CHAPTER 33

All the chairs had been moved to one side of the marquee, and everyone was standing, waiting, expectant, gathered around the long, low table, leaving a gap barely wide enough for Lewis, Anson, De Russy, and Father Orno. It was clear they were expected to fill it, and they reluctantly did so. As before, Barca and Willis hung back, but now so did Reverend Harkin. Colonel Wicklow was still absent.

“I’m glad you returned to us!” Don Frutos exclaimed with what looked like a genuine smile. He regarded Alcalde Periz. “I presume you know that can only mean one thing?”

Periz jerked a nod, flicked a glance at Lewis, and cleared his throat. “The cooperative association between Uxmal, Pidra Blanca, and Itzincab must remain intact to oppose the Holcanos, but as that alliance’s only representative present, I release the Americans—the Detached Expeditionary Force—from their commitment to it.” He looked squarely at Lewis. “I do in fact insist they leave the defensive positions they’ve erected behind the walls of Uxmal just as soon as they can.”

General Agon respectfully whispered something to Don Frutos, who said, “You have two days to accomplish this, Major Cayce, or the Army of God will descend upon Uxmal regardless, bringing all the consequences I already described. For everyone concerned.”

Lewis clenched his jaw, never looking at Periz, suddenly even more unsure of the alcalde’s real intentions. At least he’d implied all the Americans were still in his city. “What would you have us do?” he asked.

“Disavow the Ocelomeh at once, of course,” Don Frutos told him, “then march out of the city and stack your arms and all your gear.”

“My men will be treated well?” Lewis asked.

“As promised. As long as they cooperate in every way and don’t resist conversion to the True Faith.”

Lewis imagined how such an order would go over with his men. They’d string me up, he thought with dark amusement. Virtually every man in his command was devout to some degree, adhering to diverse Protestant denominations and even the real Pope in the Rome on the world they left behind. A few now followed Father Orno’s version of Christianity. Surely Wicklow had warned Don Frutos how few would willingly convert to a faith they considered abhorrent? Don Frutos won’t care, Lewis knew. He’ll do whatever he wants with us after we’re helpless.

“I don’t think it’ll take two days to vacate Uxmal,” Lewis said lowly, almost cryptically.

“Nevertheless, you shall have them,” Don Frutos said pleasantly, as if granting a favor.

Which confirms it’ll take that long to bring his whole army up from the washboard glade, Lewis decided, at which time he’ll attack us, arrayed helplessly in the open, then fall on Uxmal itself. He thinks. No wonder he looks so cheerful.

“Very well,” Lewis said. “I hereby denounce the Ocelomeh and divorce my forces from theirs. I also accept . . . His Holiness’s generous offer to take myself and my troops into the service of the Holy Dominion.” Just saying those words made his stomach rebel, but he kept the disgust off his face.

“Excellent!” Don Frutos exclaimed and turned to another heavy priest in a finer robe who’d been very near him earlier. “Obispo Estupendo, proceed with the consecration!”

The fat priest nodded gravely. Staring at the ground and extending his arms to his sides, he began to chant in what sounded like a mix of Latin and the Spanya that seemed universal on this continent. More braziers were lit as if by magic, and pungent smoke filled the tent with a fog that bleared the eyes . . . and possibly other senses. Lewis immediately felt a spike of alarm as he grew light-headed, but as the effect increased, so did his apathy and willingness to accept it. Long wooden flutes retrieved from within the priest’s robes made a sharp, plaintive, monotonous sound, probably annoyingly audible all across the clearing around the tent. Other voices joined the chant, though Don Frutos made no sound, only gazing benevolently about. Suddenly, the tapestry behind the throne stirred again, and two figures were ushered out between the weaselly Tranquilo and portly Felicidad. Both were naked, bound, and apparently drugged, and through the rising haze in the tent—and in Lewis’s mind—it took him a moment to realize the first figure was one of the gold-painted girls, but the other was Colonel Wicklow. He looked at Don Frutos and caught him watching him. “One of mine and one of yours,” he almost shouted over the din of flutes. “Of no further use to either of us. Besides, I told you I’ve grown fond of the colonel, and it’s time he was rewarded for his service. He will go to heaven, Major Cayce! Accompanied by that wretched child as his everlasting servant!”

