The first Tlaxcaltec warriors to reach the opposing infantry line hit the enemy’s right flank, but only broke their spears and the obsidian teeth of their swords on the iron of the foreigners’ shields.
When Chimalpopoca finally reached their forward line, he growled with ferocity and brought his sword down hard enough to stagger one of the teotl, but immediately had to dodge the thrust of another demon’s sword. That was how it was all down the front. The foreigners kept rank and held tight their line against the attack, taking no chances pursuing any one target. Chimalpopoca’s men could only rush and retreat, harrying the invaders without inflicting any real damage, unable to break them, but taking heavy losses in the effort.
Chimalpopoca already smelled the scent that blood makes when it mingles with soil, feeding the earth. If he were to die today, it would be a good death. He leapt forward again, striking the head of one of the tallest teotl. The demon’s helmet took most of the blow, but his neck bent in a most satisfying way, and he stumbled backward, only to be replaced by another warrior clad in rings of iron. Chimalpopoca met the newcomer’s gaze before dodging away, and what he saw in those foreign eyes lit a fire in him.
Up close, the tales were true. These men, if men they were, had pale skin, their faces covered with yellow hair. But Chimalpopoca had seen fear in those eyes. A warrior’s fear of death. These teotl were mortal, after all, if not fully human.
Just then, one of the deer-beast riders charged ahead of the others in his company. The armored beast leapt and kicked, wounding and trampling as the rider’s sword slashed and hacked. Chimalpopoca fixed his rage upon them, these false gods, and tossed aside his shield. Then he plowed through his own people toward the rider, raising his macuahuitl above his head with both hands. He rushed them from the side, and when he was a rod away he leapt high into the air, flew toward them, and sliced downward into the neck of the deer-beast. The beast did not even find a scream before it crumpled into a heap. Chimalpopoca knew he had broken its neck, for he had felt its bones snap beneath his obsidian blade.
The rider tumbled to the ground, but sprang quickly to his feet, unsteady on one injured leg, swinging his sword wildly. Chimalpopoca wanted to engage him in combat, but before he could, three more teotl rushed forward from the line to defend their comrade, and together the four of them folded back in with their force.
“They show loyalty!” Chimalpopoca shouted. “They have that, at least!”
And they were four hundred somehow holding their line against ten thousand. Chimalpopoca surveyed the battlefield, and realized the number of Tlaxcaltec warriors actually seemed to be part of the enemy’s success. There were simply too many warriors to maneuver effectively on this plain. But the other went to the teotl’s strategy. They appeared less interested in captives than the Aztecs, seeking only to defend themselves, or kill or maim their attackers.
But Chimalpopoca was not fated to die in battle. He examined his macuahuitl and found it still had some bite left in it, even after slaying the deer-beast, which his comrades had already begun to butcher so they could carry it away.
He charged the enemy again, and the blow of his sword stunned the teotl and shattered the last of his macuahuitl’s teeth. Chimalpopoca did not retreat this time, but howled ahead into the breach to break the enemy line. He managed to shoulder his way between two of the iron shields, close enough to smell the vile odors coming off the unwashed demons, and raised his blunted macuahuitl for a second strike at their inner line.
But they enveloped him. He felt many hands seize upon him, and though he thrashed and kicked, they drove him to the ground and bound him. Then they dragged him from the battle deeper into their midst, where he was forced to lay there on the trampled earth, staring at the hides the foreigners used to cover their feet, listening to Tlaxcaltec men howl while he could do nothing. That was what caused him to weep into the grass. Not fear, but powerlessness.
For this was his fate. His death was approaching. But to which dark god would these teotl sacrifice him, and in what manner?
