by Vic Connor
“We’ve got seven Alanos this time,” I say. “They’re still a hundred paces away; the dogs will need about seven seconds to reach us, if they attack—”
“¡Ataquen!” yells one of the Spaniards, right on cue.
The dogs sprint forward.
“Juanita, swarm Copper, that’s the Alpha!” I yell, indicating the huge Alano that spearpoints the pack, and draw my first gun.
The angry swarm of bees flies past us to intercept the dog leading the charge.
A stone follows the swarm from behind me and hits Blue right in the forehead. “Ayeeya!” Axolotl whoops as Blue collapses to the ground.
“Black and Red over there, those are the weakest!” I roar as the remaining dogs reach us, barking ferociously.
Miyu’s kiai echoes across the jungle…
Savage Tsuki:
Critical hit!
…Black jumps to attack her. She thrusts forward and impales the dog right through its open jaws.
Hendricks rains bullets on Bronze. The Dutchman once again looks like that Hindi goddess with all the arms as he draws a seemingly endless number of pistols.
Abe seems to have learned the dogs’ tricks from our previous engagement: Feet firmly planted, the pirate waits for Red to leap and try to snatch his right arm. When the dog is in mid-air, he slashes viciously with his cutlass, nearly cutting the dog in half. Sandy goes for the pirate’s left leg…
Point Blank
Crippling Shot:
Hit!
…but the poor dog’s upper thigh explodes as my bullet strikes true; Sandy falls to the ground, yapping.
My hat suddenly flies away, as if it has grown wings. The Spaniards have advanced to about fifty paces from us, and one of them, Alonzo, has a musket aimed at us.
“Forget the dogs!” I yell to Abe. “Charge him!”
“Fer king and country!” roars Abe, and, like a lumbering whale, he runs forward.
Copper is furiously trying to bite the bees away; Blue wobbles on his legs, stunned with the hit by the Axolotl’s stone. Both dogs are too distracted to notice the pirate stomping past them, with Hendricks following closely behind.
There’s a skull-splitting crack as the naginata’s shaft meets Brindle’s head, and the dog falls lifelessly onto the ground. Lowering her polearm like a jousting knight, Miyu, too, charges at the Spaniards, flying on feet of silk.
I can only watch as samurai, pirate, and Dutch gunslinger surround our foes, unleashing a storm of lead and steel. I’m too far away, and they’re all huddled together, so there’s nothing my pistols can do at this range.
But Blue seems to regain focus after being stunned by Axolotl’s rock.
“Stay out of this, doggy,” I whisper. “Stay out of this…”
Axolotl sprints past me, another large stone in his hands, and smashes the Alano squarely across the head. Blue loses his footing, falls flat, and stays where he fell.
And we are done. Abe, Miyu, and Hendricks stand victorious over the corpses of the Spaniards.
While I pick up my right crutch, I hear a vivid buzzing from behind as the swarm flies past. A few seconds later, I hear Juanita’s appreciative voice. “Finely done, my child.”
“Yeah, that was faster than I thought.” I swing toward our three companions. “We’re getting the hang of this, I guess—”
You defeated:
Slave Trackers
+1VPs
“—but we’ll still need to revise our tactics.”
Juanita catches up to me. “Your strategy has worked remarkably well, I would say.”
“Have you seen my hat?”
She stops to look around. “There,” she points. “Should I—”
“I’ll fetch it myself later, never mind,” I say, and continue moving. “But what I want to say is: I lost it when a Spaniard shot at us from fifty paces away. And missed, thankfully. But had the three of them been carrying muskets, or had that guy had a better aim, we’d have been in trouble.”
There is only one corpse, I find out when we reach our comrades. Alonzo is dead, pierced by Hendricks’ rapier and Miyu’s naginata. The other two, Gonzalez and Estevez, have dropped to their knees and now await their fate.
“Ya wants us’n to be leavin’ some o’ thems dogs alive, doesn’t ya lad?”
Estevez and Gonzales glance up at me, their eyes wide with terror.
“You call de schoten,” Hendriks tells me, one pistol aimed at each Spaniard’s skull. “What now?”
