Casca's men had fallen back now to the front ranks of the waiting Serpent soldiers. Breathless, they found their way to the rear as the ranks opened to let them pass, then closed again. The oncoming wave of the Olmecs met the closed wall of the Serpents. The Olmecs stood for a moment frozen in time, face to face with the Teotec, unable to move. The oncoming ranks of the Olmecs then pushed their brothers against the Teotec line. The screams of the fighting masses of men flooded the air, drowning the death cries of those who fell.
The Vikings stood firm in the rear, their weapons ready. Holdbod the Berserker was almost beside himself with frustration. Swaying back and forth on his heels, he cried for Olaf to let him go, that he would kill enough for everyone. Tears running down his face in anguish, he obeyed Olaf's order to stand firm, but the strain on him was terrible.
The sheer weight of the Olmec masses was more than Casca's men could withstand. Step by step the Olmecs forced the Teotecs back but now a rain of missiles began falling on them from the rooftops, from the force Casca had stationed there; the old ones were lending their support. A chamber pot still filled from last night's use broke the nose of an Olmec captain who broke into a frenzy as the filth ran into his mouth and down his chest. The old man responsible cackled and jumped up and down in glee. The protesting Olmec's agony was stilled by a flint- tipped spear pushing out the back of his skull.
Casca stood in the front ranks for a moment to let his soldiers see him, and with the aid of his Gladius Iberius he chopped off the heads of a dozen weapons and slew even more of the Olmecs, the thick-bladed Roman sword slicing through the thin armor of the Olmecs, laying chests and heads open.
The Olmecs in the front were sucking air through open mouths, laboring to breathe. The long run was taking its toll, but to the eyes of Totzin it appeared that the Olmecs were winning. After all, they were in the center of the city. He signaled to his men to join the Olmecs. They did, but these traitorous Jaguar soldiers of Teotah soon found themselves inextricably mixed with the Olmecs. Hundreds were cut down in the confusion by their new allies.
Totzin disappeared…
The time was now.
Casca suddenly screamed orders above the clamor of battle.
The ranks of the Serpent soldiers immediately fell back on themselves, running to the rear to regroup, leaving a vacuum that the confused Olmecs filled.
The Olmecs halted, transfixed by the sight before them, the totally unexpected.
Giants.
Giants with shaggy faces and light-colored hair wearing a shiny skin the Olmec's stone-tipped weapons bounced off without doing any damage. Terrible beings with shining weapons that sang above their heads and sliced through all who got in their way.
The Vikings.
Casca's 'anvil,' they stood rockline and solid and carved the men opposing them into unrecognizable facsimiles of humanity. The Olmec spirit broke at the indestructibility of these fearsome apparitions who uttered strange cries to strange gods… 'Odin!'… 'Thor!' and shouted 'Casca! Casca! Casca' as they moved forward, a knot of steel before which everything died. In their terror the Olmecs broke and began to fight their way back down the long thoroughfare anything to get away from this place of slaughter. In their frenzied rush to get away, those in front killed those behind. The panic spread like wildfire. The Olmec units collapsed in on themselves. Thousands were trampled underfoot as their brothers fought to get away from the horrible shining ones behind them.
The Vikings were magnificent. Foremost in the field of slaughter were Olaf and Vlad. They blocked the thrusts of spears and stone-edged clubs with their shields. They parried and thrust and chopped and sliced through everything in their path.
And then Holdbod the Berserker leaped in front, jumping over a pile of dead Olmecs.
The manic rage was upon him. Nothing could stop him now in his desire for blood. He raced out into the heavy mass of retreating Olmecs crying for Thor to give him strength to kill more and more. His great sword rained a destruction upon the Olmecs such as they had never imagined could exist. Endlessly he killed. An Olmec captain leaped in front of this monster to stop him. Holdbod wrapped his great arms around the man as he would a child and through tear-filled eyes thanked Odin for this gift, alternately crying and laughing, he snuggled the smaller form of the Olmec against his chest and squeezed, unmindful of the Olmecs trying to tear him loose from their captain. The Olmec chieftain gave a long ululating strangling cry as his ribs collapsed and crushed in on themselves, his head back in an arc of pain. Holdbod squeezed the life out of him, not feeling the cuts from the obsidian blades or the half-dozen arrows protruding from his back. He dropped the Olmec, regained his sword, and the great blade began to swing again… up and down… up and down… endlessly.