The battle continued to bloody the plain until Chimalpopoca heard the conchs signal retreat, which could only mean that a high tecuhtli had fallen. Within moments, the enemy had him on his feet, and then pulled back their force into the trees even as their deer-beasts and riders charged after the fleeing Tlaxcaltec host. The infantry then marched Chimalpopoca some hundred rods or so through the forest to their encampment, which they had established in a village whose residents had evidently fled. The teotl had naturally taken over the temple, which perhaps explained their victory, and showed Chimalpopoca the place of his death. Their god was with them, but which god did they serve?
One of the pale men took Chimalpopoca roughly by the arm, and though Chimalpopoca didn’t know him, Javier recognized Owen’s ancestor, the man he had seen in the Memory Corridor. His consciousness rushed to dominance. He opened his mouth, about to speak, but that caused an instant fracturing of the simulation, visual glitches, some of the trees overhead blurring into pixels. He remembered that Monroe had told them they couldn’t speak to each other as themselves. Owen shook his head, saying nothing, and Javier barricaded his thoughts to prevent them from slipping any further from the memory, slowly restoring his synchronization, but with a bit more of himself maintained at the surface. He wanted to remain aware of Owen, but wouldn’t risk desynchronization by talking to him.
The Owen teotl hauled Chimalpopoca through the village to one of the houses and threw him inside. He hit the ground hard, and the impact stopped his breath, followed by a few moments of gasping in the dust as the teotl walked away.
“Don’t fight them,” someone said from the shadows, another Tlaxcaltec warrior taken prisoner. “They don’t want to harm us. They want peace.”
“A very unusual kind of peace,” Chimalpopoca said, and rolled onto his back to get a look at the man speaking. He was young, and probably hadn’t even captured his first sacrificial victim yet. He knew nothing. He wasn’t even bound, but sat mildly on the ground with his wrists propped on his raised knees.
“We attacked them,” the boy said.
“You think they are not hostile?” Chimalpopoca asked.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” the boy said.
“It can only be one way for me,” Chimalpopoca said. “It is in the signs.”
Owen hadn’t recognized Javier at first, but he was pretty sure they both now knew who and where the other was, but they couldn’t be their real selves within the Animus. They had to play out this shared memory as ancestral enemies, which caused an emotional discomfort that was a bit too close to their present reality, and which Owen had to suppress to get back into Alfonso’s mind.
That mind was not a nice place to be. Alfonso had done some pretty heinous, nasty things back in Cuba, and to the Maya in Potonchán five months previously. Though Owen hadn’t experienced those memories directly, and didn’t want to think about them, an awareness of them had colored the battle Alfonso had just fought and won.
The victory still surprised Alfonso. The sight of those warriors massed on the plain had nearly undone him, but the captain had rallied him and the other men to victory with a cry of “Saint James and strike for Spain!”
That was how it was with Cortés.
Their leader had overcome treacherous governors and mutinies by murderous rivals, and though the expedition’s circumstances had become most dire, the men yet believed in Cortés. Even as he’d scuttled their ships at Veracruz, removing any possibility of retreat and stranding them in this feverish foreign land, Alfonso had saluted him in faith, and would do so to the gates of hell. Which was where they intended to march.
Tenochtitlan.
The seat of the Aztec emperor, and the location of his treasury. Alfonso’s blood surged at the image of gold in his mind, and the share of that wealth to which he was entitled.
But to reach that fabled city they first had to contend with these natives, the ones Cortés believed it necessary
to make into their allies. That was a strategy Alfonso did not and could not understand. He had seen their pagan rituals from afar, the butchery they committed before their idols. These bloodthirsty Indians were not to be trusted, and yet Alfonso did trust Cortés.
“You placed the new prisoner in the house?” another soldier asked from his post nearby.
“I did,” Alfonso said.
“Was he wounded?”
“Not badly.”
“Good. The captain will be pleased. Bring them some food.”
Alfonso nodded and grudgingly went to one of the cook fires. There he found some of the greasy meat of the hairless dogs the Indians in these parts fattened and ate, and brought that to the prisoners. The younger one, the previous day’s captive, accepted it gratefully, but the new one, the older one they had just taken, refused it. That would not last. Cortés would win him over to their side.
