Blood & Fur

Chapter Sixty-One: The Child Hunt

Chapter Sixty-One: The Child Hunt

I came to the hunt dressed for war.

Iztacoatl had me clothed in the emperor’s fabled scarlet Tlahuiztli, as if I were about to lead my armies to glory rather than to attend an unjust execution. This lightweight armor put those worn by my warrior lodges to shame. Its laminate layers of cotton, leather, and scales formed an impressive protection coating my chest, legs, and arms. Each of them had been bathed in secret spices and sacrificial blood to give them a crimson coloration. I sensed the latter’s viscous texture on my skin, though this costume did not reduce my speed in the slightest.

The higher-ranked a warrior, the more ornate his equipment; and none should look more fearsome and ostentatious than Yohuachanca’s emperor. A small cloak of flayed skin belonging to ancient warriors slain by my predecessors adorned my shoulders, alongside shining rubies and pitch-black obsidian crystals. The damn jade bat mask that I had worn when the First Emperor last spoke through me served as my helmet, its back adorned with a crown of quetzal feathers.

I’d heard tales that enemy warriors often fell to an emperor’s feet in fear when they took the field of battle, and I understood why when I took a look at myself in a mirror. I had become the very image of a bat warrior god rising to claim a tribute of blood and fear.

Wearing the mask unsettled me too. Iztacoatl no doubt forced me to wear it because she disguised this cruel execution as a religious ritual, but it also possessed a strong connection to her dreadful sire. The thought of that monster speaking through me again did not enchant me in the slightest.

Did Iztacoatl intend to study how it would impact me? Or how much her father dearest influences me? Or was she playing a larger game that I couldn’t see yet?

Whatever the case, Iztacoatl had selected a halfway intact forest spared by the eruption for her hunting grounds. Smoke Mountain loomed in the distance under the glow of crimson moonlight like a great black fang. Lightning wracked the skies in blood-curdling bouts of thunder as dreadful clouds began to blanket the stars.

A host of at least twenty Nightkin and over a hundred red-eyed priests gathered in these dark woods for the cruel ceremony, with the latter wearing sinister wooden serpent masks and scaled cloaks. They welcomed me with a maddened dance to the tune of wailing obsidian flutes, hunting horns, and war drums. Each and every one of them carried a weapon themed after their patron: scythes shaped like a snake’s fangs, barbed lashes, serpentine bows… The dulled edge of some blades told me that this hunt wasn’t a one-time occasion.

How often did these madmen gather in the dark to hunt down their own citizens?

Tayatzin and my four consorts were gently ‘invited’ to witness the hunt’s grand opening. Ingrid was weeping in fear and had to be restrained from embracing her sister by a Nightkin in full bat form. Nenetl covered her mouth in horror and powerlessness. Chikal alone appeared to retain a cool head in this situation; she had come dressed for battle, like myself.

As for Eztli, she glared at the Nightkin with malice and hatred that rivaled mine.

The sight gave me a little measure of hope in this dark moment. No matter how much my love had changed under the ritual’s influence, her heart remained true to itself.

However, it was poor Astrid who retained most of my attention. The poor girl had been dragged to this awful site with her hands bound, her mouth gagged, and her legs forced to kneel in submission. I would have loved to say that she stayed brave in this awful moment, but life didn’t work that way. Tears of panic poured down her cheeks instead. Her emerald eyes, so much like her mother’s, pleaded with her sister to come and save her.

The cultists’ song grew in volume into a maddened cacophony, while the Nightkin settled on hushed meditations. A mighty thunderbolt struck a tree near the congregation’s center and set it ablaze. A female figure appeared in the midst of the blinding flash in all of her terrible beauty, her magnificent feather dress fluttering before the pyre’s light.

I had to give it to Iztacoatl; she had a sense of theatrics that her sisters lacked. Even the wind had grown awfully silent, offering neither taunts nor support.

“Welcome to this year’s Hunter’s Moon!” Iztacoatl declared to her congregation. A priest gave her a goblet of fresh blood to dine upon, and she soon beckoned me to join her. “Please acclaim tonight's champion, our very own emperor!”

