Chapter 8

 

Much as it went against the grain, Xitlan had to admit that the Lake City at dawn – for all the sordid apathy and cruelty that it accommodated – was a beautiful sight. Seen from the top of a mountain, at any rate. There was a pleasantly proportioned design to the layout of the palaces, temples and plazas in the great precincts, varied with the picturesquely laid-out public gardens, and even the vast grid of canals and reclaimed plots that sprawled for miles across the lake seemed to suggest a certain harmony between humanity and nature. She was fully aware that actually going down among those plots and allowing the varied smells of intensive agriculture to blast one in the sinuses would kill that harmonious impression stone-dead, and possibly replace it with the impression of nature inflicting a terrible revenge for the tortures it was being put through. Still, it was a charming illusion.

        Charming or not, it had a strictly limited entertainment value, and she was grateful when Itzco finally turned up, in the company of a couple of dozen soldiers. They carried a variety of weapons – macanas, atlatls, bows and darts – and wore close-fitting suits of red cotton body-armour, but their tall, conical wooden helmets were certainly not standard issue. Not in the Sun Empire, at any rate.

        “Marascans, Itzco? You’re not a spy, are you?”

        “They’re mercenaries, Xitlan. Mainly deserters, I think. You weren’t expecting me to ask anyone from the City to take part in this, were you?”

        “Very good point, but who’s paying?”

        “I paid their advance, but I’m afraid you’ll have to manage the rest. You did suggest that this might prove dangerous. These strangers are armed, aren’t they?”

        “True enough. They killed Tenga’s guards, apparently. With ‘blasts of thunder,’ or something along those general lines. Oh, come on, Itzco,” she said, sympathetically but firmly, as doubt and fear traipsed across his countenance. “Devils, as a rule, don’t wander the wilderness, cheating merchants with lumps of green salt. Whatever weapons they have, I’m sure we can deal with them. As long as we can find them, that is.”

        “I doubt that will be the difficult part: our friends here have already had a scout along the road, and according to best of their information, these strangers went west to the silver mine at Atlpetl. Then, they turned back.”

        “And there are no turnings-off until they get to the north road. So, unless they take a dive into the wilderness – and that’s not very likely – we can lay a little ambush just before the intersection. How long do your mercenary boys think we’ll have to wait for them?”

        “A couple of hours, if they don’t slacken or run into trouble.”

        “Best get a shift on then, or they certainly won’t. Oh, do cheer up, Itzco. I have grave doubts that our killing these roving degenerates will bring down a bolt of heavenly lightning on either of our heads!”

 

The words ‘far,’ ‘too,’ and ‘easy’ had been preying on Dion’s mind ever since the skirmish with the merchant’s escort, through all the small settlements where the troopers had bought safe passage with more beads and pacific gestures, to the silver mine where they had been generously supplied with unloved lumps of waste cobalt, for which they had parted with more of their own worthless goods, and back through the villages, which were very happy to accept the same toll as before. To date, the most difficult part of the whole business had been the appalling weight of the rocks stuffed into his knapsack, but only the lieutenant and the corporal were exempt from that burden. Dion was willing to hope that they were heading back to the coast – Dorus not having seen fit to confide in his troops the details of the mission – but his thoughts were plagued by the memory of a northward-tending junction, which they had passed in their march to the west. Nor was he yet willing to be encouraged by the fact that they had run out of beads, which presumably either meant that their business with the natives was concluded, or that they would be shooting their way through the next village.

        He was abruptly awoken from his miserable reverie by Dorus’s call to halt, quickly followed up by a command to take cover. They were in the lower skirts of a forest, with the most thickly wooded terrain in the uplands ahead, but there was enough growth at the sides of the road for the troopers to crouch in and feel relatively invisible to the world. Cædmon had moved a little further ahead of the group, and was scanning the area to the east with the spy-glass. After this once-over was concluded, he crawled back and reported to Dorus, in a cautious undertone:

        “Definitely someone up ahead, sir. Wearin’ red, of all things. Shouldn’t have seen ‘em, otherwise, but they must be bloody confident. That, or total arseholes, if you’ll pardon my Lucinian.”

