People of the Morning Star(174)

Seven Skull Shield crawled over to Sun Wing, tossed her limp form over his shoulder, and wobbled to his feet.

“Hey! You fool! It’s burning back there!” he yelled as he watched Fire Cat staggering into the maelstrom.

“She went this way!” Fire Cat shouted back over the roar of the fire. “She and that brother of hers.”

“There’s a crawl hole under the bed. But it’s too late! You’ll cook back in that room!”

And to Seven Skull Shield’s surprise, the Red Wing shot him a weak grin. “Well-done or raw, thief, don’t let the dogs eat me.” Then the man ducked his head, and charged blindly through the door and into the burning room.

* * *

This is a mistake!

Fire Cat figured it out too late. The heat stunned him, his skin burning, his hair singeing as he cowered behind the nonexistent shelter of his arm.

Some deep-seated animal instinct made him drop to the floor, thankful to find air rushing along the matting.

He blinked, staring around. Neither Night Shadow Star nor Walking Smoke were there.

Columella’s bed was a roaring pyre.

He glanced back just in time to see part of the cane wall fall, blocking the doorway he’d just dived through. No way back now.

“A crawl way,” he repeated before a bout of coughing wracked him. Gritting his teeth he levered himself forward with his elbows. Heat burned the back of his head and neck; but for the soaking blood from his scalp wound, his hair would have exploded into flame. Prickling pain seared his shoulders above the armor, his buttocks, and the backs of his legs.

Nevertheless, air, fresh air, was roaring in from under the bed.

Got to hurry!

Like an ungainly worm he scuttled forward, winced in fear, and thrust his body beneath the burning bed. His mad scramble was panicked—and probably the fastest crawl a human had ever made, but he found the passage.

Panic seized him. His shoulders wouldn’t fit. The armor had hung up.

I’m burning alive! The pain was like he’d never felt and a scream vented through his tight throat.

Before the last of his senses left, he managed to wiggle his shoulders through at an angle. Panting in fear and pain, he dropped down, following the narrow tunnel beneath the wall, and up. He emerged under a clever, grass-covered door on the backside of the temple mound.

Wondrous, cold, wet, glorious rain pattered down on his hot and singed hair; it beat on his blistering face. He sucked the cool wet air into his fevered lungs and gasped as he hung half out the doorway. Behind him the palace was roaring as the fire burned through the roof.

Where did they go?

And what had it meant? He’d been in a knockdown, tight-balled battle for his life with three Tula. He’d only got the slightest glimpse. Night Shadow Star had been smiling, a sensual invitation in her eyes as she took Walking Smoke’s hand and coaxed him back toward Matron Columella’s smoke-filled and burning room.

Why?

Neither her body nor his had been in the inferno. He had seen that much before he’d had to slit his eyes and dive for the floor.

Rain was washing the blood down from his torn scalp. If he’d ducked but a blink later, the Tula would have cracked his skull for good.

So, they got out. Probably the same way I just did.

And he could see it: the slicked down grass where two bodies had slid down the mound.

Fire Cat gulped another thankful breath of cool air and levered his body out of the opening. Like those before him, he began to slide. The wet grass was more akin to ice as he rocketed down the steep slope, hunched into a ball, and took the impact at the bottom. Still, it knocked the wind out of him, and for a moment, he lay in agony.

When his breath came back, he sucked it in, tested his limbs, and found nothing broken. Climbing to his feet, he could see the trail. Fresh tracks stippled the mud: a man’s bare feet and woman’s in moccasins headed east.

Fire Cat blinked and wiped at the water and blood trying to blind him, then fought through a dizzy spell as the world spun. Hammering a fist into his nauseous stomach, he staggered out onto the trail, hurrying after Night Shadow Star.

The skin on his back might have been flayed down to raw meat and exposed nerves. Where the rain had once felt so good, now it soaked his hemp-fiber shirt where it touched his blistered skin. With clumsy fingers he undid the straps and almost fell as he lifted the armor over his head.

He couldn’t believe it as he tossed it to the side. The back was charred.

If that had been my skin, as agonizing as the rest was, I’d have never made it.

The armor’s protection had saved his life.

He chuckled to himself, throwing a glance over his shoulder where a fountain of fire leaped high from the dying palace to do battle with the rain.

Dizzy and blinking, he studied the trail and pushed his weary feet into a stumbling trot. The way led through buildings, and right up to the edge of the steep bluff. Rain pattering on his head, he saw where they’d started down. Looking out over the edge, he could see them as they slipped and slid down onto the sandy beach below.