Read Shadow of the Lords Online
Authors: Simon Levack
Shadow of the Lords (6 page)
I grabbed both sides of the canoe and clung to them as the vessel lurched from side to side. The water was in turmoil, with ducks streaking across its surface in all directions and a large shape floundering noisily about just under its surface.
âWhat's happening?' I cried. âWhere's the steward?'
âHe jumped in.' Handy dropped on to one knee and reached out over the water towards the submerged creature splashing about beside us. âBet he can't swim.'
For a moment I hoped he was intending to shove the steward under and hold him there until his struggles stopped, but
then a hand came up, groped blindly towards one of his arms and seized it with enough force to throttle a dog.
then a hand came up, groped blindly towards one of his arms and seized it with enough force to throttle a dog.
âHelp me, won't you?' he grunted as he hauled the sodden, helpless object towards the boat. I did not move. I thought I was doing enough by restraining myself from bashing the steward over the head with the paddle. Instead I looked around for whatever had attacked us. It took only a moment to find it.
âHarpoon.' Handy had seen it at the same time: a short hardwood spear projecting from the boat's side, near the bow. Its flint tip was buried deep in the wood. âYou were lucky, Yaotl â a hand's breadth or so higher and that would have gone through your spleen!'
A length of rope trailed from the spear's shaft. I tugged at it with my fingers, making the rope rise dripping from the water, and then dropped it suddenly when I realized that our assailant must be at the other end of it.
âWho threw this?' I whispered hoarsely. We were floating in plain sight of the bank and had made enough noise already to scare every bird on the western side of the lake, but I still felt the urge to be quiet.
âI'd take a wild guess,' retorted Handy drily, âand say it was the man standing over there among the rushes. It's the throwing-stick and the rope he's holding. They sort of give it away.'
I had not seen or heard him but that was hardly surprising. An Otomi's favoured tactic when confronted by the enemy was to rush screaming towards him and drag him noisily to the earth by his hair, but that did not mean he would have forgotten all of his hunting skills. Perhaps he had been lying in wait for us all along or perhaps, as soon as he had heard us coming, he had crept towards the shoreline to greet us. Either way here he was, and I felt myself caught off guard.
He was tall and spare, without a sign of any excess flesh under his dark, weather-beaten skin. He wore only a
breechcloth, his full warrior costume having presumably been discarded in favour of being able to move about without having it rustle on the ground behind him or against the tall plants on either side. He carried no sword, but that gave me no comfort. One look at his hairstyle â the tall column that crowned his forehead and the loose locks flowing extravagantly over the nape of his neck â assured me that he could probably have killed all of us with his bare hands.
breechcloth, his full warrior costume having presumably been discarded in favour of being able to move about without having it rustle on the ground behind him or against the tall plants on either side. He carried no sword, but that gave me no comfort. One look at his hairstyle â the tall column that crowned his forehead and the loose locks flowing extravagantly over the nape of his neck â assured me that he could probably have killed all of us with his bare hands.
Following Handy's gaze, I took in the throwing-stick, a long plain length of wood with a notch at the end for the spear. The warrior had been hoping to catch his breakfast and we had got in his way.
He watched our antics in silence. While Handy hauled the spluttering, coughing steward over the side, I took up the paddle to propel us towards the bank.
Handy and I jumped into the water, tugged our feet out of the muck beneath it and waded ashore. The steward fell in, got to his knees and began to be violently sick.
Only when he had finished retching and stood up, pulling his waterlogged cloak around him in an effort to restore his dignity, did the Otomi deign to speak.
âWho are you?'
âLord Feathered in Black is my master,' the steward gasped, âand this is â¦'
âI didn't ask you!' the stranger snarled. âI know perfectly well who you are and what your master wants. What's he got to say?' He nodded towards me.
âI'm Yaotl,' I said. âI'm the Chief Minister's slave, and this here is a retainer of his, Handy. We were just looking for â¦' Suddenly inspiration died on me like a plant withering for lack of water and manure, and I found I was left floundering helplessly. âJust looking for â¦'
âA man and a boy?'
