by Vic Connor
Miss!
…the bullet flies past him as he keeps running.
The butt of the naginata’s shaft finds Blue’s head with a nauseating crack. Black, now intimidated, looks around as if expecting somebody to tell him what to do…
…“¡Quietos!” commands Lopez to the dogs. He has Hendricks’ rapier near his throat. “¡Aquí! ¡Quietos!”
Black lowers its head while Miyu keeps her blade aimed at him…
…Copper, though, goes berserk, wrestling and struggling with Abe until the pirate pulls his Rokovoko Rum bottle and hits the dog squarely on the head, then kicks it away from him…
…which does little to placate the dog. Blind with rage, it springs back on its paws and charges like an enraged bull to its nearest target, which happens to be me. Before I’m fully aware of what I’m doing, my hand draws…
Quick Draw
Point Blank
Critical hit!
…Copper’s head explodes as if the dog had swallowed a grenade.
I stare at the pistolón in my hand and Copper’s body at my feet.
Something nasty crawls inside my belly. Spasms grow in the pit of my stomach, and the world floats around me.
“So much fer keepin’ them alive, lad,” growls Abe. “Bloody dog be deservin’ it though, Beelzebub takes ‘im.”
I toss the pistolón on the grass and walk away, keeping my eyes away from Copper’s headless body. A moment later, I vomit up bitter, dark bile.
The tip of Hendricks’ rapier is steadily poised a couple of inches from Lopez’s throat; the edge of Miyu’s blade is even closer to Juarez’s neck.
Blue has recovered from Miyu’s blow and, along with Black, sits near Lopez. The Spaniard and his dogs look coy and shy, now.
Fawn lies dead, its broad chest pierced by Hendricks’ bullets and blade.
Sable looks at me plaintively. “I’m in pain,” it howls, clear as day. “Help me, I’m in pain,” he pleads, as if it wasn’t I who inflicted the wound through which his life now seeps away.
“Juanita,” I call out, “give me your staff.”
“Young Jake…”
“Your staff. Give it to me.”
I toss my left crutch aside and instead use Juanita’s staff for support, my right palm hovering over Sable’s wound…
Tepatiki:
Tetsoliui
… smoke-like tendrils rise from the wound, reach my hand…
…hooolyssshit it HURTS!!
My hand retreats as though it has a mind of its own.
Juanita gently squeezes my shoulder, helping me stay on my feet. “Such is the price of helping others, my child. To heal wounds that do not belong to you, you must accept the pain as if it was your own.”
Ah. I knew there had to be a limit to magic spells. At least for this one, it turns out it’s not mana or charges or spells per day—it’s my pain tolerance.
My frigging set-to-Hardcore pain tolerance.
Sable wails for help with imploring, fearful eyes.
Screw it.
Tepatiki:
Tetsoliui
…the smoke-like tendrils seep into my hand, absorbing Sable’s pain and sending it up my arm, down my spine, to my left leg…
…exactly where Sable’s pain would come from, if he were human or if I were a dog…
…even though I should feel nothing below my waist…
…my guts clench again, and I look deep into Sable’s eyes. “D—don’t y—you wor—worry, boy… We’ve—ve g—got t—this—”
Tendrils dissolve as Sable’s wound closes. The dog lifts his huge head, opens those jaws that could tear my arm from its socket, and with a wet, warm tongue, he licks my hands.
I pick up my crutches, still holding onto Juanita’s staff. I feel as clumsy as a clown; the healing spell has left me shaky and weak.
Abe sits in the grass, tending to his own wounds, while Miyu and Hendricks guard the Spaniards.
“Need help, Abe me ol’ mate?” I ask.
“Nah, lad,” he says, after gulping down a long, slow sip of his rum. Both his shirt and trousers hang in tatters where Copper and Sable bit him, and he’s bleeding profusely. “This be jus’ a scratch, brush me barnacles,” he tells me, then throws a small bunch of grass toward Lopez. “That scurvy dog may be needin’ yarr cares, though. Ya be puttin’ a bullet straight through ‘is leg, ya did. Many a tougher sailor than ‘im would bleed t’ death from a wound like this.”