Casca joined him, his short sword doing equal, if not quite as bloody, work. Casca was sparing in his strokes, making each one count, while Holdbod fought mindlessly. He even turned on Casca, knocking his leader to the ground and standing over him, his great sword raised above his head ready to slice this fallen foe to separate pieces. A hand grasped his wrist. 'Brother, hold.' Vlad the Dark's quiet voice broke the blood film around Holdbod's mind. Looking down at Casca and recognizing him, Holdbod began to sob uncontrollably.
Casca got to his feet and hugged Holdbod's hairy shoulder. 'No fear, brother. It's not my time. Now, go and rest. Leave some of them for the rest of us.'
Still sobbing, Holdbod walked unseeing to the rear. The rage had come and gone. Only his wounds were unfelt. The arrows in his back waved and bobbed up and down like some obscene gesturing.
Once to the rear, he fell unconscious.
Vlad took his place in the forefront, his great axe doing at least double duty. If anything the quiet intensity of this deadly stranger struck even greater fear into the hearts of the already panic-stricken Olmecs. All semblance of order disappeared in their ranks. Blind panic ruled now. Teypetel had lashed his bearers until they had collapsed, spilling their load into the street of death. Rising, the greasy, bulbous monster tried to stop the blind retreat of his legions, cutting down man after man with his copper blade, but to no avail. They streamed past him in mindless terror.
'Dog fucker, I am here.'
Turning, Teypetel, god and king of the Olmecs, faced Casca the stranger and god from the sea. A chill ran through his bowels. Was this a god? Before he could answer his own question, Casca was upon him, his blade slicing away the haft of Teypetel's axe. Teypetel, god of the Olmecs, wet himself as he turned to flee. Casca threw his Roman short sword at the back of the terrified king, knocking him to the earth already sticky and claylike with the blood of thousands of his followers.
Casca grasped the bald head of the downed king and raised him to his knees. Placing his own knee in the Olmec's back along the spine, he pulled the grotesque head back. 'Well, you piece of shit, it's time for you to meet your ancestors.' Casca placed his scarred, sinewy hands together, interlocking the fingers. The butt of a hand on each side of the obese king's temples, he began to squeeze. As he pushed in, taking ever deeper breaths, the muscles in his own back snapped and crackled with the strain.
But the tremendous pressure was being transmitted to the king's brain case. Teypetel squirmed and sobbed, promising anything if only the Quetza would stop squeezing.
His answer came, quicker than he had expected but not in the way he wanted it. With one great expulsion of air the skull of the king of the Olmecs cracked along the fracture lines like the shell of a turtle and began to cave in upon itself, sharp pieces of the brain case knifing into the living brain itself. The the whole skull gave way and Casca's hands were holding only a reddish gray, bleeding mass of bone and ruptured brain tissue.
Several Olmec captains had been looking back, already terrified by the pursuing Teotec and their fearsome allies. When they witnessed Casca's gruesome dispatch of their former king, that was the final straw. No longer trying to maintain even the semblance of cohesion, they fled blindly back the way they had come, every man for himself, leaving thousands of their brothers dead or in the process of being put into that state by the avenging Teotec. Even the old men and old women had descended from the rooftops to aid in this effort. The old women especially seemed to delight in bashing the brains out of wounded Olmecs. Compassion was a commodity reserved for their own.
Wiping his hands on his cuirass, Casca grimaced distaste of the clinging pieces of bone and brain tissue. The Vikings had stopped following the retreating enemy and were now involved in looting the bodies of the fallen. Thinking nothing of such activity since it was standard battle practice Casca decided he had better find Metah and see how she had made out. He had lost all thought of her when word of the advancing Olmecs had reached him. Stepping over the bodies of both Olmec and Teotec soldiers he started to make his way back down the
