‘You were asking for Mother of Light,’ Hunter said. ‘We heard she was here.’
‘We take a particular interest in that lady,’ his colleague explained, ‘not to mention anyone we find talking to her.’
‘Why?’
The two men looked at each other.
‘He asks too many questions, doesn’t he?’ Rattlesnake said.
His colleague agreed. ‘It’s an unhealthy habit.’
They both stepped forward at once, one on either side of me, and without breaking stride each seized one of my arms, almost wrenching them from their sockets. I was swept up and dragged along between the two men, running frantically backwards with my heels painfully scuffing the floor.
‘Where are you taking me? Put me down! I can walk — I won’t try to run away. Just let me on my feet — can’t you hear me?’
‘Yes, more’s the pity. Shut up.’
I could not see where we were going. It was as much as I could do to stay on my feet without trying to turn my head as well, and besides, I thought, if I did know what was ahead, there would be nothing I could do about it. I fell silent and gritted my teeth against the pain in my shoulders, which felt as if they were being hit with staves at every step.
‘Get in here.’
The command was redundant, since Rattlesnake and Hunter promptly threw me bodily into the room. I stumbled over backwards, landing awkwardly and painfully on my shoulder blades.
‘We’ve got to go and get the others now,’ Rattlesnake said. ‘What do we do with this one in the meantime?’
I scrambled to my feet, quickly noting that I was in a large, dark space. Even during the day the only illumination was from a torch in the passageway outside, and so I had no clue to my surroundings except the echo of the warrior’s voice, the rough feel of a bare earth floor under my back, and a blend of nasty smells. My nose detected hints of dried blood and the air around a latrine on a hot day. I had no way of knowing what this part of the palace was used for, but it seemed unlikely to be anything pleasant.
‘Others?’ I asked fearfully. ‘What others?’
Hunter answered his chief’s question and ignored mine. ‘Why don’t we just do this?’
He hit me with his balled fist, just below the ribcage, and the breath exploded out of me as I fell. I rolled helplessly across the floor, coming to rest on my knees.
‘That was for the bump on my scalp,’ he said mildly. ‘Just so we’re quits. No hard feelings. This, on the other hand…’
I never found out what the second blow was for, because he was still speaking when his foot slammed into the side of my head, sending me into oblivion by way of a blinding pain and a shower of stars.
When I woke up, the space around me was full of people, and they all appeared to be shouting and dancing. At least, it seemed that way to me, because their voices resounded painfully in my head and their footfalls jarred my battered body like kicks. Something large made a scraping noise as it was dragged across the floor. I felt hands seize me and pull me roughly aside. My eyes opened, but the bodies milling around me were too confusing and I quickly shut them again. I tried to go back to sleep, but then somebody was shaking my shoulder and slapping my face.
‘Come on, wake up! We’re all ready for you now!’
The shaking became harder, jerking my head sharply back and forth until the pain made me groan aloud. I forced my eyes to open, blinking away the moisture in them until I could just about see what was in front of me.
There was more light now: someone was holding a torch aloft. Its flame flared painfully in the corner on my vision, and I turned deliberately away from it to look instead into the long, flickering shadows it made.
Most of them were cast by things all too familiar from my recent experience: the bars of a wooden cage, a small one, too small for a person to stand or lie full length in. It had been this that I had heard dragged across the floor. Before that, I presumed it had been carried into the room, perhaps on poles like a litter, although its occupant could hardly be said to have been travelling in style. From where I lay, he or she was little more than a shadow among shadows, a huddled shape squatting miserably in a space barely large enough to contain it.
Then she looked down at me, and something in the steady glint of her unblinking eyes told me who she was.
‘Lily?’ I croaked. I rolled over and tried to sit up. A pulse of agony hit my stomach. I doubled over and threw up, drenching my feet and those of a man standing next to me in warm vomit.
He leaped smartly out of the way. ‘Filthy bastard!’ he yelled, kicking me on the arm. I winced but said nothing. I could only look at the cage.
‘Yaotl?’ She was gripping the bars. ‘What happened? What have you done?’
I blinked and shook my head. ‘Done? Nothing… Why have they brought you here?’
‘They said they were moving me. After you ran off, they couldn’t keep me in the hall with the other prisoners. It wasn’t safe.’
‘But the cage!’
She laughed mirthlessly. ‘Oh, that! Well, it’s not luxurious. But let’s face it — I won’t be in here long!’
I groaned. ‘I’m sorry, Lily. I was trying…’
‘Don’t say anything!’ she hissed, just in time. I realized Rattlesnake was standing next to me.
‘Trying to do what, Yaotl?’ he asked.
I twisted my neck to look up at him, although his face was between me and the torch and revealed nothing. ‘You know,’ I told him. ‘I was looking for Mother of Light.’
‘Ah, yes. We heard. Did you find her?’
‘No.’
‘What did you want her for?’
‘I’m sure Lily told you.’
‘What if she did? I’m asking
