War God (17 page)

His name was Shikotenka, he was a king and the son of a king, and a ten-mile run was nothing to him, so much part of his usual routine that he didn’t even break a sweat. The sun was low in the sky now, edging down towards setting, and though the day was still warm there was a breeze in the mountains, blowing off the snowbound shoulder of Popocatépetl, which kept a man cool. The early evening air caressed his skin, and the rugged green peaks of Tlascala spoke to him of freedom, filling his heart with joy.

Shikotenka could keep this pace up for two days if he had to, but he wouldn’t have to. Already he could see the great forest where his fifty lay waiting, and his mind began to move ahead to the bloody work they must do together tonight …

If Guatemoc’s body had not been found …

If no special alarm had been raised …

If they were blessed with the luck of the gods.

His hand went to his hair and he tugged out the little silver amulet that had betrayed his position this afternoon. It was a sensual, naked figure of Xochiquetzal, goddess of love, female sexual power, pleasure and excess.

Zilonen’s favourite deity, of course.

Shikotenka pressed the amulet into a fold of his loincloth, where it should have been all along, and looked ahead.

Now less than a mile away down an open grassy slope, the forest was a huge imposing presence on the landscape, abundant with hidden life, a place of refuge and a place of mystery. Above, the leafy canopy was still lit a brilliant green by the dying sun, but down amongst the trees there was already a mass of shadow – as though night was not something that fell but something that rose from the ground like a black mist.

Shikotenka allowed himself to focus on the image – was there a song in it? – until a short, thin spear whistled past his ear, followed a heartbeat later by another that sliced a shallow groove into the flesh of his left thigh. Both weapons buried themselves in the ground with tremendous force and he saw as he ran by that they were
atlatl
darts launched from spear throwers.

He risked a quick glance over his shoulder, ducked as a third dart whooshed past, threw himself into a somersault to avoid a fourth and came up running, zigzagging left and right, losing much of his forward momentum.

Shikotenka was being hunted by three Mexica scouts. Quite how they’d crept up on him, he couldn’t understand, because he’d been constantly on the lookout for precisely such a threat. But their shaved heads painted half yellow and half blue announced their rank as Cuahchics, the best of the best.

Two of them were armed with
atlatls
and had hung back to aim and throw their darts to maximum effect. The third was a runner …

A very
fast
runner.

Over longer distances he probably wouldn’t amount to much, but he looked to be absolutely lethal as a mid-distance sprinter. Having to evade the darts was slowing Shikotenka down. Less than half a mile remained to the cover of the forest, but it was obvious the Cuahchics would catch him before he made it.

He was still zigzagging. Two more darts came in, both near-misses, slowing him further. He sensed without wasting time looking back that he’d lost most of his lead and thought –
might as well get up close and personal
. At least that would stop those cursed darts, since presumably the other Cuahchics wouldn’t want to spear their brother-in-arms?

Would they?

Shikotenka heard footsteps behind him, closing fast, skidded to a halt and in one fluid movement whirled, drew Guatemoc’s beautifully balanced
macuahuitl
from its scabbard at his back, and brought it crashing down on his pursuer’s head.

The only problem was that the man’s
macuahuitl
got in the way first.

As the obsidian teeth in the wooden blades of the two weapons clashed, there was an explosive spatter of broken pieces and it was luck that one of the larger fragments pierced the Mexica’s right eye … He had a hard will, no doubt, this fearsomely painted Cuahchic, but the splinter of obsidian distracted him long enough for Shikotenka to catch him with a swooping blow that took off both his legs just above the ankles.

The Cuahchic went down hard, as one does with no feet, but continued to crawl around on his knees on the ground, spurting blood, roaring curses and lashing out with his
macuahuitl
.

Pointless stubborn pride
, thought Shikotenka, as he hacked off the man’s ugly blue and yellow head.
Utterly pointless
.

Out of the corner of his eye he’d been watching the other two Mexica. They’d abandoned the spear-throwers, as he’d expected, and were closing in fast.

The forest was invitingly near but Shikotenka knew he wouldn’t make it. He took a strong two-handed grip on the hilt of the damaged
macuahuitl
and stood ready for battle.

For routine purposes, with a hundred sacrifices or fewer, victims approached their deaths only up the north stairway of the great pyramid of Tenochtitlan.

When greater numbers were required, as was the case today, the south, east and west stairs were also opened and a team of trained sacrificers – a knifeman and his four helpers who held the victims down – waited at the top of each staircase.

But on certain very special occasions, as when eighty thousand victims had been harvested to inaugurate the great pyramid in the time of Moctezuma’s grandfather, up to forty additional killing teams would be deployed working back to back all around the summit platform.

Regardless of whether one, or four, or forty teams were at work, it had been discovered through repeated trials that each team was capable of processing approximately one victim every two minutes. There were uncertainties and imponderables that could make extraction of the heart and the elements of butchery a few seconds shorter or longer in some cases, but on average it was a two-minute operation, with each team killing thirty victims per hour. Sacrificers typically became exhausted after two hours of relentless effort and began to lose efficiency, but fresh teams stood by to take over smoothly without causing any interruption in the flow.

All afternoon, at the rate of thirty per stairway per hour, the five hundred and twenty women Moctezuma had called for, some sobbing, some silent, some hysterical, had climbed in four miserable columns to meet their deaths.

Moctezuma was outraged to hear their complaints. They should feel honoured to offer their hearts, their lives,
everything
they had, to so great a god as Hummingbird! They should be rushing to the sacrificial stone with excitement and joy, not inviting bad luck on all concerned by voiding their bowels and dragging their feet.

