War God: Nights of the Witch Read online

  Shikotenka risked a glance back as he reached the summit and saw nothing to suggest he’d been detected by the Mexica army below. He crawled a few body-lengths down the other side of the hill to be sure he was out of sight, then stood and broke into a run. Soon he settled into the loping, long-distance stride that would carry him effortlessly over the ten miles of rough country to the forest where his squad lay hidden.

  His spirits soared.

  If things had gone according to plan he would have waited until nightfall to do this run, hidden by darkness from Mexica scouting parties.

  But war was the art of improvisation.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Tenochtitlan, Thursday 18 February 1519

  After the priests had gone, Malinal was dazed and silent, not wanting to speak as she tried to make sense of what had just happened, reliving the events scene by scene:

  She’s seated on the ground beside strange, powerful little Tozi. She holds Tozi’s hand. She’s aware that Tozi is whispering under her breath, but the words are so quiet and so fast she can’t make them out. On the other side of Tozi, with his head nestled in her lap, Coyotl sleeps the sleep of the innocent so he cannot see Ahuizotl approaching or the murderous intent that oozes from every pore of the high priest’s face.

  What Malinal hasn’t told Tozi yet is that Ahuizotl knows her – knows her very well – and if he sees her he will certainly select her and anyone with her for sacrifice. She feels bad for putting Tozi and Coyotl at additional risk this way, but there’s no alternative. Her only realistic hope of staying alive is to continue to harness the girl’s astonishing skills and learn from her extensive and ingenious knowledge of the prison.

  All that, however, has become irrelevant now that Ahuizotl is here, limping towards her. Since he’s using his spear as a crutch he points the index finger of his left hand at the victims he chooses for the knife. He singles them out with grim intensity, sometimes stopping to peer into a woman’s eyes as his finger consigns her to death, sometimes making her stand and perform some repetitive physical task before selecting or rejecting her as a victim.

  He’s less than twenty paces away now, ripples of fear spreading out ahead of him through the terrorised crowd. Malinal has her eyes downcast, praying he’ll somehow pass her by, trying to think of herself as ugly, imagining herself flat-chested, hunched, wrinkled, covered in pustules and boils, as Tozi suggested. It’s difficult because she has lived all her life with the knowledge that she is beautiful, but she works hard at it, is even beginning to believe it, when she starts to notice a burning sensation at the centre of her brow. A reflex movement that she can’t control makes her look up and she sees Ahuizotl staring intently at her, his jaundiced water-monster eyes glittering with malice.

  He limps closer until just five paces separate them and it’s clear he’s not fooled. There was never any point trying to hide from a man as evil as this. A sly, triumphant smirk comes and goes on his wicked face. He raises his left arm, his long bony finger snakes out and he inscribes a circle in the air encompassing Malinal, Tozi and Coyotl, consigning all three of them to death.

  As the enforcers stride forward to grab them, Tozi’s whisper changes pitch and her voice seems to deepen and roughen, becoming almost a snarl or a growl. Malinal suddenly feels her hair stand on end, feels it crackling and sparking with an inner fire. Tozi and Coyotl are struck the same way. At the same instant a transparent, filmy screen seems to form itself around them, as though they’re on the inside of a bubble.

  Ahuizotl’s jaw drops. He blinks stupidly. He rubs his eyes with the back of his hands. He has the look of a man in the path of a whirlwind. His four bodyguards wear the same amazed, bemused, disbelieving expression. And they’ve all stopped in their tracks.

  What are they seeing?

  Or not seeing?

  Malinal can only guess until Ahuizotl utters a single, high-pitched shout of pure frustration and limps forward, leaning on his spear. To her astonishment he passes right through her and through Tozi without any impact or collision. One of the bodyguards tramples Coyotl and again there’s no damage. All Malinal’s senses tell her the three of them are still on the prison floor. Yet some strange transformation seems to have taken place and they’ve become no more substantial than the mist of a summer morning.

  Ahuizotl looks back and it’s obvious he still can’t see them. He slashes the broad blade of his spear through the air, by chance passing it twice through Malinal’s body, but she feels nothing, suffers no injury, and he does not detect her presence.

