speak, and she wondered how long he might stand there in perfect respectful silence. Lorenzo seemed even more selfless and controlled than his countrymen, though that may have only been due to his youth. Will his zeal and dedication tarnish with age? Qhora shook her head. “No more machines. No more ships or trains. We will ride to the capital and we will arrive on time.”
Lorenzo nodded slowly. “I think we can manage that if we take the old highway due south instead of the coastal route. I’ll see to the horses tonight. We’ll need a small cart for the cages and trunks. Will you need a horse, my lady?”
“No. Wayra is the only mount I need.”
He nodded again. “Xiuhcoatl should be happy, at least. I doubt he would appreciate spending any more time at sea.”
Qhora smiled. The aging Aztec was fearsome on the battlefield, but at sea he was as helpless as a child. She had watched him cling to the railing of the steamer that brought them from Tartessos to Tingis. The memory might have amused her more if it was not accompanied by the foul stench of his vomit on the wind. “I agree.”
They turned left from the train station gates and returned back down the hill to their hotel overlooking the harbor. Dozens of huge steamships lay at anchor like manmade islands in the darkness, but the small fishing boats bobbed and splashed, their rigging clattering in the wind. Angry clouds gathered overhead to swallow up the stars and a light rain began to patter on the cobbled streets. Lorenzo offered her his hat, which she refused. He covered his head, once again hiding his face and becoming a figure of living shadow at her side. She pulled her feathered cloak tighter around her shoulders, but let the drops fall on her hair and face. The water was cold and clean. As the air filled with rain, the smell of the city faded and she inhaled her first breath of fresh air since arriving in this filthy place earlier in the day.
“Did you notice the ambassador’s face this afternoon?” she asked.
“You mean when you showed her the cubs?”
“Yes. She turned white as a sheet. I’ve never seen a person so terrified. She was stammering and shaking. Honestly, they’re only a pair of babies, and caged at that,” Qhora said. “I can’t believe Prince Valero wanted to send a giant armadillo. What sort of gift is that for a queen? No imagination, no respect. He probably wanted to send it just because it’s big, but what use is that? Can you imagine a queen with a giant armadillo lumbering around her palace? I suppose the children could ride it. But the cubs are proper gifts. Once they grow up, they will serve the royal family as bodyguards, hunters, and even gentle pets if that is what the queen wants. Thank goodness I was there to change the arrangements in time.”
Suddenly she sensed an absence. The huge cat was no longer by her side. Qhora slapped her thigh. “Atoq! Here!”
A low growl answered from behind her and she turned to see Atoq standing at the mouth of a narrow alleyway, his head low, his hackles bristling, his massive fangs bared at the darkness. The great cat shifted and hissed, his broad paws silently kneading up and down as he settled into a crouch, ready to strike. The patter of the rain rose to drum louder on the tin and slate roofs overhead.
Qhora drew her dagger from her belt, but Lorenzo swept past her to block the alleyway. He called out, “Who’s there?”
The rain applauded on the street behind them, drowning out all other sounds.
Qhora circled the saber-toothed cat to look into the dark hollow between the two buildings, but she saw nothing, only a black veil shimmering with silvery rain.
Lorenzo stepped back, his breath steaming faintly in the darkness. “Get back!” His slender espada flashed in his hand and he lunged into the alley, vanishing into the deeper shadows. Atoq roared and leapt after him.
Qhora stood in the street clutching her dagger and listening to the hidalgo shout and the giant cat roar. Something wooden cracked and the splinters clattered on the ground. And then all was silence.
Lorenzo emerged from the gloom, his sword sheathed and hidden within the folds of his long black coat. “It was nothing, my lady. Atoq must have smelled an animal or the garbage. Although, I…” He looked back.
“You what?”
“I’m sorry. I could have sworn there was someone in that alley,” Lorenzo said.
She saw the strange glint in his eyes as he stared down the street and over the harbor. “You mean your guardian angel said so?”
