Age of Aztec a-4

by James Lovegrove

“And I’m responsible for ensuring they all get well out of harm’s way. Now, which is worse, would you say? That I fail to do so and commit a dereliction of duty, or that I return to the Great Speaker and tell him that a certain Captain Ueman hindered me from performing my appointed task? Which do you think would make his Imperial Holiness angrier, and with whom?”

  Ueman flinched. His cheeks paled a little. “It may not be safe out there. The attack could come at any minute. I’m only concerned about your welfare, Your Holiness.”

  “I’ll take the risk. I can do no less, when the Great Speaker commands.”

  Ueman was, against his better judgement, persuaded. He turned to his men and gave the order for the gate to be opened. One of the Serpent Warriors pressed a lever that triggered the release mechanism. Arm-thick bolts withdrew, a motor churned, a drive chain clanked and, with monumental slowness, the gate began to roll aside.

  Stuart glimpsed lake. Seconds from now, he and Vaughn would be haring down to the harbour to bag a place aboard one of the handful of boats that had yet to unmoor and slip away from the quayside.

  Then one of the Serpents who was squinting at Vaughn said, “Sir? This may sound strange but I’m pretty sure this acolyte’s a girl.”

  There was no time to hesitate. Stuart grabbed Ueman and kicked his legs out from under him. As the Serpent captain collapsed, Stuart took possession of his macuahitl, yanking it from its scabbard. He slashed the shoulder strap of Ueman’s lightning gun and deprived him of that as well.

  Vaughn, for her part, seized hold of the arm of the Serpent who had rumbled her. She twisted it round back against itself almost to dislocation point, so that the man was forced to double over. Then she kneed him three times in the face, relieved him of his l-gun, and let him fall.

  The other Serpents were too startled to respond instantly. Members of the hieratic caste just weren’t prone to using violence, and especially not with such brisk, brutal efficiency. By the time they had their l-guns out, Stuart and Vaughn had the drop on them. Their guns were charged up and ready; the Serpents’ weren’t even primed.

  “Choice,” Stuart told them. “Try to stop us leaving, and die. Let us go, and live.”

  To emphasise the point, he pressed the barrel of his l-gun to the nape of Captain Ueman’s neck, between his helmet and his tunic collar. Vaughn, meanwhile, covered the other Serpents with her gun.

  “Rush them, men,” Ueman said. “Your lives don’t matter and neither does mine. These are the fugitives we were told to look out for. You outnumber them. They can kill two of you at most before you reach them. One of you, if they shoot me first.”

  There was logic in this, to a Serpent Warrior. Ueman’s men primed their guns and trained them on Stuart and Vaughn. Vaughn swung her gun this way and that. “Who wants it? None of you, not really. So back the fuck off.” But the Serpents weren’t deterred. They began to move in, and Stuart began to beat a retreat towards the still opening gate. Vaughn went with him, continuing to warn the Serpents off.

  They were at the threshold of the gate, inches from making good their getaway, when a half-dozen armoured figures dropped from the sky.

  Stuart’s first thought was that it had begun. Quetzalcoatl and the rest of the gods were had launched their invasion.

  Then he realised that these suits of armour, although similar to the ones the gods had worn, were squarer, sharper, sleeker in many respects. They lacked wings like the ones he had seen on Itzpapalotl and Huitzilopochtli. Instead, they had sets of fins along the forearms and calves to lend them control and stability in flight. They were emblazoned with a snake emblem on the torso, and the helmets were also snakelike, the faceplates protruding to a pointed, reptilian tip and featuring bulging, yellow-tinted eyes. All of the suits were uniformly bright green, the green of a mamba’s skin, except for one which bore additional flashes of gold along the arms and around the collar.

  The armoured Serpent Warriors — it was the only thing they could be — landed in a semicircle. The new arrivals’ l-guns were throbbing with charge and, moreover, bigger than the ones the two fugitives were carrying.

  One of them — the gold flashes marked him out as the senior officer — put a hand to his helmet. The faceplate vanished, exactly as Stuart had seen the doors at the gods’ underground lair do. Beneath lay the less than amiable features of Colonel Tlanextic.

