Chapter Thirty-Two

 

 

Bivar lunged out of the beaded back door of one of the smaller huts, holding his Smith amp; Wesson 66 in his right hand. He was limping heavily from his wound, clothes blackened with thermite smoke, crimson spotting his shirt and face, matting his long black hair. His eyes were so wide and blood veined that it looked as if they were about to burst from their sockets, and his mouth sagged open.

 

"Bastard!" he croaked, firing twice at Ryan.

 

The range was less than fifteen feet, but the slaver was off-balance, in the last stages of desperate exhaustion. Both bullets missed.

 

Ryan was in the act of drawing his own handblaster when the slaver chief threw his empty Combat Magnum at him, two pounds of blued steel.

 

Ironically his aim was much better with the empty blaster than with the full one, and it struck Ryan just below the elbow on the right arm.

 

The pain was so sharp that Ryan's first guess was that one of the bones was broken, and his fingers opened in a neural spasm, dropping his blaster at his feet.

 

Bivar was quick, faster than a man on the ragged edge of defeat had any right to be.

 

Even before Ryan's SIG-Sauer hit the dirt, he was closing in, holding a black-hilted switchblade in his right hand, lunging toward the one-eyed man's belly.

 

Ryan backed away, reaching clumsily with his left hand for the taped hilt of the panga, drawing it just in time to parry a second attack.

 

"You kill my men, you fuck bastard," the swarthy man panted, his lips peeled back off his teeth in a lupine grin. "I get over fence and way into trees. And leave you with your guts spilled!"

 

Ryan didn't waste time, energy or concentration on responding. One of the truest things Trader ever said was that if you came to talk, then you talked. But if you came to fight, then you got on with it.

 

The slim-bladed knife danced out again, as fast as a desert rattler, and Ryan was just able to parry it with the clumsier eighteen-inch blade of the heavy cleaver. He had trained himself to shoot and fight left-handed, but he was only too aware of his limitations.

 

He was conscious of the background noise of the firefight subsiding around the front of the huts, but his universe had narrowed to a couple of yards of worn grass and the silver point of Bivar's knife.

 

The slaver was breathing hard, his breath stinking of wild onions, fogging the air between them. But his eyes were like a cornered shithouse rat, fiery and crazed.

 

He kept up a stream of foul-mouthed abuse at Ryan, calling his paternity and his manhood into question.

 

But the one-eyed warrior ignored him. He flexed the fingers on his numb right hand, aware that a little feeling was creeping back and he was recovering movement, which meant a bad bruise, but no break. It was difficult using the weighty panga left-handed against the switchblade, like dueling against a rapier with a cutlass.

 

Bivar was skillful with his blade, holding it low in front of him, point upward, in the classic knife man's pose, ready for the thrust to the groin and lower stomach, the most difficult of all to parry.

 

Ryan was being forced backward, step by step, toward the fence, yielding ground to the dazzling attack, barely holding off the needled point. He desperately tried to bring some life back to his injured right arm, but it was still feeling painful, his reactions sluggish.

 

Bivar sensed victory the way a feral animal sensed weakness in an opponent, and he smiled.

 

"Near fuckin' end, amigo."

 

Sweat ran down Ryan's face, seeping behind the patch, stinging the raw, empty socket. He tried to blink it away, suddenly spotting an extraordinary thing.

 

A toddler had been hiding in the hut, and he now came waddling out, plump and naked, holding a barbed hunting arrow, taller than him, in both hands, like a spear.

 

He stood staring in bewilderment at the two strange men as they feinted and lunged, sparks struck from the clashing blades. For a moment his face puckered as if he were about to start to cry, then he seemed to change his mind and padded silently toward the man nearer to him.

 

Bivar.

 

Intent on his prey, the chief of the slavers never noticed the child.

 

Until the youngster drove the arrow into his buttocks.

 

Bivar yelped in pain, half turning, slashing toward the toddler's face, missing him by at least eighteen inches.

