Doctor Who_ Left-Handed Hummingbird - Kate Orman [70]
The bigger man tore Huitzilin’s hands away from his face and flung him bodily into the water, jumping on his chest to try and press him down into the mud. Huitzilin shrieked, trying to gather air into his lungs as the scout pushed all his weight against the Aztec’s ribcage. He scrabbled in the ooze for stones, for something solid to mark the other’s face and send him falling into the water. But there was nothing.
Death stuck its skinless hand in through Huitzilin’s face.
He reached inside his opponent and opened the burning Blue flower in his heart. A shock travelled through him, touching every part of his body, like the wave of sensations that accompany the first kiss.
He held the tiny, gorgeous blossom in the palm of his mind, tasting it.
The warrior screamed in rage and horror, clawing at the skin of his chest.
Little Hummingbird drove his lethal beak deep inside him and drew out the nectar.
Later, when the singing in his head had stopped and he had dragged himself out of the mud, he saw that he was alone in the swamp. And he laughed and laughed until the swamp birds flew away and the frogs hopped clumsily into the next puddle.
* * *
The soldiers kicked down doors, discovered terrified hippies cowering in the kitchen and under the stairs. They rounded them up in the living room, counted heads. The stash had long since been flushed down the toilet, but it wasn’t the drugs they were after.
In the upstairs bathroom, they found Cristián Alvarez, huddled in the bathtub. He had torn the shower curtain loose from the rings and was half‐twisted in it, a mouldy plastic shroud. His pupils were huge. When they tried to move him, he screamed again, the sound echoing off the tiles.
Bernice found Ace where she had left her, snoring gently on the beanbag. Whatever it was had been in the noodles, of course; Benny had put hers down, absorbed in her conversation with John, and when she’d come back to them they’d been cold.
A medic and two soldiers came in and started fussing over Ace. They got her onto a stretcher, snoring peacefully all the while. Bernice left them to it. Where was the Doctor?
* * *
‘Huitzilin! We will not attack Tula!’
Coyolxauhqui threw down her weapons, angrily. She stood at the head of a large group of Aztecs, men, women, and children.
‘Do you speak for all of them?’ Huitzilin limped to a rock and pulled himself up onto it to get a better view of them. The clearing was littered with campfires, equipment, dogs and mewling babies. The priests were saying the morning prayers beside the magic idol in its litter, pretending to ignore the argument. ‘Or is it just your cowardice speaking?’
‘By the gods, little brother,’ growled Coyolxauhqui. ‘Are words your food? They’re in your mouth all the time. There’s nothing cowardly about avoiding a hopeless battle.’
‘The Toltecs are toothless and decadent,’ said Huitzilin, his voice ringing out through the clearing. ‘We can take their city easily. Or are you happy to go on wandering, without any piece of land to call your own?’
‘Listen to me!’ Coyolxauhqui shouted. The Aztecs were silent, her followers brandishing their weapons nervously. ‘Wasn’t it me who kept you alive all these years, bringing the game animals to us? Who’s going to call the deer and the birds for you?’
Huitzilin jumped down off his rock, surprisingly fast and agile given his club‐foot, and grabbed her by the blouse. ‘You might have the same sorcerous blood as I, sister,’ he spat, blue eyes looking into blue eyes. ‘But we can survive without your magic. Ia? We don’t need you.’
‘What’re you going to do, little brother?’ she said mockingly, putting her face close to his. ‘Ia? Are you going to drink me up like a blossom, little Hummingbird? Eat me up in front of everyone?’
Huitzilin snarled and let go of her. He let loose a wordless cry of rage at the crowd. ‘With courage, we can take Tula!’ he yelled. ‘With weapons, we can take Tula!’
‘With greed and with death,’ sneered Coyolxauhqui. ‘What corpse can bring back treasure from the ruined