Eight

Blood Talon, through years of hard training, had toughened his body. Despite the frost that coated the thatch roofs, the ramada poles, and frozen ground, and the fact that he was dressed only in a war shirt with a split-feather turkey cape over his shoulders, the squadron leader barely shivered.

In the darkness he moved like a wraith through the packed buildings in River Mounds City. From long practice he made his way through the deep shadows cast by the warehouses. Somewhere in the distance an owl hooted. Maybe up at one of Old-Woman-Who-Never-Dies’ temples. Being messengers from the Dead in the Sky World, owls were known to frequent such places of Underworld Power. He didn’t know why. That was a question for the priests.

The warehouse sat slightly down the slope, isolated from the rest of the buildings. The closest ramadas along the riverfront were dark. Thankfully the cloud cover acted to obscure Blood Talon’s dark-clad form and the pack that rested on his back.

Two guards stood before the warehouse; both paced back and forth, shivering, sometimes stamping their feet and blowing into their hands. These were men from his squadron. Trained.

“You will keep these supplies safe,” Blood Talon had told them. “Neither of you will leave sight of this door. It’s the only way in or out of the warehouse.”

Handpicked, they would do exactly as told.

Which left Blood Talon the challenge of making it to the rear of the warehouse undetected.

Moving like a ghost, he circled wide, ensured that he could keep the bulk of the building between himself and the guards. Had to skirt around a couple of Traders’ camps, but he managed to slip up to the back of the warehouse. The sturdy wooden box he’d placed there that afternoon remained. Carefully he tipped it on its end. He had tested it earlier to ensure it would take his weight.

Climbing onto the box, Blood Talon reached up, pulled loose shocks of thatch from their previously severed bindings. Of all the challenges, that had been the hardest. He’d had to think up an excuse for why he’d had to spend a finger of time inside. In the end, he’d offered the explanation that someone had to make a count of the large seed jars to ensure the food ration had been delivered as promised.

Nutcracker had remained outside with the guards, all the while using a plate-sized slab of sandstone to grate away at a hickory pole he insisted he was turning into a chunkey lance. With the guards holding the wood, the rasping of the sandstone was to cover any sound that might betray Blood Talon’s activities as he cut the cords that held bundles of thatch into shocks.

Perched atop his box, he was delighted that all it took was a hard push to collapse the thatch. The broken shocks disintegrated under his hands, falling in scatters into the warehouse.

When he had the hole large enough, Blood Talon bunched, leaped, and braced himself atop the mud-plastered wall. He eased a leg over, squeezed between the split-pole beam and wall, and lowered himself into the darkness. Balancing on the heavy seed jars he’d placed for the purpose, he stepped down.

The fallen thatch he raked together with his fingers until he had a pile. Then, one by one, he tilted the seed jars, spilling their contents onto the ground.

From his pack he removed the jar of hickory oil, sprinkled it liberally on the thatch, and then onto the nearest spill of corn. The thick-walled clay jar, he lifted from the bottom of his pack and unwound from an insulating wrapping of dogbane cloth. The thing was hot enough to sear his callused fingers. Nevertheless, he finally managed to undo the stopper and pour hot coals onto the oily thatch.

He bent, blew on the glowing coals, and watched the flames leap to life. As they began to greedily devour the thatch, Blood Talon climbed up, hoisted himself out into the night, and eased down onto his box. He carefully replaced it on its side again.

As he stole away into the night, he turned to see the fire’s red glow reflected around the edges of the hole. By the time the guards out front realized what was happening, the roof would be engulfed. Any proof that someone had started the fire would be long turned to ashes.