The Sacrifice Game

(39)

A couple of old greathousewomen were in the tunnel and freaked out and scuttled off. I stuck my head out. Finally the amputee limped for the door, and one after another the rest followed him. Maybe they figured it was okay now because the streaks of blood down his legs added realism. Hun Xoc prodded from the rear.

We went about twenty rope-lengths west and south and two rope-lengths uphill through the twisting walkway to another courtyard, a so-called “moon-blood latrine,” where the unclean water from the female compound emptied into the “excremental water” of the canals. There was a cistern in the center fed through an open half-log pipe from the mountain above. We all boosted each other up onto the roof terrace. The culvert led up to a branch of the great southern aqueduct. Hun Xoc climbed one rope-length up the intricate relief into the culvert. I followed him and the guards came after me and we crouch-ran uphill in single file, stepping on the sides of the channel, trying not to slip on the trickles of water. It was twilight but with the damn big moon it was just too bright. So much for under the cover of darkness. There were spatters of coded alarm cries behind us. We’d definitely been spotted. The aqueduct zigzagged up the slope and at the first bend I got a view down to the Ball district.

Usually fighting around here was more like a series of little duels than a battle, but this was different. There was still a knot of Harpy bloods in the center of the northern platform, and each one had a long blowgun. It was the same story on the steps of the council house, except the Harpies there were arrayed in a four-deep line, with the ones in front aiming and the ones in back loading, Frederick the Great style. They must have snuck in the blowguns broken down into two or three pieces, I thought. And then at the last minute they’d twisted them together. Meanwhile the Ocelots had taken control of the court floor as well as their back and some of the east zocalo, but there seemed to be as many dead and dying Ocelots as live ones. I heard a Harpy whistle that sounded suspiciously like a signal to load, and then the wet sound of hundreds of darts sliding into spit-wet breeches. A bunch of Ocelots charged up at them but the Harpies fired a single volley across the court into the wave of bloods. It sounded like a huge cough and hiss. I couldn’t see anything, and the Ocelots certainly couldn’t, just this invisible tidal wave of poison rolling at them at four hundred feet per second. Five out of six Ocelots pitched back and sank into the mass of emerald-speckled bodies. A second wave of Ocelots somehow sped up and rolled at them before the platform squad had quite gotten themselves together for a second volley What’s going on? Hun Xoc asked. I’d stopped running. I looked around and he pointed down to the zocalo. There were about twenty or twenty-five people definitely on our tail and Emerald Immanent was definitely the ringleader. They’d been slowed down by the crowd and were still at least four hundred beats away, but it was still disturbing, we’d gotten less misdirection out of the situation than I’d hoped. Some of them saw us looking at them and shouted to us to stop and come join the party.

Nothing, I signed to Hun Xoc. I got myself together and ran on uphill. Yeah, what the hell is going on? I wondered, but I knew the answer. 2 Jeweled Skull-my brain mate and adopted and spiritual father-had been drilling his Harpy bloods. He’d taught them to keep together in a tight body, seek cover, lay down fire, and most of all don’t try to take live prisoners, all the most basic stuff from a pre-radio-communications military perspective. But it wasn’t obvious in a wigged-out chivalry system. I mean, in Europe it had taken hundreds of years just to get the generals not to ride out in front of their troops with a flag labeled SHOOT ME.

I turned another zigzag. The Ocelots probably hadn’t even expected them to aim to kill, I thought. If anything they always expected an opposing force to drop back out of missile range and challenge individuals to come out and fight.

Fabulous. Maybe 2 Jeweled wasn’t in so much trouble as I’d thought. I certainly could of, should of, and really would of figured he’d come up with something. What would he think of, after all? Probably the exact same thing I would think of.

Would it be enough for him to win? I snuck another look back and down. The Harpies were throwing wounded bodies down into the irregular charging chunk of bloods. They’re acting cleverly for once, I thought. Maybe they do have a chance.

What did that mean? Something I wasn’t thinking about. No time now.

About six rope-lengths farther on-one vertical rope-length above the highest roof of the Ocelots’ greathouses-the aqueduct passed over the Ocelots’ mountain’s southern walkway, and we dropped down onto the stuccoed surface. It was pretty narrow, just a processional path that led down from the peak through stepped passes to the inner yellow gate to the Snufflers’ quarter and out to the mainland. There was no railing or anything on our left, just a one-rope-length drop down to the level of the lower terrace. The emerald wall of the Ocelots’ poison garden was on our right hand. It was only half a rope-length high but it was topped with a big nasty crucifixion-thorn hedge, the kind with the two-finger-width needles. Behind us, about two hundred paces back, the causeway intersected with a more major route-which meant two people could almost walk abreast on it-leading from the inner rectories of the mul complex up to the top of the mountain behind it. There was a bigger gang on our tail now, charging up the main route only about a hundred paces away from the intersection, frustratingly clear in the zinc light. They’d figured we were heading for the mainland and had just gone around the women’s house. I didn’t see Emerald Immanent’s standard but I was pretty sure it was them.