  A crowd of priests and enforcers have gathered round now. They’re all staring at the place where Malinal, Tozi and Coyotl still are but they too do not see them.

  Ahuizotl glares at his underlings. ‘Tell me what you observed here,’ he snaps at a junior priest.

  ‘Venerable one. I saw you select three victims. Then they disappeared! They vanished before our eyes. It is surely an omen.’

  ‘Wrong!’ roars Ahuizotl. ‘I selected no victims. No victims disappeared. There is no omen …’

  The young priest looks uncertain: ‘But venerable one, I saw it with my own eyes … We all did.’

  Suddenly Ahuizotl makes a lunge with the spear. Despite his injured leg it’s a forceful, vicious thrust at close range. The heavy flint blade plunges into the priest’s throat and smashes out through the vertebrae at the base of his skull, almost decapitating him. ‘You saw nothing,’ says Ahuizotl to the corpse. He wrestles his spear free. ‘No victims disappeared.’

  Twenty other priests and enforcers stand watching and Ahuizotl turns slowly on the spot, holding the dripping spear, looking from man to man. ‘What did you see?’ he asks.

  One by one they reply that they have seen nothing.

  ‘Very well,’ says Ahuizotl. He claps his hands.’ We’ve not yet filled our quota for this afternoon’s sacrifice.’ He smiles, exposing his gums. ‘I suggest we continue.’

  Despite his bravado, Malinal can see he’s a worried man.

  As well he might be, since she’s miraculously vanished into thin air just when she seemed most completely in his power! He’ll be wondering if some god is aiding her, where she might turn up next and whom she might talk to. She knows too much for him ever to feel safe while she lives.

  He begins to work his way through the prisoners again, casually assigning death to them with every jab of his finger. Screams and wails go up from the women in his path as they are dragged off by the enforcers. Ahuizotl doesn’t deviate left or right but ploughs straight ahead. He’s moving fast and soon he’s a hundred paces away, then two hundred. The screams become more distant. After some time they stop completely. Ahuizotl and his entourage can no longer be seen and silence falls.

  Once every part of the floor was busy with captives, but so many have been taken that there are now large gaps and empty spaces. It’s fortunate that such a gap has opened up where Malinal sits with Tozi and Coyotl, because suddenly the magic is over. The tempo of Tozi’s whispers changes, the static goes out of their hair, the filmy screen that has surrounded and concealed them withdraws, and they are back.

  With so much to think about, Malinal stayed silent for a long while after the priests were gone.

  Finally she turned to Tozi. ‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ she said.

  That was when she realised how pale and beaten Tozi looked and noticed for the first time that blood had streamed from her left ear and run in a line down her neck.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Santiago, Cuba, Thursday 18 February 1519

  As Pepillo regained consciousness he heard a man’s voice: ‘Come, come, Father.’ The voice was deep, faintly reproving and filled with calm, confident authority. ‘This is no way for a religious to behave on the public highway. Has the heat overmastered you? Have you lost your reason?’

  With tremendous gratitude and relief, Pepillo discovered that he had been released from the crushing grip on his nose. He rolled over and pushed himself onto his knees, h
ead down, coughing and gurgling, clearing a torrent of blood and phlegm from his windpipe. Over the sounds he was making, he heard Muñoz speaking through clenched teeth: ‘Where I choose to discipline my page is not your business, sir.’

  ‘Hmmm. Perhaps you’re right. But you’re a man of God, Father – a man – and this boy is little more than a child, and does not the Good Book say that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to ones such as these?’

  Pepillo was breathing freely again. Some blood was still running from his nose, but not enough to choke on. He scrambled to his feet and saw his rescuer mounted on a big chestnut stallion, towering over Muñoz and himself.

  ‘“Withhold not correction from the child”,’ Muñoz suddenly thundered. ‘“Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.”’

  The man on the horse nodded his head. ‘Proverbs 23,’ he said, ‘verses 13 and 14 … But I still prefer the words of Christ our Saviour: “Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea …” Matthew 18:6, if I remember correctly.’

  ‘You dare to tell me my scriptures!’ Muñoz snapped.