  “That’s as far as you go,” he said.

  “Shit,” said Vaughn.

  “Thought you might try and pull a stunt like this,” Tlanextic said. “Impersonating priests — that’s a bit of a low trick. But going for the gate, the most obvious exit route… Sensible, I suppose, but still so predictable.”

  “I had my suspicions about them, sir,” said Captain Ueman. “Honestly I did. Something didn’t seem quite right. No tattoos, for one thing, but I thought maybe some of these foreign priests don’t go in for them.”

  “No excuses, captain. You screwed this one like I screwed your mother last night. I’d discipline you on the spot, but under the circumstances we’re going to need every warm body we’ve got. So if you survive the shitstorm that’s coming, you’ll be executed afterwards. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir.”

  “Up off your knees then, you useless little fuckstain. Take your unit and go to the bunkers and get armoured up like us. You” — to one of the Serpent guards — “shut that gate. And you” — to Stuart and Vaughn — “you come back this way, the pair of you, so we can get a clear shot. And, naturally, you’ll be putting down those l-guns. I can tell you for free, they won’t do you a gnat’s fart of good. Not against this stuff we’re wearing.”

  Stuart decided to put that to the test and unleashed the charge from his l-gun. The bolt struck Tlanextic full on. He didn’t even stagger. The plasma slithered around the armour in a network of crackling ripples which dissipated to nothingness. Tlanextic guffawed. Stuart might as well have chucked a bucket of lukewarm water over him, for all the effect he’d had.

  “Impact-dispersant outer layer,” the colonel said. “It can withstand just about anything that’s thrown at it. Don’t ask me how the fuck it works. Redistributes the force along microscopic substructures or some such, I’m told. It does work, that’s the main thing. Resists heat, kinetic momentum, everything. As you’ve seen. Again. The l-guns. Down.”

  There was no alternative. Stuart laid his lightning gun on the ground. Vaughn reluctantly relinquished hers too.

  “Good. Now, over there. Against the wall.” Tlanextic jerked his gun, and Stuart and Vaughn shuffled in the direction indicated.

  The armoured Serpents lined up, firing-squad-fashion.

  “Any last requests?” Tlanextic asked.

  “Yeah. Go fuck yourself,” said Stuart.

  Tlanextic shrugged, in as much as the restrictions of the armour allowed him to. “Who wouldn’t, if they could? What about you, missy?”

  Vaughn stared daggers at him. “I’m going to kill you for what you did to Aaronson. I swear it. With my bare hands, if need be.”

  “Maybe. In another world, another life. Is that it? All done now? Big-dick shows of bravado over? Men. Take aim.”

  The l-guns came up to shoulder height. Stuart stared down a half-dozen barrels, each with a bore the diameter of a drainpipe.

  “This is top fucking gear we’ve got here,” Tlanextic said. “The very best. Aztechnology the Great Speaker has been sitting on for centuries, keeping back for this moment. Finally we get to use it, and I’m the commanding officer!”

  “Bully for you,” said Stuart.

  “Just letting you know, you should feel honoured. I mean, these l-guns — you’re going to be their first official victims. One of them alone’ll reduce you to a skidmark. So many at once? You won’t even be cinders. You’ll be floating atoms.”

  “Are you going to do this or what?” said Vaughn.

  “Patience. Allow me to enjoy the anticipation.”

  “Or is the idea to bore us to death first wi
th your jabbering? Because if so, it’s working. I’m already halfway into a coma.”

  “Oh, so brave, Inspector Vaughn.”

  “ Chief Inspector, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sorry, yes, of course. I forgot. So this is the famous British pluck that kept the Empire at bay for all those years, isn’t it? The never-say-die spirit. Standing tall even when it’s futile.”

  “Seriously. I’m close to passing out. The world’s going grey.”

  Stuart, in spite of everything, had to laugh. “Vaughn, if you only knew how sexy I’m finding you right now.”

  “And you can put a sock in it and all,” she said.

  “I mean it. I’m so turned on. If there weren’t all these men in tin-can suits pointing guns at us, I’d be moving in for a snog.”

  “And you don’t think you’d be getting a knee in the nads in return?”

