Crystal Rain (9 page)

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Authors: Tobias S. Buckell

BOOK: Crystal Rain
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Jerome stood shakily on the beach, his feet sinking into the sand as the occasional wave washed up and wet them.
 
Troy and one of his cousins helped pack several canvas bags for Pepper, placing them in
Lucita
’s forward stowhatch. Pepper told the Frenchi that they needed to have somewhere to run to, or some defense against the Azteca, as they would eventually come.
“There is reef we can hide behind, sand and coconut trees, we boat them to run in.”
“You can last a month or two like that, maybe, if you were well prepared,” Pepper said. “What then?”
They smiled. “That go be long enough to see what happen. Any longer, and all Nanagada done for anyway.”
“True.” Pepper nodded.
Jerome watched them all nod as despair rolled over him. What he wanted to tell Troy and everyone else was that it wasn’t worth it. The Azteca would come for them all anyway, and they could do nothing to stop that. They could only make a stand and fight, he thought. Bash them back something wicked. But running was futile.
He looked out over water and clenched his fists. He felt utterly unprepared in any sense for the new shape of the world that had dropped on him.
 
Pepper waited until the sun started slipping beneath the far-off reefs and breaking waves before he seemed ready to leave. He walked down the beach to where Jerome sat alone by a coconut tree.
“You leaving?” Jerome said.
“Yes.”
“I want to go with you.”
“And do what? What skills do you have that I need? I know what I need to know, I have the boat. It is up to me to track down your father, if he’s still alive.”
Jerome banged his head against the tree’s rough bark. “What I can do?” he cried. “What?”
“You can tell me this.” Pepper loomed over Jerome, dreads dangling down like snakes. “Did John ever talk to you about the
Ma Wi Jung
?”
Jerome shook his head. “I dunno.”
Pepper grabbed him by his shirt and picked him up. He pushed Jerome against the coconut tree, hard enough that Jerome’s spine hurt when it scraped against the bumps in the trunk.
“Look right here at me,” Pepper hissed, “and tell me if your father ever told you anything about the
Ma Wi Jung.”
Jerome squirmed, scared at the sudden ferocity. He had no doubt that Pepper could snap his back against the tree and leave him for dead.
“I swear,” Jerome wailed, a tear rolling down his cheek.
“No coordinates? No secret rhymes that give its location that you’ve sworn never to tell anyone?”
“No! Never.” Jerome sobbed, scared for his life again, scared of Pepper. In a night his world had been flipped. What was once safe had become dangerous. And people he had thought safe were dangerous.
Pepper dropped Jerome to the sand. “I’m sorry. If I see your father, I will tell him you are alive. Tell Troy I’ll sink any boats in Nanagada; make it harder for the Azteca to come out here.”
That was it.
Pepper had that calm face Jerome remembered. When he’d shot the Azteca. Jerome watched Pepper walk down the beach to the
Lucita,
coat swishing. He pushed off, pulled the sail up, and never looked back.
Jerome sat by the coconut tree, watching the sail grow smaller back toward the Nanagadan coastline, where a long, black pillar of smoke, lit orange at the base, snaked up over Brungstun. Somewhere at the foot of that fire Schmitti, Swagga, and Daseki were alone with Azteca. Along with his mom, they would die, or be savaged by the Azteca, or … he didn’t know what.
Jerome could not take his eyes away. He didn’t move until Troy came over with a wool blanket, picked him up, and carried him back to one of the shacks by the beach.
 