        “Duly noted, corporal. Well, gentlemen: it took a while, but that ambush we were expecting is at last upon us. I daresay someone’s stepped on a piece of our ‘jade.’ This is where it gets interesting. Pass me the map, Dion. The proper one. The time has come to work out a little short cut.” Dion, though less than enthusiastic about this prospect, faithfully provided the lieutenant with Gloriana’s map. Cædmon was somewhat more open in his lack of enthusiasm:

        “You sure about that, sir? I can only see the one of ‘em.”

        “Yes, corporal, and whether he’s a scout, or whether the rest are just too well hidden to see, we could hardly avoid running into them if we hold our course.”

        “We could take ‘em, sir. We’ve still got most of our cartridges.”

        “And a fair way to go yet, and I don’t want to have to go there with an empty carbine. We’ll take this route,” he declared, tracing a line on the map. “Strike the northern route around here, I think. I don’t want to lose sight of that road for any longer than necessary. Single file. I lead, you follow, then Dion, Kurtis, and Marchus bringing up the rear. Check your guns and follow. Quietly.”

        Dorus struck out into the wilderness, with the reluctant Cædmon in his wake. Loading his carbine, the equally unwilling Dion followed, over rock, scrub, and thorn, and through massed clouds of tiny, biting insects that, being unable to get at his body, were only too glad to make free with his face. He heard Kurtis swearing behind him, not too loudly, but enough to give him the desire to turn back briefly and ram something large and restrictive in his mouth. Resisting it, he scrambled on over rough and through forest, not even turning back at the sound of Kurtis’s piercing death-rattle. To do so would, in fact, have violated the order that Cædmon, who had doubled his pace, had just shouted back, but Dion needed no such incentive.

        A loud report from up ahead suggested that the lieutenant had also run into trouble. Nor, in fact, was the corporal within sight any more. Dion slowed his pace and readied his carbine, uncertain which was the least fatal way to turn, when the startled call of some unfamiliar bird drew his gaze to the east and thus saved his life. Another second’s worth of inattention, and the obsidian-tipped dart, propelled with deadly velocity from the warrior’s wooden launcher, would have buried itself at least an inch within his skull, steel hat or no. In the event, he escaped with only a light graze, which – following his return of fire – could not be said for the warrior. Dion reloaded, froze, and only recovered his faculties with the sudden reappearance of Cædmon and Dorus, hurrying back from the north.

        “Well done, lad,” said the corporal, between quick breaths. “We got a few more of ‘em, up ahead. But we don’t want to wait around.”

        “Where are the other two?” asked Dorus, urgently. “We can’t go on without them. Not without Kurtis, anyway: he has the cylinders.”

        “He’s dead, sir,” reported Dion, without a shred of uncertainty.

        “We must go back! We have to get his knapsack, at least. Come on!”

 

The atlatl dart had gone deep, leaving only the tips of its feathered flights projecting from the strange man’s neck. The following alien had killed the dart-thrower with his appalling device, which was entirely beyond Itzco’s knowledge. Nevetheless, he had shot the wretched man – albeit only in the leg – and watched him crawl off into the undergrowth to extract the arrow as best he could. Good luck to him, I think not, he thought, overlooking the carnage. In spite of their unfamiliar uniforms, their embossed metal helmets, their livid faces, and, not least, their revolting stench of accumulated sweat, filth, and rotten food, Itzco was at least satisfied that these ‘demons’ were, at least, not of the sort that merited worship half so much as they merited a back full of sharpened obsidian. The demonstration of their thunderous – but distinctly mundane – weaponry had overcome his lingering compunctions: killing honourable warriors in time-honoured rituals was, he had chiefly felt, a necessary socio-religious evil. Killing thieves in the wilderness, on the other hand, was common highway murder. However, when the thieves saw fit to back up their business with lethal alchemy, dishonourable by any stretch of the imagination, he found their deaths distinctly untroubling.