He exhaled slowly, his breath no longer visible in the darkness. “I thought I might have heard her whisper something, but with the rain and Atoq growling, I suppose I just heard what I wanted to hear. It’s been weeks since I’ve seen Ariel.” He straightened up and folded his hands behind his back, and suddenly he was her hidalgo again. “I’m sorry, my love. Let’s get you out of the rain.”
Atoq trotted out into the street where he stood and stretched, licking his teeth.
Ariel. What use are ghosts if they cannot even warn you of an enemy? Qhora shrugged and resumed walking. She’d only taken a few steps when three men stepped out from the next alleyway down the street. Through the rain and shadows, the three figures appeared only in shades of gray, charcoal men in colorless clothes. Lorenzo’s espada whisked through the air as he drew it and the young hidalgo stepped in front of her for the second time. Qhora yanked her dagger from her belt and glanced behind them. Two more men stepped out with long jagged clubs in their hands.
“Five of them, Enzo,” she said. “We’re surrounded.”
Atoq growled.
“Yes, we are.” Lorenzo called out to the men in Mazigh, “What do you want?”
One of them yelled back over the hiss of the rain, “Everything you have. On the ground. Now. Or we kill you.”
Qhora barely understood the man over the noise. The Mazigh language was not difficult, but after mastering four tongues of the Incan Empire and then Espani, she was finding it harder and harder to learn new ones. And she hadn’t even tried Hellan or Persian yet.
“We have nothing to give you,” Lorenzo answered. “No money. No jewelry.”
The men didn’t answer. Qhora moved to stand back to back with Lorenzo. Atoq paced forward and the two men on the high side of the street hesitated, glancing at each other. Without turning her head, Qhora said Lorenzo, “Can you fight three men at once?”
“Yes.” There was no pride in his voice, only certainty. In Espana, the young hidalgo was counted among the finest diestros of his generation, a fencing prodigy. She had seen him duel and acknowledged his skill with the tiny espada, but this was no duel and an espada could be snapped by a man with the courage to grab it. For a moment, Qhora wished that Xiuhcoatl had been the one to follow her to train station. Even after two years together, and despite everything else she felt for him, she still hesitated to trust Enzo’s skill over other men’s strength.
Lorenzo dashed from her side down the street but she didn’t dare look back. The two men above her raced forward, both angling toward Atoq with their clubs raised. The beast crouched, snarling, and then he leapt. The man on the right vanished under eight hundred pounds of wet fur and fangs. The man on the left stumbled around the cat and swung his broken board at Qhora’s head. With practiced grace, she whirled her soaking feathered cloak at his face to blind him with a sudden spray of water, then whirled back in the opposite direction, ducking under the club and burying her dagger in his throat as he stumbled past. He collapsed to the ground, choking and clawing at his neck. A moment later he lay still and Qhora yanked her dagger free, unable to tell the blood from the black puddles of filthy street water in the darkness. She looked up to see Atoq padding away from his kill with blood dripping from his fangs and she glanced at the remains of the other man, his shredded belly and intestines spilled across the cobblestones. Atoq sat down and began licking his drenched paw to wash his face.
Turning, she saw the dark figure of Lorenzo standing beside three bodies, his sword already sheathed and hidden in the folds of his greatcoat. The rain fell harder and colder, drumming on her bare head. Qhora slipped her dagger back into her belt and pulled her feathered cloak tight around her shoulders as she walked over to him to look at the men. Clad in patched trousers and stained shirts, armed only with scrap wood and rusted pig iron rods, they lay in a neat pile at the side of the road. Briefly, she wondered if Lorenzo had moved the bodies or somehow contrived to kill them in such a way that they all fell on top of each other. Both seemed equally likely as she knew how much Lorenzo valued cleanliness. She asked, “Are you hurt?”
“No. Are you?”
“No. Who are they?”
He paused before saying, “Desperados. Men who can’t find work, I suppose. It’s not uncommon here. We