âHave you found them?' the steward asked eagerly. My stomach lurched fearfully at the thought that the Otomies might already have found their prey, or the boy at least, and my son might even now be on his way back to my master, trussed like a deer, shivering with pain from whatever the warriors had done to him and terror at the tortures the Chief Minister was intending to inflict.
âNo,' the Otomi said sourly. He bent down and tugged sharply at his rope. The spear at the other end splashed into the water, making me wonder how much strength it took to pull it free with so little effort. âNot a trace of them. Spent the whole of yesterday wading through this muck. Nothing. The lads up in the hills behind us haven't done any better, but at least they kept their feet dry!' He scowled at each of us in turn as he reeled in his rope. âSo old Black Feathers decided we needed some help, did he?' There was no need to ask how much help he thought we were likely to be. âYou'd better come with me. You can tell my captain why the duck he was going to have for breakfast is happily paddling away on the wrong side of the valley!'
The steward pursed his lips dubiously at the prospect of meeting a squad of hungry warriors. âWe want to show you something first,' he said hastily.
âReally? What is it â a side of venison?'
âYaotl thinks he knows where the two you're looking for went.'
The Otomi looked me up and down. âExperienced tracker, is he?'
âNo,' I said, âit's just that â¦'
âOnly we could do with one. Look, we're not used to this sneaking-about stuff, you see? Show me some Texcalan scumbag who thinks he's hard enough to take me on and I'll show you what I can do with him, but following a trail through the marshes isn't my idea of fun, I can tell you!'
Handy, loyal as ever, took up the steward's theme. âWell then, Yaotl here's your man. He could track a bird through the air!'
âWait a moment!' I cried, alarmed. I could see my plan to mislead both the steward and the Chief Minister's warriors succeeding altogether too well. What would happen if they expected me to lead them to their quarry and found out that I had no more idea of where to start looking than they had?
The Otomi looked at me. âQuite right,' he said thoughtfully, âwe can't just go running around on my say-so. We ought to go and see the boss first.' With that, he turned and vanished into the rushes, leaving only a small gap between the tall, swaying plants as a clue to the direction he had gone in.
The steward looked at me. âWhat now?' he asked in a disgusted tone.
âBetter get after him, I suppose,' I said reluctantly.
âGood idea, smartarse. Where did he go?'
âFollow the smoke smell,' Handy suggested.
It did not take us long to make our way along the trail of broken reeds and churned-up mud to the site where the Otomies had built their fire. Above the rustle of rushes and the slap of mud beneath our feet I could hear urgent, angry whispers being passed back and forth.
âSo what did you catch, Cuectli? A deer? A heron? A duck?' The voice had an odd quality, as if the speaker were murmuring asides out of one half of his mouth only.
Cuectli, whose name meant âFox', responded with a sad sigh. âOnly idiots.'
I could not quite catch the captain's reply, but plainly it was not an encouraging one, as the next thing I heard was Fox's voice singing my praises. âOne of them's a tracker, though. An expert. Claims he can follow a bird through the air!'
âLet's have a look at him, then!'
The next thing I knew I was being pulled through the tall plants into the clearing, there to stand face to face with one of the ugliest-looking individuals I have ever seen.
If I had needed a reminder of the type of man the Emperor liked to have in the vanguard of the army, in the front row of the battle line, one glance at this one would have been enough.
Unlike Fox, the captain was fully dressed. His torso, arms and legs were tightly wrapped in a suit of bright green cotton, which served only to emphasize the bulging muscles under it. His feet had been thrust into broad, flat sandals that put me in mind of paving slabs. He had bound up his grey-streaked hair in the same way as Fox. I could not see the insignia he would carry on his back when he went into battle â a tall, teardrop-shaped device, crowned with long green feathers, which would make him instantly recognizable to friend and terrified foe alike â or his round, feather-bordered shield, but I guessed they were both close at hand, carefully wrapped up to preserve them from the mud and damp. No doubt they would have impeded his progress through the rushes, but in his case, I thought, they were hardly needed. He would have been frightâening enough stark naked, because, even though I took all the details of his costume in and grasped their meaning without conscious thought, I forgot all about them when I saw his face.