 

The quarter second of stolen time was all that Ryan needed. He hefted the panga in a round-arm swing, aiming at the exposed side of Bivar's neck. At the last splinter of time the slaver started to turn back, dropping his chin, raising his shoulder in a vain attempt at protection.

 

The broad blade, whetted to a whisper, hacked into the angle of the jaw, cutting through tendons and muscle.

 

Bivar tried to open his mouth to yelp his agony, but the force of the blow had almost severed the lower jaw, leaving it dangling loose, blood pouring down the man's neck. His tongue flopped grotesquely forward, like some hapless reptile.

 

As he tried to turn away and run, the lower jaw swung down, hanging across the front of the neck, held only by the threads of gristle on the right side.

 

It was a truly macabre sight, and Ryan held off for a moment, fascinated by the triple-bizarre injury, unlike anything he'd seen before.

 

The little boy chortled and dropped the arrow, waving his chubby fists in the air.

 

Bivar dropped to his knees, using both hands to try to hold the appalling wound together, his dark eyes turning toward Ryan. His voice was muffled, the words garbled by the choking flood of blood that filled his mouth. But with an effort Ryan could just make out what the desperate man was trying to say.

 

"Don't let them burn me. Anything Not the fires and the black swords. You chill me."

 

Ryan had no affection for the dark-hearted villain, but the torture and sacrifice that he'd witnessed had made him feel sick to his stomach.

 

The little boy lost his balance and sat down with a thump in the blood-splattered grass.

 

Ryan stepped in closer to Bivar, still wary, sheathing the blood-slick panga. He picked up the SIG-Sauer with his right hand, pressed the muzzle of the blaster against the kneeling man's nape and squeezed the trigger.

 

The shock jolted his bruised arm, making him wince at the sudden pain.

 

Bivar pitched down in the dirt, feet kicking as though he were trying to swim through thick water. After a few seconds the corpse was still and the fight was over.

 

And the baby started to cry.

 

 

 

RYAN AND HIS COMPANIONS chose not to go to the ceremonial sacrifice of the seven surviving slavers at sunset, preferring to remain quietly in their huts, checking their weapons and recovering from the adrenaline rush of the battle. "You glad you chilled Bivar, lover?"

 

Ryan nodded unhesitatingly. "Sure. I'm the number-one man when it comes to scraping scum off the planet. But I don't go for this ritual murder."

 

The slaughter of the slavers had left only three dead in the village, one of them Rain Flower, and a handful more with minor injuries. Itzcoatl and his elders had been euphoric about the spectacular victory over their hated enemy and almost came to blows with one another as they traded tales of their own individual deeds of bravery.

 

The chief had come to the hut of the outlander visitors, insisting on shaking hands with each of them, except for Jak, to whom he bowed.

 

"The old stories were right on the fucking ball," he said. "Since you have all come here to us we have enjoyed great good fortunes."

 

"How about dead children?" Jak said.

 

Itzcoatl shrugged. "The wheel turns, we say. The Jaguar folk are gone, and the threat of the whip people vanished like smoke in a strong wind."

 

He asked them all to come with him to witness and join in the ceremony with the heaped fires and the razored swords of obsidian.

 

When they refused, Itzcoatl hadn't pressed the matter, though he insisted on their attendance at the banquet that would follow the butcheryor the "gifts to the gods," as he called it.

 

 

 

AFTER THE KILLINGS, the villagers readied themselves for a night of feasting.

 

Itzcoatl, the priests and the older warriors all wore their richly embroidered finery and their feathered masks. And they brought out the most sacred relic of the village, which was normally kept hidden in a secret place known only to the elder priest and the chief.

 

It was a full-size human skull carved from a single huge chunk of veined crystal. Chips of jade were set into the center of the eyes, and threads of pure gold outlined the teeth.

 

"Thats one of the most beautiful things I ever saw," Mildred said.