  “Honestly? No.”

  “Dream on, loser. Just because we’re about to die together, doesn’t mean we were destined to live together.”

  “Who’s talking about living together? I value my independence. A grand affair, on the other hand…”

  Vaughn made a disgusted face. “I’m feeling a little ill.”

  “So am I,” said Tlanextic. “And puking in one of these suits is not advisable. Let’s put everyone the fuck out of their misery. On my mark. Three.”

  Stuart braced himself. Oblivion. Obliteration. He was terrified, but resigned. At least there would be peace. He’d no longer be tortured by memories of the wife he had lost, the son he would never see again.

  “Two.”

  Sofia. Jake.

  He felt a hand creep into his. It was damp and trembling. He grasped it firmly.

  Vaughn wanting comfort in her last moments. Physical contact with someone, anyone, even a man she professed to hate.

  “One.”

  In excruciating slow motion, as if the cogs of the world were winding down, Stuart saw Tlanextic’s mouth begin to shape itself for the next word it had to say: Quitlequiquizhuizque! Open fire!

  Then there was a tremendous pressure at his back. He felt himself being shoved forwards onto his face, as though by an immense hand. Something boomed, incoherently loud. Objects fell from the sky, a rainstorm of rock. He was engulfed in roaring darkness.

  So this is what it feels like, was his thought. His, he supposed, final thought. This is death.

  It was strangely comforting. Strangely like sleep.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Same Day

  “Reston. Reston!”

  Vaughn’s voice, coming to him as though from miles away, at the other end of a long tunnel.

  “Reston, you fuckwit, wake up!”

  “Ladylike as ever, Vaughn,” he said, or rather tried to say, but his mouth and throat were clogged with dust and all he managed was a choking fit.

  “Reston, get up. Arse in gear. It’s started. It’s happening.”

  The dust was in his eyes too. He blinked hard to part his eyelids. It was like cracking eggshells.

  Vaughn’s face was coated with grey. Her hair was bedraggled and hoary.

  “You look a sight,” he croaked.

  “So do you. There’s blood all down the side of your face. Gash in your head, but I don’t think it’s too deep. Here we go. Up you come.”

  Stuart clambered shakily to his feet, Vaughn helping.

  “You said…”

  He didn’t need to finish the sentence. It was abundantly clear what had started.

  There were figures in the air. Glittering armoured creatures. They flashed to and fro like dragonflies.

  Battle stations. Tenochtitlan was under siege.

  As he watched, a familiar iridescent shape soared overhead, brandishing an equally familiar spear-launcher. Braking to a hover, Huitzilopochtli targeted the apex of a nearby ziggurat. A spear streaked down. The building’s top storey erupted in flames. Stuart felt the rumble of the blast through his soles.

  Armour-clad Serpent Warriors swarmed up to engage with the god, but he was already jetting off at speed, disappearing over the rooftops.

  In his wake came a dark figure, almost a silhouette. Itzpapalotl, the Obsidian Butterfly. The Serpents turned their attention on her. Plasma bolts came her way thick and fast, but Itzpapalotl evaded them with ease, jinking and barrel-rolling. She flew right into the midst of the Serpents, where they were clustered together the most tightly. She shot through them like a black dart, emerging the other side unscathed.

  Serpents fell from the sky, parts of them missing. Severed arms, legs, heads tumbled with them.

  “Can’t stay here gawping,” Vaughn said. “Look, we’ve got a way out.”

  Stuart turned. The section of outer wall they’d been put up against for execution was no more. A hole had been blown in the upper part of it, and the landslide of rubble made a kind of steep ramp leading to the gap.

  “What about Tlanextic? Where — ?”

  “He’s fucked off to repel the attack. Must’ve assumed we were dead but didn’t have time to check. More pressing matters to attend to.”

  “Dead?”

  “There was a whole bunch of debris on top of us. We were buried, you more than me. I’ve been digging you out from under it for the past ten minutes while all hell’s been breaking loose.”

  “You saved me? When you could have got away on your own?”

  “Don’t make a big thing out of it. Call me sentimental, but I reckon I owe you one.”

  “Actually I think you owe me two at least.”

