Simon Levack - The Demon of the Air

I got to my knees, bringing my head level with the side of the canoe just as a sandaled foot landed on it. A moment later the foot took off again, and the canoe gave a sickening lurch as my brother launched himself into the air, screaming like an injured jaguar. As I tried to stand, with Lion’s war cry echoing off the trees at the lake’s edge, Handy shoved me aside. I heard the slap of his bare foot as he planted it where my brother’s had been and then he too hurled himself across the gap between the boats.

“Wait!” It came out as an unintelligible gasp. What were they using for weapons?

Lion and Handy scrambled over the big boat’s side. They stood for a moment near one end of the vessel before running toward the shelter in its middle.

By the time I saw the danger it was too late to avert it.

He had been crouching at the far end of the boat, keeping low to avoid being knocked overboard in the collision. To get to him, Lion and Handy would have to dodge around the shelter. Their foe had plenty of time, and took it, unfolding himself from the deck and standing up in lazy slow motion. The blades of his sword glittered faintly in the starlight as he raised it above his head.

With a triumphant cry, Lion leaped toward him, outpacing Handy.

Then the boy struck.

Nimble had been lying by the shelter, indistinguishable from any of the shapeless objects lying around him. As Handy passed him he leaped to his feet, with his paddle in both hands, and swung it at the unsuspecting commoner’s head. I heard a soft thump and Handy toppled into the water with a loud splash.

My brother’s reaction was eerily fast. He seemed to spin in midair as he turned to face the new threat behind him. Nimble had the paddle raised again. Lion leaped high in the air as he went for the boy, hoping to avoid the improvised weapon, or catch it at the top of its arc before there was any force behind it.

Nimble took a step backward. He flipped the paddle over and thrust the end of its pole into my brother’s stomach.

Lion flew into the pole with his full weight behind him, folded up around it with a loud grunt, and collapsed.

A horrible silence followed.

I stood, leaning heavily on the side of the canoe as I moved cautiously forward. Luminous shapes danced before my eyes in time to the thumping pain in my head. I stared at the strange boat.

Our canoe and the big craft were not quite touching, although they were still close enough that I could have scrambled across the gap between them. There was a sluggish feel to the way the canoe was moving that puzzled me until I noticed that my toes were under water. The impact had split the canoe’s timber and it was slowly sinking.

The boy dropped his paddle with a clatter. The man at the other end of the boat lowered his sword and looked across the water at me. He was too far away in the darkness for me to see his face, but by now I did not need to.

I hailed him grimly.

“Shining Light!”

This time the merchant did not trouble to disguise his voice. I knew it at once, although it now bore little trace of the affable young man I had first met at the Festival of the Raising of Banners.

“Yaotl! Is that you?”

I did not know what to do. The urge to plunge into the lake was strong, even though I did not know how far away the shore was, but my brother was on the boat in front of me, at his enemy’s mercy, and I could not bring myself to abandon him.

“I think you’d better talk to me, Yaotl! I need someone to tell me who I’ve got here-before I start flaying him. He might have trouble telling me himself, after I’ve cut his face off!”

He was standing over Lion’s body. I did not know whether my brother was conscious or even alive. I was surprised to find that I cared. I might not have until a few days before, when I had learned that his shame at what happened at Coyoacan equaled mine at being expelled from the Priest House.

Besides, I told myself, if anything happened to him I would only have to explain it to my mother.

“All right!” I told myself the water was too cold to jump into anyway. “I wouldn’t touch him, if I were you. He’s not just some commoner who won’t be missed.”

“I thought so! The Guardian of the Waterfront!”

“The Guardian of the Waterfront?” Nimble’s voice was hushed with amazement. “You mean, Yaotl’s brother?”

“Who else? My mother told you they were at the banquet together!” My anger at the woman revived for telling him so much, for letting this go so far-and for letting herself be so cruelly duped. “I am having a good night, aren’t I? Fancy me bagging the Guardian of the Waterfront himself! The Emperor should give me jeweled sandals and a jade labret for this, don’t you think, Nimble?” He laughed, but there was no humor in it, and the boy did not join in.

“What do you want?” I demanded.

“Isn’t that obvious? What we want is you! Now get on this boat, before I start skinning your precious brother alive!”

I could probably have got away: the shore could not be that distant, and even if my enemy followed me, there was every chance I could evade him in the darkness. But then, I thought, where would I go? With neither my master nor the Emperor satisfied, the sorcerers unrecovered and the man who had taken them still at large, my brother’s body turned into another grisly message to the Chief Minister and Handy probably drowned-who in the entire city would I have left to turn to?

“I’m coming,” I called. “Just don’t touch him, do you hear me?”

I scrambled across the gap between the boats and stood up in the big vessel’s stern. Shining Light and Nimble were near the shelter, and I kept as far away from them both as I could.

Neither of them made any effort to move toward me. Several shapeless bundles lay at Shining Light’s feet: with a chill I felt even over the cold of the night I realized that they were human bodies and my brother’s was among them.

A commotion had started up on the shore. Voices, one of them my master’s, called through the darkness, and someone was thrashing about in the undergrowth.

“What have you done with my brother?”

Shining Light looked down, as if noticing one of the heaps at his feet for the first time. I heard a thump as he kicked it casually, and Lion’s voice letting out an involuntary groan. “He seems to be still alive.”

When he stepped over Lion’s body I noticed the glint of starlight on obsidian and realized that he was still holding his sword.

“I don’t care about your brother. We only have to settle with you, now, and then we can go.”

Then the boy spoke up. He had not moved, and the young merchant had stepped in front of him. “Shining Light, wait …”

“Wait?” Shining Light snapped, barely glancing over his shoulder. “Wait? What for? You heard enough from Lily, didn’t you? What’s to wait for? We’ve no time!”

As he advanced, brandishing the sword in both hands, I tried to recall the warrior training I had had at the Priest House. I remembered how the instructors had coached us in mock fights with cudgels, and sometimes with real weapons that drew real blood. Slash, don’t chop. Go for the legs, the arms. Avoid the belly, where a wound may be mortal: we want captives, not corpses. Seize your man by the hair and make him submit ….

But I had no weapon and this fight was not going to be by the rules.

I stepped backward.

“Settle with me? I don’t understand. What do we have to settle?”

The volume of noise from the shore suddenly increased. People were crashing and splashing through the reeds as though they were hunting an animal. The man hunting me halted for a moment, as though distracted by the sound, although he kept looking at me.