 

"It is the skull of the white warrior with no shadow, as we call it. Only at the most special occasions is it shown. In a couple of days it is one of our biggest and best holy days, and it will be shown again, the day when Tlazolteotl became pregnant from swallowing the chip of rare white jade and then bore the sun king of our people."

 

The table was laid with bowls and platters of fish, duck, vegetables and fresh bread.

 

Beakers of octli rested at every place, along with individual dishes of the fiery honeyed maize, atolli .

 

Ryan and the others had agreed that they would leave the village at dawn the next day. Their help was no longer needed, and they had nothing more to offer to the natives.

 

But they were also united in not telling Itzcoatl until the last moment.

 

 

 

IT HAD BEEN a great celebratory occasion.

 

The women servers were dressed in yellow to show their link to the food. Some of the priests wore their suits of flayed skin, dyed black, hair matted with fresh blood, smelling of wood smoke and roasted flesh from the sacrifices. Some of the warriors had skulls daubed on their chests in blue, revealing that they had been active in the ritual slaying of the wounded slaver prisoners. Itzcoatl himself wore vivid green.

 

During the magnificent banquet, the village leader three times raised the suggestion that Jak might stay behind with them and continue to give them the undoubted benefits of his own godhead, offering anything to him by way of food or drink or female company.

 

And three times the albino teenager rejected him, politely but firmly.

 

The chief had taken the disappointment well, nodding silently. He walked out beyond the fires and returned with an embossed silver tray that held a dozen shining goblets. He placed it on the table.

 

Mildred leaned across and read the words engraved on the rim of the tray. " 'From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli,'" she read. "Must have once belonged to a Marine unit, back in the pre-dark."

 

Each of the goblets held the inscription The Fighting Fortieth.

 

"This is the finest octli we have," Itzcoatl said. "Brewed and aged in casks of oak for many years. There is no drink better, and now we should take it and all honor dead. And swear to the future. For us all."

 

He handed the nearest goblet on the tray to Jak, then passed them to everyone at his table, taking the last one for himself.

 

"To Coatlicue, mother of all gods." He raised the drink in front of him, holding the silver cup firmly in both hands, gesturing for everyone to follow his example. "And to the ever-young warrior, Huitziopochtli, who others, have sometimes called the Hummingbird Wizard. They reside with all the gods of our people on the Mountain of the Star, Citlaltepetl. All united in the place of the gods, Teotihuacan."

 

The mouth-filling, sonorous names in the ancient language rolled from his tongue, swelling into the stillness of the smoky heart of the village.

 

"Now all drink!"

 

Everyone lifted the goblets and drank. At a warning glance from his father, Dean took only a small sip of the burning liquid, managing to stifle a choking cough. The others drained the octli , savoring its fire and its sweetness.

 

Ryan noticed that Itzcoatl and the jade-eyed masks of the other elders had all turned to watch Jak, as though they were linked by a single cord.

 

There was an inexplicable tension for those few seconds, which eased the moment the white-haired teenager laid his goblet back on the table, empty.

 

 

 

IT WAS AN HOUR or so shy of midnight.

 

Ryan had suggested that they should rise before dawn and get ready to leave, telling Itzcoatl and the other natives of their intentions only at the last moment.

 

"Less argument then. So, we could all do with an early night. Any problems?"

 

Jak slowly put up his hand. "Don't feel good, Ryan. Gut burns. Sweating. Feel sick. Throat tight. Head aches as bad as I can remember."

 

Mildred stood to go over to him. "Could be something you ate or drank, Jak."

 

The voice from the doorway interrupted her, stopping her in midstride. "You are right on the ball, lady," Itzcoatl said. "The god is sick because of something he had drinking."

 

"How's that?" Ryan said, feeling the beginning of anger, overlaid with something that might have been fear. "What do you mean?"

 

"I mean that Jak has been given poison. By me. In a half day the god will be dead."