He unties his bloodstained bandana and uses the piece of cloth as a bandage. I notice a deep dent in his forehead, close to the right temple: A wound that must have nearly split his skull in half…
Memory Unlocked…
Failed!
…“What happened to that rock-hard head of yours, Abe me mate? That must’ve been one hell of a tough skull-cracker that hit ye, aye?”
He glances at me with sad, faraway eyes, and says nothing while he staunches some of the bleeding on his left shin, where Copper’s fangs sunk deepest.
I tap my forehead. “I knows, I knows… I should be rememberin’. But them memories don’t come back runnin’, ye know?”
“They will come when the Smoking Mirror wishes to, young Jake,” Juanita explains. There’s an admonitory tone in her voice. “The Lord of Here and Now works in mysterious ways.” She gives the pirate a thoughtful glance, as if they share a secret.
Abe spits into the grass, yet still says nothing.
I hobble to where Hendricks guards Lopez. The Spaniard’s right thigh is bleeding; it doesn’t look serious, but still…
Tepatiki:
Tetsoliui
…I conjure the dark smoky tendrils from his wound to my palm…
…pain courses down to the same spot in my right thigh where it would hurt if I had his wound…
…I grit my teeth until Lopez’s wound is closed.
He gives me a curt nod. “Gracias.”
I take my fingers to the wide brim of my hat.
“What now?” he asks.
“Now, my amigo, you answer a couple of questions.” I glance at Juarez, his neck still under Miyu’s blade. “Then we tie your friend and you up… Worry not, the knots won’t be too tight, you’ll free yourselves shortly… And that’s it.”
He looks at my pistols in disbelief, then at Hendricks’ rapier. “Truly?” he asks, incredulous, as if expecting a trap.
“Truly,” I say.
“Please, ask those questions, then.”
“What were you doing here?”
“Was it not obvious?” he replies. “We came in pursuit of escaped slaves.” He looks around the clearing. “And they have succeeded.”
I follow his gaze. He’s right; those four poor folks seized the chance to flee while we engaged the Spaniards, and are now nowhere to be found. “El Señor Barboza will not be pleased, I presume.” I smirk.
He glances at Copper’s headless corpse and lowers his head. “He will not be. But that anger will be nothing compared to when he learns you killed Diego Armando, his favorite dog.”
“At least three of his other dogs will return,” I say.
“Ya means thems walkin’ on four legs, me lad?” Abe laughs behind me. “Or thems walkin’ on two?”
Lopez allows himself a sad smile. “I dare say El Señor Barboza cares more for those who walk on four.”
“Meneer Barboza shoold feel lukky he gets back any, ja?” adds Hendricks, sheathing his rapier.
In very poor English, Juarez tells us more or less the same story as Lopez: They had no clue who we were, and still don’t. They came after half a dozen escaped slaves, and it was by pure chance we bumped into each other. El Señor Barboza would be irked for losing Diego Armando a lot more than for losing the slaves.
And Juarez begs for my forgiveness—but he won’t tell others how I healed Sable and Lopez. Nobody would believe him that an enemy would do such thing anyway, so they’ll tell their people they had escaped unharmed.
“Fine by me,” I say to them. Then I turn to the pir
ate: “Abe, ol’ mate, tie them up so that them scurvy dogs can free themselves, will ye?”
A few minutes later, guns reloaded, we leave the Spaniards and their dogs behind in the clearing and resume our way to Tepetlacotli.
You defeated:
Slave Trackers
+1VPs
“Not so bad,” says Hendricks appreciatively, walking by my side, “foor een crippel on his crutchens.”
“I’d tip my hat to thank you,” I say with a laugh as we press forward down the muddy jungle path, “were my arms not so busy operating said crutchens.”
Busy, but performing excellently, I have to say. According to the sun’s position, it’s late afternoon, so it must be about two or three in-game hours since we left the clearing and the Spanish slavers behind. While my arms and shoulders are surely weary from the effort, they ache nowhere as bad as they had only two days ago.