Whatever was in the smoke kept this from fully registering for a moment. Longer still before Lewis began to piece together a response or plan of action. In that time he dimly heard shots outside and fighting, as well as insistent cries of alarm. As if he was watching a dream, he saw the girl flung down on the table as the chanting increased in urgency and volume and willing hands, probably accustomed to whatever was affecting Lewis’s mind, cut the girl’s bonds and held her arms and legs while Father Felicidad took his place at the head of the table, drawing a long, green obsidian blade, its serrated edges and faceted sides reflecting the flames of the closest brazier like a malevolent jewel. Lewis felt the grip of his saber in his hand but couldn’t seem to draw it. Looking desperately at Orno and Periz, he saw the horror on their faces made more intense, like his, by their inability to do anything but watch as Felicidad cried out and raised the wicked blade above the bare breast of the unresisting child.

Just as he began the fatal thrust, Father Felicidad’s triumphant expression bulged to the side and exploded all over the anxiously expectant Doms on the other side of the table amid an earsplitting crash and roiling ball of smoke. Lewis felt someone grab him from behind, dragging him back, while Captain Anson leaped on the table with one of his huge revolvers in hand, swaying drunkenly, reaching to lift the golden child.

“Kill him, you fools!” Don Frutos roared, backing behind his throne-like chair. “He’s already fired his shot!” Lewis distinctly saw an idiot grin spread across the Ranger’s face as a priest produced a sword from beneath his robe.

Anson shot him too. “This pistol’s magical, made by a fiendish demon named Sam Colt. It’ll shoot a hundred bullets at a throw, an’ I can do this all damn night!” he bellowed, snapping off another shot that blew a hole in the throne as Don Frutos and General Agon ducked out of sight—and men in yellow-and-black uniforms swarmed in from the hidden annex. They fired quickly, frantically, trying to protect their masters, killing a couple of red-robed figures in their haste. Lewis finally freed his saber from its scabbard, but whoever had him kept him from tottering to the Ranger’s aid.

“Shake it off, Major!” shouted Private Willis in his ear. “Take deep breaths an’ blow that nasty shit out. Barca smoked the smoke right off, if you get me, an’ said they was up to somethin’. Sure enough! Them squeaky flutes must’a signaled their hunnerd-yard guards to come creepin’ up. Here’s your horse, sir. Up you git!”

Lewis’s head was already clearing as he climbed in the saddle and saw the result of the fighting he’d vaguely heard. Men lay dead all around, mostly Dom lancers, but a dragoon and a couple of Espinoza’s lancers as well. Balls fired by Dom muskets were whirring past as the hundred—more—Dom infantry continued to advance, lighting the night with their sparkly muzzle flashes very close.

“That gal Leonor killed half these buggers,” Willis said admiringly, using a dead lancer as a step to his stirrup, “then covered us while we went for you.” Lewis now saw that despite his bulk, Reverend Harkin had practically carried Father Orno and Alcalde Periz back to their horses while Barca half dragged a nearly insensible Colonel De Russy. Varaa, Burton, Anson, and Leonor were still shooting at Doms in the marquee, forted behind the heavy, overturned table. Dragoons and lancers were shooting carbines at the other advancing Doms while the rest of their “hundred” dragoons, lancers, and Ocelomeh Rangers galloped up to join them from behind. It looked like there’d soon be another battle here—not that Lewis hadn’t half expected it from the start—but, shaking his head and blinking his eyes to clear the intoxicating smoke, he saw that Don Frutos had cheated again. There were at least three or four hundred Doms coming up the rise. “Let’s go, Captain Anson! We’ve more company coming than we can entertain.”

“I just wanna get that slimy Frutos bastard,” Leonor raged.

“You think he just stayed behind that chair?” Lewis shouted. The marquee was starting to burn, ignited by an overturned brazier or torch. A lancer’s horse squealed and went down, but the rider hopped off in time to avoid being crushed. “He and the rest are out the back and down behind the infantry by now. Let’s go!”

Reluctantly, Anson called the others away, still carrying the drugged girl when he climbed in the saddle. Lewis looked around. Leonor was mounted, and so was Varaa. Barca was behind De Russy, holding him up. Father Orno seemed to be doing the same for Alcalde Periz. “Take them down to the trees, Lieutenant Burton,” Lewis ordered, waving his sword at the Doms. “We’ll meet them the same way as before.”