The cultists’ maddened cacophony of cheers and claps filled me with revulsion. I silently prayed for a second eruption to bury this lot under fire and smoke, or for the thunderbolts above to strike them all dead. Nonetheless, I confidently walked up to Iztacoatl with all the confidence my hatred could inspire in me. I wouldn’t let her rattle me.

“I want you to know, songbird,” Iztacoatl said as she sipped from her bloody cup. “That everything happening tonight shall be on your head.”

Was she too much of a coward to take responsibility for her own cruelty? She would have run this hunt whether or not Mother escaped her clutches. Only the quarry’s identity would have changed.

“Are you that frustrated about my mother’s escape?” I taunted her back, the cultists’ song muffling my words. “Or is this about Cipetl? Your scheme was painfully obvious.”

“Cipetl?” Iztacoatl raised an eyebrow at me. “What are you talking about, songbird?”

Did she think playing coy would throw me off my game?

Ingrid’s voice cut through the cacophony. “Take me! Take me instead!”

Her panicked words, fueled by desperation, drew both of my and Iztacoatl’s attention. Ingrid had collapsed to her knees, her forehead hitting the grass so intensely that I thought she might start bleeding.

“Please…” she begged Iztacoatl with trembling hands. “Not again…”

She had already seen a parent die before her eyes. Her heart wouldn’t survive the loss of her last sibling.

“Take me instead…” Ingrid looked up at Iztacoatl, her tearful eyes full of despair. “I will give you my life.”

“Ingrid, Ingrid… I already own your life…” Iztacoatl wagged her finger at her chosen consort. “Could you be under the misconception that I will execute your sister? Do you mistake me for Ocelocihuatl?”

I clenched my jaw. Those two sisters were equally matched when it came to awfulness.

“Unlike my dear elder, I do not believe in taking lives without giving them a chance,” Iztacoatl said. “Where’s the sport in a foregone conclusion? The uncertainty? The challenge?”

The challenge in what, hunting a child not even a decade old? My eyes lingered on Astrid, who had run out of tears and was now covered in the shadow of a Nightkin clutching her. That one felt vaguely familiar to me, though I couldn’t tell why. I have to take her to safety somehow.

But how? Revealing my powers now would be suicide. I wasn’t yet strong enough to take Iztacoatl in battle, let alone her Nightkin hunting party. No distraction would last long enough for the girl to escape, and even if she did, there was nowhere in Yohuachanca for her to hide.

“I am giving your sister a way out…” Iztacoatl smiled at me, her fangs flashing under the moonlight. “If our emperor proves a good enough protector.”

Here it was, the true reason for this sick game. It was yet another way to torment me and gauge my abilities. Iztacoatl had slowly increased the pressure since last night until it led to this moment.

“Be honored, for the grandest of rites is now upon you!” Iztacoatl declared to the crowd. “Our great emperor will now put his warrior skills to the test before the heavens and earth! Should he succeed, the gods above and below shall bless his campaign with eternal glory!”

The maddened crowd of cultists roared in religious frenzy like the beastly fanatics they truly were. The Nightkin, however, were as silent as tombs. Their eyes oozed hunger and bloodlust.

“And should he fail…” Iztacoatl chuckled to herself. “Well, he will learn the cost of not giving his all!”

I will not settle on half-measures the night I slay you, snake, I thought, my teeth biting my tongue so I keep my venom to myself. That, I promise you.

“Six hours separate us from dawn,” she explained, her gaze lingering on Astrid and me. “I will give our quarry and her champion a two-hour head start, after which I will send my pets to chase her; first my red-eyed flock, then my spawn. Finally, I shall join the hunt myself two hours before sunrise. That should keep the chase interesting.”

Of course the coward would go last.

“If dear Astrid survives until dawn, I shall not only spare her, but reward our emperor’s persistence with a gift of my own,” Iztacoatl said, though I didn’t believe in her promises in the slightest. “If one of my pets catches her though…”

The Nightlord relinquished her bloody goblet to a priest and then moved to grab Astrid with her inhumanly strong hands. She examined the poor girl the way a buyer would check out a prospective turkey to eat.

“First, she’ll be raped.” Iztacoatl’s words were cruel on their own, but they sounded even more awful when coming out of an adult woman’s mouth addressing a child. “It would be a shame for the daughter of an esteemed concubine of Sigrun’s standing to die a virgin. If our emperor performs well, I shall let him do the honors; otherwise, my pets shall take turns first.”

