I started shooting, and Took and I slammed our backs against the nearest big tree. I was on my last full magazine. Took had the spear in front of him; he got a big dog in the chest with it. I shot one or two. They came in under my fire and something clamped onto my leg. I smashed at it with the butt of the carbine. It squealed and let go.
Arrows and spears grew out of the tree behind us. I shot the two biggest dogs. Then the magazine was empty.
The Huastecas jumped up and ran for us, spears out, calling off the dogs.
I pulled the pin out of a grenade, pushed Took down and threw it at the nearest Huasteca. I saw him smile and catch it as I hit the ground.
He was turned to a fine red mist by the explosion that tore up everything in the grove.
I slammed my last magazine with six rounds in it home, and stood.
One guy was still standing, holding what was left of his stomach with what was left of his hands, eyes blank. Dead Huastecas and dogs lay everywhere. Some wounded of both kinds twitched.
Dogs were barking, getting closer, from another direction.
‘Let’s go,’ I said. I looked at Took.
He looked back at me. Half a meter of spear shaft, broken by the explosion, stuck out from his chest just below the clavicle.
‘Oh, shit!’ I eased him up, rolled him. The spear didn’t go all the way through. There was no foam on the blood yet: not a sucking chest wound. I pulled the spear shaft out slowly, twisting just a little as it grated on bone. I jerked open my first aid packet from the web beneath the costume, slapped on antiseptic and stuffed the wound bandage into the edges of the hole.
‘Hold that,’ I said. He raised his hand and pressed on the dressing. His eyes were coming back to normal.
The dogs were louder.
‘Those guys,’ said Took, ‘must have had a canoe.’ Then he lapsed back into silence.
I jumped up, ran past the carnage. The Huasteca who was still standing walked out of the clearing, paying no attention to me or his wounds. He kept going.
Over where the next water started were three dugouts. I ran back to Took and helped him up. We made it to the canoe as the first of the dogs came past the dead men.
I was pushing out. Something hot and sharp stabbed into my calf. I screamed. Tiny growling sounds came up from my legs.
I grabbed my carbine, turning.
One of the Chihuahuas had me. Its teeth were like needles. I tried to kick it away. Bigger dogs were coming. The thing was back, clamped on again. It wouldn’t let go.
I used shot number one on the Chihuahua.
Number two on one of the big dogs.
Number three on a medium-sized one that bit the stern of the canoe and tried to drag it back to shore while I paddled.
Took was paddling with one hand, using the other to hold the bloody bandage.
We put out and made it a hundred meters into the bayou, dogs swimming in long V-wakes after us.
I used shot number four on the first Huasteca who got to the canoes. He fell dead. The rest of them stayed back in the brush until we got out of sight.
Otherwise it was a beautiful spring morning.
We were put up in an alligator run with the bushes closed behind us. It was past noon. I’d used the other dressing on Took’s shoulder an hour ago. It was already soaked through. He lay in the bow of the dugout.
Occasionally we heard canoes go by, the paddles dipping in unison.
‘I hate to tell you this,’ said Took, ‘but I don’t think this bayou leads to the River. I was here once when I was a kid, before the traders, even. Unless you can carry this dugout on your shoulders, we’re going to have to leave it a few hours’ march from here.’
‘At least we can use it that far,’ I said.
Took looked at me a long time. ‘What’s keeping you going?’ he asked.
‘Well, I don’t have a spear hole in my chest, for one thing. Your outlook will improve once you get a few days’ rest and some food in you,’ I said, with a cheerfulness I didn’t feel.
‘They’re going to get us,’ he said. ‘I have the feeling.’
‘Well, maybe. I’ve still got two grenades and two shots.’
‘One for you, one for me?’ he asked.
‘I won’t like it any more than you will,’ I said.
‘It’ll be better than the slab.’
‘I meant to ask you about that.’ A bird squawked and flew away. We waited. Nothing happened.
‘Your people seemed ready enough to die in the plaza. As soon as you saw me, you got your spunk back.’
‘When you’re heading for the slab, in the chief city of your enemies, you might as well go as befits a man or a woman. When your god comes to rescue you, you fight.’
‘But it was just me in the woodpecker outfit, you knew that.’
‘I knew that, and you knew that, said Took. ‘But the Woodpecker God also knew that.’
‘And he approved?’
‘I don’t know whether he did or not, but he let you do it,’ said Took. Then he grimaced in pain.
‘As soon as we get past the Huastecas, I’ll give you something for the pain. It’ll make you feel like you’re flying. But if I give it to you now, you’ll be unconscious for a day. I can carry you when we’re past them, but not while they’re around.’
‘We’ll put out at nightfall,’ said Took-His-Time. ‘Go north, then east. When we get to the magnolias, we have to leave the canoe and go overland again. We should pass the last Meshicas before midnight.’
He lay back in the boat, nodding, jerking awake, sleeping fitfully. The sun crawled like a bright slug across the sky.
Feet pounded by on the bank once. The alligator came back, smelled us, and crashed back out of his run.
The sun dropped, then it was night.
We pushed the canoe back out into the water and set off through the magnolia-scented night.
‘Home is that way,’ said Took, pointing. I couldn’t see where he meant. ‘We’ll join the path we followed to go to the Flower War last month, remember?’
‘How far?’
‘All night. Then home.’
I turned and hugged him, careful of his shoulder. We were using rags ripped from my shirt to stop the bleeding now.
‘We’re going to make it,’ I said. ‘I can feel it.’
‘The night is long, Yaz,’ he said.
Right on cue an arrow whizzed by, then the darkness was full of Huastec whoops and hollers.
There were five or six of them and I got them with my last fragmentation grenade. I didn’t kill them all, just put them out of commission. That woke up everybody, though. The night filled with sounds after the echo of the explosion died.
‘Which way are we going?’ I asked Took. I’d pushed him down into the boat, and his shoulder was bleeding again.
‘That way.’ He pointed. The wind was blowing about thirty degrees off that direction from our backs, gusting.
‘They’ll be between us and home, won’t they?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then let’s give them something to worry about besides us. Stay down.’
I took out my last grenade, a Wooly Pete. I waded to shore, walked a few meters into the open space ahead. I went to a position about twenty meters from where the grass and underbrush were thickest. I pulled the pin and threw the white phosphorus grenade that way, ran ten meters and jumped behind a tree.
WP grenades are so heavy you can only throw them twenty meters but they have a splash radius of thirty.
A firestorm bloomed on the night. I saw the bones of my hand through the skin, it was so bright. I hoped Huastecas for kilometers around had been looking right at it; they’d be blind till morning.
The fire climbed up trees, over grass, along the ground in a great red-orange and white wall. In no time it was a hundred meters wide and growing, pushed by the churning wind.