 
John stood up and rested his wrists on the mango tree to hold himself up. His leg muscles cramped. The Azteca holding the rope to his neck tugged a warning. John glared at him. The Azteca hollered and walked up to him, the rope drooping to the ground between them.
“What?” John spat.
He got a solid punch straight to the face. Spitting blood,
his upper lip throbbing, John stared right back at his captor. The Azteca smiled and pointed his head at a point just past the tree. Seven Azteca warriors stood waiting. A handful more stood around the clearing’s edges watching the scene. Campfire smoke trailed over the trees nearby. Another couple hundred Azteca nearby?
“Ompa.”
John looked in the direction of the black rock. The two bodies from earlier in the morning lay next to it.
“We dead,” Alex said, next to him. “We dead.”
The stone was soaked black with dried blood.
“Will they kill
everyone
?” John coughed as he was pulled forward.
“Not everyone.” They shuffled around the fallen tree’s branches and leaves to approach the sacrificial stone. “Healthy people first. They save women and children for later. Some end up slave.”
The Azteca standing by the stone took off his mask. Extra feathers swung from his unbraided, clumped hair as he walked forward and pulled out a long, black knife. It soaked up the late-afternoon sun.
The warriors around John backed away reverently.
“Warrior-priest,” Alex whispered.
The warrior-priest walked forward. He grabbed Alex’s head and pricked his left earlobe with the obsidian knife. Blood ran down Alex’s neck. He jerked back, trying to kick at him, but the warriors stepped forward and hit him until he stopped struggling.
I can’t just watch this, John thought.
He took a breath and ran backward until the noose choked him. The Azteca stepped forward and beat him to the ground with fists, quickly and calmly, accustomed to the antics of those about to be sacrificed.
Gasping and bruised, John watched from the ground as they untied Alex’s hands. Four warriors stepped forward and threw Alex to the ground. They grabbed his hands and feet, picked him up, and carried him up onto the stone. They crouched as they pulled on his feet and his hands, keeping Alex still and giving room to the warrior-priest.
“Nopuluca,”
one chuckled.
The priest straddled Alex, looked up into the sun, then plunged the knife deep into the supine man’s ribs. Alex screamed. He screamed as the priest cut and snapped bone, and he didn’t stop until the priest grunted with satisfaction. The tearing sounds continued until a final whimper, and then the priest held Alex’s dripping heart up toward the sun.
The clearing erupted in Azteca cheers as the priest shoved Alex’s limp body off the stone and two warriors grabbed John’s hair. He felt tugging on the back of his wrists as they untied him. Before he could move, warriors had his hand, his hook, and his two legs in firm grasp. They swung him up into the air and then downward. John’s back slapped against the sacrificial stone.
It was warm.
He looked up at the fluffy clouds above him, the sun off to the right. This was the last thing he would see. His frantic straining and pulling couldn’t dislodge the sinewy hands holding him down. He was trapped. Helpless. Waiting for the knife.
When the priest stood over him, John fought the desire to shut his eyes. He tried to stare down the priest. One last tiny act of defiance.
Someone in the distance shouted.
Something hissed. The priest turned and then crumpled to the ground, impaled by a four-foot-long spear. The warriors froze, stunned.
They let go of John and reached out toward the priest. Only one warrior paused to scan for the spear thrower, shock still on his face.
Waste no opportunity, John thought.
He sat up and swung his hook into the belly of the closest Azteca. It punctured thick cotton and finally skin with an extra shove, then a pop. The warrior hiccuped and looked down.
John yanked the hook out to disembowel him.
The man’s ropy intestines slithered out onto the ground. John rolled off the sacrificial stone to grab the dying Azteca’s gun.
Another spear hissed through the air. Another Azteca
was pierced and thrown backward. John pulled the gun barrel up with his bloodied hook and fired point-blank at the only Azteca on his side of the stone.
Not sure how to reload Azteca-designed guns, he threw it aside and picked up the one dropped at the impaled warrior’s side.
With a scream an Azteca leaped over the stone. John blew a good-sized hole in the man’s chest, then turned and ran. He heard a scream and a thud, another spear no doubt, and kept running.
He tasted sweat. It burned his eyes, but he didn’t slow down from his full, zigzagged sprint until pricker branches started slapping his face and he tripped over a vine.
His right knee popped when he stood back up. He ached all over, and a good nick on his shoulder must have come from a close bullet.
But he was alive.
If it wouldn’t have spelled death, he would have shouted with elation. But the Azteca who had been watching from a distance would start tracking him or calling their brothers nearby to come help.
John hobbled through the bush, getting deeper in.
After a good half an hour, he slowed down and rested against a tree. He used a large leaf to clean the blood from his hook. Then he used the hook to cut at the rope around his neck. He threw the strands onto the ground.
“You are lucky to be alive,” said a voice.
John jumped up.
“Easy.” The man stood just behind John with a spear pointed down at the ground. He looked unmistakably Azteca, with high cheekbones and smooth brown skin. He wore his hair brushed forward, the neat trim bordering his forehead.
But he wore mongoose gray, complete with pieces of glued-on bush.
“My name is Oaxyctl.”
O-ash-k-tul,
he pronounced it. He looked down at John’s hook, then back up.
“You threw the spears?” John asked, eyeing the barbed point near the dirt and leaves. His hook remained by his side, ready to try to knock the spear aside if needed.
Oaxyctl nodded.
“Who are you?” John asked, alert. Carelessness meant death. Then it dawned on him. “The mongoose-men in my house last night said they were looking for you.”
“What’d they say?”
“They were worried. You went missing with some other mongoose-men.”
“Yes. We were attacked. I made it. They didn’t. I work for the mongoose-men. I teach them about Azteca and sometimes spy for them.” Oaxyctl looked back past John toward the clearing. “You did well back there. They get confused if you get the priest first. But scouts will be coming quickly. We need to move out of here if we want to live.”
“Okay.” John dropped his hook slightly. “But thank you, thank you for intervening.”
Oaxyctl smiled tightly. “I’m sorry I couldn’t rescue the men with you.” He edged forward. “Now, what did you say your name was?”
“John. John deBrun.”
“Ahh. Good. A very good name. Good.” Oaxyctl sounded relieved.
The Azteca-turned-mongoose-man trotted between the trees, and John followed him. “I’m from Brungstun.”
Oaxyctl used his spear to push aside a branch for John. “Brungstun is occupied. If we go south, and then east, we can skirt the invading army and make our way towards Capitol City. It will be safer there.”
The words sucked the elation of being alive from John. Brungstun gone? Shanta, and Jerome, dead or slaves? His chest hurt. He followed Oaxyctl numbly, trying to organize his thoughts. Going to Brungstun would just kill him as well, as cold as it sounded …
Capitol City. “I would like to travel there with you,” John said.
At Capitol City he could join any fight to push the Azteca back, recapture Brungstun. Oaxyctl was his best chance to live.
“Good.” Oaxyctl sounded pleased with that.
 
