Age of Aztec

by James Lovegrove

  Tlanextic returned fire, and there ensued a dogfight which Stuart would have followed more closely if he himself hadn’t come under assault from several quarters at once. The Serpents had finally latched on to him as an enemy combatant.

  For minutes on end Stuart fended off a co-ordinated barrage of plasma bolts and delivered rapid-fire ripostes. Now and then he caught glimpses of Mal and Tlanextic weaving around and blasting away at each other above the tree canopy. He was also aware of Tezcatlipoca stalking ever onward in his ogre of a suit, forging a path through the rainforest.

  At one point, amid all the bedlam, it seemed as though the gods had made a breakthrough. Xipe Totec had dispatched enough Serpents to give himself some breathing space and a clear run at Tezcatlipoca. Mictlantecuhtli urged him forward, promising to handle any interference that might come his way.

  Huitzilopochtli had an opening too. He had at last punched a hole through the endless flocks of Serpents. Tezcatlipoca was in range and in his sights.

  Xipe Totec sprinted towards the left leg of Tezcatlipoca’s suit, while Huitzilopochtli levelled his spear launcher at Tezcatlipoca’s head.

  Stuart sensed that this was when everything could change, the fulcrum moment that would set the battle seesawing in the gods’ favour.

  Then Xipe Totec stumbled. That was when Stuart realised the Flayed One had been injured. With his skin transparent, wounds were not immediately obvious. Spilled blood did not show up against the wet muscle tissue on display. Several Serpents must have got in lucky shots before Xipe Totec slew them. He was weak, failing. His charge towards Tezcatlipoca was a last-ditch suicide run.

  And Tezcatlipoca knew it. As Xipe Totec lost his footing, the Smoking Mirror turned his ponderous armoured bulk towards him. One of the legs rose. Xipe Totec scrambled upright and continued his bid to reach Tezcatlipoca. But the vast foot overshadowed him. It descended like a five-ton piston. The Flayed One’s knives shot up. In defence? In defiance? It was hard to say.

  Tezcatlipoca crushed Xipe Totec underfoot as a child might crush a snail on a garden path. The Flayed One became the Flattened One. He burst, and now all of his viscera were exposed. He was a lump of gristle and offal attached to the underside of Tezcatlipoca’s foot. The Smoking Mirror stamped down again and again, smashing and mashing Xipe Totec until there was even less of him left, just a gory smear.

  Huitzilopochtli overcame his shock at seeing a fellow god annihilated and loosed off a flame spear at Tezcatlipoca. But the Smoking Mirror lashed out with one of his vast arms, batting the projectile aside so that it spun end over end and detonated amidst the foliage of a tree. As the Hummingbird God hurried to reload his launcher, Tezcatlipoca calmly lined up a shot with the same arm.

  Huitzilopochtli looked up, flame spear in hand.

  Looked down the hollowness of that l-gun barrel.

  Knew he was out of time.

  He hung in the air, resigned, and was enveloped in a tremendous torrent of plasma.

  Little remained of Huitzilopochtli as he fell to earth, just a charred, spindly effigy, like a scarecrow that had been pulled off a bonfire.

  Tezcatlipoca’s guffaws of joy came loud and clear over Stuart’s comms. His giant metal shell seemed to laugh too, rocking up and down in grotesque emulation of its driver.

  Mictlantecuhtli lunged for Tezcatlipoca, emitting a roar, a primal wordless bellow of rage. He ploughed through the massed ranks of Serpents, scattering them to either side. Stuart followed in his slipstream. The Dark One took an l-gun salvo from Tezcatlipoca full-on, crossing his gauntlets above his head to shield himself, and plasma broke over him like rain on an umbrella. He lumbered on, skin smouldering, and began pounding away at Tezcatlipoca’s leg, the same leg that had squashed Xipe Totec. He managed to put a few dents in it before the Smoking Mirror used his other leg to kick him like a tlachtli ball. Mictlantecuhtli was propelled high into the air, disappearing into the depths of the forest.

  Stuart stood alone and horribly exposed. Tezcatlipoca towered over him. He fired off a shot at the glass screen in the armour’s chest. The bolt didn’t leave so much as a scratch.

  “Ah, the erstwhile Conquistador.” Tezcatlipoca was plugged into the Serpent Warrior radio frequency. “Still around to plague us. Well, not for much longer.”

  Tezcatlipoca’s arm came down. A half-dozen lightning-gun barrels were pointed Stuart’s way.

