Oh no.
Quenami said, flustered, 'My lord…'
'Acatl…' Acamapichtli was pulling at my cloak, weakly but insistently. He was lying on the ground, but his face, cut and bruised, was turned towards me, as pale as muddy milk, his eyes sunk into hollows deeper than the way into Mictlan. 'The fool's going to do it.'
'It?' I asked, as stupidly as Quenami.
He shook his head, with a shadow of his old impatience. 'The last time Quenami fought in earnest was boys at the
'But why?' I asked.
Acamapichtli smiled again, that mirthless expression I hated. 'Why not? Because he does care, in the end? If it makes you happier, consider he's found the only way he can turn things to his gain.'
I couldn't imagine why that should make me happier. 'And what do you expect me to do about it?'
His eyes were on me, mocking, as cruelly amused as those of the god. I'd forgotten that he was my enemy, that he had almost seen my brother condemned to death, that he had intrigued for his own benefit, that he despised Teomitl and would be glad to see him gone. 'I don't–'
He grunted, shifted, and slid something towards me on the bloodstained stone of the platform: a single obsidian knife still in its sheath. I felt nothing of magic within it, not the touch of the Storm Lord, not even a minor spell to keep the blade sharp. It was as mundane as they came, the kind of knife used to extract the heart from a sacrifice's chest, polished to a cutting edge, but as brittle as fired clay. Carefully, I reached out for it. My hand closed around it, and the jolt of power from Mictlan I expected didn't climb up my arm. It felt wrong.
I looked at Quenami again, who stood with his face unreadable, his hands clenched, and an expression I knew all too well – that of a man on a chasm, about to take the plunge.
I would have loved to see him brought down and defeated; but, if that happened, we'd have failed. 'My Lord,' I said, rising, carefully, with the knife in my hand. The world spun for a bare moment, settled back into the bloodied limestone and the grey sky overhead. 'I will take his place.'
I wasn't looking at Him, but I felt the moment His attention shifted from Quenami to me, a vast movement in the air, with the hissing crackle of flames as He hefted the fire-snake in His hand. 'You, priest?' Laughter, like thunder overhead. 'The least among them, and you fancy yourself a warrior?'
Least among them – I could see where Quenami had got his ideas about me. I swallowed the wave of bitterness that flooded me. Now was not the time.
In answer I lifted the knife. 'If the least among us is a warrior, doesn't it prove our worth?'
There was silence for a while, that before a lightning-strike. The fire-snake hissed, as if climbing along wood, charring bones and flesh on a funeral pyre. At length, Huitzilpochtli spoke. 'It might, at that.' He sounded a little calmer, but the cruel amusement was still there, the inhuman pleasure He'd take from seeing us fail. He had resolved to withdraw from us; it wasn't something that could be changed in an instant. 'Very well. Prove your worth, and I'll give your Revered Speaker back to you.'
Itzpapalotl moved, impossibly swift, to come before me, on the same side of the altar. 'Priest,' She said. She raised Her hands, unfolding Her claws one by one. They glinted in the sunlight of the heartland, drinking it in as they'd drink blood.
In answer, I raised my own, pathetic knife, a knife that wasn't magic, that didn't have even the meagre powers of Lord Death, that couldn't protect me from the corrosion of the heartland.
If my brother Neutemoc could see me like this, he'd appreciate the irony – that I, the failed brother, the shameful priest, should be the one to fight Her.
From afar came a blast of conch-shells, and a slow beating of drums, and a din, like a thousand voices shouting the names of a thousand different cities at the same time. The air wavered, and the battle was joined.
She was upon me almost before I could move. One wing brushed against my arm, opening up a flower of pain, and I was on my knees, one hand scrabbling to stem the flow of blood. Then She was gone, watching me from afar.
'Pathetic,' She whispered. 'Is that the best among you?'
'You should know,' I said through clenched teeth, fighting the darkness that quivered at the edge of my vision. 'You took one, and incapacitated the other.'
She laughed. 'All is fair in war, as you should know.'
No, I didn't. I didn't know the rules of the battlefield or even of the training-ground. My world had been the
She moved fast, far too fast for me to outrace Her, especially in my current state. My only hope was to be ready for Her when She came. I hefted the knife carefully, watched Her, the way Her wings spread around and behind Her, larger than those of a bird, with obsidian knives hanging from their thin bones like obscene fruit…
The wings merged into Her desiccated shoulders almost seamlessly; but there had to be some junction, some point of weakness I could exploit.
She was upon me again, the breath of Her passage the only warning I got, about an eye blink before Her wings slashed me again. This time, instead of trying to remain standing, I threw myself to the floor, and rolled under the thin shape of Her legs.
There.
A small bump, where the obsidian blades sank back into the bones, a raised area of yellowed flesh, as taut as the paper of a codex.
She was gone again, watching me, toying with me like a jaguar with its prey. 'I've fought worthier opponents.'
'Teomitl?' I asked. 'What have you done with him?'
'Taken my sacrifice, what else?'
A fist of ice closed over my heart. But no, I couldn't afford it, not any more weakness, not any more ways for Her to reach me. 'He's alive, isn't he?'
She didn't deign to answer me. But this time I caught the slight shift of Her skirts which announced Her