 
During a small pause to catch their breaths, John watched chitter-birds swoop around the trees in sudden bursts, moving from one tree branch to another. In the distance a monkey chattered angrily from the treetops. Shadows crept out as twilight approached.
“How did you end up near the clearing?” John asked, voice low.
“I was skirting Brungstun looking for the
quimichtin
who killed my friends,” Oaxyctl said. “Then I heard the screams.”
“Quimichtin?”
“Spies,” Oaxyctl whispered. “Like me, but that look like you.”
John crossed his arms, chest still heaving. “I didn’t realize there were so many.” He wondered who among the familiar faces he’d seen on the streets, or on fishing boats, had been a spy that had helped the Azteca.
Oaxyctl shrugged. “Lots of spies here. Not many in Azt-Ian.” He sat next to John and unfastened a tin water flask from his hip. He opened it and drank, water dribbling down the corners of his mouth, but didn’t offer the flask to John.
“That’s understandable.” John fingered a buckle around his wrist. “I’m sure Azteca over here would rather not go back.”
“You think Aztlan is that detestable?” Oaxyctl took another swallow.
“If life there is anything like what just happened to me, yes. Fucking savages.” John spat. “I have a family in Nanagada. My wife, her name is Shanta, and my boy is—”
“Dead,” Oaxyctl said calmly. “They are all dead. Even if they still breathe this second, they are prizes, slaves, or gifts to hungry gods. They will be sacrificed to help the crops grow, or for battles to swing in Azteca favor, or even just because the gods demand it.”
Each word struck John like a pelted rock. He raised his hook and pointed it at Oaxyctl. “Are you trying to goad me, Azteca?”
Oaxyctl capped his flask and returned it to his hip.
“Quiet or you’ll kill us,” he hissed. “I’m not Azteca anymore, John. I’m a mongoose-man. I fight by their sides to kill Azteca spies. I betrayed my own kind. You are a just a townsman. I did not have to stop and save you when I heard the screams of the sacrificed on the eagle stone. I did not have to risk my life to save yours. And I certainly did not do all this for you to call me or my people savages.”
“The blood spilled speaks for itself,” John growled.
“It does. But speak ill of just the Jaguar scouts, not all Azteca. Or maybe I will kill you.”
John took a deep breath. “I don’t understand you.”
“Maybe you should try,” Oaxyctl snapped. “The mongoose-men lie with their hearts ripped out. That could be you, or me. So here we are together, John deBrun. Let us both live with it.”
John let his hook fall slowly down to rest beside him. “I was better at hardships before I married Shanta. My son and my wife are a part of me now, understand? This is like losing half your body.”
“What makes you think that I didn’t leave my family behind when I came over the mountains?”
John wasn’t sure yet how to judge Oaxyctl. It was usually an easy thing for him to decide whether he trusted someone. But John sensed many different muddled things in Oaxyctl that sometimes didn’t feel right.
He’d saved John’s life though, that meant something.
Oaxyctl held up a finger, then carefully picked up a sheaf of five-foot-long spears and slung them over his back with the leather strap. “We must move.” A long rod with a notch at the end dangled from Oaxyctl’s right hand, ready to fit in a spear and throw it.
“Azteca?” John asked.
“Maybe. Not sure.”
John stared into the forest. Why had he been arguing with the man who had just saved his life? He had to snap out of himself.
“Capitol City is a long way from here,” John whispered, looking around the large, shady leaves for attackers. “Weeks by a good road.” Oaxyctl had a large pack of supplies. But John knew it wasn’t enough food and water to last a walking trip all the way to Capitol City.
“I don’t plan on walking there,” Oaxyctl whispered back. He stepped toward the leaves and led them farther into the heavy jungle, quietly aiming down a nonexistent path south, away from the coast. John followed just as carefully. The more miles they walked, the more he could try to erase the feel of the sacrificial stone, warm and smooth against his back.
 
The deeper into the jungle, the less they could count on any paths. Oaxyctl sliced his way through the thick bush, sure of his direction even as night fell and they continued on. Neither of them were interested in stopping due to the dark. Not with scouts behind them. And both knew it was stupid to fashion a torch that would give them away.
“The nearest town to Brungstun is Joginstead.” John had visited Joginstead on occasion. It was due east from Brungstun. “Are we going there after we go south to avoid Azteca?”
“We’ll get close,” Oaxyctl said.
Eventually Oaxyctl gave John his flask for water as they continued in silence. But Oaxyctl mainly kept to himself, and John focused on strengthening his mind for the long voyage ahead.
Survival. The instinct bubbled from deep inside him, past the nonexistent memory. John knew he was good at that. And when he was stronger and more prepared, there would be revenge. As much death as he could bring back on the Azteca. It felt comfortable to think that way.
Maybe he’d been a soldier before he’d lost his memory.

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