11
I awoke with a start. My eyes opened on nothing, and when I blinked, it did nothing to dispel the darkness around me. I felt a spasm of fear, which jerked me fully awake.
‘I can’t see!’ I gasped.
From very close by came a throaty whisper: Handy’s voice. ‘That’s because the torch has gone out, you silly bugger!’
I looked wildly about me, still disorientated. ‘How long was I asleep?’
‘I don’t know,’ the commoner muttered. ‘I nodded off too. We all did. Now keep your bloody voice down!’
I gazed in the direction from which he was speaking. After a moment I realised I could just make out his bulky shape. There was a fine mist in the air, glowing feebly with reflected firelight from the braziers burning outside the city’s many temples. I could see the man next to me but little else.
I lowered my voice obediently. ‘Why are you whispering?’
The answer came from Spotted Eagle, who was somewhere in the gloom beyond his father. ‘I heard it again. I think it’s closer now, by the foot of the pyramid.’
‘Shit!’ Flower Gatherer yelped. ‘That’s only a few paces away.’
‘What is?’ I demanded. ‘What did you hear?’
‘It can’t see us properly,’ Handy’s son suggested. ‘It’s trying to figure out where we all are before it makes its move.’
‘What is?’ I demanded again. ‘Will someone answer my questions? Have I lost my voice or something? Hey…’
‘We ought to split up,’ Handy said abruptly.
The suggestion came a moment too late.
Suddenly the air around us was split by a horrible, bubbling scream: a sound of pain or rage that could scarcely have come from a human throat. Then came footsteps, the smack of leather on stone, the sound of sandaled feet running. Something appeared, shockingly close: a looming shape bearing down on us out of the gloom. I caught the briefest glimpse of its towering figure before panic overcame me and I was on my feet and running too.
I took two steps and blundered into something. Flower Gatherer shouted curses in my ear and shoved me aside. Then he was gone, and I was racing into empty darkness, not knowing where I was going, not caring, only wanting to put the monster far behind me and leave it there.
Fear kept me going until my legs felt as heavy as gold and every breath was like having a spike driven through my chest. Eventually I staggered to a halt, doubled over with pain and nausea, my calves twitching painfully.
After gasping for air for a few moments I stumbled on, my pace reduced now to a shambling walk. Even now I dared not stop altogether.
I forced myself to think about my surroundings. Somehow, I had managed not to crash into a wall or fall into a canal, but I had no idea how far I had run or where I had ended up. I suspected I had not being going in a straight line and my sense of direction, which was normally reliable, had failed me entirely tonight.
‘Got to rest,’ I wheezed. My legs had reached the point where they seemed to be moving by themselves, even though every step was agony, because it would have been even more painful to halt; but I made them stop now, leaning panting against a wall and looking fearfully about me. I could see a little: the first hint of twilight was appearing over the mountains in the East, although the mist and shadows around me were all but impenetrable still. My ears and sense of smell were working, however, and as I drew breath and listened I caught a whiff of rot and marsh gas and heard a splash, as of some animal or bird slipping into the water. I had reached the edge of the city: the shore of the lake must be a few paces away.
I felt a vague sense of disquiet. The marshes and the waterlogged maze of chinampa fields that bordered the city were dangerous country for me now. They were where my enemy might be hiding.
A moment later I found a more pressing reason to be afraid. I was being followed.
I could not have said what had I noticed first; the sound of breathing perhaps, the scrape of a sandal sole on hard earth, or whatever sense it is that makes a rabbit bolt an instant before the hunter can seize it. All I knew was that fine hairs on the back of my neck were standing up and a sick, hollow feeling had taken over my guts. I froze, not daring even to turn my head.
I could not hear anything. But that could just mean that whoever or whatever was behind me had stopped at the same time as I had.
I looked about me quickly. I had no wish to glance over my shoulder; I told myself there would be nothing to see in the darkness and if there were, I was not sure I wanted to see it. I did not think I had the strength left to run. What I wanted was somewhere to hide.
There was just enough light to see that the path I was on was bounded by a canal. I thought of jumping into it but the splash and the ripples would give me away, and in the water I would be helpless. Opposite the canal was the blank wall of a house. It was too high to climb, so I darted around the corner instead.
My bare feet padded over the short distance in silence, but I betrayed myself by a hollow thump and a clatter as I crashed into something large and wooden with an impact that scraped skin from my knee.
Only terror held me back from cursing out loud until I recognised a rare stroke of good luck. I had run straight into an empty maize bin.
There was no time to think. I scrambled over the side, ignoring the pain as the top caught my wounded knee, and tumbled in. A cloud of dust filled
