dispatched enough Serpents to give himself some breathing space and a clear run at Tezcatlipoca. Mictlantecuhtli urged him forward, promising to handle any interference that might come his way.
Huitzilopochtli had an opening too. He had at last punched a hole through the endless flocks of Serpents. Tezcatlipoca was in range and in his sights.
Xipe Totec sprinted towards the left leg of Tezcatlipoca’s suit, while Huitzilopochtli levelled his spear launcher at Tezcatlipoca’s head.
Stuart sensed that this was when everything could change, the fulcrum moment that would set the battle seesawing in the gods’ favour.
Then Xipe Totec stumbled. That was when Stuart realised the Flayed One had been injured. With his skin transparent, wounds were not immediately obvious. Spilled blood did not show up against the wet muscle tissue on display. Several Serpents must have got in lucky shots before Xipe Totec slew them. He was weak, failing. His charge towards Tezcatlipoca was a last-ditch suicide run.
And Tezcatlipoca knew it. As Xipe Totec lost his footing, the Smoking Mirror turned his ponderous armoured bulk towards him. One of the legs rose. Xipe Totec scrambled upright and continued his bid to reach Tezcatlipoca. But the vast foot overshadowed him. It descended like a five-ton piston. The Flayed One’s knives shot up. In defence? In defiance? It was hard to say.
Tezcatlipoca crushed Xipe Totec underfoot as a child might crush a snail on a garden path. The Flayed One became the Flattened One. He burst, and now all of his viscera were exposed. He was a lump of gristle and offal attached to the underside of Tezcatlipoca’s foot. The Smoking Mirror stamped down again and again, smashing and mashing Xipe Totec until there was even less of him left, just a gory smear.
Huitzilopochtli overcame his shock at seeing a fellow god annihilated and loosed off a flame spear at Tezcatlipoca. But the Smoking Mirror lashed out with one of his vast arms, batting the projectile aside so that it spun end over end and detonated amidst the foliage of a tree. As the Hummingbird God hurried to reload his launcher, Tezcatlipoca calmly lined up a shot with the same arm.
Huitzilopochtli looked up, flame spear in hand.
Looked down the hollowness of that l-gun barrel.
Knew he was out of time.
He hung in the air, resigned, and was enveloped in a tremendous torrent of plasma.
Little remained of Huitzilopochtli as he fell to earth, just a charred, spindly effigy, like a scarecrow that had been pulled off a bonfire.
Tezcatlipoca’s guffaws of joy came loud and clear over Stuart’s comms. His giant metal shell seemed to laugh too, rocking up and down in grotesque emulation of its driver.
Mictlantecuhtli lunged for Tezcatlipoca, emitting a roar, a primal wordless bellow of rage. He ploughed through the massed ranks of Serpents, scattering them to either side. Stuart followed in his slipstream. The Dark One took an l-gun salvo from Tezcatlipoca full-on, crossing his gauntlets above his head to shield himself, and plasma broke over him like rain on an umbrella. He lumbered on, skin smouldering, and began pounding away at Tezcatlipoca’s leg, the same leg that had squashed Xipe Totec. He managed to put a few dents in it before the Smoking Mirror used his other leg to kick him like a tlachtli ball. Mictlantecuhtli was propelled high into the air, disappearing into the depths of the forest.
Stuart stood alone and horribly exposed. Tezcatlipoca towered over him. He fired off a shot at the glass screen in the armour’s chest. The bolt didn’t leave so much as a scratch.
“Ah, the erstwhile Conquistador.” Tezcatlipoca was plugged into the Serpent Warrior radio frequency. “Still around to plague us. Well, not for much longer.”
Tezcatlipoca’s arm came down. A half-dozen lightning-gun barrels were pointed Stuart’s way.
“Incoming!”
That was Mal, and she streaked down from on high, locked in a frantic embrace with Tlanextic. Twisting and turning, the two of them rammed sideways into Tezcatlipoca’s arm. The plasma bolt meant for Stuart gouged a furrow in the ground inches to his right.
Stuart didn’t hesitate. He sprang at Tezcatlipoca’s foot, flicking out his swords. Toci had said they would cut through anything.
Let’s see, shall we?
He cross-cut into the metal of the foot with a simultaneous outward swing of both blades. Unbelievably, there was almost no resistance. Stuart found himself looking at a deep X-shaped slash in the armour’s skin. Hydraulics and cables were laid bare. Sparks spat.
He darted behind Tezcatlipoca and cut again. Surely he could stop the mechanical beast by hobbling it.
Next thing he knew, he was flat on his back. Tlanextic was on top of him. The Serpent colonel pummelled him hard, landing armour-augmented blows which Stuart could feel even through his own armour.
“You don’t get it, do you, Englishman?” Tlanextic said. “The Empire is eternal. The Empire is unstoppable. Gods cannot stand in its way. Do you honestly think a turd-eating little maggot like you can?”
“Mal…” It was partly a question, partly a plea. Where was she? If Tlanextic was free of her, then what had become of her?
“I shook the bitch off. Our landing took more out of her than me. I’ll deal with her after you. Now, just fucking lie there while I beat you to death, eh?”
Stuart couldn’t bring the swords to bear. He was nailed to the earth by Tlanextic’s remorseless thumping.
“I know this armour’s limitations,” Tlanextic crowed. “I know what it can handle. I’ll open you up like a sardine can. I’ll shatter you. Pulverise you.”
The impacts were intensifying. Stuart could feel the armour losing integrity. Tlanextic’s blows were starting to hurt.
How much more could he withstand?
How much could the armour?
He put everything he had into an attempt to shove himself upwards, against the force of Tlanextic’s onslaught. He lodged an elbow in the soil, so that one sword was pointing upwards. Tlanextic grabbed his wrist and levered the arm away. Stuart fought to raise it again. Tlanextic continued to hammer him with his other hand.
The sword wavered between them, now vertical, now at an angle. The pain in Stuart’s chest was mounting. There was a sudden sharp spike of agony, accompanied by a crack that he felt as much as heard. A rib. He cried out involuntarily.
Tlanextic’s eyes held nothing but the grim resolution of a loyal solider keen to see his mission through.
Then, all at once, his gaze became vacant and the punching stopped. There was no longer any resistance against Stuart’s arm.
Without pausing to question what had happened, Stuart rammed the sword up into Tlanextic’s belly.
“Too late, slowcoach,” said Mal. “I got there first.”
Tlanextic was doubly impaled. Mal had skewered him from behind, Stuart from the front.
The Serpent colonel was still alive, but paralysed, helpless. Mal reared back, Stuart rose, both of them heaving Tlanextic upright. They held him fast between them like some sort of human spit roast. Tlanextic’s hands moved feebly, groping for the blades as if he genuinely hoped to pull them out of himself. It would have been a pitiable sight, had it been anyone else.
“I promised you, didn’t I, colonel?” Mal said. “Not quite with my bare hands, but close enough. You should never have turned your back on me.”
She gave the sword a vicious twist. Tlanextic let out a wet, sucking gasp.
“The Empire…” he choked.
“Fuck the fucking Empire,” Mal said, and twisted the sword even further.
Tlanextic shuddered. His eyes rolled to white.
On an unspoken cue, Stuart and Mal withdrew their swords. Tlanextic’s body crumpled to the ground.
They took a moment to survey each other.
“Your armour’s knackered,” Mal observed.
“Yours isn’t looking too clever either.”
Both suits were covered in dents and scored with scorch marks. Mal’s visor was cracked. Stuart’s breastplate had been beaten concave, like a steel drum. His torso throbbed. Every heartbeat brought a spasm of pain in his