Moctezuma led the team at the top of the northern stairway but, unlike the knifemen of the other teams, he’d refused to take a break. The sorcery of the
teonanácatl
mushrooms still coursed through his veins and he felt tireless, ferocious, superhuman – his energy seeming to swell with every life he took.

After this morning’s ceremony with fifty-two male victims, all of whom he had despatched personally to Hummingbird, he’d been killing women nonstop since the mid-afternoon. He’d been enjoying the work so much it was hard to believe nearly four hours had passed, but the sun had been high in the sky then and now lay just a few degrees above the horizon. In the great plaza at the foot of the pyramid the shadows of evening were growing long and deep, and priests were busy lighting hundreds of lanterns. But as he plunged the obsidian knife into yet another breastbone, and plucked out yet another pulsing heart, enough daylight remained to show Moctezuma that the entire northern stairway where he’d been at work was drenched in a slick and dripping tide of dark blood, through which his last victims, goaded by their guards, were being forced to wade wretchedly upward.

He giggled. The steps would be slippery. Someone might get killed!

Moctezuma’s assistants spread out the next victim in front of him, a pretty screaming young thing with barely a wisp of pubic hair.

As he fell on her and tore out her heart, the power of the mushrooms, which had been coming and going in waves all afternoon, surged through him again, this time with enormous force, like the current of some great river or the career of a whirlwind. He had the feeling that he’d left his body – or rather, as he had felt earlier in Hummingbird’s temple, that he was both in his body and out of it at the same time. So at one level he could see exactly where he was and what he was doing. He was on top of the great pyramid of Tenochtitlan, cutting women’s hearts out. But at another level he again experienced himself to be elsewhere, transported high and far away into a rarefied empyrean zone, and once more in the presence of bright-skinned Hummingbird himself …

The god licked his lips. ‘That last was a virgin,’ he said. ‘Quite tasty …’ He made a sad face: ‘But unfortunately most of the victims you’ve sent me this afternoon have not been of this quality. One or two have even been grandmothers. There were three prostitutes. Once again I’m disappointed in you …’

Moctezuma had already opened the chest of his next victim. He stopped abruptly, slipped out the sacrificial knife and smashed its heavy pommel into his own forehead, splitting the skin and drawing a burst of blood. ‘I beg your forgiveness, master,’ he said. He was aware that to his assistants, to Ahuizotl and to the other priests in attendance, he must appear to be addressing an invisible figure. ‘We will find virgins for you, lord,’ he promised. ‘A thousand virgins – ten thousand if you require.’ He eyed Ahuizotl, who was looking alarmed. ‘It may take a little time, lord, that is all …’

‘Time …? I see … You speak to me of time?’

‘Yes, master.’

‘So you have time to wait, while enemies more powerful than you can possibly imagine raise forces against you? You don’t care that wild beasts fight beside them in battle, some carrying them faster than the wind, others with monstrous teeth and jaws that tear men apart? You have no urgent need of knowledge of these enemies? Of their mastery of unknown metals? Of their terrible Fire Serpents that vomit lightning?’

Moctezuma trembled. Exactly as he had feared, these were not men Hummingbird was describing but an army of
tueles
– of gods. The fabled Xiuhcoatl, the Fire Serpent, was the magical weapon of the gods, able to strike men dead and dismember their bodies at a distance. Likewise who but gods could enchant wild beasts and turn them to their purpose?

‘It is my desire and my responsibility, lord, to know all you have to teach about these enemies. Are they the companions of Quetzalcoatl, come to overthrow my rule? Tell me, I beseech you, what can I do to satisfy you?’ Moctezuma bent to his victim again. He’d ripped her chest wide open with the first incision but she was still alive, eyes fluttering in pain and terror. Oblivious to her pleas he extracted her heart, placed it sizzling on the brazier, and turned to the next woman. The process had become automatic and he was able to carry out his duties while keeping his attention focussed almost exclusively on Hummingbird, whose body had somehow vanished but whose face had grown to enormous size.

‘It’s very simple,’ the god said, ‘a straightforward transaction. Raid the Tlascalans, for their young girls, raid the Huejotzingos, raid the Otomis,
bring me virgins
, and I’ll give you the help you seek …’

Moctezuma feared to repeat himself but it seemed there was no choice. ‘It will take time, lord,’ he said, ‘My army is already in the field harvesting more victims, but I cannot give you a large basket of virgins tonight … Even so, I beg you to help me now on this matter of the strangers.’

Hummingbird seemed to think about it. ‘I help you now,’ he said, as though clarifying some point of argument, ‘and you give me virgins later? That’s the proposition?’

‘Yes, lord, that is what I ask.’

There was a long silence before the god said finally: ‘I believe that’s acceptable.’ He paused again as though for thought. ‘But I’ll need a down-payment …’

‘Anything within my power …’

‘The women’s fattening pen isn’t empty yet …’

‘You are right, lord.’

‘So empty it. Empty it tonight! Before I help you I want all those women’s hearts. Every one of them.’

The visionary realm and the here and now were both equally present to Moctezuma and, in some strange juncture between the two, Hummingbird’s immense face began to fade and melt downward, seeming gradually to dissolve into the mass of flickering orange lanterns that filled the great plaza below. The lanterns were in motion, dancing, swirling, coalescing into clumps and blots of light, spiralling apart again, leaving ghostly trails to mark their paths. The face of the god continued slowly to fade until soon there was nothing left of him but his two gigantic eyes, the whites stark as bone, the obsidian irises black as night – and they called Moctezuma down into their depths with a terrible seductive power. He felt a compulsion to jump from the top of the pyramid, dive into those cool, black pools in the midst of that glimmering orange sea and merge himself forever with Hummingbird, but then a hand took his elbow and his whole body jerked like a man wakened suddenly from sleep.