  ‘The word of God is for all, Father.’

  By now Pepillo very much liked the man on the horse, not only for saving him from a painful beating, or because he had the nerve to quote the Bible at Muñoz, but also because he looked splendid and warlike and must surely be a great lord. He wore long leather boots, a fine Toledo broadsword strapped over his rich purple doublet, a black velvet cloak with knots and buttons of gold, and a large gold medallion suspended from a thick gold chain around his neck. On his head, tilted at a jaunty angle, was a broad-brimmed leather hat with a plume of feathers. Perhaps thirty-five years old, but radiating an air of worldly experience that made him seem far older, he was deeply tanned with a long oval face, a generous forehead and black hair cropped short, military style. A beard followed the firm edge of his jaw and covered his chin; a long moustache decorated his upper lip. Disconcertingly, his eyes were different sizes, shapes and colours – the left being large, round and grey, the right being smaller, oval, and so dark it was almost black.

  ‘The word of God is indeed for all,’ said Muñoz gruffly, ‘but most do not merit it and fewer truly understand it.’ He signalled Pepillo. ‘Pick up the bags, boy. We still have a long way to go.’

  Pepillo jumped to obey but the horseman said, ‘Hold!’ and raised his gauntleted right hand. He turned to Muñoz. ‘I see you wear the habit of the Dominicans, Father. But the monastery is that way’ – he pointed to the town – ‘back the way you came. There’s nothing but ships up ahead.’

  Muñoz sighed. ‘I am here to take passage on one of those ships. I am appointed Inquisitor of the expedition of Diego Velázquez, which is soon to set sail to the New Lands.’

  ‘By which you must mean the expedition of Hernando Cortés.’

  ‘No. It is the expedition of Diego de Velázquez, governor of this island … He it was who conceived of it, financed it, supplied the ships. Cortés is merely its captain. A hired hand.’

  The man on the horse gave Muñoz a cold smile. ‘You will find,’ he said, ‘that I am much more than a hired hand.’ He took off his hat, swept it down in a salute: ‘Hernando Cortés at your service. Velázquez sent me word to expect you. I’ve set aside a cabin for you on my flagship.’

  ‘Then you must have known all along who I am!’ An angry grimace crossed Muñoz’s face as the implications dawned. ‘You’ve been playing me for a fool, sir.’

  ‘I’ve been learning about you, Father …’

  ‘And what have you learned?’

  ‘That you are Velázquez’s man. It’s something I will think on.’

  ‘Aren’t we all Velázquez’s men?’

  ‘We’re all the king’s men and his loyal subjects, Father.’ Cortés looked down at Pepillo and winked, his mismatched eyes giving him an oddly quirky and cheerful look. ‘Pass me those bags,’ he said. He indicated hooks hanging from both sides of his saddle.

  Pepillo swung towards Muñoz, seeking permission, but the Dominican said loudly, ‘No!’ There was an edge of something like panic in his voice.

  ‘Nonsense!’ said Cortés as he spurred his horse round Muñoz, kicking up a cloud of dust and stooping down low to snatch the two bags and secure them to his saddle. ‘My manservant Melchior will have these waiting for your page to collect when you come on board,’ he told the friar. He touched the spurs to his horse’s sides again and galloped towards the pier where, in the distance, the Santa María de la Concepción was still loading.

  ‘But … but … but …’ Pepillo opened and closed his mouth, feeling shocked, not sure what to expect next.

  Muñoz turned towards him with a terrible blank stare.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Cuba, Thursday 18 February 1519

  Zemudio was riding a piebald heavy hunter a full eighteen hands high. Its huge hooves threw up curtains of dust and the low hills, shallow ravines and stands of acacia trees provided excellent cover so Alvarado was able to gain ground rapidly without being seen.