Someone had taken a sword to it, many years before. Someone had cut through flesh and bone, from brow to jawline, and where the left side of his face should have been had left nothing but a glistening slab of scar tissue.
How had he survived a wound like that? I felt a chill when I realized that he must have won the fight in which he got it, since otherwise he would be dead, his heart torn from his breast at the summit of a pyramid in Texcala or Huexotzinco. Perhaps his partner had saved his life, for Otomies always
fought in pairs. What was left of his lower lip sagged under the weight of a human wrist-bone that dangled from it, and I suspected that this had belonged to the man who gave him the wound.
fought in pairs. What was left of his lower lip sagged under the weight of a human wrist-bone that dangled from it, and I suspected that this had belonged to the man who gave him the wound.
Behind him, his comrades were trying to build a fire out of reeds and some kindling they had brought with them. The ground was too damp and all they were getting was clouds of thin smoke, which would be doing nothing to sweeten their tempers, especially once they realized they had nothing to cook on it anyway. Some of the warriors were dressed like their captain, while others wore only their breechcloths. I wondered briefly why any of them had bothered to put their uniforms on, since they were not going to war, but then I realized that the answer was all too obvious. It must be so long since any of these blood-glutted veterans had met anyone equal to him in battle that a fight scarcely meant anything to them any more. Their business was killing and maiming men who were already paralysed with fear. That was what they had come here to do, and they had dressed accordingly. And they were hunting my son.
The captain interrupted my thoughts in the crudest manner possible, by stretching out an arm, seizing my jaw and dragging my face close to his. He tilted my chin up towards his face and let his sole eye rove lewdly over my features.
âName?' he snarled.
I should have been meek, but his examination reminded me of the slave market, of strangers looking into my mouth, feeling my muscles and measuring my worth in lengths of cloth and bags of cocoa beans, and I could not help answering him back.
âI can't tell you when you're holding my jaw,' I pointed out unintelligibly.
âWhat?'
Fox said: âI think he wants you to let go.'
âOh, I'm so sorry.' Suddenly the pressure on both sides of my face doubled, forcing my mouth open and stretching the skin of my cheeks over my teeth. It was impossible to scream but the pain made me squirm. My head was wrenched from side to side so hard that the motion made me dizzy, and then the captain shoved me backward and let go, making my knees buckle and sending me sprawling on to the ground. My head hit Handy's chest on the way down, driving the breath from his lungs with a loud grunt.
âFunny man,' the captain sneered. I rubbed my jaw as I glared resentfully up at him.
âI think his name's Yaotl,' Fox offered.
â“The Enemy”, eh? Well, he's the first enemy we've seen today What about it, lads? Do we show the runt what it feels like to meet the Otomies?'
There was a stirring among the shadowy figures behind him. I sat up quickly, knowing the captain's followers would tear me to pieces on command.
âI'm the Chief Minister's slave. I was sent here after the same two men you're looking for. We're all here to do the same job and we're none of us here because we want to be â¦'
âI wouldn't be too sure of that! Nice and quiet here â no one about â we could have some fun. How about a game where you all pretend to run away and we hunt you down like wild pigs?'
âNo â¦Ya â¦Yaotl's right.'
To my amazement, it was the steward who spoke up. His voice shook so much that I could barely make out the words, but plainly his fear of being caught up in the Otomi's sadistic fantasy was enough to loosen his tongue.
âLord Feathered in Black sent us. Yaotl can tell you where the man and the boy went â can't you, Yaotl?'
I got up slowly, too nervous myself to appreciate the wheedling note in the steward's words to me. I spat blood out of my mouth, carefully avoiding the Otomi's feet.
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