        Overcoming his revulsion of the dead stranger’s potent odour, Itzco knelt to investigate his pack, which was heavily laden. He was rather surprised to discover that the larger part of this burden consisted of lumps of bluish-grey rock, which he had no idea what to make of. He fared better with the dry food supplies: unfamiliar, unappetising, yet certainly unmistakable for what they were. Fresh confusion followed with the small wooden crate, which contained – each wrapped in some fine make of paper – a collection of smooth, cylindrical objects, made of some transparent crystalline substance and containing a faintly luminous orange fluid. He would have broken into one and poured out some of the liquid, just for curiosity’s sake, had it not been for the distraction of a sudden explosion, insupportable agony, and loss of consciousness.

 

The troopers hurried into the dell, Cædmon reloading his carbine while Dion kept watch to the north, and Dorus retrieved the crate, which the warrior had dropped in his collapse. He was, thought Dorus, the most grotesque figure they had hitherto encountered, with a face covered in ugly scars, long, matted hair, bloodstained robes (not merely from the effects of the shot), and ornaments of a crude and gaudy make pierced through his ears. It was certainly not a sight to inspire one with love or mere respect for his race in general. Fortunately, he had not damaged the cylinders. Dion could carry those. The cobalt would have to be left behind, but it was exactly for such contingencies that they had been sure to collect a hefty surplus of the stuff. No point leaving behind the hard tack and water, though. Marchus can... Where the hell is Marchus, come to that?

        Before Dorus could decide on the matter of whether or not they should even bother looking for their missing comrade, Cædmon screamed and fell, an arrow having planted itself squarely between his shoulder blades. Dion fired a couple of rounds, none too accurately, into the forest, where Dorus briefly noted the lithe figure of the archer, disappearing into the shades. Dion, with homicidal looks, was on the point of following, until the lieutenant called him to his senses:

        “Leave her, Dion! You don’t imagine you’ll get her in there, do you? A carbine’s no better than a bow, when you can’t see your target. So just keep alert, and put this in your pack,” whereupon he handed over the crate of cylinders. The gunshots had drawn Marchus back out of his hiding-place and into the dell, limping somewhat, his trousers torn and his left shin tied up with gauze, but decidedly arrow-less. Nevertheless, Dorus decided not to burden him any further. If skimping on provisions meant a chance of achieving the road without any worse injuries, then he for one was quite prepared to leave the hard tack for the birds.

 

In her hurried circuit of the area, Xitlan encountered no further sign of the mercenaries. Bastards. Not that she could truly begrudge their retreat, having lost about eight of their number in as many minutes, and that was not including Itzco.

        The dell was empty when she returned to it, save the bodies of the strangers and the mercenary with the atlatl. And Itzco, of course, whom she was not about to classify with the other two. If you even think of dying on me, you stupid, credulous, dearest... He taken a wound in his side, which, whilst an ugly enough affair in itself, had by a peculiar variety of good fortune avoided all major organs. Xitlan wept, but drew herself up moments later, unwilling to indulge any premature joy whilst his unconsciousness persisted. She cleaned the wound with water from her gourd, bound it with strips of linen, and was still disappointed in the lack of active response. Tears of the wrong sort were threatening to well up, as she bent and gently kissed his passive, lacerated face. Then, a little more, on the vague hope that she had felt something of a response there. She drew back. His eyes were open.

        “I wish I could say that it takes the pain away,” he muttered, then winced. “Yes, I really wish I could say that.”

        “We’ll have to try something else then, won’t we,” declared Xitlan, and Itzco was only slightly disappointed when she drew some dried herbs from her bag and instructed him to chew on them. A few minutes later, when the anodyne actually started to take effect, he was positively grateful. “I don’t think they wounded you too badly. You were lucky.”

        “Ah. That would be the word I was groping for, then?”

        “I was lucky, then. They killed several of your mercenaries, though. I think the rest of them have done a runner.”

        “Saved you a bean or two there, I guess. What do you want to do now?”

