“This manuscript you have,” Dihana said. “I want a copy. If the Loa are after the same thing, I want to know everything I can.”
“I go send you a copy, but I told you everything. It a machine. That all I know.”
Dihana reached out and grabbed his forearm. “But I don’t think we can afford taking away any airship just for the Loa to go north. We need them when we start fighting.”
They couldn’t afford another northern trip. The previous ones, although by ship, not airship, had not been successes. No, they would have to wait until they knew what future, if any, Capitol City had.
“You canceling this because we can’t afford it? Or is it just that you refuse to do anything the Loa say?”
Dihana held nothing back. “You might be right about that, but how can we be sure we know what Loa want of us? What are they trying to do?”
“Survive,” Haidan said. “When Azteca coming, that is about all you can do. If they holding back, is because we all building trust. But we need them. Most of this city worship them, you can’t toss that aside.”
True, Dihana thought. But a bad taste lingered still.
In Capitol City, Hindis prayed at their shrines, and Muslims prayed at night toward a constellation they said held Mecca. The Holy Christian Church had churches. In the bush, wary with hunter’s expertise, the normally peaceful Rastafarians honed warriors with the skills that kept Nanagada safe.
But no religion held as many followers in Nanagada as Vodun, for any believer had only to walk to a church to find the Loa, pale and malformed, giving their scratchy prophecies in a holy tongue only the Mothers could translate.
Haidan was right. Though she would find out what the Loa thought was up north. And wanted. But now it was time to talk to Haidan about housing more people in Capitol City, about where to get the money to build defenses around the walls, and how to slow the Azteca down when they arrived.
He asked her if he could put more mongoose-men out in the streets with the ragamuffins, patrolling for trouble. The streets had become dangerous. He had street corners, warehouses, and posts already planned.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The sleeper car rocked along toward Capitol City at the end of ten other similar square steel cars under the swept column of black smoke pouring from the grimy engine’s stack. In the dark, boxy confines tired bodies hunched along the drop-down sleepers. Dusty streams of early-morning light flicked in through the closed windows, strobing the inside of the car with sudden glimpses of the weary occupants.
Some were mongoose-men making their way to Capitol City. The rest were weary mothers and children, their possessions in packs around their feet. Some whispered that a few people in this car were from Brewer’s Village, and that Anandale would fall within the week yet. Three days of service remained before the trains withdrew and the northern tracks were destroyed behind them by the mongoose-men. The train was crammed with people fleeing up the northern coast toward the city.
Oaxyctl sat on the hard bench seat, looking at John deBrun’s hook hanging loose from the bunk above him. It moved in rhythm with the sway of the car over the tracks. With each clack Oaxyctl counted off the increasing miles between the advancing Azteca and himself. The farther they got, the more he could relax.
They’d come far in few days. Oaxyctl pushing through forest with no care for leaving tracks in his hurry to keep in front of any Azteca. John kept up with him. Both mute, hardly able to talk when pushing through the jungle, wary and nervous, alert for any strange sound, they kept on until they found the tracks and followed them to a station.
Oaxyctl’s skin itched from sticky leaves, his eyes burned, and he was hungry, but at least he lived. And had his prize. In Capitol City Oaxyctl would find some quimichtin contacts posing as Tolteca and get the tools he wanted for this grisly task of pulling the information he wanted from John. They might even find him a soundproofed room.
He had the time, now, to do everything right. The way the god wanted. Oaxyctl relaxed. It will turn out okay, he told himself.
Or unlucky, he thought.
Best not to think about that. Oaxyctl stared at a triangular tear in the upholstery while John snored in the bunk overhead.
Oaxyctl had never been to Capitol City. He sat by the window, craning his head. The walls stood higher than the tallest sacrificial pyramids in Tenochtitlanome.
Mothers stirred children awake, telling them they had arrived. People shoved beds back up into the walls and moved their belongings out from under the seats.
“This we home now, Ma?” a boy several seats over asked.