Juanita translates for me, since our captives only speak Spanish. They provide a similar story as the previous group of slave trackers: They work for Barboza; they were after six escaped slaves, Axolotl among them. The trackers seem a lot more concerned about Barboza’s reaction to them losing his dogs than about losing his slaves.
Copper seems okay, all things considered. His snout is swollen by bee stings, but he should live. Blue is regaining consciousness after Axolot’s second blow. Brindle is still knocked out after Miyu rattled his skull with her naginata’s shaft.
Black, Red, and Bronze are dead from our bullets and blades.
Sandy wails on the ground, bleeding from the wound my crippling shot has inflicted. I feel a déjà vu, since it’s the same damage I had caused to Sable in our earlier fight, and the poor dog yowls the exact same way. If there ever was a carbon copy experience, this would be it.
Perhaps there’s a limit to the variety of scenarios and responses the game can offer?
Sandy wails again. Juanita, standing silently by my side, offers me her staff…
…black smoky tendrils rise from the wound, like tiny tentacles searching from my palm…
…pain, pain, PAIN coursing through my arm…
…my spine…
…my leg…
…Sandy stands up, wagging her tail, and licks my thigh where it hurts, as if she were now trying to heal me.
I pat her head. “Good girl.” I wave toward the two remaining Spaniards. “Go with them. Go.”
Sandy joins Blue and Copper, and sits close to Estevez and Gonzalez. The Spaniards look at me, clearly confused.
“Any use for their musket?” I ask Hendricks.
“Nee. Big and slow… It needs both handen for schootening. Handy foor parts, though, in de workshop.”
“Indeed,” I agree. “For parts, or maybe to sell. Can you carry it for me, Abe me mate?”
“Ol’ Abe be no damn mule, me lad,” the pirate grumbles.
I grin. “But Ol’ Abe be t’ best mate in t’ whole wide world, ain’t him?”
He growls in protest but slings the musket across his back, while Axolotl picks up the crude Spanish clubs, wielding one in each hand.
Abe spits in the general direction of our captives. “How ‘bout thems two?”
“You will tie them up, while Juanita explains to them that if they value their lives as much as Señor Barboza values his dogs…” I wait for Juanita to translate that part. “…then they will avoid tracking slaves for the next couple of days. Or, even better, the next couple of years.”
When the witch finishes translating, they mumble, “Si, señor. Gracias, señor!”
The sun is about to touch the Western horizon when Abe finishes tying his knots.
“Come on, gang,” I urge. “Hurry up.”
We travel the remaining handful of miles without further incident. Crutches … feet … crutches … feet… And now that I know how time should work-in game, at least from what I understood from Svetlana, I notice it. If I allow my mind to go blank and let my body take care of the repetitive motions on autopilot, it’s like I zone out and time just flies. Like meditation, I guess, or entering a trance.
In what seems just a handful of minutes, the jungle path reaches fields upon fields of plowed land, rows upon rows of tidy furrows from which leafy seedlings and young stalks—maize, I guess?—sprout up toward the sun.
Or, the stars, in this case, since it’s already nighttime.
We can see Tepetlacotli’s
massive wall from at least half a mile across the sown fields. Like stern guardians, its many watchtowers oversee the seedlings while illuminating the darkness with flickering torches. Behind the walls and inside the city proper, the tops of the pyramids also stand crowned with flames and fires burning in what appear to be huge braziers.
Axolotl whispers a few sentences to Juanita.
“He says the main city gates will be closed at this time.” The witch indicates a large arc set in the wall about a mile from where we are. “And will not open until sunrise.”
A hiss cuts the air from behind the Noh mask. “Kuso,” Miyu spits out, obviously cursing.
“Is that the only entrance?”
“It is,” Juanita confirms, “for those whose skin is not brown. But the other gates will either be closed, or heavily guarded.” Axolotl whispers some more. “We will have to spend the night out here, he says.”
I turn to Abe. “Your nose, me mate?”
He inhales deeply. “Ol’ Abe can’t be too happy sleepin’ in t’ dirt again,” he grumbles, “but me nose says it be fine.”
