People of the Morning Star(172)
Where she stopped short, trying to make sense of what she saw. Madness everywhere. Three Tula were moaning and dying to her left, children were screaming, the back wall was on fire, human body parts were being kicked around on the floor as the crazy Red Wing danced, and whirled his war club, in the midst of a frenzied circle of Tula. Sun Wing, thankfully alive, lay in the midst of a broken pot. A beguiling smile on her face, Night Shadow Star was tugging on a painted man whom Blue Heron assumed was Walking Smoke. She seemed to be leading him back past the dais and toward the burning wall.
“Keeper?” her war second asked.
“Go!” she ordered. “Kill Tula.”
Then she charged forward, half stumbling over slippery pieces of human beings and bloody matting. The way the fire was now racing up the back wall, it wouldn’t be long before the roof caught. When that happened, it didn’t matter how hard it was raining outside, the tinder-dry interior would explode in flame.
With fighting all around, men screaming, shrieking, and dying, she bent down at Sun Wing’s side, her fingers fumbling at the knots.
“Hey! Niece! Wake up! Help me here.”
Sun Wing’s glazed expression remained frozen in fear, her swollen eyes fixed on nothing. Half-strangled pants broke from her heaving lungs. Inhuman, barely audible squeals slipped past her locked jaws and compressed lips.
Blue Heron yanked at the knots, caught movement, and ducked as one of her warriors backed toward her, smashed a heel into her side, and toppled backward. As he did, a Tula war club hissed wickedly through the air where his head would have been.
Blue Heron huddled protectively over her niece’s body as the Tula uttered a blood-curdling scream and leaped on the fallen warrior.
Hideous shrieks sounded and Blue Heron’s body rocked as the two men fought on top of her; each time one of them kicked, she bore the brunt.
And then, peering from under her arm, she watched the Tula lift his war club, and slam it down on her warrior.
Enough of this!
Her fingers wrapped around the handle of the war club she’d taken from the Tula outside. Getting to her knees, she swung the stone-bladed ax into the back of the Tula’s head. Watched his body jump under the impact, stiffen, and fall forward onto her now dead warrior.
She was panting, air tearing in and out of her lungs. Her heart was hammering at her chest. The sensation of the Tula’s skull crushing, the snapping sound of the bones breaking, and the feel of it through the war club’s handle, would be with her forever.
She gasped, placing her left hand to her heart. Coming to her senses, she shot a look around the room. Fire Cat still stood, his helmet now missing and blood streaming down the side of his head. Two Tula danced about trading blows with him. Another Tula was staggering as he slammed blow after blow into her war second’s stumbling body. Around her lay dead Four Winds warriors intermingled with dying Tula.
As she exhaled and glanced back to Sun Wing, a hard hand knotted in her hair, lifting.
Blue Heron shrieked at the pain, struggling to get her feet under her. She’d never been lifted by her hair before. Never wanted to experience it again. Scared witless, she glanced sidelong at a bloody young Tula warrior. The man’s face, so close to hers, had a desperate look. Anxiety lay in the darting of his eyes as he looked around the room. The rear wall was roaring in flames now, smoke billowing.
The way he held her, her back was toward him. If she tried to kick or strike, the agony in her scalp became unbearable.
“What do you want?” she hissed.
“Out,” he barked in a guttural accent. “You save.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Out. You save.”
“I’m the Four Winds Clan Keeper. I can—”
A long chipped-stone ceremonial knife was placed against her throat, the keen edge slightly angled over the still healing scar where a similar blade had once been placed.
“Out. You save.”
“I can help you,” she suggested, trying to control the fear in her voice.
“Out. You save.”
“All right!” she gasped. “Out. I save.”
He muttered some sort of agreement in Caddo, and began dragging her toward the door.
She tried to resist but the knife just pressed tighter against her throat.
On the verge of squealing in panic, she nevertheless heard a familiar chiding voice say, “Keeper, you do get yourself into the most fascinating predicaments.”
Sixty-two
Seven Skull Shield reached out from behind and fastened his hand on the Tula’s right wrist where it held the knife against the Keeper’s throat. At the same time his left hand clamped on the Tula’s throat; he squeezed, digging his thumb and fingers deep into the man’s neck, surrounding the Tula’s voice box. As he did, Seven Skull Shield arched his body, pulling the Tula up and back.