“Just for a while, sweetie. Just for a while.”
Next to Oaxyctl, John looked over at one of the other trains parallel to them, moving slowly out of one of the tunnels into Capitol City. Great spikes and mounds of dirt menaced the train from either side of the tracks. Defensive measures, earthworks. Oaxyctl counted ten roads leading out of the city along with the northern and southern tracks. Now he understood why it was said that all roads this side of the Wicked Highs led to Capitol City.
“We’ll need to find a place to stay,” Oaxyctl murmured. “I have some money with me in my pack, but not much.”
“You work for the mongoose-men,” John said. “I heard someone in this car saying there’s temporary lodging for them all around the city.”
“Yes.” Oaxyctl smiled. “But after all that time in the jungle, it would be nice to find a better room. It would be quieter.”
“Okay.” John extended his good hand. “I owe you my life. I don’t know how to thank you enough.” The train slowed. “I have no money to help or repay you with. I’m going to join the mongoose-men and fight, though. Hopefully all the way back to Brungstun.” John grimaced. “I hope we meet again. And that I can return the favor.”
“Room with me,” Oaxyctl suggested. If not, he’d have to hunt John down again later tonight.
“I was hoping to look up some friends …”
Friends? The last thing Oaxyctl needed was John’s friends. “I insist.” Oaxyctl fidgeted with a corner of his shirt. “At least this first night. We’ve only just arrived. You’ll have somewhere to clean up and come back to if you can’t find your friends. I’ll go down to a mongoose station tomorrow. If you come with me, we can sign you up then.” Then, Oaxyctl thought, he could tie John up in the room and get started on this.
The train chuffed to a stop inside the tunnel by the platform. John stood up, along with all the other passengers. “If it’s no trouble?”
“It’s no problem at all,” Oaxyctl said, and picked up his pack.
Oaxyctl found himself bewildered. People of all skin shades wearing bright clothes packed the streets. Their various accents echoed off the sides of the tall rock by their side.
“If I remember,” John said, “there are rooms over into the middle a bit more towards the harbor. Near Tolteca-town. Cheaper.”
Tolteca. The closer to Tolteca the better. “Yes, let’s try that,” Oaxyctl said, as boxy wooden vehicles zipped quietly along the street next to him. Donkeys laden with baskets plodded along the sides of the streets, their bored eyes fixated on the ground. Crowds of people and goods shoved and trickled toward the streets.
Oaxyctl held his atlatl at his side as they walked on, spears strapped in a tight bundle with cord. Two men with muddied feet leading a brown donkey away from one of the train’s cars looked him over and frowned. He nodded back at them, but they refused to meet his eyes.
A lady with a wicker basket of clothes on her head spat at the ground when she saw him. Something bleak and angry hung in the air. He looked around, surrounded on all sides, and felt unprotected, unsafe. John walked ahead, oblivious. Oaxyctl hurried forward.
A rock struck the side of his head hard enough to blur his vision. Oaxyctl staggered.
Five men, previously inspecting fruit on a table, walked forward and surrounded him. “Where you going, Taca-man?”
Oaxyctl stood his ground and itched to let
a dart fly. “I’m a mongoose-man. Strike again, and you will have a problem.”
“Our only problem you,” they said. “Get back on the other side of the mountain and leave we all alone.”
Oaxyctl walked forward. They didn’t spread apart. When Oaxyctl stepped between them, they threw their shoulders forward to stop him. The young man on the left punched Oaxyctl in the belly. Oaxyctl crumpled. Several lightning-quick kicks and punches disoriented him.
He hunched over his atlatl darts and yanked one from the bundle.
“Hey!” John yelled as he turned back around. The group paused, unsure who he was. John walked forward. In a single motion he raised his hook and snaked it around the nearest man’s neck, the point resting just a hair away from the man’s Adam’s apple.
“What this?” the young man asked. He kept his hands out in front of him and shifted from foot to foot.