“You weren’t bad at all yourself,” I add. “Impressive mastery of Quick-Drawing. I think you shot thrice quicker than I can shoot once.”
“Ik do have two armens,” he admits, raising both hands as if they were pistols. “Ssso Ik can schoot doubbely fast.” He taps my left crutch, where three of my pistols now hang, reloaded. “But foor schootening with one hand allone, ye are een meester schooter.”
I laugh again, a little embarrassed. “Nah. Just an apprentice, not a master by a long stretch.” I take a long stride with my crutches. “I’m becoming a master cripple though, so I hope that counts.”
“What be countin’, me lad,” Abe interjects, panting heavily behind us, “is that ya keeps yarr calm at all times, like ya did back then with thems rotten slavers—”
Skill Upgraded!
Unflinching Calm
Promising Apprentice
“—that be how ol’ Henry Morgan ‘imself would be doin’: come hell or hurricane, he be stayin’ calm, an’ barkin’ ‘em orders fer us’n to follow.”
“Just not forget schootening.” Hendricks smiles. “Aiming lots is gooed; schootening lots—” He mimics shooting several times with his hands “—is gooeder.”
“Until you run out of bullets, my friend.”
He pats the rapier on his belt and smiles.
“Good idea,” I say. “But not an option I have, do I?”
Hendricks wets his lips and nods, as though conceding I may have a point.
We find the almost-naked, brown-skinned slave about a mile farther, lying limp like a rag doll face down on the ground. Abe and Miyu, blades in hand, inspect him; the rest of us keep our eyes trained on the surrounding trees, weapons at the ready in case this is a trap.
“Been bitten by thems dogs, fer sure.” Abe touches the bleeding marks on the slave’s arms and calves.
“Did he faint from loss of blood?” I ask.
“Don’t thinks so.” The pirate crouches by the unmoving body while Miyu keeps watch. “Fellow seems like he be trippin’ and fallin’, and hittin’ his head lots,” Abe assesses. “But he be alive still…”
Leave him be.
Wake him up.
“Be a good Samaritan, Abe me ol’ mate,” I say, “an’ share some of yer good spirits with that poor soul, will ye?”
The pirate looks at me, puzzled.
“Give that poor sod some of your rum, Abe,” I clarify, “and wake him up, will ye?”
The pirate cracks a crooked grin. “That may be wakin’ him up a’ight, aye,” he explains, producing the Rokovoko bottle from his rucksack, “or may be killin’ ‘im first, lad.”
“I believe he would himself accept the risk,” Juanita says, “compared to being left here for Barboza’s dogs to find him.”
Abe nods, uncorks the bottle, pours a few drops into the unconscious man’s mouth…
…the slave licks his lips with a parched tongue…
…he coughs, retches, and shakes as if possessed by demons, before opening his eyes wide with confusion and fear. He’d surely try to escape, were he not prey to another fit of violent coughs that leaves him breathless.
“Be a kind o’ magick, me rum.” Abe grins, standing up and backing away.
Juanita takes his place, crouching by the slave and placing a calming hand on the panicked man’s chest. She whispers in a language I don’t understand; the man relaxes a little and whispers back to her in what seems the same language.
“He remembers us,” the witch translates. “He was the fourth slave, the one the dogs took down by the edge of the clearing. He wants to know what we are going to do with him.”
“Where was he going?”
“Tepetlacotli,” stammers the slave.
“Gee, you don’t say.” I smile. Then, I frown, as I notice the glyphs on the man’s arm. “Can you read his story?” I ask Juanita.
“Smuggler,” she announces after examining the black and blue ideograms. “He brought unsanctioned metal contraptions from the sunrise lands into the Aztec city.”
Abe chuckles. “That be no crime.”
Hendricks grins. “Sounds intelligent werk…”
“Yet that was his crime,” confirms the witch. “Or so the glyphs say.”
I look at the frightened man. “Why would a convicted criminal, sold as a slave for his crimes, return to the city where he committed his crimes?”
Abe’s grin melts into a thin, tight line. “I hear ya, lad…”
“Azteek law loophol,” Hendricks says.