  “Incoming!”

  That was Mal, and she streaked down from on high, locked in a frantic embrace with Tlanextic. Twisting and turning, the two of them rammed sideways into Tezcatlipoca’s arm. The plasma bolt meant for Stuart gouged a furrow in the ground inches to his right.

  Stuart didn’t hesitate. He sprang at Tezcatlipoca’s foot, flicking out his swords. Toci had said they would cut through anything.

  Let’s see, shall we?

  He cross-cut into the metal of the foot with a simultaneous outward swing of both blades. Unbelievably, there was almost no resistance. Stuart found himself looking at a deep X-shaped slash in the armour’s skin. Hydraulics and cables were laid bare. Sparks spat.

  He darted behind Tezcatlipoca and cut again. Surely he could stop the mechanical beast by hobbling it.

  Next thing he knew, he was flat on his back. Tlanextic was on top of him. The Serpent colonel pummelled him hard, landing armour-augmented blows which Stuart could feel even through his own armour.

  “You don’t get it, do you, Englishman?” Tlanextic said. “The Empire is eternal. The Empire is unstoppable. Gods cannot stand in its way. Do you honestly think a turd-eating little maggot like you can?”

  “Mal...” It was partly a question, partly a plea. Where was she? If Tlanextic was free of her, then what had become of her?

  “I shook the bitch off. Our landing took more out of her than me. I’ll deal with her after you. Now, just fucking lie there while I beat you to death, eh?”

  Stuart couldn’t bring the swords to bear. He was nailed to the earth by Tlanextic’s remorseless thumping.

  “I know this armour’s limitations,” Tlanextic crowed. “I know what it can handle. I’ll open you up like a sardine can. I’ll shatter you. Pulverise you.”

  The impacts were intensifying. Stuart could feel the armour losing integrity. Tlanextic’s blows were starting to hurt.

  How much more could he withstand?

  How much could the armour?

  He put everything he had into an attempt to shove himself upwards, against the force of Tlanextic’s onslaught. He lodged an elbow in the soil, so that one sword was pointing upwards. Tlanextic grabbed his wrist and levered the arm away. Stuart fought to raise it again. Tlanextic continued to hammer him with his other hand.

  The sword wavered between them, now vertical, now at an angle. The pain in Stuart’s chest was mounting. There was a sudden sharp spike of agony, accompanied by a crack that he felt as much as heard. A rib. He cried out involuntarily.

  Tlanextic’s eyes held nothing but the grim resolution of a loyal solider keen to see his mission through.

  Then, all at once, his gaze became vacant and the punching stopped. There was no longer any resistance against Stuart’s arm.

  Without pausing to question what had happened, Stuart rammed the sword up into Tlanextic’s belly.

  “Too late, slowcoach,” said Mal. “I got there first.”

  Tlanextic was doubly impaled. Mal had skewered him from behind, Stuart from the front.

  The Serpent colonel was still alive, but paralysed, helpless. Mal reared back, Stuart rose, both of them heaving Tlanextic upright. They held him fast between them like some sort of human spit roast. Tlanextic’s hands moved feebly, groping for the blades as if he genuinely hoped to pull them out of himself. It would have been a pitiable sight, had it been anyone else.

  “I promised you, didn’t I, colonel?” Mal said. “Not quite with my bare hands, but close enough. You should never have turned your back on me.”

  She gave the sword a vicious twist. Tlanextic let out a wet,
sucking gasp.

  “The Empire...” he choked.

  “Fuck the fucking Empire,” Mal said, and twisted the sword even further.

  Tlanextic shuddered. His eyes rolled to white.

  On an unspoken cue, Stuart and Mal withdrew their swords. Tlanextic’s body crumpled to the ground.

  They took a moment to survey each other.

  “Your armour’s knackered,” Mal observed.

  “Yours isn’t looking too clever either.”

  Both suits were covered in dents and scored with scorch marks. Mal’s visor was cracked. Stuart’s breastplate had been beaten concave, like a steel drum. His torso throbbed. Every heartbeat brought a spasm of pain in his ribs.

  “Where’s Tezcatlipoca?”

  Mal turned. The battle had moved on, but it wasn’t difficult to figure out which way it had gone. “Just follow the big damn tunnel in the trees.”

  THEY CAUGHT UP with Tezcatlipoca in no time, and what was immediately clear was that Stuart’s assault on the giant suit of armour’s heel hadn’t crippled it but had slowed it. The thing was limping now, teetering a little each time it put its left foot down.

