“Hello, Sister,” a soft voice cooed, and she fixed her upside-down gaze on the young man who approached.
“Help me,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’m Lace. Lady Lace, of the Morning Star House. Call them. Call the Morning Star … he’ll…”
He smiled warmly, his face so familiar, yet odd. His naked body had been painted in the sacred colors, red, white, black, blue, and yellow. His face was painted like a panther’s ropy muscles slid under smooth skin as he cocked his head and studied her. Burning brown eyes stared into hers, and he smiled slightly.
Pus and blood! Walking Smoke!
Horrible memories came flooding back. Heavy Cane had screamed against the gag in his mouth as Walking Smoke had cut him apart. Of all the terrifying images, she remembered her husband’s throat, the sinews bulging, veins popped from the taught, muscle-tight skin. His eyes had strained as though trying to burst from his head while sweat beaded and ran from his forehead.
Walking Smoke just kept cutting, laughing in delight as he did, and now he has me!
“Morning Star’s not coming, Sister. He doesn’t even know where you are. More’s the pity. Imagine the gift if I could offer him to the Underworld.”
“Gift?” she rasped, trying to swallow. Her thoughts were reeling, half dazed by the pain spearing through her body. Memories of what Walking Smoke had done to her husband, the brutal torture, kept whirling through her souls like a foul wind.
One of the other warriors was approaching with a large corrugated cooking pot. Pushing her hair out of the way, he positioned the pot just so on the matting below her head.
“Please, Walking Smoke,” she whispered hoarsely. “You’re hurting me.”
“It will stop soon,” he told her with a smile. “I’ll fix it, I promise.”
She glanced to the side again, at the children who stared at her with horrified eyes. High Dance looked sick, and Matron Columella gaped in disbelief.
“My baby, Walking Smoke. You’ve got to help me keep him safe.” She turned her gaze back to his, trying to remember something that pain and fear kept hiding. Each time her thoughts reached for it, the revelation jetted away like a trout from a grasping swimmer.
“Your baby is among my greatest concerns,” he told her seriously. “I can’t tell you how important the first heir to Morning Star House is to me. To everyone in the Spirit World.”
Her heart was hammering, the tingling pain in her arms and legs almost unbearable. Thirsty as she was, tears silvered her vision. “Please, Brother. Put me down. It hurts! I’m afraid!”
“Pus and blood!” she heard Lady Columella cry. “She’s your sister!”
Walking Smoke had turned toward her and pointed. “Be quiet, camp bitch! Or your boys will be next.”
Lace screamed as the men holding her shifted her position, raising her hips, arching her back further. Yellow lances of pain burned up and down her spine, her head now dangled, blood pulsing in her brain with each panicked beat of her heart.
She could feel her child as it kicked frantically inside her.
“Help me.” She tried to swallow. Almost choked on fear. “Help me,” she whispered. “I don’t understand.”
Walking Smoke was singing now, some kind of ritual song.
She shivered, fighting the pain, as someone began bathing her cold skin with a damp cloth. Even upside down as she was, she caught glimpses of men with palettes as they began painting designs on her skin. She felt their fingers tracing patterns on her breasts, and the extended girth of her belly.
“Please, Brother. Please. What are you doing?” Her voice caught in her throat. They were painting her arms and legs now. Breathing had grown so difficult due to the angle at which she was held.
This is some terrible game he’s playing.
Her last memory of Heavy Cane banished that hope as a lie.
Her stomach knotted, heaved, and spewed burning fluid into her throat and mouth. She coughed, blowing the bile into the back of her nose.
A hoarse scream was torn from her throat.
Walking Smoke’s eerie song sent terror through her trembling bones.
“Are you ready, Sister?” The words seemed to come from across a huge distance.
“Please,” she whispered weakly. “Stop it.”
Half-blinded, choking and coughing, she felt her hips lifted even higher. Craning her neck, she glanced past her hanging breasts, painted now in red spirals, and saw Walking Smoke looming over her. His eyes were slitted as if in rapturous delight, his arms out. She fixed on his blue-painted penis now fully erect and just above her; a tension filled his voice.
“No!” she tried to cry, but coughed on the bile.