War God (27 page)

‘Work, lord?’ Guatemoc glanced up to see the god towering above him, to see that gleaming, murderous knife raised high, poised over his head. ‘I am here to serve you.’

‘And serve me you will.’

‘Tell me what I am to do,’ Guatemoc said. The god’s eyes, he noticed, were black as night, black as obsidian, and yet shone with a fierce inner fire.

‘You must return to the land of the living,’ Hummingbird replied. ‘You must return at once.’

And suddenly everything that had happened came back to Guatemoc in a rush. He remembered every move, every moment, every mistake of his fight with Shikotenka, remembered the icy chill, the tearing agony, the fatal heaviness, as the Tlascalan’s knife entered his viscera, remembered how he had been bested and vanquished with contemptuous ease, as a child might be slapped down and put in his place by a grown man. ‘But I was killed, lord,’ he said. ‘How can I return when I am dead?’

‘Because this is not your time to die,’ said Hummingbird. ‘Because I have made you live again that you might do the work you were brought into the world for. Because a great battle lies before your nation, but the weakling Moctezuma is not competent to fight it.’

Then, in a flash, the god’s arm came lashing down and the blade clasped in his huge hand smashed through the top of Guatemoc’s skull, admitting an explosion of light …

It was deep night, and a big moon feathered with clouds was riding high as Guatemoc regained consciousness in a pool of his own blood. Two images superimposed themselves in his mind – Shikotenka stabbing him to death and Hummingbird stabbing him back to life again. Which was real and which a dream?

He dragged himself forward out of the cold, coagulating mass, but the effort required to move was great and he lay prone, gasping like a fish on a riverbank, still uncertain if he was alive or dead, a freshening wind blowing through the grass and over his body. Finally he accepted that by some miracle, perhaps indeed worked by Hummingbird, he was still amongst the living, that Shikotenka’s knife, which had struck him so often and so fast, had somehow spared his vital organs, and that he must raise the alarm. The battle king of the Tlascalans would not have been here, doing his spying in person, unless something deadly and spectacular was planned …

Six bowshots down the steep slope, almost directly beneath the hollow where Guatemoc lay, was the camp’s south gate, little more than a line of thorn bushes drawn across the wide, lantern-lit thoroughfare running two thousand paces due north to Coaxoch’s pavilion. Uninjured, Guatemoc could have reached the gate and alerted the sentries in minutes but now, as he struggled to rise, his strength failed again. He couldn’t even get off his knees! He tried to call out but his voice was no more than a whisper and the wind was strong.

He had to get closer to those sentries! It was the only way. He formed a mental picture of the straight route to them, lowered his head and began to slide on his belly. The movement opened his wounds and had him lathered in fresh blood in an instant. More agony followed as he slowly worked his way downhill, now crawling, now shuffling on his buttocks through the long grass, unable to see exactly where he was going, the camp a lake of light and voices far below, always luring him on.

Guatemoc knew himself to be savagely injured. Despite Hummingbird’s intervention – whether real or imagined – he would surely die if he couldn’t reach the royal surgeons soon; nonetheless the pain that burned him deepest was his shame at the easy, contemptuous way Shikotenka had destroyed him in combat. The Tlascalan prince wasn’t just better than him. He was massively, consummately better. Guatemoc remembered boasting and strutting before the fight, trying to put the other man down. But now it was he who was down, a crawling cripple, while Shikotenka was free to go where he pleased and do what harm he wished.

Swallowing his pride, Guatemoc continued his slow, determined downhill crawl, grateful for the steady cooling breeze. He suffered a shattering bolt of pain as he dropped into a shallow crevice. He pulled himself out and lay stretched on his back on the hillside, glaring at the moon around which great mountains of cloud were now gathering. When he found the strength to lift himself again and look down at the camp, he realised to his horror that he’d strayed from the straight route that would have taken him to the sentries at the south gate. Instead, in his confusion, he’d followed a meandering course across the slope and made his journey much longer.

Gritting his teeth, he once more turned directly downhill. It meant he wouldn’t reach the perimeter at the south gate, but further round to the east. The sentries here were separated by intervals of a hundred paces. He aimed as best he could for the nearest of them.

