CHAPTER 12

This is your fault, Capitan Arevalo!” groaned the big, red-painted warrior with a bleeding head and shattered leg as he was lifted and placed beside the wounded Dominion officer. Now they both lay on the bed of a boxy cart hitched to a large, indifferent, and extremely flatulent beast called an “armabuey.” It was, in fact, one of the “giant armadillos” Anson had seen in the Holcano village, and the description wasn’t inappropriate. There were a number of differences besides size, of course, and they came in various sizes, types of armor, and dispositions, but all were called armabueys and they were ubiquitous beasts of heavy burden throughout the Yucatán and the Dominion.

“And how is that, El Apestoso?” Arevalo hissed mockingly through his own pain. The warrior chief of the combined Holcanos preferred to be called “Kisin,” after the god of earthquakes and death, who ruled the underworld. He even wore a Death Collar strung with dried, shrunken eyes. Arevalo was in no mood for him, however, and “El Apestoso” was another name for the same god, meaning “Stinking One.” It was somewhat interchangeable with “the Devil” to those adhering to the “True Faith,” and even the heretical Christian faith lingering in the Yucatán. Kisin despised it.

“You didn’t give us guns, as promised!” he sulked.

“I promised you’d have guns when you’d earned them,” Arevalo snapped. “And you could’ve earned all you needed by taking them from the blue heretics on the shore!”

“How could we get guns without guns? They slaughtered the Concha Band of Blood Lizards, and their survivors have abandoned us, limping away in hopes the Bosque Band will take them in. The Conchas are extinct! And those cursed Ocelomeh scattered my cousin’s band of Holcanos—my strongest supporters on the coast—and my cousin himself was slain! Without his power, all the Holcano villages in this entire area will have to flee.” Kisin almost shrieked when an old, filthy, bare-breasted woman—a healer, it seemed—began padding his leg as best she could in preparation for the rough motion of the cart. A younger healer, entirely nude and just as filthy, sat with Arevalo’s head in her lap. Occasionally, he gasped in pain when she leaned over to suck on the small bullet wound in his upper chest and spit blood over the side of the cart. Arevalo knew the idea was to draw out the poisoned blood (and malevolent magic, he assumed) but doubted she could draw out the ball.

Medicine in the Holy Dominion wasn’t much more advanced, since it relied more on the whim of a generally uninterested God than any real treatment beyond cleaning and binding a wound. But a Dominion surgeon would at least probe for the ball and any debris it carried in, removing as much as he could before consigning him to God’s indifferent care. Perhaps he had singular value? If so, he’d heal fairly quickly. If not, he might suffer enough to earn God’s casual esteem. At that point he’d either die in grace or live to be judged by a Blood Cardinal. He would decide if he’d suffered enough to earn singular value—or should entertain God with more suffering.

Either way, Arevalo expected he was as doomed as this little village astride the sweet stream west of where the calamitous battle occurred. The place had no name, nor would it, since the surviving Holcanos who’d been there just a few months were rapidly abandoning it. Most were already gone, streaming south, then southeast toward Nautla. Nobody lived there, but they’d shelter in the ruins until Capitan Arevalo either died or recovered enough for the much longer journey to Campeche. From there, he’d take ship if he was lucky, or travel up the Camino Militar to the Great Valley of Mexico and the Holy City. There he’d report the disaster of the day. Messengers would precede him so the setback in the Dominion’s long, long plan to destabilize the region by proxy would surprise no one. He’d had no part in the disaster, of course, and even tried to restrain Kisin from mounting his impetuous attack on the apparently helpless but also obviously very rich new pilgrims from another world. Better to carry out the original plan against the Uxmalos—that Arevalo had helped him with—then observe the newcomers for a while. But it would be his disaster by the time he reached the Holy City. He’d only be surprised if he lived that long, and was allowed to live longer.

The cart finally lurched forward, and Kisin grunted in pain and grimaced, dry paint cracking and scattering in fragments on his face. “Who do you think they were . . . are?” he finally asked the Dominion captain.

