up Guatemoc’s
macuahuitl
from where it lay nearby. He strapped it to his back, strode to the rim of the hollow, dropped on his belly and began to crawl furiously through the long grass towards the top of the hill a few bowshots above.
Dust filled his nostrils as he snaked upward. He passed through further hollows and gullies that hid him completely from view, but there were other stretches where the cover was thin and he felt dangerously exposed.
Shikotenka risked a glance back as he reached the summit and saw nothing to suggest he’d been detected by the Mexica army below. He crawled a few body-lengths down the other side of the hill to be sure he was out of sight, then stood and broke into a run. Soon he settled into the loping, long-distance stride that would carry him effortlessly over the ten miles of rough country to the forest where his squad lay hidden.
His spirits soared.
If things had gone according to plan he would have waited until nightfall to do this run, hidden by darkness from Mexica scouting parties.
But war was the art of improvisation.
Chapter Thirteen
Tenochtitlan, Thursday 18 February 1519
After the priests had gone, Malinal was dazed and silent, not wanting to speak as she tried to make sense of what had just happened, reliving the events scene by scene:
She’s seated on the ground beside strange, powerful little Tozi. She holds Tozi’s hand. She’s aware that Tozi is whispering under her breath, but the words are so quiet and so fast she can’t make them out. On the other side of Tozi, with his head nestled in her lap, Coyotl sleeps the sleep of the innocent so he cannot see Ahuizotl approaching or the murderous intent that oozes from every pore of the high priest’s face.
What Malinal hasn’t told Tozi yet is that Ahuizotl knows her – knows her very well – and if he sees her he will certainly select her and anyone with her for sacrifice. She feels bad for putting Tozi and Coyotl at additional risk this way, but there’s no alternative. Her only realistic hope of staying alive is to continue to harness the girl’s astonishing skills and learn from her extensive and ingenious knowledge of the prison.
All that, however, has become irrelevant now that Ahuizotl is here, limping towards her. Since he’s using his spear as a crutch he points the index finger of his left hand at the victims he chooses for the knife. He singles them out with grim intensity, sometimes stopping to peer into a woman’s eyes as his finger consigns her to death, sometimes making her stand and perform some repetitive physical task before selecting or rejecting her as a victim.
He’s less than twenty paces away now, ripples of fear spreading out ahead of him through the terrorised crowd. Malinal has her eyes downcast, praying he’ll somehow pass her by, trying to think of herself as ugly, imagining herself flat-chested, hunched, wrinkled, covered in pustules and boils, as Tozi suggested. It’s difficult because she has lived all her life with the knowledge that she is beautiful, but she works hard at it, is even beginning to believe it, when she starts to notice a burning sensation at the centre of her brow. A reflex movement that she can’t control makes her look up and she sees Ahuizotl staring intently at her, his jaundiced water-monster eyes glittering with malice.
He limps closer until just five paces separate them and it’s clear he’s not fooled. There was never any point trying to hide from a man as evil as this. A sly, triumphant smirk comes and goes on his wicked face. He raises his left arm, his long bony finger snakes out and he inscribes a circle in the air encompassing Malinal, Tozi and Coyotl, consigning all three of them to death.
As the enforcers stride forward to grab them, Tozi’s whisper changes pitch and her voice seems to deepen and roughen, becoming almost a snarl or a growl. Malinal suddenly feels her hair stand on end, feels it crackling and sparking with an inner fire.
macuahuitl
from where it lay nearby. He strapped it to his back, strode to the rim of the hollow, dropped on his belly and began to crawl furiously through the long grass towards the top of the hill a few bowshots above.
Dust filled his nostrils as he snaked upward. He passed through further hollows and gullies that hid him completely from view, but there were other stretches where the cover was thin and he felt dangerously exposed.
Shikotenka risked a glance back as he reached the summit and saw nothing to suggest he’d been detected by the Mexica army below. He crawled a few body-lengths down the other side of the hill to be sure he was out of sight, then stood and broke into a run. Soon he settled into the loping, long-distance stride that would carry him effortlessly over the ten miles of rough country to the forest where his squad lay hidden.
His spirits soared.
If things had gone according to plan he would have waited until nightfall to do this run, hidden by darkness from Mexica scouting parties.
But war was the art of improvisation.
Chapter Thirteen
Tenochtitlan, Thursday 18 February 1519
After the priests had gone, Malinal was dazed and silent, not wanting to speak as she tried to make sense of what had just happened, reliving the events scene by scene:
She’s seated on the ground beside strange, powerful little Tozi. She holds Tozi’s hand. She’s aware that Tozi is whispering under her breath, but the words are so quiet and so fast she can’t make them out. On the other side of Tozi, with his head nestled in her lap, Coyotl sleeps the sleep of the innocent so he cannot see Ahuizotl approaching or the murderous intent that oozes from every pore of the high priest’s face.
What Malinal hasn’t told Tozi yet is that Ahuizotl knows her – knows her very well – and if he sees her he will certainly select her and anyone with her for sacrifice. She feels bad for putting Tozi and Coyotl at additional risk this way, but there’s no alternative. Her only realistic hope of staying alive is to continue to harness the girl’s astonishing skills and learn from her extensive and ingenious knowledge of the prison.
All that, however, has become irrelevant now that Ahuizotl is here, limping towards her. Since he’s using his spear as a crutch he points the index finger of his left hand at the victims he chooses for the knife. He singles them out with grim intensity, sometimes stopping to peer into a woman’s eyes as his finger consigns her to death, sometimes making her stand and perform some repetitive physical task before selecting or rejecting her as a victim.
He’s less than twenty paces away now, ripples of fear spreading out ahead of him through the terrorised crowd. Malinal has her eyes downcast, praying he’ll somehow pass her by, trying to think of herself as ugly, imagining herself flat-chested, hunched, wrinkled, covered in pustules and boils, as Tozi suggested. It’s difficult because she has lived all her life with the knowledge that she is beautiful, but she works hard at it, is even beginning to believe it, when she starts to notice a burning sensation at the centre of her brow. A reflex movement that she can’t control makes her look up and she sees Ahuizotl staring intently at her, his jaundiced water-monster eyes glittering with malice.
He limps closer until just five paces separate them and it’s clear he’s not fooled. There was never any point trying to hide from a man as evil as this. A sly, triumphant smirk comes and goes on his wicked face. He raises his left arm, his long bony finger snakes out and he inscribes a circle in the air encompassing Malinal, Tozi and Coyotl, consigning all three of them to death.
As the enforcers stride forward to grab them, Tozi’s whisper changes pitch and her voice seems to deepen and roughen, becoming almost a snarl or a growl. Malinal suddenly feels her hair stand on end, feels it crackling and sparking with an inner fire.
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