As he crawled, Guatemoc dreamed of the moment when he would meet Shikotenka again and exact revenge for his humiliation today. He would make the Tlascalan battle-king his prisoner; he would treat him as his honoured guest, and then he would lead him up the steps of the great pyramid and offer his heart to Hummingbird.

He had the scene very vividly fixed in his mind, so that it was almost more real than real – the pyramid looming above them, the rope in his hand looped around Shikotenka’s neck, and Shikotenka himself, daubed with white paint, dressed in a paper loincloth, humbly mounting the steps to meet his death. All this was very satisfying and correct, and Guatemoc found he was able to watch the imaginary scene unfold in his mind’s eye while simultaneously tracking his own crawling progress towards the sentry. ‘Help!’ he tried to shout. ‘Help!’ But the word wouldn’t emerge, not even a whisper. ‘Help!’ He tried again, but Shikotenka’s knife had taken his voice.

Guatemoc kept crawling. Suddenly he was on the flat ground at the foot of the hill and the sentry was just a hundred paces away, while in his head Shikotenka was still trudging up the steps of the pyramid, the sculpted muscles of his thighs moving under his brown skin. As his captor, Guatemoc enjoyed the exclusive right to Shikotenka’s thighs, which would be cooked for him in the time-honoured fashion in a stew with chillies and beans. He licked his lips, then remembered that none of this was real, no matter how real it seemed. The great pyramid of Tenochtitlan was two days’ hard march from here. There would be no sacrifice. He would not be feasting on Shikotenka’s thighs tonight.

He looked up through tussocks of waving grass as the moon emerged, redoubled in brilliance, through a gap in the clouds. He saw the sentry clearly, just fifty paces from him with his back turned, his moon-shadow reaching out like an admonishing finger. ‘Help!’ Guatemoc cried. ‘Help!’

Nothing …

But then he heard footsteps in the grass, coming on at the double. Praise the gods, he had been found!

The sentry was beside him now, looming over him. ‘Drunkard,’ he exclaimed in a coarse regional dialect. Judging from the bone through his nose, this was one of the Otomi rabble recently hired by Moctezuma. Guatemoc had opposed the policy but now here he was in his time of need being rescued by one of them! It was too much to expect that a lowly mercenary would actually know who he was, and he wore only a loincloth which gave no indication of his rank, so he tried to introduce himself: ‘My good man, I am Guatemoc, a prince of the Blood. Send a messenger for Lord Coaxoch at once.’

But the words wouldn’t come and the Otomi just stared at him, finally seemed to notice his injuries and said, ‘What? I can’t hear you.’

Guatemoc tried again. ‘Danger!’ he said. ‘Now! Tlascalans. Coaxoch must be told!’

But still he couldn’t produce the words.

The Otomi stood straight, heaved a great sigh of what sounded like annoyance and called out to the next sentry post – ‘Hey, I need help. I’ve got an injured man over here.’

‘I am Guatemoc. Summon Coaxoch at once.’

This time the words came. Just the faintest, croaking whisper.

But the Otomi wasn’t listening.

While the rest of the fifty sat on their haunches, breathing evenly after their ten-mile night run, Shikotenka led Chipahua and Tree to the ridge. The moon was just off full, shedding its brilliant silvery light through scudding cloudbanks, and the long grass swayed in a strong breeze as the three of them peered downslope to the huge amphitheatre amongst the hills where the Mexica had set their camp. Ablaze with flickering fires and lanterns, a chaotic and ill-disciplined scene presented itself. To their amazement, despite the lateness of the hour, thousands of the enemy were still on the move, wandering in noisy, guffawing groups from sector to sector of the immense armed camp, frequenting the hawkers’ stalls and brothels, bartering with merchants for cloth, or pulque, or tobacco.

‘Doesn’t look like they’ve found Guatemoc,’ said Chipahua. ‘Or missed him.’

‘Doesn’t even look as though they’re here to fight a war,’ said Tree. ‘Looks like a party.’