  It had almost reached the hatch.

  Quetzalcoatl was still valiantly trying to force his way through to Tezcatlipoca, and Itzpapalotl the same, but enough Serpent Warriors remained to hinder them. Tzitzimitl, Azcatl and Nanahuatzin continued to protect the entrance to their base from raids by advance parties of Serpents. Xolotl was there too now, harrying and savaging the enemy.

  “One more try,” Stuart sighed.

  “With our suits in the state they’re in?”

  “No one said life was easy.”

  “No one ever does. I wish one day someone would.”

  As they started forwards, a figure charged out from the trees, head down like a maddened bull.

  Mictlantecuhtli used a fallen trunk as a springboard to propel himself up onto Tezcatlipoca’s back. He collided fists-first with the giant suit of armour and rebounded. Tezcatlipoca was staggered by the blow. Mictlantecuhtli picked himself up and went on the offensive again, this time striking behind the knee. The giant went down onto its other knee. The Dark One leapt straight onto its head, his sheer momentum toppling the machine flat onto its face. It crashed to earth, limbs flailing cumbersomely. The impact of its toppling nearly knocked Stuart and Mal off their own feet.

  Mictlantecuhtli’s gauntlets clanged down onto the giant’s back. Sparks flew, and fragments of metal. At that moment Itzpapalotl shook off the cluster of Serpents around her and swooped to assist the Dark One. Wrenching, tearing, battering, they prised their way into the behemoth like treasure seekers digging for gold.

  Stuart was convinced Tezcatlipoca had had it; Mal was, too. The Smoking Mirror’s remaining life could be measured in seconds.

  Then the back of the giant erupted outwards, and Mictlantecuhtli and Itzpapalotl were sent flying amid a welter of shards and debris.

  From out of the hole in his immense machine, like a parasite worming its way out of its host body, crawled Tezcatlipoca. He looked unhurt. Worse, he looked unruffled. He was clad in a form-fitting metallic bodysuit whose mercury-like surface offered a dim, warped reflection of everything around him. This was, Stuart assumed, another form of armour. Tezcatlipoca had been wearing a suit of armour inside a suit of armour.

  “Well, that was fun,” the Smoking Mirror said. The armour’s mask was a perfect, gleaming replica of the face beneath it. “I was dying to take my walking tank out for a test drive. I’m just amazed I got this far with it. Do you hear me, Quetzalcoatl? Almost at your doorstep before you managed to take me down. Sloppy. I expected more from you.”

  Tzitzimitl gave one of her shrill whistles. Her pack of Tzitzimime, as one, broke off from attacking Serpent Warriors and loped towards Tezcatlipoca.

  The Smoking Mirror allowed them to get close, then raised an imperious hand and engulfed almost the entire pack in a sizzling, coruscating blast of energy that came straight from his palm. Most of the demon dogs were cremated on the spot, to Tzitzimitl’s howling dismay, but a few dodged the attack and raced on. They jumped up onto the sprawled machine and pounced on Tezcatlipoca. He swiped several aside, then grabbed one by the hindleg and swung the creature like a club, using it to bludgeon the others. Savage snarls turned to yelps of pain and terror. Tzitzimitl sobbed and tore at her hair as her beloved monsters were methodically beaten to a pulp. Soon none was left alive, and a blood-spattered Tezcatlipoca stood with a mangled Tzitzimime in his hand and a dozen more shattered corpses at his feet.

  Now it was Azcatl’s turn, but his scorpion-wasps didn’t fare any better. They couldn’t penetrate Tezcatlipoca’s armour, or even gain purchase on its smooth contours. Azcatl guided them to attack again and again, moving his hands like an orchestra conductor, manipulating the swarm remotely, shaping their actions. Tezcatlipoca just stood there and laughed.

  “Is that the best you can do, Red Ant?” he sneered. “Your trouble is, you think too small-scale. I, on the other hand – I imagine bigger. Always have. And that is why I rule a planet, while you rule insects.”

  A sphere of brilliance exploded outward around him. It came and went in a dazzling instant, and when it was gone, none of the scorpion-wasps remained. They had all been obliterated, literally in a flash.

  “No!” Azcatl cried.

  At that moment, Quetzalcoatl took radical action. A score of Serpent Warriors surrounded him on all sides, subjecting his forcefield to a 360º point-blank assault with their l-guns. Quetzalcoatl switched off the forcefield, and shot upwards at the same time.

