I slapped White Hawk on the shoulder, and told him, “They’re coming.”
Memories of who she once was remain ever sharp in the eye of my souls. Her eyes back then were dark and daring, literally dancing with delight. I can still see her bright white teeth flash behind soft lips. Her hair, in swirls of blue-black, flows around her as she glances at me over a brown and impossibly smooth shoulder.
I tremble from the love that I feel. Such a terrible love. The kind that crushes a man like a cocoon of drying leather. It tightens, presses, and finally squeezes my beating heart and frantic lungs into a strangled silence.
The voices have spoken.
Tonight I must sacrifice the woman I love. It became so clear during my talk with High Dance. I have to kill my Night Shadow Star, abandon everything I desire, to purify the Power. Only when my grief is overwhelming will I be cleansed. I must endure the pain, so much pain, but perhaps when I stand over her bleeding corpse, I will once again be able to breathe, to feel the blood racing in my veins like it did so long ago.
And more, I pray the keen stone point tipping my arrow will pierce the swelling darkness and allow the faintest shaft of light to penetrate the eternal midnight of my souls.
Earlier, while appearing as a salt Trader, I’d taken time to study the mound and its angles, to gauge the distance to our killing zone. My wolves are located where they can shoot from either mound corner without danger of hitting each other.
While I’d hoped for better light, I waited until just the right moment when she’d be rising from her litter. Dark forms clustered around her. My first release was perfect; I heard the arrow hit solidly. At the sound, the rest of my wolves released. We should have killed them all.
At the cry, “Run! Ambush!” At least one figure broke for the plaza. I heard him run heavily, as if perhaps wounded? Then the screams intensified as the rest were shot down.
I hurried forward, just close enough to tell she wasn’t among the shrieking victims!
So now I search the night, remembering the blurred form that fled into the dark plaza. Behind me, Night Shadow Star’s foolish guards have brought torches to the foot of the stairs and are exclaiming their shock and disbelief to one another as they survey the carnage. Night Shadow Star is not among the dying.
Out here in the plaza my wolves and I scour the night, glancing about with each white flash of the approaching lightning.
I hear something. The soft scuffing of a foot? The rasp of cloth against cloth? I tighten my grip on the arrow, holding its notch to the bowstring with old familiarity.
Where are you, Night Shadow Star?
Let me dance in the light of your smile just one more time.
Twenty-nine
“I think we should go back now.” Night Shadow Star shot a sidelong glance at Fire Cat as he tripped over a burden basket someone had left beside a farmstead ramada post.
She could sense the disquiet in Piasa’s presence, as if the Spirit Beast’s essence were unsure. From the corner of her eye, she kept catching glimpses of the Water Panther as he stalked through the storm-black night.
At the sound of Fire Cat’s curse and her words, a dog began barking inside the house they were skirting. The owner would be irritated enough when he found their footprints in his newly planted garden the next morning.
Fire Cat growled to himself, gestured her forward, and hurried beyond the household. Lightning flashed to light their way as they stepped onto the broad east-west Avenue of the Sun that transected Cahokia. He was panting and wet to the knees, but so was she. After crossing the great plaza, their flight had become a terrifying comedy of indecision, backtracks, and stumbles—especially when they couldn’t find their way out of the marshy land that lay just beyond the society houses and temples immediately to the east.
Someone in the house behind them shouted “Quiet!” followed by a thump and a canine yelp.
“Going back isn’t smart.” Fire Cat was but another shadow in the darkness.
“Why not?”
“Because we’re still alive.”
“And by now, Red Wing, half of Cahokia is out searching for us. My people need me.”
He turned ploddingly down the avenue, still heading east. “Lady, here’s my call: it’s pitch-black back there. Oh, sure, there’s lightning and a couple of torches flickering, but how good are they going to be in the wind and rain?”
“They’ll have my palace surrounded.”
“Your people? Or theirs?” He paused. “If Field Green had been a half step to the left, that first arrow would have taken you right through the upper chest. Either the archer was accursedly lucky, or he knew just where you’d be, darkness or no.”