‘They’re too used to winning,’ Shikotenka mused, profoundly relieved that the matter of Guatemoc had gone no further. The prince’s body must still be lying in the grassy hollow where they had fought. ‘They’ve forgotten they can lose.’ He narrowed his eyes, noting the sentries spaced at intervals of a hundred paces all round the enormous perimeter, and the avenues of lanterns that marked out the principal thoroughfares. These ran north–south and east–west, intersecting at Coaxoch’s pavilion in the dead centre of the camp. ‘That’s where we have to get to …’ He showed them the pavilion. ‘Any thoughts?’

‘Fly?’ said Chipahua.

‘Wait for clouds to cover the moon,’ suggested Tree, who was studying the increasingly stormy sky. ‘It won’t be long. Then we just go straight in.’ He pointed to the southern end of the north–south axial avenue which lay almost directly beneath them at the foot of the hill. Pairs of sentries were stationed along its entire length at intervals of twenty paces.

‘And the sentries?’ asked Chipahua.

‘Kill them,’ said Tree.

‘I prefer stealth,’ said Shikotenka. ‘That’s what these are for.’ He tugged the sleeve of his uniform, taken from the body of a Mexica jaguar knight he’d killed a few months earlier. All the rest of the squad were similarly attired. ‘They don’t have enough sentries round the perimeter, so when the moon’s behind cloud we’ll be able to slip between them without being seen. We’ll split up into small groups, blend in with the crowds and make our way to Coaxoch’s pavilion. When we’re all there we’ll go straight into the attack.’

Chipahua and Tree exchanged a concerned glance, which Shikotenka ignored. He knew his plan was full of holes, but he had put his faith in the gods and there was no going back.

With the moon still bright, and dancing in and out of cloud, Shikotenka had his men take cover in the long grass and crawl down the hill by the same route he’d used going up it this afternoon. They reached the hollow where he’d fought Guatemoc and found it trampled and flattened, scabbed pools of congealed blood everywhere, but no sign of the prince himself. One particularly wide and obvious track, as of someone crawling or sliding, led out of the hollow and down in the direction of the Mexica encampment.

Acolmiztli was studying the fresh blood in the track and glaring accusingly at Shikotenka: ‘I thought you said you killed him?’

‘I thought I had. I got my knife in him six times.’

‘You should have made certain. He’s still bleeding so he’s still alive but the good news is it doesn’t look as if anyone found him here. He’s on his own and he’s not been gone long. Let’s get after him.’

Leaving the rest of the squad under Tree’s command in the hollow, the two of them shot downhill on their hands and knees. Acolmiztli moved fast with a weird, scuttling, spider-like gait and easily stayed ahead of Shikotenka, who caught up with him on the flat, lying low amongst the undulating grass.

‘Hush!’ signed Acolmiztli.

Up ahead, very close, they heard a shout over the sound of the wind: ‘Hey, I need help. I’ve got an injured man over here.’

Shikotenka pushed his head above the grass and saw a sentry less than a hundred paces away. At his feet lay a crumpled, bloodstained figure.

Another sentry charged up and Shikotenka ducked out of sight.

There came the sound of more shouting, the new arrival yelling at the top of his voice: ‘Don’t you realise who this is? Don’t you even have the
faintest idea
?’

A mumble: ‘Just looks like some sot got himself stabbed.’

‘This is Prince Guatemoc, you idiot!’

More sentries had come running now, at least five or six, and several took up the shout: ‘Guatemoc! Guatemoc!’ Somebody blew a whistle. A drum started to beat. ‘Prince Guatemoc has been attacked! Call the surgeons! Call out the guard!’

Shikotenka and Acolmiztli watched open-mouthed as chaos deteriorated into pandemonium, hundreds of the Mexica rushing to where Guatemoc lay. In the last moments before an immense mass of cloud covered the moon, they saw to their astonishment that even the sentries guarding the camp’s principal thoroughfares had left their posts and were flocking to the side of the wounded prince.

The long avenue connecting the southern gateway to Coaxoch’s pavilion appeared, for the moment, to be completely unguarded.