  His hand went to his rapier and he felt a flush of excitement as he caressed the guard of interlaced steel rings that surrounded the hilt. The weapon had been made for him by Andrés Nuñez of Toledo, reckoned by many to be the greatest swordsmith in the world. Over the years Alvarado had purchased eleven blades by Nuñez including two double-handed longswords and three broadswords. The rapier brought his collection to twelve and had been delivered only yesterday. It was very long, light and flexible, and culminated in a deadly needle tip claimed by Nuñez to be able to punch through the toughest chain mail and even penetrate plate armour. But unlike most other such weapons, designed primarily or exclusively for lunging and stabbing, this sword also had a strong double-edged cutting blade. The combination of these virtues was made possible by new techniques for tempering steel that were known only to a few, of whom Nuñez was one.

  Bucephalus was much faster than the heavy hunter; the distance had closed to less than a bowshot and still Zemudio did not look back. Alvarado drew the rapier, liking the heft of it in his hand, raised it above his head and rose up in his stirrups to add force to the blow. He hoped to decapitate the man with a single stroke. If he could get the positioning right he was confident this curious new blade could do it, but if he failed it would quickly come to steel on steel – his long thin blade against the champion’s massive falchion.

  He’d not yet been able to test the rapier in such a match.

  Or against such a dangerous opponent.

  But what was life without risks?

  Alvarado drew within three lengths of Zemudio, then two, then one, and began to overhaul him. Surely he must hear the thunder of Bucephalus’s hooves and the bellows of his breath as he galloped? But even now the man seemed not to notice he was being followed!

  As he drew parallel, Alvarado’s arm came lashing down to deliver a powerful scooping, scything strike, but annoyingly, at the last moment, Zemudio wasn’t there. With unexpected speed and dexterity he ducked low across the heavy hunter’s neck, letting the blade hiss over his head, and immediately lashed out a counter-blow with the wicked-looking falchion that had somehow miraculously sprung into his hand.

  Alvarado swerved Bucephalus to avoid being hacked in half and lost momentum for an instant before resuming the pursuit at full gallop. Obviously Zemudio wasn’t as stupid as he looked. He must have known all along he was being followed and he’d been ready for the attack.

  There was a real danger that the champion might yet prove formidable.

  With a sigh because he hated to waste good horseflesh, Alvarado spurred Bucephalus to a burst of speed that the other animal could not match, came within striking distance of its rump, thrust the tip of his rapier with tremendous force a cubit deep into its anus and twisted the blade as he jerked it out.

  The effect was breathtaking
.

  The heavy hunter was, in an instant, mad and out of control, leaping and bucking, whinnying wildly, blood gushing as though some major artery had been severed. Alvarado didn’t think that even he could have stayed in the saddle of such a huge, crazed animal for very long and, sure enough, within a few seconds, Zemudio was thrown. He came crashing down on his muscular buttocks, roaring with rage, still clutching his falchion and, Alvarado noted with satisfaction, still holding tight to the leather satchel containing Velázquez’s orders for Narváez.

  Alvarado wheeled Bucephalus, threw his reins over a low-hanging branch of a nearby tree and dismounted.

  A few paces away, Zemudio’s horse lay on its side, snuffling and kicking in a widening pool of blood.

  A little further off, Zemudio himself was on his feet. He seemed undamaged by the fall and held the falchion out before him ready to do mischief. ‘That’s a good horse dying there,’ he said. His voice was curiously soft and high. ‘A fine horse. He was with me in Italy. Rode him in many a battle.’

  ‘You can ride him again in Hell,’ said Alvarado. He flicked his wrist, sending a bead of blood flying from the tip of the rapier towards Zemudio’s eyes.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Tenochtitlan, Thursday 18 February 1519

  Malinal had been so deep in her own thoughts she’d missed the alarming change that had come over Tozi. Looking closer she saw that blood, now clotting, had run from both the teenager’s ears and also from her nose where she’d made a half-hearted attempt to wipe it away. Her eyes were open but unresponsive, as though focussed on events in some distant place, and her face was almost unrecognisably slack and blank.

  ‘You did it!’ Malinal whispered. ‘You actually did it!’ She reached out and embraced Tozi: ‘You made us invisible! You saved us again!’ But the girl sat hunched, impervious to praise, silent and closed off. Her body trembled, filled with a fierce, feverish heat. After a moment a groan started somewhere deep down in her chest, forced its way to her throat and burst from her mouth as a stifled scream.