Age of Aztec (20 page)

“So if the fourth world age is nearly over,” he said, “will there be a fifth? Or is now the time to find a remote cave and start stocking up on provisions?”

“Some believe the end of the fourth age heralds apocalypse,” said Chel. “Not me. I think there’ll be a fifth, and a sixth, and many more. Why not? The long count calendar is a cycle, not a straight line. Everything comes round again. What’s inarguable is that the completion of thirteen
b’ak’tun
s is a significant date. It’s a period of transition as oneworld age pivots around and becomes the next. Creation begins anew. Life is transformed.”

“The Empire falls.”

“If it’s to happen, when better? We can look on this as an auspicious time to be undertaking our mission. The stars are aligned in our favour. The universe is smiling on us. A state of flux approaches, and in flux anything is possible.”

I
T WOULD HAVE
been easy to dismiss outright Chel’s talk of world ages and periods of transition – to treat it as meaningless mumbo-jumbo number wrangling.

Stuart, however, was in a state of flux himself. So was the forest he was trudging through, literal flux, as the clouds continued to dump water onto it in epic quantities, turning the ground to an ankle-deep mush of dirt and leaf mould. Nothing seemed stable, as the rain beat down on Stuart’s skull and made the world around him a smeary green blur. Time itself became elastic. So did distance. He lost all sense of the hours passing and couldn’t even guess how far he and the guerrillas had been walking. They climbed and descended ridges, pushing through thick stands of fern and bromeliad, ducking beneath vines, straddling over rotten deadfall trunks, wading through the slurry the soil had become. Only when the greyness of the daylight darkened did Stuart realise that nightfall was on its way.

They bivouacked beneath an enormous cedar that provided some shelter from the continuing rain. No one could get a cooking fire started, so they ate their tinned rations cold.

When they woke the next morning, it was still raining. They squelched on through the rain on a westward course. The Mayans were no longer singing to counteract the rain. Zotz cursed the rain. All Stuart could think about was the rain. The rain had soaked into his brain. He felt like a sponge filled with rain. His clothes hung heavy with rain. There was only rain. There had only ever been rain. There would only ever be rain. Rain reigned.

They spent another night shivering beneath the tarpaulins they were using as tents. Sometime during the small hours the rain stopped. Everyone snapped out of sleep, startled by the sudden hush. Nobody could quite believe the watery onslaught was over. Even the forest fauna took a while getting used to the idea, but once one animal let out a first tentative hoot, the others pitched in. The nocturnal chorus was back with a vengeance, louder than ever as if to make up for its silence the previous night. The frogs in particular were overjoyed, creaking and booming.

When dawn arrived, the air turned to steam. The guerrillas resumed their journey in better spirits than before, strolling along, chatty and cheery. Stuart himself felt his mood lighten with every step, and his clothes lighten too as they gradually dried out. When Chel paused to take a compass bearing, Stuart asked how much further they had to go and was pleased to learn that it was only another day’s walk. Tomorrow morning at the latest they would reach their destination. If it had still been raining, he wouldn’t have dared ask. Any answer would have been too depressing.

By the middle of the day, the heat had become ferocious, accompanied by a humidity that sapped the life out of you. Even the Mayans, who had struck Stuart as indefatigable, began to drag their feet. The air was a thick, unbreathable broth. Zotz collected some berries from a guarana vine and passed them round for all to munch on. The caffeine in the bitter-tasting fruit helped, giving an energy surge, but tiredness soon set in again. After a while every step was an effort. Clothing became wringing wet again, now with sweat.

Chel sensibly decided they should make camp early. A fire was lit – a minor miracle – and hot stew was consumed. For Stuart it was a pleasure beyond all reckoning just to sit on the forest floor, not moving, with his bare blistered feet stretched towards the flames, soles gently warming. None of the forced marches he’d undergone during his Eagle Warrior training could compare to the yomp he was on right now. He couldn’t find a part of his body that didn’t ache. It took all his remaining strength just to crawl under canvas and lay himself out on a blanket; he was asleep before he knew it.

And awake again, in the darkest part of the night. Someone was yelling frantically. Stuart scrambled out into the open. All the guerrillas were up, milling about. It took a while for the cause of the commotion to become clear.

One man, Tohil, had got up and gone to the edge of the campsite to relieve himself. Mid-flow, he’d spotted something between the trees. A shape. A person. Watching him.

Tohil had let out a cry of surprise and the watcher had fled.

No, not fled.

Kind of vanished.

Definitely vanished.

Melted into the darkness as though being swallowed up by ink.

And Tohil was sure – not absolutely sure, but pretty sure – that it had been a woman. The watcher had had a female silhouette. Not too tall. He’d glimpsed the contours of hips and breasts.

The other guerrillas scoffed. “A woman? You don’t think you just imagined it? You were maybe asleep and dreamed her?” Snide allusions were made to Tohil’s manliness and how long it had been since he’d last had a girlfriend.

Tohil became indignant, insisting he had seen something. But the more he protested, the louder the mockery grew. Eventually he stomped off to his tent, muttering under his breath.

Only Stuart considered his claims with any seriousness.

Was it possible? Could DCI Vaughn have followed him to Anahuac? Be on his trail now?

No. Absurd. How could he even think it? Vaughn was still in London. Had to be. There was, in fact, every chance that she was dead. If she hadn’t been killed when the Xibalba van hit the paddy wagon, the Jaguar Warrior code of honour would have swiftly remedied that situation. A high-profile murder suspect had been snatched from right under her nose. You couldn’t cock up an arrest that badly and expect to be allowed to live.

If Tohil was right and a woman had been spying on the guerrillas’ camp, it wasn’t Chief Inspector Malinalli Vaughn.

Which, Stuart was bemused to find himself thinking, was a pity.

