Hunting Hawk patted her dog, gestured to one of her slaves, and took the woman’s hand to rise to her feet. Hunting Hawk swayed on prickling legs, and sighed. “It’s late. I’m going back to find my robes. Great Tayac, I must say, it’s been an enlightening evening. I will consider your words, and your advice, most carefully.”
With that she turned, and hobbled back behind the mat divider. No sooner had she undressed and settled on her sleeping bench than Copper Thunder bellowed, “Someone has taken my war club! Who? Who has done this thing? When I find him, I will kill him"
Nine Killer entered, the House of the Dead with the matting-wrapped bundle under his arm. He nodded to The Panther as he passed the outer fire. With uncharacteristic reverence, he touched the Guardians as he passed down the long corridor to the sanctum. He nodded in response to the question in Green Serpent’s eyes, and laid the bundle on one of the sleeping platforms.
“So, that’s it?” Green Serpent asked from where he bent over Red Knot’s bones.
“That’s it.” Nine Killer took a deep breath, uneasy at the conspiracy he had entered into. The Panther entered the sanctum, hands clasped expectantly before him. The eternal fire lit the House of the
Dead with a dancing yellow light, the wood popping as if in protest of what they were about to do.
Panther unrolled the matting, lifting the heavy war club from within. He held it up, staring at the polished hardwood with its intricate carving. “I’d never noticed before. It’s crafted in Black Warrior style.” “That means something?” Nine Killer asked as he glanced across at the old priest. Green Serpent was singing a prayer song to himself, gently shaking his rattle to appease the ghosts.
The statue of Okeus, illuminated by the jumping flames, seemed to be grinning at them, his shell eyes gleeful. The god’s expression was enough to set Nine Killer’s teeth on edge. He jumped at each creak when the building reacted to the wind. The scamper of a mouse behind the matting might have been an angry demon stalking ever closer.
Panther raised the war club in the light, his eyes tracing each of its smooth lines. The copper spike reflected a bloody orange. Just moments before, at the entrance to the House of the Dead, Nine Killer had taken the mat rolled war club from a half-frantic White Otter before she dashed off to her mother’s house and well-earned safety.
Nine Killer shivered, aware of the ancestral ghosts staring down at him from the raised gallery where their smoked bodies lay wrapped. Okeus’ eyes had a jaundiced sheen now, one that could sicken the soul.
“This pointed kind of stone on the end”—Panther tapped the sharpened tip—“comes from the mountains above the bend of the Serpent River. This stone is traded all through the central region, portaged over the divide and carried down the Black Warrior River. Some is carried down the Serpent River to the Father Water and clear to the coast.”
“And the copper?” Nine Killer asked, almost envious of the thick spike protruding from the heavy beam of the war club. “From the far north. Up beyond the head of the Father Water. It comes down the rivers, much better metal than what you have in the mountains here. I’ve seen sheets of it as long as two men’s arms, and almost as wide. I knew a chief one time who wanted to be buried in a copper lined grave. I don’t know if he was or not, but that’s the kind of wealth the Serpent Chiefs have.”
“Amazing,” Nine Killer muttered.
“No, War Chief, just a bunch of people like any others. No better, no worse. Save that wonder for the birth of your next child. Now there, my friend, is something truly miraculous.”
Nine Killer ran his fingers down the shaft of the war club. “I’ll say this, Copper Thunder did good work when he made this.”
Panther chuckled. “Copper Thunder? Make something like this? Don’t wager your life on it. No, indeed, War Chief, he stole this.”
“Stole it?”
“But of course. Just like he stole the spider gorget and all of his accouterments. Okeus alone knows who he found to tattoo his face, but it certainly wasn’t done in a nobleman’s house atop a mound. No matter who he is today, he was a slave among the Serpent Chiefs. And before that, he was the son of a Trader.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Indeed? War Chief, could a slave become a Weroance?” “Of course not! They’d have to be born into the … Ah, L see.”
Panther’s eyes glinted. “Curious, isn’t it? A Weroance can always end up a slave, but never can a slave end up as a Weroance.”
“Except for Copper Thunder. He seems to have ended up as a Great Tayac.”