I didn’t think the Nightlords could inspire more disgust in me after I’d witnessed so many of their cruelties. I stood corrected. I struggled to suppress the wave of fury and nausea that overwhelmed me. More color drained from Ingrid’s face; tears of horror formed in gentle Nenetl’s gaze; Chikal clenched her jaw, her eyes radiating with disdain; and Eztli glared at Iztacoatl with undisguised loathing. Even Tayatzin of all people looked appalled by his mistress’ words.

I suddenly realized that Iztacoatl had been right about one thing. She and the Jaguar Woman were indeed different. The latter’s cruelty was guided by her ruthlessness and served as a tool to strengthen her control over others; Iztacoatl’s malice was wild, wanton, and freely shared. Unlike her colder sister, she enjoyed hurting mortals for its own sake rather than for any productive purpose.

I swore to myself that I would give Iztacoatl a taste of her own medicine before I killed her. I imagined bending that whore of a false goddess over a stone altar as I strangled her to death. How sweet our final kiss would be…

“Then whoever catches her will earn the privilege to drink her blood,” Iztacoatl continued. “Finally, I will have her head mounted on a wall inside our emperor’s bedchamber, so he never forgets the price of failure.”

Ingrid’s fear and sorrow suddenly turned to intense anger. When she realized that begging and pleading wouldn’t work, she must have remembered the Jaguar Woman’s warning when she had Lady Sigrun murdered; that obedience was expected and service would go unrewarded. The Nightlords saw all life as their playthings, to toy with and dispose of as they choose.

It was said that the failure of diplomacy always resulted in war; and when reason went unheard, anger always swelled back to take the lead.

“Your heart is more rotten than a festering corpse!” Ingrid spat at the Nightlord in full defiance of her congregation. “You are nothing but a soulless monster!”

“Are you doubting my generosity, Ingrid? After all the kindness I’ve shown you?” Iztacoatl dismissively trimmed her nails. “In that case, I will lower your sister’s head-start to one hour instead of two.”

That cruel response was meant to break Ingrid’s spirit, but Iztacoatl had miscalculated. My consort didn’t fall back weeping in prostration, nor did she beg for forgiveness; she had realized nothing she would say could save her sister. Even if she were to reveal our secrets, Iztacoatl would still kill Astrid sooner or later.

So when a false goddess failed her, she prayed to me for salvation.

Her fists instead clenched so tightly that blood began to drip between her fingers. Her eyes turned to Astrid in concern, then to me. I raised my head ever so slightly in response to her silent demand.

Ingrid had made me promise to protect her sister; and though this would be a heavy oath to keep tonight, I would do everything in my power to carry it through.

Iztacoatl hadn’t missed our short exchange though. This exercise was meant to torment me as much as it was about breaking Ingrid’s spirit, so the Nightlord quickly decided to double down further.

“Tayatzin,” Iztacoatl said softly. “Strip our quarry naked.”

It said something about Iztacoatl’s cruelty that even Tayatzin appeared shaken by her suggestion. He failed to obey her order on the spot, and mustered the courage to argue with his mistress.

“Goddess, she is…” Tayatzin gulped and carefully chose his next words. “She is the child of an emperor, and a consort’s sister… certainly her august birth and age afford her a measure of dignity...”

“Have you ever seen a hunted animal wearing clothes, Tayatzin?” Iztacoatl’s tone harshened noticeably. “Strip her naked. Now.”

Though I considered Tayatzin my enemy, the fact he remained silent a few seconds instead of immediately following through earned him a sliver of my respect. When he obeyed the loathsome order, it was with a scowl of shame and efficient speed. He cut through the back of Astrid’s dress in a single stroke with an obsidian dagger, revealing her pale skin and underdeveloped body. The poor girl tried to cover herself with her bound arms in shame and humiliation. Ingrid tried to reach out to her sister, but a Nightkin quickly grabbed her by the shoulder before she could reach out to her.

I contained my anger, waited for Tayatzin to step back and Iztacoatl to smirk in cruel triumph… and then dramatically grabbed my cloak and draped it on Astrid to warm her up without a word. She immediately clutched its fabric tightly and covered herself with it.