I look at Hendricks. “Barboza’s hoounds won’t track uss at night,” he assures me. “And me, Ik must go dere foor delivering.”
“It would be bold for Barboza’s men to wander around Aztec lands, armed and uninvited,” Juanita agrees. “So, what shall we do, young Jake?”
Let’s go a-knocking on Tepetlacotli’s main door.
Let’s try to find some other entrance.
How about Axolotl and you try some of the other entrances while we wait here?
Let’s set camp right here.
Let’s set camp closer to the gate.
“Actually,” I say, “just give me a second.” Under my breath, I add, “I don’t like the look of this.”
Tepetlacotli looked amazing from the bird’s-eye view: With so many torches, braziers and bonfires, it didn’t differ much from a modern city’s skyline lit up at night.
It was also huge.
“That has to be, what…” I said, counting the pyramids, “about a hundred, at least? And I’m just looking at their ziggurats, not every little building.”
Svetlana nodded, doing her own tally. “Give or take, yeah.”
“Let’s see if we can cheat a little,” I suggested. I tried to scroll the bird’s-eye view, but it remained centered on our party. Still, when I zoomed out all the way, I could sort of peek over the tall wall and glance on the other side of the main gate. “Looks like there’s a large square welcoming Tepetlacotli’s visitors,” I pointed out. “As good a place to start looking for Uitzli as any other, I suppose.”
“It’s a huge town, boss…”
“Fingers crossed, things will sort themselves out, as usual,” I said optimistically. “As in, third or fourth person we talk to will hint to her whereabouts, if she’s in this city. And Hendricks has to go through that gate to find whoever he needs to deliver Van der Kaart’s package. The mapmaker didn’t seem to expect us to sneak into town unannounced, did she?”
Sveta smiled. “If it’s all set, should I get the coffee ready?”
“No time to smell the roses,” I replied, “or enjoy the journey, I’m afraid. I should return to my ragtag bunch of errand-runners.”
“You’re getting all work no play, boss…”
“Young Jake?”
“Let’s set camp closer to the gate,” I decide. “Seems safer than right here, and I want us to be among Tepetlacotli’s first visitors tomorrow.”
We wade across plowed fields, careful not to step on stalks or seedlings—Axolotl keeps whispering to Juanita that it would anger the Maize God and, perhaps even worse, would mightily piss off the Aztecs themselves—until we are a stone’s throw away from the main gate, which is closed.
“Ya feels ‘em, lad?” Abe grunts. “Thems eyes on us’n?”
I can feel them; it’s physical. “I’ll be happy as long as we ain’t feeling the tips of their arrows, Abe me old mate,” I tell him, trying to sound nonchalant.
“We would already,” Juanita assures me, “if they wanted to.”
From inside the city comes the smell of meat being roasted, and, from time to time, laughter and loud banter. Out here, it’s all pleasantly quiet except for a warm, gentle breeze murmuring across the seedlings’ leaves.
“All right, crew,” I order, “we camp here.”
We risk our teeth battling Abe’s horrible biscuits. Hendricks shares a small wineskin around—his wine tastes like vinegar, but helps chew the pirate’s stale crackers. We chat about our last fight, but it provides no further skill upgrades. Maybe such fights have become too easy.
Abe takes the first watch and I gladly stretch my tired body on the flat ground, close my eyes…
By the time I wake up, the early dawn has tinted the sky pink and red. Axolotl is nowhere to be found.
“Ol’ Abe’s fault, me lad,” admits the pirate, none too proud. “Too busy scannin’ t’ jungle yonder, with me back to t’ wall. When wakin’ the witch up, only then we finds t’ sneaky pagan gone.”
“Perhaps he was making sure he would gain entrance into the city,” Juanita suggests hopefully. “Maybe he feared we would keep him with us.”
I shrug. “Nothing we can do about it.”