Seeing them start to pull back at last, the Doms broke ranks and charged, swarming up and around the marquee. That’s when Lewis saw the emaciated, naked form of Colonel Wicklow walking in circles in front of the big burning tent, hands still bound. “Jesus,” he hissed, turning Arete back and preparing to touch her with his spurs. “I can’t leave him to them. God knows what they’ll do to him now.” The roaring overpressure of Captain Anson’s Walker Colt buffeted his right ear, and forty yards away, silhouetted by the growing flames, Colonel Wicklow dropped like a stone. Lewis turned to glare at Anson and was surprised by the fury he saw.

“What do you reckon they’d do to you, Lewis?” Anson snapped. “An’ what would we do without you?”

“He did Wicklow a mercy, Major,” Varaa shouted over the swelling musket fire, “and probably saved your life. You can fight later. Now we fight Doms. To the trees!”

Lewis had no business faulting Don Frutos for cheating—though the drugged smoke was a bit much—because Lewis had “cheated” as well. All of Felix Meder’s mounted riflemen and Hudgens’s two sections of artillery had moved up the forest track to the edge of the trees under cover of darkness. Much like the Doms must’ve done. And they’d deployed the same way they’d met the Dom lancers by the time the enemy infantry swept down. The result was much the same as well. Silhouetted against the burning tent, the enemy made a perfect target for massed rifle and carbine fire as well as the thundering, whistling canister belching from four well-plied 6pdrs. In moments, it seemed, the slope descending toward the trees was covered with steaming, mewling carrion once more.

“Now we move,” Lewis cried, Leonor beside him as he urged Arete toward the carriage Father Orno and Reverend Harkin had packed Alcalde Periz and Colonel De Russy back into. “Lieutenant Burton, pass the word for Lieutenant Hudgens to replace the canister he expended from his caissons and have the rest of the men replenish ammunition as well. Wounded to the rear, and prepare to advance. Messengers!”

Two pairs of mounted Ocelomeh joined him as he rode. In these woods, at night, no single rider could be relied on to carry word of this importance. “Other couriers down the line have heard the fighting, no doubt, so Major Reed will probably know what to do before you even get there. If not, however, he must be told to ‘execute his movement as planned.’ ” Even these runners wouldn’t know exactly what the ‘movement’ was, in case they were taken, though its general purpose must be obvious. The Ocelomeh Rangers galloped away as Lewis and Captain Anson dismounted by the carriage, finding Varaa and a cluster of her healers there. “Has the alcalde recovered his senses yet?” Lewis asked, but Varaa clutched his arm.

“Yes,” she said lowly, “but he was hit by a Dom ball as Reverend Harkin and Father Orno were getting him on his horse.”

Lewis’s racing thoughts and plans blanked for a moment as he pushed his way through to the carriage. Orno was in there, supporting his friend, and De Russy was hovering over him, hat gone and wispy, blood-spiked hair astray. He looked slightly deranged when he met Lewis’s gaze. Ominously, the healers had withdrawn. “If Dr. Newlin was here . . .” De Russy began.

“He could do nothing,” gasped Alcalde Periz.

Lewis knew it was true at once. The gold scale armor had done little to slow the ball that slammed into Periz’s chest. If anything, it only flattened it into a wider missile that made a bigger wound, joined by the golden scales themselves. It hadn’t hit anything immediately vital, but there’d be no stopping the blood from such a gaping hole. De Russy was trying to slow it at least, pressing the stuffed pillow-like top of his hat hard against it.

“Don’t try to talk, my friend,” Orno admonished, but Periz only snorted at him. “Would you have me die with things unsaid? Necessary things?” He looked at Lewis. “I know you feared I’d abandon you and accept Don Frutos’s terms.” He squeezed Father Orno’s arm. “As did you—and you weren’t wrong.” He looked back at Lewis. “If we could’ve built the Union you sought from the start, I would’ve been more confident. I loved the idea of it but feared it as well. More than I believed the Doms would really come. I thought Uxmal would diminish within it.” He gave a gurgling sigh. “Actually, Sira feared that more than I, but even as I encouraged the other alcaldes to preserve a looser alliance, Sira came around to my original thinking. By then it was too late, and though our alliance grew stronger than I ever dreamed—making me think the Union would’ve succeeded after all—I held no hope it could prevail against the might of the Dominion.” He pursed his bloody lips. “So yes, if I could’ve been certain things would go back to the way they were before you came, even with the unending strife against Holcanos and Grik, I would’ve betrayed you to preserve that.” He shook his head. “These last weeks, and particularly these final days, knowing what was coming—what it would mean for my people—I prepared for treachery and war at the same time.” He looked away, gasping from the effort of speaking. “But after actually meeting the Doms and hearing Don Frutos, seeing what I saw, I know peace was never possible.” He reached for Lewis’s hand and clasped it weakly. “War is here, and I’m resigned to it. I only wish I could fight it with you, but you’ll find a steadier, more reliable ally and friend to your Union in my beloved Sira than you did in me. I only beg you to remember I didn’t betray you in the end, and that you’ll build your Union and protect it—and my Sira—as if they were your own.”