Iztacoatl’s unbearable smile quickly faded away, and the cultists’ song grew quieter. I didn’t care. Ingrid’s look of gratitude more than made up for it.

“Emperor Iztac, have you not heard my order?” Iztacoatl asked with a dangerous edge to her tone. “I asked that this girl be stripped naked.”

“You did, beloved goddess,” I replied with false confusion. “Is the cloak not made of skin? Surely you have never seen a human without any?”

The Jaguar Woman would have answered my words with wanton brutality, but Iztacoatl was more clever. She understood that answering such a small act with overwhelming violence would signal insecurity rather than strength. Unlike her sister, she knew how to deal with humor.

With derision.

Iztacoatl wisely answered my clever retort with a small chuckle; the way the truly powerful would snicker at an amusing jester. Better to treat my meaningless defiance as part of the farce than a hurdle. She let my act of defiance slide, and in doing so, diminished it.

“Now, Emperor Iztac…” Iztacoatl traced a line along my scaled and padded chest. “Due to the great esteem in which I hold you, I shall allow you to pick four weapons to protect this poor animal; one for each of us Nightlords. No more, no less.”

I suppressed the urge to grab her hand and break her fingers.

In spite of Iztacoatl’s attempts to infuriate me, I managed to assess the situation rationally; both because all of my ordeals had strengthened my mind, and because I might indeed have a chance to save Astrid.

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Iztacoatl had no honor, but she hated losing face. She feared it so much that she avoided informing her sisters of the slaps I gave her in private, even though it would prove to them that my rebellious spirit remained unshaken. Having sworn to spare Astrid and give me a gift before her core congregation, she couldn’t back down anymore.

Iztacoatl would cheat, of course. She would use loopholes and traps to sabotage the hunt, because she was a cowardly, spiteful bully behind her grandiose façade of divinity.

But if I managed to protect Astrid until dawn, then she wouldn’t be able to execute her without losing face before her own followers. She would instead make a public show of ‘mercifully’ sparing Astrid’s life, forget about her, and instead turn her anger onto me. Her so-called ‘gift’ would no doubt be another form of punishment.

And this was intentional. Iztacoatl knew I wouldn’t try anything if I thought I had no slim hope of victory, so she intentionally gave me a way out; one so difficult to fulfill that I would have no choice other than to reveal some of my secret weapons to win.

Hence the current question: how could I save Astrid’s life without revealing too much, if it all?

Iztacoatl already suspected that I could talk to animals and that there was something wrong with my blood, so I was willing to sacrifice a few assets to give her a sense of victory. Besides the fact that I wished to protect Astrid for its own sake, it would protect Ingrid and keep our alliance intact.

Weapons… Iztacoatl’s offer was a joke, a travesty. She knew no obsidian club nor dagger would let me save Astrid. But if I coat them with my blood though, I could take out a Nightkin…

No, I was thinking along the wrong lines. I was Yohuachanca’s one and only emperor. Everything and everyone within these lands was my property, a tool for me to use. I could answer Iztacoatl’s mockery with a clever loophole.

I glanced at the crowd of hunters whom the Nightlord gathered to kill a single child. If those thralls counted as her weapons in our secret war, then I would select warriors of my own.

“My first pick…” I said, my eyes observing my supporters until I settled on the obvious choice. “Is you, Eztli.”

The cultists’ music grew quieter for a moment as my words echoed across the woods. Eztli immediately stepped forward before Iztacoatl could recover from her surprise and protectively moved behind Astrid.

“A wise choice, Iztac,” my dearest consort said, her hands gently grabbing Astrid’s shoulders to reassure her. “I shall be your wings, little girl.”

Iztacoatl laughed heartily. “Clever, songbird,” she commented in genuine amusement. “I’ll allow it, but she won’t be allowed to carry any weapons of her own.”

I expected she would try something like that. Chikal would have been my second choice in that case. Moreover, I knew that Iztacoatl wasn’t allowing me this choice because I’d outwitted her; letting me pick allies would let her gauge whom I trusted and who to target.

Having Eztli by Astrid’s side reassured me in many ways, though. She could fly, possessed inhuman strength, and most importantly, she was off limits for Iztacoatl’s cohorts. Striking her risked undoing the ritual on which their fiendish plot relied on. She required neither swords nor axes to kill her foes either.