Alfonso took up his guard position outside the rough mud-brick house and waited. He was lucky enough to have escaped the skirmish uninjured, so he’d been appointed guard duty. Not that these Indians needed guarding. Well, at least not the first one. The second one they’d just captured, the one who’d killed Juan Sedeño’s mare, he needed to be watched. He was obviously some kind of cacique chief, and was neither indolent nor cowardly as so many of them were. Alfonso could almost admire him.
The day passed without any further incursions by the native warriors, the reprieve allowing for the burial of the dead. Cortés ordered these rites performed in secret, beneath the floors of the houses, so that no Indian would see that the teotl, as the Indians called them, were mortal.
Toward evening, the graceful Marina came to the prisoners with the priest, Gerónimo de Aguilar. She was the most beautiful Indian woman Alfonso had yet laid his eyes upon, a slave given to Cortés who had since risen to stand at the captain’s side. The priest was a shipwrecked Franciscan turned half-savage by his eight years living among the Maya. Between the two of them, they were able to translate the captain’s words into the tongue of this region.
Alfonso rose to his full height as the two figures approached, and blood rushed to his cheeks as the dark-skinned woman passed near him through the door, but that fire quickly cooled under the judgmental gaze of the priest, and with a downturned eye, Alfonso followed them inside.
They went to the new prisoner, and Aguilar knelt next to him. The priest spoke to Marina in her language, Mayan, and she then spoke to the prisoner in his Aztec tongue, but Alfonso couldn’t understand any of what they said, for none of it was in Spanish. He always felt disquieted witnessing this pattern of exchange, for he could never rid himself of the thought and fear that these peculiars were all conspiring.
After a few words had passed along the chain of tongues between them, Aguilar went to loosen the binds restraining the prisoner.
Alfonso stepped forward. “What are you doing?”
“Cortés ordered it done,” the priest said.
“But what if he—”
“Cortés ordered it,” Aguilar said again, and that settled it, though Alfonso kept his hand on his sword.
The cacique rubbed his wrists where the binding had bitten into his skin, and where he still had spots of the mare’s blood on him, which had dried and now cracked and peeled like scabs. The Indian said something to Marina, sounding angry and belligerent, and she said something to Aguilar, and then they reversed the order and continued in this way for several further exchanges. Marina produced some glass beads and offered them to the prisoner, a bribe presented as a gift.
He refused them in obvious disgust.
“What does he say?” Alfonso asked the priest.
“He will not cooperate.” Aguilar rose to his feet. “He would rather we sacrifice him to our god.”
“What?” Alfonso said, and beneath his horror, Owen felt fear for Javier. But if he acted in any way on that, the simulation would break. “I …” Alfonso said. “I don’t understand these savages.”
“If they don’t give blood to their gods,” Aguilar said, “they believe the sun will cease to rise. The world will end. The practice of sacrifice is not cruel to them, but a necessary act of renewal.”
“You sound like one of them,” Alfonso said, risking an affront.
But Aguilar didn’t take it that way. “I have come to understand them.”
“Then you must be a savage as well,” Alfonso said in a moment and a word from which Owen’s consciousness recoiled.
“But you can understand honor, surely,” Aguilar said. “He believes it is his fate to die a prisoner. He does not want to run from that. If he becomes our messenger, as Cortés would have it, he believes that will make him a coward.”
Through their exchange, Marina remained silent but attentive, as did the prisoners. Owen wished there was some way to talk to Javier within the simulation, but there didn’t seem to be, at least not within the model of Animus Monroe had modified. It was difficult to just turn over his mind and body to this conquistador, his own racist ancestor. It was difficult to admit that he had these memories, this man’s DNA, entangled with his own.
Marina said something to Aguilar, and the priest nodded as he replied. Then they both strode toward the door to the house.
“Where are you going?” Alfonso asked.