Lewis squeezed the weakening hand. “I suspected you were tempted,” he confirmed. “Who wouldn’t be, under the circumstances? But I never believed you would. I don’t believe it now.” He smiled. “And even if you had, I still would’ve protected your people as best I could since I already think of them as mine. Rest easy, Alcalde Periz. All will be well. Rest easy, my friend.”

Stepping back from the carriage, he heard Father Orno praying aloud, possibly conferring his version of the last rites. Lewis pushed a couple of healers back toward the door, saying, “Stay with him. You too, Colonel De Russy, if you please. Sira may need you no matter what occurs. Do you need Barca? Good. I’d like to keep him.” He called sharply to the driver who’d resumed his post. “Get him back to Uxmal as quick as you can. Lieutenant Hernandez, detail a dozen escorts, but the rest of us are pressing on before the enemy gathers their wits.”

“What about me, Major Cayce?” Reverend Harkin asked.

Lewis considered, watching the dragoons and riflemen finish re-forming their column and the guns pull in near the front. Anson had already remounted and galloped forward to lead with the Ocelomeh Rangers and Espinoza’s lancers. Leonor was still mounted, waiting for him, and now Willis and Barca joined her. What a strange staff I’ve assembled, he thought. “Return in the carriage or ride with us, Reverend,” Lewis finally answered. “Wherever you feel called to be.”

“Then I’ll stay with you,” Harkin replied, hauling his bulk up on an unhappy local horse. “Alcalde Periz has Orno to pray for him. All of Uxmal will be blanketed in prayer. But who will pray for you?”

Lewis smiled. “Who indeed?”

Harkin grinned back, then called out loudly in his far-carrying pulpit voice, “Be strong in the Lord, lads, and in His mighty power! Our struggle is not against flesh and blood alone, but the very spiritual forces of Evil in this dark, unholy world. Tonight, tomorrow, and forevermore, we stand against the Devil himself!”

There was a ragged chorus of “Amen!” and Lewis called for the small force to advance.

“That wasn’t straight from Ephesians,” Leonor accused as the column set out.

“True,” Harkin serenely agreed, “I may have edited it just a bit, but the sentiment remains intact. All the best prayers and sermons are reinforced by the meaning of scripture as it applies to the moment, if not the actual word for word.”

“Ain’t that what the Doms have done?”

Even in the darkness, more complete now that the marquee had burned away, Lewis knew Harkin was struggling for control, especially when Varaa kakked behind him. “Not at all, my dear,” Harkin said at last, voice the same as before. “I’ve never seen a Dom Bible. I don’t know if it exists. If so, I imagine a vile, vomitous manifesto, entirely fabricated to justify their evil ways. But even if it were the same as ours and they validate their hideous acts with words taken directly from it—which I suppose they could, selecting a phrase or sentence out of context here and there—it’s still the holy sentiment, the essence of the words they’ve perverted to their barbarous ends. I’d never do that.” He paused reflectively. “Though God alone knows how much blood’s been spilled on the world we came from because two people read the exact same words and came to different understandings!”

They’d crested the corpse-strewn rise, and Anson and some of his Rangers—visible as dark, mounted shapes under the three-quarter moon that turned the long grass around them almost silver—abruptly disappeared in the gloom of the far tree line. There was no shooting. All the Doms there must’ve raced into action or fallen back with Don Frutos.

“Let’s pick up the pace, Lieutenant Burton!” Lewis called, and the column broke into a canter, the only sounds the rumble of hooves, the creak and pop of cannon carriages amid the rattle and jangle of traces, and the crackle of fluttering guidons as they plunged down into the forbidding forest on the enemy leader’s heels.