  The Serpents blasted one another, while Quetzalcoatl soared free...

  ...and plummeted straight down onto Tezcatlipoca like a living missile, hitting him feet-first.

  The two brothers slammed together into the giant armour beneath them. They rose as one, grappling hand to hand. Quetzalcoatl’s features showed nothing but implacable determination. “This ends now, Tez,” he said through clenched teeth.

  Tezcatlipoca’s mask reflected Quetzalcoatl’s face back at him, dark and distorted. “Long past time,” he replied.

  “How did you even find us?”

  “It was easier than you think. Coyolxauhqui. She gave me the co-ordinates of your little hidey-hole.”

  “Not willingly, I’ll bet.”

  “Not at all. She took some persuading. It was the promise of an end to her pain that finally broke her. And an end did come.”

  “Bastard!” Quetzalcoatl roared.

  They took off, still locked in a mutual death grip. Smoke swirled in vortices as they ascended. Xolotl ran in circles, howling in distress as his master rose out of sight.

  Stuart didn’t know if his armour was still fully functioning. He raised his head and lifted off unsteadily. The armour felt sluggish, but it was working.

  “Stuart!”

  “I have to follow them, Mal. This is the endgame. I have to see how it plays out.”

  “But all these Serpents still left...”

  “The gods can handle them.”

  It was true. Tzitzimitl and Azcatl had no more mutant creatures on hand to deploy, and Nanahuatzin’s disease-giving abilities were of limited use, but Mictlantecuhtli and Itzpapalotl were both back on their feet. The two of them could mop up the Serpents, no trouble.

  Mal went after Stuart. She couldn’t deny it: she too had to find out how this was all going to end. She told herself she and Stuart might be of help to the Plumed Serpent, but knew it was unlikely. She was motivated by sheer curiosity, nothing more.

  Above the canopy, they spotted Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca racing westward. The Smoking Mirror had broken free from his brother’s clutches and was streaking away at astounding speed. The Plumed Serpent was in hot pursuit. It wasn’t hard to guess where Tezcatlipoca was headed. Only one thing lay in that direction: Tenochtitlan.

  EVEN IN PRIME condition, Serpent armour was no match for the gods’. Stuart and Mal lost sight of Quetzalcoatl and
Tezcatlipoca before reaching Lake Texcoco, and arrived at the island city several minutes after did. They searched all over, scanning the ruined towers and fire-gutted ziggurats. Eventually Mal spied a group of people – engineers in overalls – fleeing across a plaza in a panic. It wasn’t hard to guess what they running from, and where.

  The city’s fusion plant sported a fresh, gaping hole in its roof. The building resounded to tumultuous bangs and crashes, as though boulders were being tossed about within. Stuart and Mal made a careful descent into its interior.

  The plant’s main chamber was strewn with rubble. Walls, floors and support columns all bore man-size craters. Steam hissed from fissures in the massive ducts leading from the turbines.

  Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca rampaged to and fro. Every now and then they strayed close to the confinement unit, a huge, electromagnet-studded steel torus which contained the fusion plasma and kept it at the density necessary for a chain reaction to be effective. The two gods had eyes for nothing but each other. They battled with the passionate hatred that only close kin could feel. Every blow that landed was struck from the heart. Weapons had been set aside for the time being: this needed to be physical, the direct, personal infliction of pain. Centuries of estrangement and pent-up resentment were spewing out in a flood of rage. Neither of them would stop – or be content – until the other was dead by his hand.

  Who was winning? It was hard to tell. They seemed evenly matched. Tezcatlipoca was the stronger, to judge by how he threw his brother around, hoisting him off the floor as though he was a foam-stuffed dummy and hurling him with ease. Quetzalcoatl, however, had speed on his side. Repeatedly he got inside Tezcatlipoca’s defences to deliver a punishing series of jabs and hooks, until Tezcatlipoca was able to push him off with a powerful counterattack.

  Mal, as she hovered beside Stuart, looking down on the conflict, was conscious of being a witness to something unique and epochal. The air around the two gods seemed alive with energy, as though their rivalry was charging the atmosphere like a thunderstorm. They were superhumans trying to tear each other apart, in a world where, to them, everything was made of tinfoil and paper. Effortlessly, Tezcatlipoca sent Quetzalcoatl sailing through a plate glass partition. Equally effortlessly, Quetzalcoatl wrenched a control console off the floor and brought it crashing down on Tezcatlipoca’s head.