She also knew this peace wouldn’t last.
Chapter 25
Quintana earned some face time with Page and Miss Academy. This was important, as he was able to subtly plant the idea that the Brothers of Tlaxcala were their biggest threat. His hope was to embroil her in a military quagmire against an undefeatable foe. She would also need Quintana’s advice, increasing his value. Ultimately, these two things could be the key to retaking the city.
He made his suggestions in such a way that they didn’t trace the source of the idea back to him but rather considered it their own collective wisdom. So when General Page asked where the heart of the Brothers of Tlaxcala was, Quintana answered innocently, “The mountains.”
Page’s idea was to create a “Task Force” of both Academy and Tenochtitlan soldiers to travel to the mountains and destroy the heart of this operation. Quintana explained that he and his soldiers blamed the Brothers of Tlaxcala for the king’s capture. The Brothers were the ones who’d seeded discord and frightened the king into making a poor move. The Brothers were the ones who must pay for the loss of the city. The Academy Cartel was simply the symptom while the Brothers were the root cause.
This all sounded fine to Sara. The Brothers had “helped” her get Tenochtitlan, and now Tenochtitlan would help her destroy the Brothers. She would send ten of her men and 200 Tenochtitlan soldiers to destroy some angry natives. Low risk and high reward. If the Tenochtitlan men marched to a vengeance-fueled death, it was of little concern to her. They might betray her, but what could they really do? It had been easy to get 200 volunteers after Quintana explained their mission was to destroy the true traitors of Tenochtitlan and avenge their city. No one truly believed the Brothers had caused the fall of the city, but to such a hated enemy they were willing to ascribe any crime. Besides, it was worth it to be doing something, not just sitting around the barracks or guarding prisons full of their own, mostly innocent people.
Quintana chose the best of the lot and told them to prepare to depart in the morning. If they succeeded, he explained, the queen would properly enlist them into her army. This sounded like a win-win to the men.
Obevens watched as the soldiers geared up. As long as they didn’t take some of the men he’d been talking to, that was fine. He had a plan to get out of this mess. He had to or Ellie was dead.
As Quintana, his men, and the handful of northern overseers pulled out the following morning, he could see the commandeered boats arriving to Miss Academy’s side of the lake to take the carpenters and soldiers across. He could tell from decorations on the boats they were from the wealthier citizens and the former political class. Quintana smiled privately. This strategic blunder would only unravel her control of the city.
They marched three days from Tenochtitlan. Quintana enjoyed being outside of the city. He loved the green vegetation and winding trails through the hills. It reminded him of when he was a boy and would roam the countryside, learning every piece of terrain in the area around the capitol and pretending he was a mighty soldier fighting the northerners. He mused at the gap between childhood dreams and his current reality. He was doing exactly what he’d fantasized about, but he preferred the innocence and simplicity of the fantasy.
The further they got from the city, the more anxious the ten Academy men accompanying him became. Quintana’s men had grown more relaxed and were openly mocking the ten men in Spanish, which the outnumbered northerners couldn’t understand. The ten stuck to themselves and avoided going anywhere alone. They were obviously not Sara’s top men. They looked almost sickly, with weak muscle tone and poor dental hygiene. Quintana had tried to engage them on topics in common between any men of arms, such as weapons, billeting conditions, and the endless rules and regulations—but they only gave yes or no answers. They were frightened, like farm animals that could subconsciously sense they’d outlived their usefulness.
Quintana was not cruel, though, and had them dispatched in their sleep. There was no advantage in making any sort of ceremony about it. After it was done, he wondered, had Sara been so foolish to think he would willfully throw his lot in with her? Did she really believe he would join her army and help her destroy his people? Maybe she knew he wouldn’t, and this expedition was a way to get rid of him. Let the Brothers do her dirty work.
With her men gone, Quintana now had the freedom to pursue his own agenda. Freeing Tenochtitlan. It would require a strange bargain to accomplish it, though.
After a few more days of walking, the soldiers approached the final valley at the base of the Brothers’ mountain. The birds in the foothills began calling, signaling the approaching invaders. Even the animals seemed to be a part of their defenses. Quintana’s presence was surely already known. He could almost feel the eyes on him. He ordered his men to make camp while he looked over the maps. There were innumerable approaches, and ways to get lost in the dense trees. No doubt there were traps, ambushes, and other deceptions in those seemingly innocent lines on the topographic map. He and his men would be dead before they were halfway up the hill.
He sighed and looked his men. Bloodthirsty and ready for revenge. They awaited his orders. Better to die fighting their sworn enemy than living a cowed life in Tenochtitlan. This would take courage, he thought to himself. It had to be done.
Drawing the group around him, he explained, in eloquent and well-chosen words, that they were not going to attack the Brothers of Tlaxcala. He was here to seek an alliance with them.
The reaction was strong and immediate. All of these men had vowed with their lives to defend Tenochtitlan against the Brothers. Some had even lost friends and family fighting them. It was a testament to the respect Quintana enjoyed that they did not kill him on the spot. Even so, it took him a while to quiet them down. Quintana shared their sharp pain, he said, but the reality was that a bigger threat to Tenochtitlan had arrived. They now needed the help of the Brothers to recapture the city from the queen.