        “Get you to the nearest town, of course. I’ve done the best I could, but I’m no surgeon. Do you feel strong enough to walk?”

        “As long as I have something to lean on, I’ll manage. What about the strangers?”

        “What about them? They’ve broken our ambush, and if they’re heading to the City, then they’ll certainly be there before us. I suppose we could always use these bodies for evidence, if your archdeacon claims these strangers for gods.”

        “Perhaps, but I don’t envy them if he does. A day or two of deified glory hardly seems worth going under the knife, but keeping them alive would be just too embarrassing for words. I wish we could have told them that, somehow, then they might have been sure to give the City a wide berth.”

        “It doesn’t matter, Itzco,” she answered, heartfelt relief and weary resignation struggling for dominance. “It really doesn’t. Let’s just get going.”

 

Dusk descended as the surviving troopers, having kept in the cover on the western side of the road, came upon the intersection. The route to the east led out into the great lake, upon a wide viaduct, to the island capital of the Sun Empire. With the great ritual fires burning at the summits of several mountainous temples, and the thousands of low, tiny, flickering lights in the vast expanse of reclaimed farmland which surrounded the island, in the failing light, Dion felt that it made a pretty good image of the mountains of Hades, surrounded by innumerable corpse-candles. Bearing in mind, of course, that it had not been a very good day.

        The troopers neither stopped nor turned at this juncture. Between the extra loads and Marchus’s leg, they had made pretty wretched progress over the past few hours, and sightseeing was not on the agenda. Having rejoined the road, they continued north, even when Dorus could no longer read his map. Not that it matters, he thought. Due north a little more, and we can’t go wrong. Quite frankly, though he did well to conceal it, the lieutenant was pretty excited. They had come within a hair’s breadth of total failure, he was fully aware, but that only made the likelihood of success seem all the more sublime, and before long, all going well, it would be within their power to ensure the security of Albinor for years to come. Possibly forever. That had to be worth the odd sacrifice.

 

Within the Lake City, whilst the glare of the ritual fires was magnificently ruining the night-vision of the temple guards and allowing the strangers to pass the crossroad completely unobserved – in spite of his orders to mount a continual watch for them – the archdeacon was planning out the schedule for the next day’s devotions. Following a quick toady up to the palace at dawn – reasoning it to be the best time to catch that shiftless excuse for an Imperial Majesty at his most compromising – and following a heavy session of his finest mixed prophecies, he should have no trouble in securing the orders to detain another batch of plebeians for the bloody glorification of the Celestial Warrior-King. Right now, he could think of few in particular whom it would be a rare pleasure for him to join with the gods, as it were. For starters, that shameless, upstart whore Xitlan, who had certainly been interesting herself in far more matters than the common female brain could healthily contain. Whilst he had the authority to cut it off at the stem, at all events. Unfortunately, she had left the city yesterday on an extended pass, and no one had any idea where she had gone or when she would be back. But when she did, she would be in for one hell of a surprise, pun intended. All he had to do was to perform the necessaries, wait for the army to do its stuff – putting Marasca to fire and the macana – and claim the credit on the basis of having pleased the Celestial Warrior with his well-judged offerings. After that, it would be open season on the atheist scum and hedonistic rabble. A pity that this wandering ‘god’ from the coast had never turned up – absolute certainty of the degenerate’s death would, at least, have afforded the archdeacon some relief – but one had to take the rough with the smooth in religious politics.

        Of course, it was no fault of his that the Marascans had been well aware of the clandestine military side of the merchant Tenga’s business ventures for many a month, and had been allowing the poor sod to carry back copious amounts of misinformation to General Netzhual. Nor could he have known that the general’s legion would, as a direct result, be set upon and thoroughly routed at about the same time as his ceremonies, and would return to the Empire in utter disgrace. Not that his lack of blame in these matters was going to be of any assistance in averting the all-too natural response of an emperor in great need of a convenient stand-in for his sudden unpopularity, but it was as well to be facing it with a clean conscience.