I could think of another creature that would fit this description.

“My brave Itzili will be my second champion,” I declared. “His mind and fangs are sharp, and he has yet to dine on a priest’s flesh.”

Iztacoatl answered my thinly veiled threat with a laugh. “Bold of you to think that your lizard will survive the night,” she said mockingly before snapping her finger at Tayatzin. “Fetch him his pet.”

“As you wish, oh goddess,” Tayatzin replied as he bolted away. I could tell from his hastiness that he was more than happy to seize any excuse to sit this gruesome mess out. The man was no true fanatic, unlike his predecessors.

Perhaps I could use that one day… But not tonight.

My third and fourth picks demanded greater consideration than the previous two. None of my options available were ideal. Chikal would have been my obvious pick had she been allowed to use weapons, considering her experience, killing instincts, and strength. Selecting her meant I would have to sacrifice the fourth spot to maximize her effectiveness.

My other picks were hardly any better. Ingrid’s natural talent wouldn’t make up for her lack of experience or weapons. And Nenetl…

“I would choose quickly if I were you, Emperor Iztac,” Iztacoatl taunted me. “Every minute you waste on indecision is one poor Astrid won’t spend running.”

I ignored the Nightlord, but she had a point. None of my options would be ideal and time wasted now would diminish Astrid’s chances of surviving the night. I glanced at my consorts and met Chikal’s fearless gaze. Unlike everyone else, she trembled in anticipation at the prospect of this hunt.

“Chikal shall be my third pick,” I decided. Her experience, bravery, and tactical acumen would outweigh her lack of spear or obsidian clubs.

“Our Lord Emperor chose wisely,” the amazon queen replied after joining Astrid’s side. The way she strode forward told me that she never doubted that I would pick her.

“Will our emperor give her a toy to play with?” Iztacoatl mused.

“I won’t need one,” Chikal replied confidently.

Others would have mistaken it for bravado, but I’d been on the receiving end of her blows often enough to know she was merely stating a fact. Moreover, Chikal’s words carried a hidden message: that I shouldn’t think of her when selecting my fourth pick. She would adapt either way.

Which left me with a final and critical choice. I had one optimal pick in mind whose strength and ferocity could match any Nightkin, but it would require me to use a one-time resource I’d hoped to keep hidden up my sleeve for later. Choosing her would be a gamble.

Unfortunately, I had few other options. An obsidian weapon wouldn’t help too much and I could always take one from our pursuers. I had no other obedient beast of battle of Itzili’s strength among my menagerie.

“My fourth pick…” I took a deep breath as my eyes settled on my final choice. “Is you, Nenetl.”

A short, shocked silence followed my declaration, which Iztacoatl’s roaring laughter quickly broke. Nenetl froze in place, gobsmacked, and even the likes of Ingrid and Chikal stared at me as if I had gone mad.

“M-me?” Nenetl asked, trembling like a leaf. “Iztac, I…”

“Bold choice, songbird,” Iztacoatl commented. She kept a hand over her mouth to contain her amusement. “Do you think the dog will become a wolf when pushed into a corner?”

I don’t think, I know. I had subtly subverted the Jaguar Woman’s tattoo to allow me to trigger her transformation at will. With proper positioning and trickery, I could make it seem that she transformed by her own willpower instead of mine. But this will be a one-time use.

Nenetl herself had no idea though, nor the required confidence to believe in her own totem.

“Iztac, I… I don’t know how to fight,” she protested. “I… you should pick someone else…”

I didn’t let her finish. “There is no better choice, Nenetl,” I declared with the confidence she lacked. She didn’t believe in her own power, but I did. “You have shown great strength and defended me once in the past.”

I waved a hand at Astrid, who gripped the gruesome mantle of skin I’d given her to protect her nakedness. What a pitiful sight it was to see an innocent child forced to rely on such a thing for warmth.

“Will you do the same for this girl?” I asked Nenetl. “Will you step up for her?”

If I had learned anything about Nenetl, it was that although she was afraid of standing up for herself, she never lacked bravery when it came to defending others. Her fear was written all over her face, but it wasn’t directed at herself; rather she imagined what awful fate would befall Astrid should we lose. Her concern for the child—the sister of Ingrid, whom she had grown to consider a friend—overwhelmed her own apprehension.