It was another blow to the group when he revealed his intimate knowledge of where enclaves of the Brothers existed. They couldn’t believe he’d withheld information that would have helped Tenochtitlan eliminate this threat all these years.
“If we attack them, they will just disperse,” Quintana explained unapologetically. “By knowing where they were, I was at least able to gather information on their operations. It was a calculated decision.”
He also explained that if they walked into those mountains with weapons and minds of hostility, they would all be killed. So instead he would take two men with him and go up unarmed to speak with the Brothers’ elders. If they did not return in two days, then the men were at leave to find refuge wherever it was available. The men looked at each other, surprised by this sudden turn of events and their commander’s hidden intentions.
“What if we do align with them and take back the city? Are we then allies with the Brothers?” one man asked. “They killed my baby sister when they poisoned the water three years ago!” Dozens of voices called out with similar stories. Tension was rising again.
Quintana knew he had to get it under control quickly or all would be lost. He held up his hand. “I don’t know, but we probably will be allies.” He plowed on quickly. “We cannot be tied to the past now! All we can think of is the future. I want our great-grandchildren to be the citizens of our great Mexican nation, not the chattel of a northern whore.” The men were silent. “I know many of you have personal reasons to hate the Brothers. Please. I ask you to consider how our army looks to them. The raids, the torture, the traps, the blackmail and manipulation. Our hands are not clean in fighting them, either.” Some men, mostly the younger ones, avoided Quintana’s gaze. They were furious with him, with his less than patriotic assessment of the past. They hadn’t lived enough, hadn’t fought enough, hadn’t committed enough atrocities themselves, to swallow this pill as easily as some who had been around longer. You could see it in their faces – This cannot be happening.
It was happening, though. Within the hour, Qu
intana and the two men he chose to accompany him trekked off into the mountains. They had no weapons and only a waterskin apiece. Despite his hope and resolve, Quintana felt naked. Malevolent air seemed to flow down from the mountain. The warning had probably already been relayed throughout the hill country. He was walking into a trap. As long as he was able to speak with the elders, though, he had a chance.
They followed the main trail. Shortly, they found their way blocked by a dozen armed men, all pointing rifles and spears at them. Quintana and his men put their hands up. The men searched them.
“What do you want, Tenochtitlan dog?” one of the men asked.
“I want to speak to your elders. I am here to offer aid in retaking Tenochtitlan for the people. Tell them Commander Quintana is here with two hundred men.”
Confusion washed over the sentry’s face. The other men wore the same expression.
Commander Quintana?
The Wolf of Tenochtitlan was offering his help to the Brothers?
Chapter 26
“There are certain types of people who are predisposed to offense. No matter what care you take, they interpret the smallest matter as a deliberate slight. That is what we are seeing now, with the commandeering of boats. It is nothing more than those people who prefer to be unhappy about something. Anything,” General Page assured Sara. She didn’t respond. Despite Page’s words, she felt this discontent was a sign that she needed to risk going into the city immediately, before her full forces had been deployed. The outrage in the city was clearly visible through the reports she received. Her messengers tried softening their descriptions, but she read between the lines. “The people are ‘questioning’ why their boats are taken.” Of course they were, they were pissed. Who knew these people were so attached to their stupid little boats?
“How many fighting men do we have in the city?” Sara asked.
“Thirteen hundred,” Page said.
“This boat issue concerns me more than you. I will go across the water in the next wave. Please provide me your best interpreters,” she ordered.
“Ma’am, I cannot guarantee your security if you cross,” Page warned.
“I know.”
So Sara crossed Lake Texcoco in a flotilla with the next wave of soldiers, about 300 men. She looked into the brackish water. Occasionally she glimpsed a pale, bloated zombie face under the surface looking up at them, accompanied by an arm extending in their direction. Dalbec, who had gone with her, said it was possibly the presence of gases within the decomposing bodies that kept them from completely sinking. When they were searching for a way across the river, he had considered constructing rafts out of zombies by filling their lungs with air and somehow sealing their mouths. He had been unable to solve some of the problems related to the idea. The capture of the king had ultimately bypassed the need for new technologies.
“I only considered zombie floatation devices for strictly academic purposes, I assure you,” Dalbec said earnestly.
“That’s…reassuring,” Sara responded, annoyed and confused as to why he thought she needed this assurance. Dalbec was particularly irritating today, she thought to herself. The bottom of the boat bumped a solid object. Dalbec rattled off tips on how to swim. Some bubbles rose to the surface from whatever they hit.
They had to steer clear of an island of the undead caused an hours delay to avoid They landed on a sand bar and pulled the boats ashore. There was no one. The soldiers spread out and secured the area before Sara reached it and walked onto land.
“Tenochtitlan,” she mused, brimming with unexpected pride at her prize. She’d never seen such tall buildings. They rose, crumbling and vine-covered, high into the sky.
“Ma’am, we have to carry our boats across this sandbar then paddle a little further through the buildings,” one of her escorts said.
