A CRASH SOUNDED BEHIND ME AS A HOUSE COLLAPSED.
Perhaps I was too shocked to think, the horror of Mabila numbing my mind. Blood Thorn was gone. I stared absently at the broken gate, then at Darting Snake’s body, at Tuskaloosa’s crumpled corpse, and at the rest of the sprawled dead—so many of them—their clothing fluttering in the fierce draft.
“Come,” I said as I felt the sepaya tugging against my chest. Was it pulled by the draft? Or was the sepaya urging me toward the wrecked palace? I took my wife’s hand; she followed mindlessly, gaze vacuous. The roar had died down, the rush of wind relaxing. Where a wall of flames had been, billows of inky black smoke now rose.
I stared down at the dead Kristiano as we passed; the man’s sightless eyes were coated with dust. He’d been a soldado, killed at the last. No one had even bothered to pick up his helmet or strip the armor from his body.
Following the sepaya’s tug, I limped onto the low palace mound. Heat radiated from the still-burning timbers. The pouch bounced on my chest, leading me left . . . to a wooden disk, barely exposed where the dirt had been blown away: a storage pit lid. It sat on the southwest corner of the mound, the wooden cover charred but otherwise intact.
I bent down and pried up the lid, finding the hole full of freshly harvested squash. I climbed in, handing squash, one by one out to Pearl Hand, who tossed them into the burning remains of the palace. As the wind played tricks, we ducked, scurrying away from the searing heat, and returned to the task when we could.
“That’s good,” Pearl Hand called, staring uneasily out toward the ruined gate. “There’s room.”
My cuts stinging, I lowered myself onto the remaining squash. Then Pearl Hand dropped over the edge, giving me a faint smile. She was coming back to her old self, the shock wearing off. Together, we pulled the charred cover over us and sat on the bumpy squash. Normally I’d have groused over the uncomfortable condition of my rear. Now we just sat in shocked silence heavier than the darkness that pressed around us.
Sometime later, I heard voices calling in español. We stared at each other in the inky black. I found foul humor in the notion that if they looked in, as soot-blackened as we were, they’d never see us.
Pearl Hand finally shifted; standing on the uneven squash, she lifted the lid. No light slipped in, and she eased it to one side, raising her head.
“No one is in sight.”
I poked my head up next to hers, staring around. The fires still burned with enough illumination to see that the plaza was empty.
“What time is it?” she asked.
I studied the few stars visible between the black blotches of cloud and smoke. “A couple of hands after sunset, I suppose.”
“We’ll wait,” she said.
“To do what?”
“Escape.”
“They’ll be guarding the gates.”
We ducked as a couple of armored Kristianos appeared at the gate, swords in their hands. Our eyes above the rim of the pit, we watched them wander around, kick bodies, point at the piles of charred corpses in the smoldering houses, and talk.
Finally they left. Over the popping of logs and the crackle of flames, we barely heard them call to someone beyond the gate.
A finger of time later, another group of Kristianos entered. When they, too, saw the piles of charred corpses among the burned houses, they stared in fascination before hurrying away.
“I have an idea,” Pearl Hand said. “Lift me out of here.”
I boosted her up to the rim, stifling a cry as my wounds tore. She slipped to the edge of the low mound, then over.
I winced at the pain, tears trickling at the corners of my eyes.
Pearl Hand scrambled up the side of the mound, a bundle of clothing in her arms. I almost shrieked from the pain as I crawled out.
“What are you doing?” I finally whispered.
“Saving us.” She offered the clothing. “Put these on.”
I stared up at the night, my wounds hurting, blisters on my shoulders stinging, my souls weary to the point of collapse. Then I really got a good look at the still-burning remains of Mabila, realized what I was seeing . . . smelling. The charred piles of dead lay like weird stacks of driftwood around the burning circles of collapsed house walls. Above them, the heat played games with the air, shimmering, wavering, and dancing over the blackened thickets of arms and legs.
Pearl Hand helped me don Kristiano clothing. I gasped at the pain as cloth slid over my cut thigh. When I tried to walk, I could only limp, agony shooting up from my now stiff leg.
Pearl Hand pulled a dress—something she’d found—over her shoulders and helped me down to where the dead Kristiano lay. Leaving me to wobble and fight the pain-tears, she bent down to the corpse.
Mind numb, I watched as she undid laces and yanked the Kristiano’s armor from his stiff body. Straightening, she dropped the cloth batting over my shoulders.
“What are you doing?”
“Turning you into a Kristiano.”
“I don’t have a beard.”
“You will.”
Her hierro knife sliced around the Kristiano’s skull. Expertly she peeled the man’s scalp off, then followed the bones of the face, severing the skin just below the man’s chin.
I shied back when she straightened and tried to slip the hideous hide over my head.
“Stop it!” she hissed. “What’s a dead man’s face after you’ve been eaten by a Spirit Beast?”
She had a point.
I shivered, sucking in a deep breath as she laid the cold, bloody skin over my head. My Chicaza souls began to scream as she used bits of torn cloth to tie the dead man’s face onto mine. At the end she clapped the man’s helmet over my head—pressing the gore onto my scalp—and aligned the eye holes.
“You’ve got to trust me,” she told me, brooking no argument. “Lean on me. Play like you’re wounded. If anyone speaks to you, simply say, ‘Hay dolor.’”
“Hay dolor,” I answered, chilled by the notion that my words were passing through a dead man’s mouth. Then she made me repeat it a couple of times to get the pronunciation right.
“This is insane.” I blinked, feeling my eyelashes rasp the dead man’s skin. His face didn’t fit me well.
“Come on.” Pearl Hand placed herself under my good arm, taking my weight. Then we started, winding our way around the dark shadows of bodies as we made our way to the gate.
I didn’t even flinch when a Kristiano called, “Quien es?”
Pearl Hand answered, “Mi hombre está muy herido. Donde están los médicos?”
A sudden shiver went through me as the guard leaned close in the night, staring. Then he straightened and pointed. “Están por alli. Necesitas ayuda?”
“No, pero gracias. Tienes un encargo.”
We started to hobble away when he called behind us, “Bueno suerte, mujer.”
Pearl Hand said nothing as we limped our way into the darkness, veering wide around the winking Kristiano campfires that dotted the night.
Twice more voices called from the dark, and at Pearl Hand’s reply, the moonlight reflecting from my armor, no one hindered our passing.