FOURTEEN

7 Dog 1 Lizard 1 House

(Tuesday 11th December 2012)

T
HE FOURTH AND
final day of the journey began innocuously enough. After a breakfast of maize cake and dried broad beans, Stuart and the guerrillas tramped off, reassured by Chel that there were ten miles remaining, perhaps less. Stuart’s inner compass told him they weren’t far from Lake Texcoco. They had more or less retraced his and Zotz’s river recce trip, overland.

The mood was genial.

That changed when one of the guerrillas spotted something overhead. Among the leaves. Too large to be a monkey.

It was there one moment, gone the next. Nobody else saw it.

“A jaguar?” Chel suggested.

It could have been. The big cats did sometimes lurk in trees, balancing on a thick branch, poised to pounce on prey below.

But whatever the guerrilla had seen was larger, he said, than a jaguar. And he could have sworn it had
flown
upwards as it disappeared from view. On wings that shimmered like a hummingbird’s. A hummingbird the size of a human.

Tohil was gleeful. “Hey, so I wasn’t imagining things last night, was I? There
was
someone watching us.”

“Something’s going on, that’s for certain,” growled Chel.

“We’re close to enemy territory,” said Stuart. “Your men are getting jumpy.”

“My men don’t get jumpy,” Chel snapped. “I’ve been feeling it since we struck camp. Haven’t you?”

“Feeling what?”

“That we’re being followed. Stalked.”

“By something up in the trees?”

“Not just there. Behind us as well.”

“You’re kidding.”

“He’s not,” said Zotz. “I’ve noticed it too. I didn’t want to say anything, so as not to spark alarm, but I’m convinced we’re not alone.”

“But who? A forest tribe?”

“Not round here.”

“Jaguar Warriors?”

“I don’t think so. They’re not nearly this subtle.”

“Serpents, then.”

“Again, I don’t think so. They’re good, but this isn’t their style. Why follow us when they could just as easily ambush us?”

“Maybe there’s only one or two of them. They’re waiting for reinforcements.”

“No,” said Zotz. “It’s something else. Something I can’t figure out. Whoever they are, it isn’t natural, what they can do. They’re as stealthy as spiders.”

“We have to keep going,” said Chel. “But we should break out the weapons.”

The guerrillas armed themselves from their backpacks. In addition to bolas and blowpipe, they had brought along more contemporary items, including a stolen lightning gun and several conventional rifles and pistols. Stuart was glad to strap his rapier on again and have his flechette gun holstered at his hip.

They carried on in silence, bunched together, aiming wary looks in all directions. The forest seemed denser and more oppressive. Every shadow held something. The moss on the tree trunks took on humanoid shapes. Leaves made faces.

One of the Mayans suddenly opened fire. A couple of the others joined in. They raked a thicket of rattan palm with bullets, scything the stems and spiky fronds. Chel ordered them to stop. As the echoes rumbled away across the hills he demanded to know why they were shooting.

“I heard a sound,” said the man who had started it off. “A rustling.”

“And I fired because he did,” said one of the others, and the third nodded in agreement.

Chel approached the demolished thicket and peered in. He gave a sour smile.

“Unless we’re being hunted by agoutis, I think we’re all right.”

Everyone took a look at the bullet-riddled remains of the agouti. There wasn’t much of it left, but it was still just identifiable as a harmless rodent.

Nervous laughter was accompanied by quips at the expense of the men who’d let rip with their guns. “Fancied some lunch, did you?” “What’s next, a big scary guinea pig?” and so on.

“Onward, men,” said Chel. “And less of the itchy trigger fingers, if you don’t mind. Those reports will have carried for miles, and who knows who might have heard them.”

An hour later, they took a break beside a stream. Cigars were smoked, water boiled for tea.

Over the next ridge, Chel promised, lay their final destination. The trip was nearly over. There’d be food and beds, a roof over one’s head. All the comforts of home.

Still, no one could quite relax. Even Stuart, who had little in the way of jungle instinct, was convinced they were not alone. There was someone out there lurking, observing him and the band of guerrillas. He felt this not just because the Mayans were thoroughly spooked: he could actually sense eyes on him. That primitive, ingrained intuition. You knew when you were being watched. You just knew. He’d experienced it in London and had assumed it was the Jaguars keeping tabs on him – although it had in fact been Xibalba as well – and he was feeling it again, now, strongly.

The guerrillas were preparing to move out again when Zotz noticed the ants.

He drew everyone’s attention to the insects quietly, calmly. Remaining unflappable whatever the circumstances was one of Zotz’s defining characteristics.

“They’re big ones,” he said. “Everybody keep still. Let’s see where they’re going.”

The ants marched in a column, a dozen abreast, trickling out from the undergrowth like a leaking liquid. They
were
big, each the size of an infant’s finger, and they were red-brown, the colour of dried blood. They were coming straight towards the cluster of men, thousands of antennae and legs bristling.

“
Sauba
ants,” Chel murmured. “Don’t let any get on you. They’re leaf cutters. Very sharp mandibles, very powerful too. They’ll give you a nasty bite and won’t let go.”

Then another of the Mayans let out a hiss of dismay.

“There’s more,” he said. “Coming the other way. Look.”

A second column of
sauba
ants appeared from the opposite direction. They headed towards the first as if on a collision course. The guerrillas were sandwiched in between.

“This is ridiculous,” said Chel. “This doesn’t happen. Ants go outwards from the central nest. They send out foraging parties in a radial pattern. You don’t get two lots at once like this.”

“No one told that to these ants,” Stuart remarked. “Maybe they’re from different nests.”

“Who cares?” said Tohil. “I’m not hanging around. I’m going that way.” He pointed to the side, away from both ant columns. Then his face fell. “Oh, fucking balls. There’s even more of them.”