just my sides and underarms. It wasn’t like when a flaming brand is raised up under a man’s shaft and stones, when he smells his hair down there burning. Or when they pry his mouth open, shovel in hardwood coals, and cook his tongue in his mouth.”

Firelight was dancing in Fire Cat’s eyes as he shot Blood Talon an evaluative look from across the flames.

The squadron first said, “I suspect I would have screamed. I would have pleaded for a quick and easy death.”

“I prayed that myself the night my lady came and cut me down. Thought she was First Woman come for my souls.”

Blood Talon flexed his hand, watching the fingers move, oddly touched at the complexity of the bones, tendons, and joints. “Why am I telling you this?”

“Because for the first time in your life, you don’t know who you are.”

“I’m Blood Talon, squadron first, of the Snapping Turtle Clan, and … and…”

“And you’re in a distant land where no one gives a pebble for any of that. You saw the looks you were getting back there in White Chief Town. They saw a half-naked man dressed in a ragged breechcloth who they knew had been freshly tortured, his burns still peeling, weeping pus, and covered with grease.

“Worse, it was a man who barely speaks Trade tongue, who knows none of the local languages and nothing of the customs. You were afraid. Afraid of being left there. Alone.” Fire Cat smiled. “And of all the things I could have done to you, leaving you there to face that would have been the cruelest.”

Blood Talon picked at his dirty fingernails, unable to meet Fire Cat’s eyes. “I’m not a coward.”

“Everyone has a place, time, or situation that terrifies them. Fortunately for most people, they manage to live their lives through to the end without finding themselves there, in that place or moment. But for Spotted Wrist sending you here, you might have been one of those lucky people.”

“And you’ve faced that moment of terror?”

Fire Cat nodded, concentrating on the arrow as long slivers of bark were peeled from the shaft.

“Was it when we threw you into the canoe and sent you to Cahokia to die?”

Fire Cat smiled wistfully. “It was in the Sacred Cave, in the darkness. I stood, terrified, before Horned Serpent. Eye to eye with the creature. At the same time the fingers of the Dead kept pulling at my skin, hair, and face.”

“That was when you and Night Shadow Star went after the living god’s souls.”

“She shared her courage with me.”

Blood Talon took a deep breath, feeling his burns pull. “If I survive this, I will never put another human being in a square again.”

Fire Cat gave him another of those probing glances.

Blood Talon grinned back humorlessly. “I want to go with you, Red Wing. For the time being anyway. Yes, yes, I was sent to kill you. And looking back, I don’t blame you for what you did on the river. If I’d had the courage, been in your position, I’d have tried to do the same.”

“So here you are. And the only familiar thing you have to cling to is me. A man whose family and clan you destroyed, and whom you would have murdered. Either here on the river or through treachery back in Cahokia. Not a ringing recommendation for trust, is it?”

“No, I suppose not.”

Fire Cat gestured with his partially finished arrow. “There’s a lot of blood and pain between us. My family. My children…”

Blood Talon pursed his lips, frowned. “I should have died back there with the rest of my friends and companions. Power saved me. Spat me out on the bank to be found by those barbaric weasels back in that village. And here I am. With you.”

“Like I said, that remains to be seen.”

“I see the concern in your eyes. You’re almost soul sick with worry about her. You’re not going to stop until you find her.”

“What business is that of yours, unless you still think you’re going to take her back to Spotted Wrist?”

“No. The two of you, you’re too Powerful.” Blood Talon looked up. “That’s what we never understood. What they still don’t understand. Spotted Wrist and Rising Flame, they can beat you and Night Shadow Star down, take away all that you think you are, and you just keep coming back, stronger, more Powerful. Night Shadow Star really is protected by the Underwater Panther. You serve her. Are part of her. Part of Power.”

“I’m just a man who has given her my oath.”

“The famous Red Wing honor?”

Fire Cat shrugged dismissively, attention back on his arrow.

“It’s safer and faster, traveling with two. If you have my help, it will be that much sooner when you finally catch up with this Winder and your lady.”

“What about your oath? The one you swore to Spotted Wrist?”

Blood Talon stared blankly at the fire where it crackled and shot another fountain of sparks toward the night sky. “That problem has me confused. Funny, isn’t it? I’ve always followed orders. Served him with my heart and soul. I did it because I was expected to. In all those years I did things because I promised him I would. But it just hit me. I have no oath to serve him, never promised I’d bring Night Shadow Star back to him. He just ordered me to.”

“So, what does that really mean, Squadron First?”

Blood Talon squinted into the flames, trying to see the truth of it. “That’s what confuses me. I’m not sure.”

“Then maybe you’d better be about finding out.”