People of the Morning Star(173)

“Let her go, you piece of steaming shit,” he growled, and put every ounce of strength he had into crushing the man’s windpipe and peeling the knife hand from the Keeper’s throat.

The Tula’s left hand finally turned loose of the Keeper’s hair, and Blue Heron wiggled out of his grip and away from the deadly knife.

And then, like having a wildcat in a bear hug, Seven Skull Shield’s life got very, very interesting.

The Tula might have been greased the way he slipped out of Seven Skull Shield’s grip, and whirled, landing catlike on the balls of his feet. The long chert blade was held low, poised to strike. Like an animal’s, the Tula’s face contorted into a feral visage, lips up, teeth exposed, a growl bursting from his now hoarse and bruised throat.

“You piece of stinking dog shit!” Seven Skull Shield bellowed, rolling his shoulders. Then he screamed, balanced on his feet, and threw himself at the Tula.

“You maggot-mouthed bit of latrine filth!” He tried to catch the knife hand, missed it, curled away and partially blocked the darting cut. Not enough. He felt it slicing along his ribs.

“I’m gonna break you! Cook and eat your tongue! Stomp your pus-dripping shaft! Pop your maggot eyes like eggs, you piece of vomit!” He drove himself into the Tula, bulling the man into a pile of bodies. The Tula toppled backward as he tripped over a severed leg.

Now in his element, Seven Skull Shield let the fury boil up from his gut. His knee, faithful weapon of the consummate brawler, jerked up like a stone maul at the same moment the two of them slammed onto the floor. The Tula grunted as his testicles were crushed.

“Gonna beat you, stomp you, pull out your guts!” Seven Skull Shield howled, raising his head and driving it down like a rock. The Tula’s nose crunched under the impact. “You sucking scum. Fly piss, worm penis piece of slime! Gonna hammer your balls with a rock!”

The Tula tried to jerk his arm down in an attempt to drive the knife into Seven Skull Shield’s side. Sensing it, he slapped the blade sideways, hearing the brittle stone break musically, the majority of it sailing away.

“Now you worm-shit maggot-shafted shit, you’re mine! Gonna stomp your stomach, beat your brain with a stick…” He hammered his head into the Tula’s mashed nose again, rose, and drove his elbow full into the man’s mouth. Teeth broke; the Tula’s jaw snapped with a crack. Again and again, he jacked his knee into the Tula’s crotch, and saw the man’s eyes go wide and pain-dazed.

“Gonna rip your pus-dripping shaft from your body, use it like a flail and stuff it down your putrid throat, you maggot-brained filth!”

And then, to his irritation, a war club flashed from the side of his vision and drove itself into the crown of the Tula’s head.

At the snapping of the skull, Seven Skull Shield felt the Tula’s body stiffen, quiver, and still.

“Gonna beat you, burn you—”

“I don’t know what’s worse”—the Keeper sagged to the floor beside him, the bloody war club in her hand—“being held by the hair with a knife to my throat, or listening to that howling nonsense when you’re fighting.”

Seven Skull Shield rolled to his side, wincing at the pain in his elbow. Fire burned along his ribs, and when he looked down, his shirt had been half cut from his body, his side a sheet of blood.

“I really hate these Tula.”

“Where have you been?” The Keeper stared at him through exhausted eyes.

“Slipping around unseen with that little dwarf of Columella’s. There’s a hidden passage into her room. Took a while to get everything soaked with hickory oil. I’ve been setting fire to the back of the palace.”

“You did well. This place is going up like a torch. We’ve got to get out of here.”

He glanced around, seeing Fire Cat staggering on his feet, blood running down the side of his head, a splintered war club in his hand. The Red Wing was headed toward the rear and the worst of the fire.

Little Flat Stone Pipe was tugging for all he was worth, trying to drag a crawling Columella toward the doorway. Chief High Dance sat bound, screaming for someone to help him.

The woven-cane wall was now a solid sheet of flame. Balls of fire rolled up and along the roof, bits of burning thatch falling from the thickening smoke above.

Seven Skull Shield batted at a glowing ember that landed on the Keeper’s head.

“Help me.” The Keeper pointed. “Sun Wing may not be worth it, but she is my niece. Help me carry her out. And then there’s the children. They’re Columella’s and that fool High Dance’s, but that doesn’t mean they deserve to burn for it.”