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By Root 799 0

the nearest and farthest corners of the Choctaw country. He learned their secret names and the scent of their shadowchildren so he would know them when the battle came. Some were legends. Bullet Arrives, who had killed more than thirty men in his days as a warrior, now in his seventieth year, slowly sinking into the underworld that would take him one day, but for the time being still commanding shadowchildren of great power. Hopaye Minko, who some said might be a witch, but no one wanted to question. Night Painted, who, though young, was once nearly as powerful as Red Shoes.

Now Red Shoes dwarfed all of them, of course. Now even Bullet Arrives must learn from him.

He also had to be careful, to continue to hide his true nature from them. After this was over, he might well have to kill them. Once the Sun Boy was dead, it would be Red Shoes who decided what the world would be.

He made love to Grief, and he walked with her, showing her the sorts of food and medicines that grew in his country, some the same and some very different from those she knew.

“I want to fight,” she told him one day.

“The warriors won't like that,” he told her. “Men must separate themselves from the power of women before battle. Women are stronger, but different. They can weaken a warrior.”

“I have no womanly things in me,” she said. “I only want to kill them that killed my family.”

“You felt womanly to me, just now.”

“Not in my spirit. You must know what is in my spirit. Besides, your women talk of battles they have joined in.”

He shrugged. “It has happened. Most often they yell and urge us on, but some have taken up arms in times past. Still, I would rather you guard me. My body will be vulnerable, when I battle the Sun Boy. I need someone to protect it.”

“You do not fear I will weaken you?”

He laughed. “Power can come from purity—from maintaining separation of things that ought to be separate. Male and female, underearth and sky, fire and water. A warrior's power flows from purity, from being clean. Mine comes from abomination, from mixing what ought not to be mixed. Like the boys who mixed squirrel brains and bird eggs and turtle eggs and ate them.”

“What became of them?”

“They became tie snakes, beings of great power.”

“Like you,” she said.

“Yes, like me.”

“Did you mix squirrel brains and bird eggs and turtle eggs?”

“I ate something more forbidden than that. But I do mix things. I make love to you, though I know I must fight soon. It gives me strength.”

“Why don't warriors gain power that way? You just said it weakens them.”

“Ah,” he said. “Because they are too attached to being human.”

She nodded. “I understand now. It's not the army of the plain you fear, that you need a guard against. It's your own people.”

He grinned. “You see why I need you. Yes. Bloody Child and his friends still talk against me. They might convince a few.”

“Why? Why do they hate you so?”

“Their uncle was a hopaye, like me, but he lost a fight with a spirit. He became a walking skin, and had to be slain. I killed him.”

“They think they have a feud with you.”

“The council said I was right to do what I did and forbade them to take revenge on me or my clan. But they aren't satisfied with that. Will you guard me?”

“Yes.”

An airship settled on their side of the river, acting as a fortress to guard that end of the bridge, just as Minko Chito forecast. Others hovered above, their red globes winking.

Red Shoes knew when he could restrain his people no longer. When the first of the great army began crossing the bridge, he let them strike. They attacked the grounded ship with musket and bow and war club, and the men unfortunate enough to be on the east bank of the river died feathered in shafts. Warriors dashed through bursting shells and withering fire, swarmed up the ropes that hung down from the sides of the ship. Many died, but not so many as to give the others pause. They took the ship and cut the cables, and more than a hundred men and mounts fell into the remorseless Okahina River. Young warriors followed them down, slaying them in the shallows if they