We can make it, Hun Xoc said. He gestured ahead and down to the canal. I could see a few emerald-sashed figures on the causeway-Ocelot partisans-but not anyone we couldn’t get through. I’d forgotten that Hun Xoc still thought I was going for the mainland. There seemed to be new Harpy blowgun squads out in boats in the canals. Beyond that there was fighting in the Snufflers’ quarter, but from this distance the battle looked purposeless, like a red ants’ raid on a black ants’ nest, a thousand higgledy-piggledy games of ritualized tag.

We have to break into groups, I said. I noticed that we’d lost Armadillo Shit somewhere. Whatever, don’t think about it. I picked out two of the Rattler bloods and ordered them to go hold the path against Emerald Immanent’s hunting group. Their captain repeated the order and they didn’t hesitate, they just charged down to certain death. I turned around south again because there was something going on. Two Ocelot guards had come up out of nowhere ahead of us on the path, and a couple of the Rattler bloods were fighting them off. I’d thought it would be deserted up here, wasn’t everybody supposed to be watching the ball game? The Rattler captain smashed one of them on the head with his mace but the guy just staggered a bit and kept coming and he had to hit him another few times to get him down. The other Rattlers had gotten the other gardener down to the ground and were working on skinning his face-they weren’t into that scalp thing around here, by the way, that was strictly for low-life nomads from the deserts north of Teotihuacan-but the captain told them to skip it and they straightened up. There were already another bunch of four or five Ocelots behind them, coming up toward us from the yellow gate. I wondered how they’d been alerted. I looked around. There were only five of us, one still bleeding and limping from his emasculation.

We can make it, Hun Xoc signed in the direction of the Yellow Gate, we can get through them.

We can’t make it, I signed back.?!?!? he signed.

I pulled his face in front of mine so that the Rattler bloods couldn’t see and gestured to the wall with my eyes. He looked into my eyes-which was like a really aggressive, inquisitorial thing to do-and I gave him a look like “It Must be Done!” and he accepted it.

I pulled the Rattler captain over and whispered into his ear. You’re going to take the last three of your bloods and my standard and get down to the Yellow Gate, I said.

He started to object. Koh’d probably told him he couldn’t leave me no matter what. Then he thought better of it and ran off at the head of his little group in that awkward way you run on unfamiliar ground at night. They won’t even make it to the gate, I thought. The amputee limped after them but Hun Xoc said, “Not you,” and pulled him back. He didn’t have much mileage left on him.

Just the two of us left, I thought. Better anyway. Hun Xoc boosted the amputee up onto the wall and made him lay his torso prone over the thorns. I could hear him biting through his lips to stifle his shriek. Behind us Emerald Immanent’s posse was only just around the curve of the causeway, less than a hundred paces off. Hun Xoc lifted me up onto the amputee’s hot, oily back. It shivered a little as it crunched down into the spines. I couldn’t resist taking a quick look back down at the court. It looked like Harpies had sent shock squads around through back alleys to come up behind the Ocelots’ formations and attack their flanks. What had happened to Koh?

Don’t think about it, I thought. Just take care of your end. I hopped onto the poor bastard’s seventh cervical vertebra, grabbed his pigtail with both hands, and vaulted over his head down onto the invisible foliage below. Hun Xoc climbed up him and slid down next to me. I got my head up out of the dewy sego-lily leaves and looked for the cistern.

Eyes. Hot orange-green eyes in a scary-clown face, a jaguar colored with blue powder. I looked into the eyes and breathed. It was a big jaguar, just watching us in that lazy-alert way.

I am not afraid, I thought, and started counting. At twelve the cat turned and disappeared between a pair of these twisty ancient trees all inlaid with arabesques of tourmaline and spondylus shells. It was a weird transition from the urban setting we’d been in. Behind me Hun Xoc was ordering the amputee to get off the wall. I guess he hadn’t even seen the jaguar. He pulled up the kid’s bloody face with both hands and pushed it upward. The amputee must have gotten the idea because he arched his back and pushed himself off the thorns with what must have been his last erg of free will. I listened to him clatter onto the causeway.

It’s got to be that way, I thought.

I pointed. I pushed up and hunt-ran around the trees, uphill of the cat.