Nenetl nodded meekly, then stepped up to the task. My party was complete. Ingrid’s fellow consorts had gathered to protect her kin. The irony wasn’t lost on him. If we prevailed tonight, we would grow more united than ever.

If.

Tayatzin soon returned with Itzili. My feathered tyrant stomped the ground with his feet and bared his fangs at the gathered Nightkin, his fighting spirit stronger than ever. His boundless fury echoed mine, though it took a mere touch from my hand on his neck to force him to focus.

Chikal, as befitting of her experience as a warlord, immediately started assigning roles to our party. She had Eztli grow wings—as she did when she carried me away from Smoke Mountain’s eruption—and then carry Nenetl. Poor Astrid would ride Itzili, if I could call feverishly hanging on to his neck from behind ‘riding.’ Chikal and I both had the endurance and speed to run quickly on our feet.

This would be the longest night of our lives.

“Please…” Ingrid all but begged us, her hands joined in prayer. She would have hugged Astrid if she could, but the Nightkin denied her even that small comfort. “Please, my lord…”

“We will protect her, Ingrid,” I promised her. This would be a tough oath to keep, but I would do everything in my power to pull off a miracle. “She will live to see the dawn.”

“I would tell you good luck with that, Emperor Iztac,” Iztacoatl said with false sweetness. “But we both know you won’t have any tonight.”

She was right, of course. I didn’t believe in luck. I believed in wits, strength, and determination. And more than anything, I believed in overcoming impossible odds.

As we prepared to leave, I took a moment to face the crowd of dancing cultists and hungry Nightkin. This hunting party would have inspired fear in many a warrior’s heart, but their malice and ferocity paled before the raving horde I’d fought in the House of Jaguars.

“Anyone who dares cross my path tonight will suffer for it,” I warned the cultists with a deep, menacing tone. “Remember that.”

Iztacoatl scoffed. “Is that a threat, songbird?”

“No, goddess,” I replied as I turned my back on her. “It is a prophecy.”

One which I would fulfill myself.

We fled into the forest without another word. Eztli flew between the zapote trees with Nenetl while the rest of us followed on foot. Astrid clung to Itzili with all of her strength. My loyal pet didn’t seem to mind, and in fact slightly adjusted his posture so she wouldn’t fall off his back.

The canopy grew thick with intertwining branches and thick foliage the further we advanced. The pale moonlight struggled to pierce through the dry blanket of leaves. The cultists’ music faded into the background while the noise of cicadas and frogs grew slightly louder. I took the latter as good news: frogs meant water and, hopefully, a stream or a river.

More ominous signs followed though. I heard the flutter of bat wings as they darted between the trees and the glow of animal eyes observing us in the shadows of towering ceiba trees. Thick moss and red vines smothered the noise of my footsteps, and I saw that Chikal briefly paused at some point to cover our shallow tracks with leaves.

The wind rustled between the leaves, but it remained eerily silent. Itzili was tense, as was Eztli above us. We’d all sensed it the further we progressed through uneven ground.

Something sinister prowled the night. I could feel it in my bones. I recognized the familiar miasma of evil alongside the rusty smell of dried blood. My thoughts were confirmed when Itzili began to bay and led us to a deer’s carcass. The beast had been exsanguinated until nothing but a dried husk remained. Chikal had us briefly stop to better examine it.

“Nightkin?” I asked Chikal, though I knew better. The smell of blood remained strong around this carrion.

“Bats,” Chikal replied while pointing at the countless biting marks on the animal’s back. They were too small for Nightkin, and too numerous too. That beast had been slain by a swarm’s worth of killers. “You know which kind, Iztac.”

Yes, I did. I sensed them around us, always out of sight yet forever present. My mask tightened slightly each time I sensed their gaze on my back. There was only one force in this world that could compel the wind’s silence.

The First Emperor’s servants haunted these woods. Bats and Nightchildren both.

It didn’t reassure me in the slightest. I could compel the latter to obey my orders, but these malevolent creatures hungered for life and feared no man. I suspected that the only reason a swarm hadn’t attacked Astrid and the others yet was because of my presence among them.

“Stay close,” I warned everyone. “They will strike the moment you leave my protection.”