“My hook,” John said, “on your neck. This man you’re beating is a mongoose-man. He spends most of his time out in the bush protecting you from the Azteca.”
“Fine job he doing,” someone yelled from the road.
“Shut up,” John yelled. He pointed at the four other men. “Hit that man again, I cut your throats. He saved my life. Let him go. Now.”
They swore and let Oaxyctl go. He stood up. “Thank you.” Oaxyctl gasped for air. “Let’s go.” He replaced the dart, glad not to have to kill anyone in such a public place.
John removed his hook. The men walked off, cursing and swaggering as if they’d achieved something.
“Hey.” A mongoose-man walked toward them. “Hey, you.”
Oaxyctl and John both stopped. “I’m sorry,” Oaxyctl said. “We—”
“It okay,” the mongoose-man said. “I hear you say you was a mongoose-man. I here giving directions to all the mongoose fresh off the train. You have proof?”
Oaxyctl pulled his shirtsleeve up. A blue-green caricature of a mongoose, the long, thin mythical animal that hunted snakes, coiled around his arm. It was new, and still angry bright on his skin.
The mongoose-man looked suspicious. “It a bit new.”
John stepped in. “That man saved my life. He is not a spy. Trust me.”
“And you is?”
“John deBrun. Maybe you all remember from the—”
“Northland expedition!” The mongoose-man clapped John on the shoulder. “Yeah, man, I remember you.”
Oaxyctl relaxed.
“Okay,” the mongoose-man said. “You can clear that up tomorrow.” He pulled out a small rectangle of stiff paper, which had his signature on it. “This scrip for a room in the city tonight. Temporary. Address for the nearest command station on the back. Wait till next morning before reporting in,” the mongoose-man advised. “They getting full trying to process everybody already.”
Oaxyctl took the parchment. “Thank you.”
The mongoose-man nodded and looked down the street at the backs of the band of men who’d taken after Oaxyctl. “Least I can do. We been ordered to hand them out to any returning mongoose-man we meet.”
John took the piece of paper and looked at it. Wind swirled up street dust and fluttered the edges. “I know where this is.” He looked around the street. “But let’s take a less conspicuous route.”
Oaxyctl agreed.
The entry to their room was in the alleyway. Laundry hung overhead in the air, out to dry. A pair of women argued from their windows about clotheslines.
Inside, Oaxyctl limped over to lie down on the slatted bed while John washed his face in the tiny washroom. The sound of trickling water made Oaxyctl thirsty.
“It’s tense here,” John said. “I’ve never known anyone to assault someone on the street like that.”
“What do you expect?” Oaxyctl looked up at the paint peeling on the ceiling. His stomach hurt. And his lower back. He’d be pissing blood tonight. He touched his jaw and sucked his teeth. “They know Azteca coming. I look Azteca. Everyone is stressed.”
What could he have done? Killed the men right there on the street? It would have screwed the entire thing up. Ragamuffins would have jailed him, and the local mongoose commanders would have done the same. No, he’d chosen the right course of action. Any longer, though, and he would have had to fight from sheer desire to live.
He couldn’t stand up without pain.
He would have to take care of John now.
Now? He wondered if he could quickly subdue the wiry man. Oaxyctl had noted how quickly John had wrapped his hook around that boy’s throat. In this much pain thanks to the beating, Oaxyctl wasn’t sure if he could avoid that hook at close quarters.
“That doesn’t make it right.” John sat down on a small chair by the bed. “You and the Tolteca here have just as much to lose.”
“Or more.” The Tolteca were the worst form of traitors. They would die slowly when the Azteca army came over the walls. Oaxyctl sat up and untied the bundle of atlatl darts. It rolled open, and he put his hand on one.
John stood back up. Oaxyctl watched his motions. Strong, determined. If he waited until John took off the hook, or fell asleep, he’d have a better chance. Oaxyctl was weak right now.
John leaned over and tightened his bootlaces.