Juanita nods in appreciation. “The Netherlander knows the Aztec ways. Before the eyes of the Curved Point of Obsidian, the smuggler’s punishment was to be sold to the Spaniards as a slave. But the blind-folded Lord of justice says nothing about remaining a slave afterward.”
“You mean, if he returns to Tepetlacotli, he becomes free?”
“Free inside the city walls,” Juanita clarifies. “Outside, the Spaniards would consider him their property still.”
I hobble closer to the man. “What’s your name, friend?”
Juanita whispers my question in his language. “Axolotl,” she tells me, once he’s replied. “It means—”
“A sort of walking fish,” I finish. “I’ve read about them.”
“Have you? But how—?”
“I’m a nerd,” I tell her with a wink, “I’m allowed to know stuff.” I turn to the walking-fish-person. “Would you like to come with us, my amphibious friend?”
Juanita whispers to the slave. The expression in his eyes changes from fear to astonishment, then a blend of hope and mistrust.
“He is not sure he can trust us…” the witch says.
I look at him while I point west, where our path continues and where the Aztec city lays. “Quetzalcoatl,” I say.
His eyes shine with surprise now.
“Quetzalcoatl,” I repeat. “He rules the west, does he not?”
Axolotl nods as Juanita translates.
“Well, my friend,” I tell him, “that’s where we’re going. To where Quetzalcoatl rules. You’re free to come with us, if such god is enough of a guarantee to you.” I smile, waiting for the translation to finish. “But you are also free to stay here if you wish. All alone. Until the dogs pick up your trace.” Fear returns to his eyes as Juanita whispers. “So, my friend… What shall you do?”
Juanita stands up and offers Axolotl a hand.
He hesitates for just a heartbeat. “Quetzalcoatl,” he states with a smile, and accepts Juanita’s hand.
About an hour before sunset, we reach a rocky plateau. It’s as if a river made of rock was in our way, running from north to south while the road passes east to west. The plateau stretches for about two hundred paces before the jungle resumes on its other side, yet to our left and right the rocky surface seems to go on forever.
I crane my neck right, toward the north. “This patch of rocky ground,” I say. “It seems like it’s part of the same canyon where we spent the night, after you guys resurrected me. Correct?”
“This be right, lad,” Abe agrees. “If we turns north, rather than keepin’ our cour
se west, an’ walks north on this ‘ere rocky highland like it be t’ King’s Road, we reaches that canyon ya speak of, aye.”
“Is there any reason you would want to do that, my child?”
“Just curious,” I explain. “I like to know where I am and gather my bearings.”
Hendricks’ map confirms it: a rough line, running north to south, marked as ‘Rotsachtig Hek.’
“Stony fence,” the Dutchman translates.
Juanita smirks. “A fence indeed. The Aztecs’ lands lie on the other side. Tepetlacotli should be right over there.”
Axolotl extends his naked arm westward too and, nodding eagerly, repeats: “Tepetlacotli.”
“Let’s go,” I declare, my crutches biting into the rocky, uneven ground. “I sure wouldn’t mind getting there before the sun goes down.”
“That should be possible,” says the witch, leading the way. “But we should hurry.”
We make it halfway across the rocky stretch when Abe stops dead in his tracks, pulls his head back, and growls, “Or mebbe, jus’ mebbe, it may be takin’ our ship jus’ a bit longer to reach the Aztec port, me lad.”
Barks lash out behind us, echoing through the faraway jungle. They are closing fast.
As we turn around, a pack of Alanos emerges from the same forest path we’ve just been following. They stop there, growling and barking at us.
Axolotl wails, terrified.
I take a deep breath…
Unflinching Calm
…three men run out from behind the trees…
Appraising Gaze
“Let’s stick to what has worked,” I command. “Miyu, left flank—”
Silk rustles as she takes position.
“Abe, starboard—”
The pirate growls, “Aye, aye!’ and his boots stomp the ground.
“Hendricks, protect Abe’s right flank—”
The Dutchman walks as calmly as if he was preparing for a date with a beautiful señorita.