  “And the Reston arrogance ruins the moment yet again. Come on.”

  Vaughn set off up the escarpment of rubble. It was loose and treacherous, and she was obliged to scramble on all fours like a lizard to reach the summit. Stuart made even heavier weather of it. Pain was setting in. He felt bruised all over, his body battered as it had never been before. Nothing worked quite the way it should. His head throbbed. Nevertheless he made it to the top, where Vaughn was flapping a hand frantically at him.

  “Almost all the boats have gone. There’s only one left. I think they’re having engine trouble or something. Crew are running around like blue-arsed flies trying to fix the problem.”

  She slithered down the other side of the wall onto the narrow strip of cliff edge below. Stuart could see the boat bobbing in the harbour. It was a garbage scow; bags of refuse that its crew had decided not to load sat heaped on the quay alongside it. He could faintly hear a sailor on deck yelling down through a hatch to someone in the hold. A moment later a head popped up from the hatchway and a hand holding an adjustable wrench gesticulated to the wheelhouse. The sailor relayed a message to whoever was in the scow’s wheelhouse — the captain, presumably — and then there was a mechanical coughing and a blurt of diesel smoke. A cheer went up from the other crewmembers.

  “Hurry the fuck up!” Vaughn shouted at Stuart. “They’ve got it started.”

  Stuart lowered himself stiffly to the clifftop while Vaughn sprinted for the zigzagging leading down to the harbour. She yelled and waved as she ran, hoping to catch the scow’s attention.

  Meanwhile, the siege continued. Huitzilopochtli and Itzpapalotl were, as far as Stuart could tell, the sole attackers, but the two of them were causing enough devastation and destruction for a strike force a hundred times as large. They operated according to a pattern. Huitzilopochtli inflicted property damage while Itzpapalotl ran interference for him, keeping the Serpent Warriors off his back. He was the heavyweight bomber, she the smaller, nippier fighter craft giving him clear passage to his targets.

  Softening up, Stuart thought. A first phase of attack to weaken defences and sow disarray. A teaser for the main event.

  Vaughn tackled the harbour road vertically. Rather than follow its back-and-forth course she vaulted the guardrails and slid down the embankments between one incline and the next. All the way she kept calling to the scow, begging it to wait. Just half a minute! Civilians wanting safe passage off the island!


  Perhaps none of the crew heard her above the noise of the scow’s engine and the booming detonations rolling across the city. Perhaps some of them did, but refused to listen, too concerned for their own lives. Perhaps the sight of a female acolyte was just too bizarre to make sense of. Whatever the reason, the boat didn’t stop. It chugged out onto the lake at flank speed and was a hundred metres from its berth at the quay by the time Vaughn got there. She jumped up and down on the spot and implored the crew to turn back, to no avail. Stuart saw one of the men on deck give her what seemed like a shrug of apology. The others pretended not to notice her.

  A volley of foul language echoed across the water from Vaughn, and then she slumped to the quay with a grunt of frustration.

  Stuart put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry.”

  She rounded on him. “Don’t worry? Don’t worry!? We’re trapped on this fucking island, there’s a major-league conflict starting up around us, and we just lost our only way off.”

  “Who says? What about the Serpent aerodiscs?”

  “Do you know how you fly one?

  “Well, no, but maybe we can find someone who does and coerce them into being our pilot.”

  “Sounds pretty thin to me.”

  “Me too,” Stuart admitted. “It’s not our only option.”

  “Go on. I’m all ears.”

  He looked up. A squadron of armoured Serpents were flying above in echelon formation, on course to intercept yet another raid by Huitzilopochtli. Itzpapalotl came at them like a bowling ball hitting the pins, scattering them in all directions.

  “If we could get our hands on a couple of those suits…”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “Oh, but I am. We wouldn’t need anyone else to fly us out of here. We could do it ourselves.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Same Day

  Thelast thing Mal wanted to do was head back into the beleaguered city. It was counterintuitive. Worse than that — it was downright crazy.

  But Reston, damn him, was right. The Serpents’ suits of armour were their one real shot at escaping. She didn’t know how difficult the suits were to fly. Probably quite difficult. But simpler, surely, than a disc.