“Can you order them to strike our pursuers?” Chikal asked.

“They won’t need an order to do so.” Not that it would offer us too much respite. “They will kill the cultists, but the Nightkin won’t have anything to fear from them.”

“That should at least impair them,” Eztli said as she landed near us with Nenetl, the latter immediately rushing to console Astrid. We had put enough space between us and our pursuers to discuss our options. “How do we proceed? I helped my mother gather herbs in this forest once in a while, so I know of a shallow river to the west. The water will smother our scent.”

“After we make decoys,” Chikal replied. My consort quickly browsed through nearby plants, then searched for something hidden under her cotton armor. “Cut that carrion to pieces and disperse them away from our trail, Eztli.”

“Why?” I asked curiously.

“The smell of blood coming from it will distract them,” Chikal replied. “We need to split up too. One group is too easy to track, and forcing our enemies to disperse will increase our chances of success.”

“This will invite attacks from the bats,” I warned her.

“Hence why we will split into two groups once we reach the stream,” Chikal replied after she found what she was looking for: a hidden obsidian knife, which she used to cut leaves off a plant. “One led by you, and another by Eztli, who can fly away from them.”

Nenetl paled at the sight of the blade. “Y-you brought a weapon? But the rules–”

“This is no weapon,” Chikal replied with a snort. “This is jewelry.”

I couldn’t help but scoff at her response. I supposed that from an amazon’s perspective, a knife was no different from a necklace. Besides, we could always lie and say that we found it on a corpse or stole it from one of our pursuers.

Eztli completed her task first, severing the deer to pieces and dropping its severed limbs in multiple directions. Chikal collected a collection of leaves and swiftly cut parts of Nenetl’s dress to use the linen as an improvised pooch.

“What’sthat?” Nenetl asked as she pinched her nose at the pungent smell. Itzili let out an annoyed noise. “It smells awful.”

“Allspice,” Eztli recognized. “Clever. The smell is strong enough to mask our scent from hounds.”

“They won’t use hounds,” Chikal replied confidently. “I didn’t see any dogs with the cultists, and the smell of Nightkin drives most animals mad with fear. Nor do they need them. Nightkin have excellent senses and can catch a whiff of blood from leagues away.”

“Hence the carrion,” I guessed.

“We’ll need more than a dead deer to trick them.” Chikal tossed me her knife. “We’ll need your blood, Iztac.”

I blinked in surprise, my eyes settling on the knife. Chikal didn’t wait for me to respond. She immediately had Nenetl help her crush the leaves and apply the resulting paste to both Eztli and Astrid.

“This should cover your scents for a while,” Chikal replied before addressing Eztli. “You’ll go into that stream of yours with Astrid, swim downstream, then exit it and fly away while we flee in the other direction.”

“Just the two of them?” I asked in surprise. “We won’t come with them?”

“If you want to save that young girl, no, you won’t,” Chikal confirmed. “Our pursuers will hunt Astrid’s scent first and yours second, Iztac, because they will assume that you will try to personally ensure her safety. Iztacoatl will never expect you to entrust to another, since you swore to Ingrid that you would protect her, and she’ll be confident that her agents can recover Eztli once she’s forced to hide from the daylight. She won’t be a priority.”

She’s right, I thought as Chikal’s plan dawned upon me. Iztacoatl was clever, but she didn’t think I fully trusted anyone with something so important, and the whole hunt’s goal was to torment me personally. Her followers would prioritize hunting me, and by the time they realized their mistake, Eztli might have covered enough ground to win us the dawn. She knew these woods, and she was fast enough to outpace the bats should they track her down. It’s risky, but doable.

However, that plan relied on us acting as decoys long enough for Astrid and Eztli to fly away. We would have to run for our lives, hope our pursuers would fall for the trick, and buy enough time.

I stared at the knife for a moment and then exchanged a knowing glance with Eztli. Following Chikal’s plan meant shedding blood to create a false trail for the Nightkin to follow. Iztacoatl already suspected something was wrong with it, but this would expose its true nature without a doubt.

