I lay down nearby and we both rested for a luxurious while. When Ualíztli had regained breath enough to speak, but not yet strength enough to stand, he said:
"Would you tell me, Tenamáxtzin, whydid the white men let us leave? Surely not just because we took with us one of their black slaves. A slave of any color is as expendable as spittle."
"They believe that particular slave holds the secret to a fabulous treasure. They are foolish to think so—but I will explain all that another time. Right now, I am trying to think of some way to find the Cúachic Nochéztli and the rest of our army."
Ualíztli sat up and gave me a worried look. "You must be still unsettled of mind, from that blow to your head. If all our men were not slain by the thunder-sticks, they are bound to have scattered and fled far from this place by now."
"They were not and they did not. And I am not deranged. Please stop talking physician's talk, and let me think." I glanced upward; Tonatíu was already slipping down the sky. "We are again north of Compostela, so we cannot be too far from where we were ambushed. Would Nochéztli have kept the warriors assembled hereabouts? Or led them south of the town, as originally intended? Or even started them back to Aztlan? What wouldhe have done, not knowing what had become of me?"
The tícitl considerately refrained from comment.
"We cannot simply go wandering about in search of them," I went on. "Nochéztli must find us.I can think of nothing but to make a signal of some sort, and hope it attracts him hither."
The tícitl could not keep silent for long. "Best hope it does notattract the Spanish patrols that are certain to be looking for us very soon."
"It would be the last thing they would expect," I said. "That we would deliberately call attention to our hiding place. But if our own men areanywhere about, they must be near frenzied for some news of their leader. Anything out of the ordinary ought to draw at least a scout. A big fire should do it. Thanks be to the earth goddess Coatlícue, there are many pines among these trees, and the ground is thick with dry needles."
"Now call on the god Tlaloc to strike the needles alight with a fork of his lightning," Ualíztli said wryly. "I see no usable embers glowing anywhere here. I had combustible liquids in my physician's sack that could be easily ignited, but that sack was taken from me. It will take us all night to find and fashion and use a drill and block."
"No need for that, nor for Tlaloc," I said. "Tonatíu will help us before he sets." I felt around inside the quilted armor I still wore. "My weapons were taken, too, but the Spaniards evidently did not think this worth confiscating." I brought out the lente, the crystal given me so long ago by Alonso de Molina.
"Neither would I think it worth anything," said Ualíztli. "What earthly use is a little blob of quartz?"
I said only, "Watch," and got up and moved to where a stray sunbeam came down through the trees to the ground's litter of brown needles. Ualíztli's eyes widened when, after only a moment, a wisp of smoke rose from there, then a flicker of flame. A moment more, and I had to jump back away from what was becoming a very respectable blaze indeed.
"How did you do that?" the tícitl asked, marveling. "Where did you get such a sorcerous thing?"
"A gift from father to son," I said, smiling in reminiscence. "Blessed with the help of Tonatíu and of a father in Tonatíucan, I believe I can do just about anything. Except sing, I suppose."
"What?"
"The guard of my cell at the palace disparaged my singing voice."
Ualíztli again gave me the probing look of a physician. "Are you sure,my lord, that you are not still affected by that blow to your head?"
I laughed at him, and turned to admire my fire. As it spread among the ground needles, it was not very visible, but now it was igniting the resin-full green needles of the pines above, and so was sending up a plume of smoke that rapidly got higher, denser and darker.
"That should fetch somebody,"I said with satisfaction.
"I suggest that we move back among the bushes we came through," said the tícitl. "We can perhaps get an early warning glimpse of whocomes. And whoever it is will not find us just a pair of roasted cadavers."
We did that, and crouched out there, and watched the fire eat through the grove, sending up a smoke to rival that which always hangs above the great volcano Popocatépetl outside Tenochtítlan. Time passed, and the lowering sun turned the high smoke cloud a ruddy gold in color, an even more conspicuous signal against the sky's deepening blue. More time passed, before finally we heard a rustling in the bushes around us. We had not been talking, but when Ualíztli gave me a questioning look, I held a cautionary finger to my lips, then raised slowly up to see over the bushes' tops.
Well, they were not Spaniards, but I could almost have wished they were. The men surrounding our hiding place were armor-clad Aztéca, prominent among them the Arrow Knight Tapachíni—these were Yeyac's warriors. One of them, cursedly keen-eyed, saw me before I could crouch down again, and gave the owl-hoot cry. The circle of them closed in upon us, and Ualíztli and I resignedly stood erect. The warriors stopped at a distance from us, but ringed us completely about, so that we were the center and aim of all their leveled spears and javelins.
Yeyac himself now elbowed through the circle and came closer to us. He was not alone; G'nda Ké came with him; both were smirking triumphantly.
"So, cousin, we are face-to-face again," he said. "But this will be the last time. Coronado may have been reluctant to raise the alarm at your escape, but the good G'nda Ké was not. She ran immediately to tell me. Then I and my men had only to wait and watch. Now, cousin, let us escort you well away from here, before the Spaniards do come. I want privacy and ample leisure in which to do the slow slaying of you."
He motioned for the warriors to close in upon us. But before they could converge, a single one of them stepped forward from the circle, the only warrior bearing an arcabuz.
"I killed you once before, Yeyac," said Tiptoe, "when you menaced my Tenamáxtli. As you say, this will be the last time."
The other warriors on either side of her recoiled as the thunder-stick thundered. The lead ball took Yeyac in his left temple and for an instant, his head blurred in a spray of red blood and pink-gray brain substance. Then he toppled, and no back-alley tícitl would be able to revive him ever again.
Every other one of us stood frozen, stunned, for the space of several heartbeats. Obviously, in her bulky quilted armor, Pakápeti—even with something of a belly now—had been able, all this while, to pass as a man of the company, and to keep her arcabuz concealed somewhere until it was really needed.
Now she had just time enough to send me a brief, affectionate, sad smile. Then there was a bellow of outrage from all of Yeyac's men, and those nearest Tiptoe surged to get at her, and the first one who did gave a mighty overhand slash of his obsidian sword. It opened Tiptoe's armor, her skin, her body, from breastbone to groin. Before she fell, there spilled out of her a great gush of blood, all her organs and guts... and something else. The men about her reeled back away from her, staring aghast and uttering exclamations loud enough to be heard above the noise of all the other angry shouts—"tequáni!" and "tzipitl!" and "palanquí!"—meaning "monstrosity" and "deformity" and "putridity."