“Where are you going?” Oaxyctl asked. John paused and stared at him. Oaxyctl swallowed. He had to be careful about the tone of his voice. “I’m sorry, I’m hungry, but wasn’t sure if I wanted to go out on my own.” Oaxyctl opened his pack by the corner of the bed and fished out silver coins with the Triangle Tracks emblem stamped on the front.
“I have a friend out by the harbor. I want to see if he’s still there.” John caught the coins Oaxyctl tossed at him. “I’ll bring something back. But it might be a while.”
“Okay.” Oaxyctl kept his face straight. John seeing a friend. Not good. John seemed well-known around here. Someone was bound to come looking for him after a few days of silence if they knew he was in the city. But it gave Oaxyctl time to go find the things he needed from the spies in the city, and then rest when he got back.
A bead of sweat ran down the side of Oaxyctl’s face. John had gone out of his way to save Oaxyctl on the street. He wondered what it would be like to face John when the man realized what Oaxyctl really was.
But such was living for the gods. He dare not disobey. There were worse things than death. The sun had to rise every morning, the crops needed to grow. And it was blood that gave all these nourishment.
The war gods proclaimed the Azteca to be the fiercest human warriors in all of time. The gods had chosen to bring the Azteca into this world to capture prisoners for sacrifice. Thus the world remained fertile.
Sometimes doubt surfaced in Oaxyctl’s head. He saw the heathen Nanagadans and all their varying religions on this side of the mountains, and their crops grew well without any blood sacrifices.
But the Nanagadans would fall soon. The Azteca could not be stopped. The gods would rule everything. So doubt didn’t matter. It would be over soon, and Oaxyctl could live in a city and put this behind him. Far behind him.
Oaxyctl watched John step out through the doorframe. John’s hook glinted in the light outside, and then the door slammed shut, shaking dust loose into the air. Oaxyctl waited for the tiny swirling particles to settle before he stood up.
He took his atlatl with him and kept to the darkest alleys, where the people who would harass him could be killed with minimal effort, and few would notice.
It still hurt to walk, though.
CHAPTER THIRTY
People walking toward John avoided his eyes and brushed past. Mongoose-men patrolled the street corners, rifles slung under their arms. He stopped in front of a family sitting around a fire by the side of the street, orienting himself. The man at front looked out over the street with a blank stare.
A cold wind came in over the walls from the sea. John tasted brine and pulled his shirt around him tighter. He looked back at the family and saw the father quickly hide a knife under a rag and the daughter gl
ancing up the street, keeping an eye on the mongoose-men.
“Babylon come soon for oppress we,” a Zionist yelled from a street corner, standing on a small box that strained under his bare feet. As John walked closer, he preached toward John. “Himself streaming over the mountain. We have fall, and now we go suffer bondage in a different land. God help we, we have fall.”
An explosion rocked the air. John ducked and shielded his head. Shocked, John looked around. The Zionist, his long locks swaying, did the same. He pointed at the sky, east: a thin gray trail of smoke curled over the buildings.
“Azteca spy,” the Zionist spat. “Already here, among all of we.”
The two mongoose-men on the street corner conferred briefly, then one walked over to the small electric parked by them and drove off toward the smoke. The Zionist stepped off the box. He pulled on a dirty pair of sandals lying on the ground behind the box and laced them up and eyed John. “Don’t look too safe on these street anymore.” He took his box with him as he walked off down the street.
Maybe getting back inside was safer. John didn’t even know if Haidan still owned the old house he’d purchased just before John had left to return to Brungstun. But it was worth at least checking. John didn’t want to put Oaxyctl through any more trouble.
He reoriented himself toward the harbor.
A pair of mongoose-men patted John down, checking for weapons, before allowing him down the street. Another pair stood at the small two-story house. They released the safeties on their rifles and stepped forward. “What you need here?”
“I’m looking to talk to Edward,” John said.
“Who?”
“Edward Haidan.”
The mongoose-men looked at each other. “Who you is and why you want talk to General Haidan?”
“My name is John deBrun. I’m an old friend. From Brungstun.”
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