The torchlight illuminated the small maize plants, poking out of the ground: it was the end of the dry season, and the maize had barely been replanted. In the night, the field seemed eerily desolate: every insect song echoed as if in the Great Temple, and every maize sapling rustle made me startle, and wonder if the beast wasn't going to leap at us.
The heartbeat grew faster still as we approached the hut at the end of the Floating Garden.
"In there?" Teomitl asked. "Can't we draw it out?"
I wished we could. "It's too canny for that. We'd just be wasting our time."
"I see," Teomitl said. "What an adventure." He didn't sound keen. I didn't feel so enthusiastic either. Inside the hut, we would have neither starlight nor moonlight, and fighting by torchlight was messy and ineffective. I looked up at the sky. The moon would rise soon, but we would be inside while it climbed into the sky. I didn't like that, but there wasn't much of a choice.
The heart went wild as I crossed the threshold. My hand dropped to the largest of my obsidian knives, and drew it from its sheath.
Nothing. No beast, leaping from the darkness to swipe at my chest. I released my hold on the knife; the hollow feeling in my stomach receded.
Teomitl stood on the threshold, his torch briefly illuminating the contents of the hut: walls of wattle-and-daub, embers dying on the hearth. And three bodies, face down on the ground, the sickening smell of rot and spilled entrails underlying that of churned mud.
The beat of the jade heart was frantic now, as if it didn't know where to start pointing.
I knelt by one of the bodies, lifted it to the wavering light: a man, his chest slashed open, and the heart missing. Of course. The beast of shadows had feasted on its preferred meal.
The other corpses were much the same, save that one of them was a woman. She could have been Eleuia. But I soon disabused myself: this woman was older than thirty-five, and wearing a rough cactus-fibre blouse and skirts, nothing like the clothes a priestess of high rank would have chosen.
"Acatl-tzin," Teomitl said, sharply. "There's something outside."
The heart was still madly beating, but it was useless at such close quarters. The beast could be anywhere. I rose from my crouch, drawing one of my three obsidian knives from its sheath.
"Stay where you are," I said.
A shadow passed across the threshold, knocking Teomitl offbalance. The torch felclass="underline" a brief, fiery arc before it was utterly extinguished. And in the interval before I gained my night vision, something huge bore me to the ground. Claws scrabbled at the clasp of my cloak – moving downwards, aiming for my heart.
NINE
Shadows and Summoners
I tried to roll aside, but the beast was too heavy. It breathed into my face the nauseous smell of rotting bodies, of pus and bleeding wounds. I wanted to retch. But I couldn't. I was pinned to the ground, my lungs all but crushed by the weight on my chest.
I'd dropped the jade heart, but my hand was still clenched around the obsidian knife. I tried to raise it, but the beast was blocking me. Its claws had shredded my cloak and were now digging into my chest, where the jade pendant was obviously giving it some trouble.
Good.
I heaved, felt the beast slide a fraction of a measure, enough for me to wedge the knife upwards and sink it into flesh.
The beast roared, but remained where it was, weighing down on my chest.
The Duality curse me. The jade amulet would slow it down, but at some point it would be entirely blackened – and thus useless.
I heaved again, to little avail.
Footsteps sounded in the hut. "Acatl-tzin!"
The beast roared, and turned away from me. I heaved again, sending it to the ground. As quickly as I could, I rolled upright.
My night vision was a little better, but not clear enough. Presumably, the two silhouettes hacking at each other in the hut were Teomitl, armed with his sword, and the beast, hissing like a frustrated ocelot. Teomitl's breath came in quick, heavy gasps, and he circled the thing in an awkward way: a wound, taken as he'd been struck down by the beast, must have hampered him.
Obviously, the beast had the upper hand. It didn't have the problem of inadequate night vision, and Teomitl's reflexes were no match for its rapid strikes.
But we had one advantage over it: because it was made of the deepest shadows of Mictlan, it hated light. Any kind of light. And outside the hut would be starlight, and the rising moon, steadily climbing into the sky. And a dense network of maize seedlings, which would betray the slightest movement.
I unsheathed both my remaining obsidian knives, feeling Mictlantecuhtli's power pulse deep within, and made my way to the door as fast as I could.
I closed my eyes, briefly, extending my priest-senses – and felt the beast, a black patch of raw anger and hatred, mixed with the deeper darkness of Mictlan. Not stopping to dwell on the consequences of failure, I took aim, and threw one knife at the combatants.
A howl informed me I'd hit the right target; I threw myself to the ground, and not a moment too soon. The beast leapt right over me, and landed in the maize with a dry, rustling sound.
The starlight limned its shape: a body half as large again as a jaguar's, a narrow snout, glittering fangs; and yellow, malevolent eyes that seemed to see right into my soul. That had to be what a deer felt, in the moment before the hunter closed on it.
No.
I had to–
I threw myself aside again, and the leap which had been meant for my chest caught my left arm instead. Claws sank deep into my skin. I stifled a scream as the searing pain spread through the bones of my upper arm. My hand opened, out of its own volition, and the obsidian knife, the only one I had left, fell to the ground.
The beast withdrew its claws. Its muscles bunched up, to snatch me and bring me closer to it. I did the only possible thing: I let myself fall to the ground. The beast's claws went wide. Frustrated, it shook its head, growling in a decidedly unpleasant manner.
I flicked my eyes upwards, glancing at the sky: the moon was steadily rising higher and higher, but it would be a while before its light fell on the Floating Garden.
Huitzilpochtli strike me down.
At the threshold of the hut, a shaking Teomitl had hauled himself upwards. He was attempting to raise his sword, but I didn't think he'd arrive in time.
There was no point in discreetly retrieving my obsidian knife. I simply dived for it, as the beast braced itself for another jump, straight in the direction I was going in.
The shock of its weight sent me sprawling to the ground, fighting not to scream as my left arm became a mass of fiery pain. Its claws scrabbled at my jade pendant and the thread holding it around my neck parted. The pendant fell to the ground with a clink. The beast roared in triumph and reared, both paws held high above my chest – with all their claws unsheathed.
"Acatl-tzin!" Teomitl bellowed.
The world turned to thick honey; everything seemed to happen more slowly than needed: the claws descending to slash open my chest; Teomitl's unsteady footsteps, rushing towards me, but too late, it was already too late; the glimmer of the obsidian knife, lying in the mud inches from my left hand.