As much as I loathed it, I briefly weighed the worth of Astrid’s life against the loss of that particular bit of information. Revealing the secret of my blood would lose me a surprise weapon once I turned against the Nightlords, but backing out now would lose me the trust of my consorts and Ingrid. Moreover, it was only a matter of time before Iztacoatl found out anyway; either by herself or when I would fight in the Flower War.

The best I could do was to play the discovery as an accident.

“There is something you must know about my blood,” I said as I raised the knife over my palm. “Observe.”

I slashed my own hand and let my blood burn. Without any Veil to hide its true nature, my veins erupted with a burst of golden flames lit with sunlight. Nenetl let out a startled noise, while Chikal’s eyes widened in genuine shock. Astrid alone stared at the fire with what could pass for genuine wonder; the reassuring glow and surprise strong enough to briefly overpower her fear.

“What…” Nenetl coughed in astonishment. “Are these… flames? Iztac, you’re burning!”

“My blood runs with sulfur flames by the First Emperor’s grace,” I lied. “When Eztli and I survived Smoke Mountain, we realized that my bodily fluids could harm her.”

Chikal immediately understood the implications. “How much?” she asked, ever the tactician ready to seize any advantage. “How long will it burn?”

“Not enough to kill a Nightkin by itself,” I warned her. “But my blood will burn their flesh so long as it doesn’t dry.”

Chikal crossed her arms, her expression thoughtful. “I’ve fought Nightkin in the past,” Chikal informed us. “Short of sunlight, the best way to kill one is to either behead them or bleed them to death. They will recover from almost anything else, no matter how severe the injury.”

“Interesting,” Eztli noted with a flicker of amusement. She clearly relished the thought of killing other vampires as much as I did. “Good to know.”

“To think that you turned what vampires desire most into a lethal poison, Iztac…” Chikal rarely smiled, and when she did, it always had a ferocious edge to it. “The irony is not lost on me.”

“This will light the way to victory,” I replied with confidence, mostly to help motivate them. I coated the knife with my blood until it became a blade of sunlight. “We shall not wait for the dawn, no. We shall bring it to our enemies instead.”

My bold words inspired my more forlorn allies. Nenetl’s eyes sparked up with hope, and Chikal quickly proceeded to grab stones off the ground and coat them in my holy blood. We would drop them off on our trail to make it look to our pursuers that we were trying to divert their attention. This ought to make them focus on my personal trail and lose track of Eztli’s.

“Stay downwind as much as possible,” Chikal advised Eztli once we reached the stream and prepared to split up. “Cover the two of you with mud once you exit the water, then fly without looking back. It doesn’t matter where, so long as it’s away from here.”

“Those fools will never catch me,” Eztli replied with vampiric confidence. “Kill a few of them for me, if you can.”

Chikal smirked in anticipation as she took back her knife. My blood had dried up and stopped smoking, but the obsidian’s surface had grown terribly hot. “With pleasure.”

Once we were ready, I took a moment to reassure Astrid. Nenetl managed to calm her down enough for her to stop crying, though her eyes were red and her skin pale. The poor child continued to tremble like a leaf, but when I knelt to better face her, her expression briefly warmed up.

I had shown her light in the darkness.

“Eztli will take you to safety,” I said. I hoped. “You must do everything she tells you to do. Obey her, and you will see your sister again. Can you promise me this?”

Astrid gulped, but bravery ran in her blood. “Y… yes,” she whispered after wiping away her tears. “I… promise.”

I kissed her on the forehead, her skin smooth and warm, then entrusted her to Eztli. My consort draped Astrid in my cloak like a babe about to be delivered, then entered the stream and swam away westward.

I’ve gathered capable allies and advisors, I thought once Eztli and Astrid vanished into the darkness, leaving me with Chikal, Nenetl, and Itzili. I would never have thought of this plan alone, let alone been able to pull it off. I am no longer fighting alone.

“Let us leave now,” Chikal advised. “The more ground we can cover, the better.”

I nodded sharply and then glanced at my pet. “Itzili, let’s go.”

My feathered tyrant ignored me. His gaze remained focused on the dark woods, his tail straight as an arrow. His reptilian legs were tense and his claws ready for battle. He looked the same as when…

When we met Cipetl.

A shiver traveled down my spine. I couldn’t see anything in the canopy’s darkness, but I knew what to expect.

The headstart’s hour had yet to run out, and yet something was already stalking us.