“To get the captain,” Aguilar said.
“But he isn’t bound,” Alfonso said, pointing at the cacique captive.
“Then I suggest you watch him,” Aguilar said, and then he and the Indian woman left.
Alfonso took a position before the door, his shadow falling inward along the floor, inflated and huge. The first prisoner, the docile one, shook his head at the cacique, and spoke to him with a harsh tone. Then he went to a corner of the room where he had his sleeping mat and laid himself down with his back to them. The cacique did not reply, but stared hard at Alfonso with a quiver in his rigid jaw that kept Alfonso’s sword hand at the ready.
A moment later, snoring emanated from the first prisoner, and Alfonso remarked again to himself on the laziness of these Indians, even as Owen wanted to shut him up. But there was no way to shut up a memory. He had to endure it, unable to talk to Javier about it as the time passed and the tension in the hut rose.
Eventually, voices approached outside. Owen wondered what the Spaniards were going to do to Javier if his ancestor refused to cooperate. If something bad was about to happen to him, Owen didn’t know if he’d be able to just sit back and watch it. But for now he did his best to hold fast behind the mind line that divided his consciousness from Alfonso’s. Javier appeared to do the same, maintaining their roles as guard and prisoner.
Cortés marched into the house, still wearing his plate armor, the sunlight at his back glancing off his shoulders in blinding flashes that made Alfonso squint. Marina and Aguilar followed the captain into the room.
Alfonso bowed his head. “Sir, beware. The prisoner isn’t bound.”
“I know,” he said. “I am not concerned.”
At the sound of the captain’s voice and the calmness of his demeanor, Alfonso found he was no longer concerned, either.
“Have you fed these men?” Cortés asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“I am pleased.” Cortés turned to Aguilar. “You assured him of our peaceful intent?”
Aguilar nodded. “I did.”
Owen wondered how that case could possibly be made, considering the battle they had just waged, but Alfonso had no such doubts.
“Do so again,” Cortés said. “In my presence.”
Aguilar spoke to Marina, a message she then translated for the prisoner. As she addressed the cacique, his demeanor appeared softened somewhat from before, his voice less emphatic in reply.
“The man wonders when he is to be sacrificed,” Aguilar said.
“Tell him we will spare him,” Cortés said. “And bestow gifts upon him.”
Again the pattern of translation followed, as did another offering of the glass beads the captain h
ad been using to entice and bribe the Indians. This time, the prisoner accepted them.
“He says he does not wish to hide from his fate,” Aguilar said. “He believes he is to die a prisoner of war. A sacrifice to our god.”
“Tell him I have different plans for him,” Cortés said. “I want him to carry a message to his king. In doing so, he can be instrumental in bringing about peace between our people. If he puts his faith in me, I will help free his country from the tyranny of Moctezuma and the Aztecs.”
Following the translation of this, the prisoner looked up at the captain with narrowed eyes. Alfonso searched the man’s expression, watching for that moment when the Indian would become a believer, for Cortés made a believer out of everyone.
A silent interval passed, the captain looking down upon the Indian from the throne of his confidence and power. He stood there resplendent in his armor, gripping the peculiar dagger he always wore at his side, a gift from Charles V, which had come down from Alfonso V, the king of Aragon, given to him by Pope Callixtus III.
Then the moment happened, the prisoner’s eyes widened, and he nodded. He spoke to Marina in what Alfonso thought to be a reverent tone, which she translated for Aguilar, and which Aguilar translated for Cortés.
“He will be your messenger,” the priest said.
“I am pleased,” Cortés said, releasing his grip on the dagger.
What just happened? Monroe’s voice shouted into the moment, jarring Owen forward, ahead of Alfonso’s memory. What is that? Monroe asked.
Owen wasn’t sure what he was asking about, but before he could ask or answer Monroe spoke into his ear again.
We have to abort, right now. This might be a little rough. Hang on.
Last Descendants Page 4