She acknowledged him and returned her gaze to the concrete marvels. She was already calculating square footage, floors, and how many walkers they could store. These buildings, and Tenochtitlan’s population, would bring her zombie army back to offensive levels again. It would require developing means to transport the newly created stock across water, but they could work it out.
“The challenge will be extracting the stored walkers from all the floors,” Dalbec said, practically reading her mind.
“Yes, but you’ll be able to figure that out,” she said. A smile played at the corners of her mouth. So much possibility.
The soldiers carried the boats a few hundred yards across the sand bar and then put them in the water on the other side. They paddled amidst the buildings and even through them at some points.
The flotilla reached the main landmass of Tenochtitlan. Unlike the empty sandbar beyond the high rises, the water’s edge here was riddled with large, jagged concrete chunks. They made landing difficult, forcing the flotilla to split up to put in safely. Beyond the concrete lay several hundred tangled yards of grass, weeds and large, smooth barked trees that almost obscured a thirty-foot rock wall. Post outbreak, rocks had been painstakingly gathered from the surrounding countryside and brought across the lake to build it. She was impressed how little of it was broken-up concrete, as she would have thought that the most prolific resource. It must have taken a decade to build, which hardly seemed worth it. The natural rock did have a stately appearance, though, and she liked it. It matched her style- or at least what she thought of as her style.
Her soldiers disembarked to secure the immediate area before giving the all clear. It wasn’t until then that Sara noticed they could hear the noise of the city inside the wall. Voices shouting, wheels rolling, hammers striking nails, vendors advertising wares, and music. Beautiful music. The musicians were close, and they were playing an old, old song on ancient instruments. Sara’s heart brimmed. Impossible as it was, she knew the song. More than knew it – it was one of her favorites! It must be fate, she thought. The ripples of the guitar sent a shiver through her, and she smiled. Then she cringed. Her moment was spoiled when she noticed they were singing the words in Spanish.
Sara made a note to prohibit singing her favorites in Spanish.
They met no resistance, as they passed through the main gate of the wall. Sara marveled at its construction. Its frame was steel girders taken from the skeleton of the skyscrapers with flat steel panels attached. It looked like it would hold out against anything.
Once through the gate, they found themselves in a neighborhood of tightly packed, rundown buildings. These were all residences. The stucco peeled, windows broken out, and laundry hanging everywhere. The smell of garbage and human waste punctuated the air. Tenochtitlan paralleled Colorado Springs in that the worst neighborhoods were adjacent to the wall. Sara sent men ahead to scout out their path to the temple in the city center. There were only a handful of people to be seen, mostly children and old women, and they didn’t seem to realize who or what they were witnessing. Mr. Linus, the head of the envoy she had sent previously, appeared at the end of the street, hurrying toward them. Locals had seen the boat approaching and through word of mouth Linus learned of it. Four of the city’s religious leaders trailed behind him.
“Miss Academy,” he panted, out of breath from his harried journey. “We weren’t expecting you! Not a bad thing, of course, it’s just unexpected.”
“Of course, Mr. Linus.” She gave a strained smile. Something didn’t feel right in her stomach. It was gurgling. She felt very cold even though it was pleasant outside.
“May I introduce you to the religious leaders of the city?”
“Yes. Very pleased to meet you. My name is Sara,” she said, and Mr. Linus’ interpreter conveyed the message while Sara continued forcing the smile.
The religious leaders bowed deeply. “We are pleased to meet you as well,” they replied through the interpreter. One asked, “Is ‘Sara’ your family name?”
“No, my family name is Academy,” she answered.
“It might be better if you went by your family name. The people will need to become famil
iar with it,” he added, “It informs them on how to address all of your offspring.”
“All of my offspring?!” She tried to avoid blurting it out after the interpreter finished.
“Yes, we expect the queen will begin to produce many offspring to ensure her dynasty for generations to come. Only a male heir may inherit the rule of Tenochtitlan.”
“Is that so?” she asked. She had resolved to be diplomatic, but it didn’t last. “Linus, who are these idiots?” She gestured to the religious leaders with one hand, rubbed her eyes with the other. Her forehead was on fire.
Clearly agitated, Linus came in close and spoke low. “Ma’am, they are the head religious authorities in the city. As proxies of the monarch, they dictate the moral and spiritual path of Tenochtitlan.”
“Not anymore. I don’t need proxies,” she snapped. She felt dizzy. Linus has already gone native, she thought.
“Ma’am, I don’t think–” Linus began.
“Listen you little…” She stopped herself. “…envoy. I’m happy for your service in greasing the skids over here. You’ve, perhaps, forgotten who is in control.”
One of the religious leaders, who apparently spoke more English than he was letting on, chimed in at the mention of control. “Only dead to be controlled.” He spoke slowly, methodically and like he was talking to a child. Sara watched, unsteadily, as his hands waved around. “People free. They act, they live with rules in the communal with the undead. We, us, cannot dictation to them path to righteousness. Only can advise and guide them.” He finished with a cat-like smile.
100 A.Z. (Book 2): Tenochtitlan Page 18