Lewis had less than four hundred men under his direct command. They were good men, some of his best, and they’d drive forward as far and strong as they could. But there were bound to be enemies along the track, now ready and waiting, and at the washboard glade just four miles away was an army of twenty thousand. Numbers wouldn’t count for as much as speed, determination, and firepower on the confined forest track, but they’d matter a great deal in the open when they were deployed and arrayed to face him. Still, now that the thing was set in motion, Lewis was content, almost cheerful. After long months of training, waiting, and preparation for what they’d expected to happen, they’d quickly, professionally improvised for what they hadn’t as best they could. The results of the bizarre meeting with the enemy would lay to rest any lingering political reluctance or opposition among the people of this land, and its army would know the stakes and consequences of failure. Suddenly all was clear at last—or would be once Father Orno got Alcalde Periz back to Uxmal, and messengers went to Lewis’s other forces. Necessity would turn support for the cause, perhaps the Union, universal. There’d be no more doubts or equivocation, no more thought of appeasement, and all the people would recognize the simple choices between good and evil, fight or die. The “cause” would become as stark and unencumbered as battle itself.

Lewis had seen his share of war and battle and hated the horror of it, particularly the tragic loss or maiming of young men with such promise, but as complex as battles often were—and their hasty deployments would make this one more complex than usual—they were often simplicity itself compared to the political maneuvers that set them in motion. The Doms seemed too arrogant to realize it, but Lewis hoped and believed the perversity, cruelty, and treachery they’d exhibited at the parley, designed to divide and intimidate, would have the opposite effect. The clear-cut choices represented by the cause would reach his whole army before it fought. Any lingering doubts his men might’ve carried, old hands and new, would be cast away. They’d be afraid. He was afraid. But they’d fight even harder than they would’ve before the parley was held.

Now Lewis could go into battle without cares of that sort on his mind, and he was glad for this battle. It would give substance and meaning and hope to the cause, no matter how terrible it might be, because just as his Americans had an affinity for the Ocelomeh they’d already fought beside, nearly everyone in the Alliance of Cities was represented here. All their people, and the army, would become one at last—he prayed. First we have to win, of course, he told himself with a rueful grin.

Leonor was riding beside him and noted his expression in the growing moonlight. “Looks like you’re actually enjoyin’ yourself.”

Lewis laughed at her. “I’ve never seen anyone appear to enjoy a fight more than you, except perhaps your father,” he retorted, “so considering the source, that’s a strange accusation.”

“No accusation. Observation.” They were nearing the trees. “Do you think there’s a chance this half-baked plan’ll work?”

Lewis nodded at Reverend Harkin, bouncing back and forth in his saddle. “I think in one respect, after what I saw tonight, I have to agree with the good reverend’s theory. Surely the Doms—their leaders, at least—represent pure evil in this land. They may even be the strongest manifestation of it on this entire world, for all we know. So I do believe God’s primary purpose in putting us here must be to oppose them—and He’s on our side.”

“Why not just smite ’em, then, like he did them Gomorrans an’ nasty Sodomites?”

Lewis chuckled. “He could, I’m sure, but what good would it do the people here? How long would their faith in Him—and their liberty—endure if they weren’t called to defend it? There are still the Holcanos and Grik.”

“It might save a bunch from gettin’ killed.”

“But they wouldn’t have earned it, would they?” Harkin asked, voice jouncing with his bulbous body.

“I didn’t know you were in the ‘God helps them who help theirselves’ camp,” Leonor countered. “Father says that’s Greek, an’ ain’t in the Bible at all!” She paused. “He does seem to live by it, though.”

“Thessalonians 3:10 says, ‘The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat,’ ” Harkin went on pedantically.

“It ain’t the same.”

“Is it not?”

“No,” Leonor insisted. “An’ what about us? Why did God pick us to fight the Doms?”

Lewis cleared his throat to reply as they finally cantered down into the forest. The track was wide and clear, better than it would be later on, and for the first time he noticed the bark on the north sides of the trees emitted a faint phosphorescence and the dense woods glowed with just enough light that they’d have no trouble keeping the road. He’d heard of the phenomenon and counted on it, but they’d used lanterns the only time he’d ever moved troops here at night and he hadn’t seen it himself.

“We were at hand, and it fell to us,” Barca suddenly said behind them. “ ‘To whomever much is given, of him will much be required; and to whom much was entrusted, of him more will be asked.’ I think the Lord put us here because he trusted us to do the right thing,” he added a little self-consciously.

“There you are!” Reverend Harkin declared triumphantly.

“Thank you, Barca,” Lewis said. “I believe so too, and I hope you’re right.”

“I won’t argue that,” said Leonor.