Arevalo frowned, assuming he meant the shipwrecked strangers. With his coat and shirt removed, he felt the chill of the evening on his sweaty torso. “Others,” he said dismissively. “Others who came here as my ancestors did. As yours did.” He sent a scathing glare at Kisin. “Though we both missed the battle, I think we can safely say they’re very dangerous ‘others.’ Armed much like the Holy Dominion in most respects, it seems.” He reached vaguely toward the small wound in his chest. “But I’m certain some of their pistols fired more often than they should. I’ve seen double-barrel pistols, even some with three revolving barrels, but the one that shot me had only one, yet it fired many times. And they have cannon, of course. We heard them.”

“And they’re already allied with the contemptible Ocelomeh,” Kisin spat. “They’ll be in league with the Uxmalos next.”

“ ‘Contemptible’ heretics they may be, but the Ocelomeh crushed you easily enough—”

“I . . . was not at the battle either,” Kisin interrupted. “It would’ve been different if I were.”

“Really? Still, the Ocelomeh seized their opportunity to combine with the ‘others’ with admirable eagerness when your precipitous attack drove the blue heretics into their arms. And I’ve no doubt they’ll combine with the Uxmalos. Probably more city-states on the peninsula. Very dangerous ‘others’ indeed,” he added gloomily, closing his eyes.

The cart shuddered, and he looked to see the terrifying shape of a garaache hovering over him, long, tooth-lined jaws slightly parted, big orange eyes regarding him, clawed hands digging into the cart’s sides to support its precarious perch.

“I’ir?” it seemed to ask Kisin, then went on at some length in atrocious Spanya—the more-or-less common language of the region. Like all creatures of its kind, it couldn’t form words requiring lips.

“Quién sabe,” Kisin replied, then looked at Arevalo. “General Soor is concerned about you. Only he and a few dozen of his Concha Band of Blood Lizards have remained with us—for now—believing only a partnership with the Dominion can preserve his race.”

Arevalo knew the Dominion wanted nothing to do with Holcanos, in the long term, and certainly not talking animals with pretensions to sentience. All such creatures were abominations, likely touched by demons. The Dominion would use them, of course, but certainly never “preserve” them when their usefulness was at an end. “How kind,” he managed.

“He also wants to know if he can eat you if you’re about to die—while your blood still runs,” Kisin went on, matter-of-factly. “We have no time to gather much food to take, and this time of year the road to Nautla gets hungry. Especially if other villages join us on the road. And there’s little food in Nautla, for that matter, besides the wild young of his own race.”

“I’m . . . quite sure His Supreme Holiness would take it badly if I was eaten by one of our allies,” Arevalo carefully replied. General Soor jerked a saliva-slinging diagonal nod and jumped from the cart.

“He’ll eat you anyway, you know,” Kisin said lowly. “We’ll both be eaten by everyone if we die. Whatever it’s like where you’re from, that’s the way of things here.”

Arevalo knew. He also suspected that Kisin, for all his Death Collars, body paint, and other barbarous ways, would be shocked by the “wastefulness” of the ritualistic bloody-mindedness that was increasingly required by Arevalo’s God. “If I live, I’ll likely face a far less pleasant fate than being eaten,” Arevalo murmured.

“What will they do to you?” Kisin asked, intrigued.

Arevalo didn’t reply.

“I will go with you, if you don’t die,” Kisin suddenly blurted. “All the way to the Holy City of Mexico.”

“Why?”

“I’ll tell them this was not my fault,” Kisin insisted. “Not your fault. It was those lazy, cowardly garaaches!”

Arevalo understood little of General Soor’s . . . creatures, but knew they weren’t “lazy” or “cowardly.”

“Maybe I’ll get guns from your war leaders,” Kisin continued, more animated. “And if they kill you, I want to see what they do,” he confessed.

Arevalo snorted. “I don’t think it will be necessary—or wise—for you ever to go to the Holy City,” he said with a wince when the cart hit a bump. “If we make it to Campeche, I do think you should take your remaining warriors to meet as many more as you can summon at Cayal. There you can prepare to push north against Puebla Arboras and Itzincab. After my report, I imagine the Dominion itself will march an army up the Camino Militar, and eventually on Uxmal itself.”

“You think this will begin the final thrust?” Kisin asked anxiously.

“I believe it must, once my superiors understand the stakes. Whether I’m alive to join it or not,” he added glumly.

“And I will rule all this land of the Yucatán?” Kisin demanded.

“Under the authority of His Supreme Holiness, of course,” Arevalo assured evasively then gasped again when the young healer sucked his wound and spat.