I get on my crutches; not without effort, but a lot swifter and with more elegance than three days ago. I consider wearing my wide-brim hat with its proud ostrich plume. “Maybe too much of a European touch?” I ask Juanita. “Don’t want to flame old grudges between Aztecs and Spaniards…”
“What grudges, my child?” she asks. “The ill-planned Spanish attack on Tenochtitlán happened many lifetimes ago. The sunrise men learned a harsh lesson that day, and Aztecs and Spaniards have been trading and doing business for a long time. Your hat will not get you any ill will in this city. Although your metallic contraptions—” she taps a flintlock pistol attached to my crutch “—that may be a different matter.”
We approach the arc housing Tepetlacotli’s main gate before the sunrays touch the top of the wall. The city doors appear designed both to defend and to impress: Twenty paces wide and seven paces tall, thick as an oak tree and carved with what I think are images representing the twenty days of the Aztec calendar, along with the god or goddess that rules each day. A plaza lies on the other side, still deserted at this early time. Small shops and buildings made of stone surround it.
Two groups of five grim-faced warriors stand guard at each side of the entrance gate. The five on the left wear leopard-like furs with disc-shaped talismans hanging from their necks, and black-and-yellow helmets resembling a feline head. The five warriors on the right wear light breastplates and carry brightly colored shields, decorated with white, green, and red feathers; their faces hide behind eagle-looking masks with open beaks. Even more feathers crown their heads.
They all wield the obsidian-studded macuahuitl clubs that Aztecs have always favored, and they all appear tough as hell…
Appraising Gaze
…and, yeah, each of them flashes an alarming shade of red.
“We’re definitely not picking a fight with this bunch,” I announce. “Are we clear?”
“Clear as day, me lad,” Abe agrees. “Thems wooden swords ‘em be wieldin’ may look like toys, but sure as Devil reigns beneath us’n, toys ‘em be not.”
“Those on the left are Jaguars, right?” I ask Juanita.
“Yes, my child.”
“If memory serves me… Isn’t the jaguar also a favorite form of the Lord of Here and Now?”
She arches her eyebrows, as if pleasantly surprised. “I do not remember teaching you that, young Jake.”
“Perhaps you didn’t teach me all I know.” I smile.
She smiles back. “Perhaps. But your words are true. Those guarding the left side of the gate dress as Tepeyollotl, and would consider the Smoking Mirror the One by whom they live. As I do.”
While our witch speaks, Hendricks has approached the guards on the right, th
ose wearing eagle masks. The Dutchman extracts a green feather from one of his pockets. The guard with the largest headdress gives the feather a cursory glance and nods in approval.
“Come, come,” the Dutchman calls to us.
I approach, feeling ten pair of attentive eyes inspecting my crutches with a mixture of pity and contempt. “Are we free to go in?” I ask.
He waves the green feather. “Van der Kaart would niet send uss hier without safe passage, ja?”
Like their colleagues back at Duurstad’s entrance, the guards seem mostly curious about Miyu. But we don’t pose a threat worthy of more effort than a brief nod directing us inside.
“Let’s go, gang,” I say. “Let’s see how this city looks from the inside.”
22
The Cost of Doing Nothing
We come out to a plaza that, as far as I can tell, is an exact square: About eighty paces to each side with the four corners at perfect right angles, the ground flattened by the steps of countless feet, and the four walls surrounding us built of smooth, uneven stones.
To the east, I can see the tall city walls and the main gate through which we entered. To the west stands the second defensive wall, as tall as the first but with a much smaller gate—just wide enough for two mounted men to ride through, trotting side by side.
Rows of buildings wall off the north and south sides, constructed in strikingly different styles. Those in the north have a European flair, while the buildings on the opposite side resemble what I’ve seen on my visits to the Aztec and Mayan ruins in Mexico.
Another gate down south leads farther into the city; I can’t see any exit from the plaza to the north, although perhaps there is a passage through one of the European-looking houses.
Hendricks gestures at the southwest corner. “There,” he states. “Delivery point.”
We wait for him outside a sort of a stationery shop: Reams of grayish-white paper and what look like stacks of crude, handmade notebooks, and stone jars filled with inks or tinctures. The owner is an affable Aztec dressed in European fashion from the waist up—shirt, vest and coat, even in this heat—with an apron made of some coarse fiber covering him from his waist down to his knees.