ribs.
“Where’s Tezcatlipoca?”
Mal turned. The battle had moved on, but it wasn’t difficult to figure out which way it had gone. “Just follow the big damn tunnel in the trees.”
They caught up with Tezcatlipoca in no time, and what was immediately clear was that Stuart’s assault on the giant suit of armour’s heel hadn’t crippled it but had slowed it. The thing was limping now, teetering a little each time it put its left foot down.
It had almost reached the hatch.
Quetzalcoatl was still valiantly trying to force his way through to Tezcatlipoca, and Itzpapalotl the same, but enough Serpent Warriors remained to hinder them. Tzitzimitl, Azcatl and Nanahuatzin continued to protect the entrance to their base from raids by advance parties of Serpents. Xolotl was there too now, harrying and savaging the enemy.
“One more try,” Stuart sighed.
“With our suits in the state they’re in?”
“No one said life was easy.”
“No one ever does. I wish one day someone would.”
As they started forwards, a figure charged out from the trees, head down like a maddened bull.
Mictlantecuhtli used a fallen trunk as a springboard to propel himself up onto Tezcatlipoca’s back. He collided fists-first with the giant suit of armour and rebounded. Tezcatlipoca was staggered by the blow. Mictlantecuhtli picked himself up and went on the offensive again, this time striking behind the knee. The giant went down onto its other knee. The Dark One leapt straight onto its head, his sheer momentum toppling the machine flat onto its face. It crashed to earth, limbs flailing cumbersomely. The impact of its toppling nearly knocked Stuart and Mal off their own feet.
Mictlantecuhtli’s gauntlets clanged down onto the giant’s back. Sparks flew, and fragments of metal. At that moment Itzpapalotl shook off the cluster of Serpents around her and swooped to assist the Dark One. Wrenching, tearing, battering, they prised their way into the behemoth like treasure seekers digging for gold.
Stuart was convinced Tezcatlipoca had had it; Mal was, too. The Smoking Mirror’s remaining life could be measured in seconds.
Then the back of the giant erupted outwards, and Mictlantecuhtli and Itzpapalotl were sent flying amid a welter of shards and debris.
From out of the hole in his immense machine, like a parasite worming its way out of its host body, crawled Tezcatlipoca. He looked unhurt. Worse, he looked unruffled. He was clad in a form-fitting metallic bodysuit whose mercury-like surface offered a dim, warped reflection of everything around him. This was, Stuart assumed, another form of armour. Tezcatlipoca had been wearing a suit of armour inside a suit of armour.
“Well, that was fun,” the Smoking Mirror said. The armour’s mask was a perfect, gleaming replica of the face beneath it. “I was dying to take my walking tank out for a test drive. I’m just amazed I got this far with it. Do you hear me, Quetzalcoatl? Almost at your doorstep before you managed to take me down. Sloppy. I expected more from you.”
Tzitzimitl gave one of her shrill whistles. Her pack of Tzitzimime, as one, broke off from attacking Serpent Warriors and loped towards Tezcatlipoca.
The Smoking Mirror allowed them to get close, then raised an imperious hand and engulfed almost the entire pack in a sizzling, coruscating blast of energy that came straight from his palm. Most of the demon dogs were cremated on the spot, to Tzitzimitl’s howling dismay, but a few dodged the attack and raced on. They jumped up onto the sprawled machine and pounced on Tezcatlipoca. He swiped several aside, then grabbed one by the hindleg and swung the creature like a club, using it to bludgeon the others. Savage snarls turned to yelps of pain and terror. Tzitzimitl sobbed and tore at her hair as her beloved monsters were methodically beaten to a pulp. Soon none was left alive, and a blood-spattered Tezcatlipoca stood with a mangled Tzitzimime in his hand and a dozen more shattered corpses at his feet.
Now it was Azcatl’s turn, but his scorpion-wasps didn’t fare any better. They couldn’t penetrate Tezcatlipoca’s armour, or even gain purchase on its smooth contours. Azcatl guided them to attack again and again, moving his hands like an orchestra conductor, manipulating the swarm remotely, shaping their actions. Tezcatlipoca just stood there and laughed.
“Is that the best you can do, Red Ant?” he sneered. “Your trouble is, you think too small-scale. I, on the other hand — I imagine bigger. Always have. And that is why I rule a planet, while you rule insects.”
A sphere of brilliance exploded outward around him. It came and went in a dazzling instant, and when it was gone, none of the scorpion-wasps remained. They had all been obliterated, literally in a flash.
“No!” Azcatl cried.
At that moment, Quetzalcoatl took radical action. A score of Serpent Warriors surrounded him on all sides, subjecting his forcefield to a 360? point-blank assault with their l-guns. Quetzalcoatl switched off the forcefield, and shot upwards at the same time.
The Serpents blasted one another, while Quetzalcoatl soared free…
…and plummeted straight down onto Tezcatlipoca like a living missile, hitting him feet-first.
The two brothers slammed together into the giant armour beneath them. They rose as one, grappling hand to hand. Quetzalcoatl’s features showed nothing but implacable determination. “This ends now, Tez,” he said through clenched teeth.
Tezcatlipoca’s mask reflected Quetzalcoatl’s face back at him, dark and distorted. “Long past time,” he replied.
“How did you even find us?”
“It was easier than you think. Coyolxauhqui. She gave me the co-ordinates of your little hidey-hole.”
“Not willingly, I’ll bet.”
“Not at all. She took some persuading. It was the promise of an end to her pain that finally broke her. And an end did come.”
“Bastard!” Quetzalcoatl roared.
They took off, still locked in a mutual death grip. Smoke swirled in vortices as they ascended. Xolotl ran in circles, howling in distress as his master rose out of sight.
Stuart didn’t know if his armour was still fully functioning. He raised his head and lifted off unsteadily. The armour felt sluggish, but it was working.
“Stuart!”
“I have to follow them, Mal. This is the endgame. I have to see how it plays out.”
“But all these Serpents still left…”
“The gods can handle them.”
It was true. Tzitzimitl and Azcatl had no more mutant creatures on hand to deploy, and Nanahuatzin’s disease-giving abilities were of limited use, but Mictlantecuhtli and Itzpapalotl were both back on their feet. The two of them could mop up the Serpents, no trouble.
Mal went after Stuart. She couldn’t deny it: she too had to find out how this was all going to end. She told herself she and Stuart might be of help to the Plumed Serpent, but knew it was unlikely. She was motivated by sheer curiosity, nothing more.
Above the canopy, they spotted Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca racing westward. The Smoking Mirror had broken free from his brother’s clutches and was streaking away at astounding speed. The Plumed Serpent was in hot pursuit. It wasn’t hard to guess where Tezcatlipoca was headed. Only one thing lay in that direction: Tenochtitlan.
Even in prime condition, Serpent armour was no match for the gods’. Stuart and Mal lost sight of Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca before reaching Lake Texcoco, and arrived at the island city several minutes after did. They searched all over, scanning the ruined towers and fire-gutted ziggurats. Eventually Mal spied a group of people — engineers in overalls — fleeing across a plaza in a panic. It wasn’t hard to guess what they running from, and where.
The city’s fusion plant sported a fresh, gaping hole in its roof. The building resounded to tumultuous bangs
