"How did you do that?" the tícitl asked, marveling. "Where did you get such a sorcerous thing?"

"A gift from father to son," I said, smiling in reminiscence. "Blessed with the help of Tonatíu and of a father in Tonatíucan, I believe I can do just about anything. Except sing, I suppose."

"What?"

"The guard of my cell at the palace disparaged my singing voice."

Ualíztli again gave me the probing look of a physician. "Are you sure, my lord, that you are not still affected by that blow to your head?"

I laughed at him, and turned to admire my fire. As it spread among the ground needles, it was not very visible, but now it was igniting the resin-full green needles of the pines above, and so was sending up a plume of smoke that rapidly got higher, denser and darker.

"That should fetch somebody," I said with satisfaction.

"I suggest that we move back among the bushes we came through," said the tícitl. "We can perhaps get an early warning glimpse of who comes. And whoever it is will not find us just a pair of roasted cadavers."

We did that, and crouched out there, and watched the fire eat through the grove, sending up a smoke to rival that which always hangs above the great volcano Popocatépetl outside Tenochtítlan. Time passed, and the lowering sun turned the high smoke cloud a ruddy gold in color, an even more conspicuous signal against the sky's deepening blue. More time passed, before finally we heard a rustling in the bushes around us. We had not been talking, but when Ualíztli gave me a questioning look, I held a cautionary finger to my lips, then raised slowly up to see over the bushes' tops.

Well, they were not Spaniards, but I could almost have wished they were. The men surrounding our hiding place were armor-clad Aztéca, prominent among them the Arrow Knight Tapachíni—these were Yeyac's warriors. One of them, cursedly keen-eyed, saw me before I could crouch down again, and gave the owl-hoot cry. The circle of them closed in upon us, and Ualíztli and I resignedly stood erect. The warriors stopped at a distance from us, but ringed us completely about, so that we were the center and aim of all their leveled spears and javelins.

Yeyac himself now elbowed through the circle and came closer to us. He was not alone; G'nda Ké came with him; both were smirking triumphantly.

"So, cousin, we are face-to-face again," he said. "But this will be the last time. Coronado may have been reluctant to raise the alarm at your escape, but the good G'nda Ké was not. She ran immediately to tell me. Then I and my men had only to wait and watch. Now, cousin, let us escort you well away from here, before the Spaniards do come. I want privacy and ample leisure in which to do the slow slaying of you."

He motioned for the warriors to close in upon us. But before they could converge, a single one of them stepped forward from the circle, the only warrior bearing an arcabuz.

"I killed you once before, Yeyac," said Tiptoe, "when you menaced my Tenamáxtli. As you say, this will be the last time."

The other warriors on either side of her recoiled as the thunder-stick thundered. The lead ball took Yeyac in his left temple and for an instant, his head blurred in a spray of red blood and pink-gray brain substance. Then he toppled, and no back-alley tícitl would be able to revive him ever again.

Every other one of us stood frozen, stunned, for the space of several heartbeats. Obviously, in her bulky quilted armor, Pakápeti—even with something of a belly now—had been able, all this while, to pass as a man of the company, and to keep her arcabuz concealed somewhere until it was really needed.

Now she had just time enough to send me a brief, affectionate, sad smile. Then there was a bellow of outrage from all of Yeyac's men, and those nearest Tiptoe surged to get at her, and the first one who did gave a mighty overhand slash of his obsidian sword. It opened Tiptoe's armor, her skin, her body, from breastbone to groin. Before she fell, there spilled out of her a great gush of blood, all her organs and guts... and something else. The men about her reeled back away from her, staring aghast and uttering exclamations loud enough to be heard above the noise of all the other angry shouts—"tequáni!" and "tzipitl!" and "palanquí!"—meaning "monstrosity" and "deformity" and "putridity."

In that tumult, none of us had paid heed to other rustlings in the brush roundabout, but now we heard a wild, concerted war cry combining eagle shrieks, jaguar grunts, owl hoots and parrot ululations. There came crashing through the bushes innumerable men of my own army, and they flung themselves upon Yeyac's warriors, hacking and thrusting with maquáhuime and spears and javelins. Before joining the affray myself, I pointed to what was left of Pakápeti and commanded Ualíztli, "See to her, tícitl!"

It was a battle fought by profile shapes, not full-rounded figures, just the outlines of us warriors, black against the sheet of fire still consuming the grove. So every man soon dropped his heavier weapons, lest he find himself stabbing or slicing one of his own comrades. All resorted to knives—most of them obsidian; a few, like mine, of steel—and fought hand to hand, sometimes the opponents grappling on the ground. I personally slew the Arrow Knight Tapachíni. And the battle was a short one, because my men far outnumbered Yeyac's. As the last of those fell, the great blaze also began to die down, as if its accompaniment was no longer required, and we all found ourselves in the near darkness of early night.

Doubtless through god-arranged coincidence, I found myself standing next to the perfidious G'nda Ké, still alive and entire, evidently spared from the slaughter only because she wore woman's garb.

"I should have known," I said, panting. "Even in furious battle, you remain unscathed. I am glad. As your friend Yeyac said just now, I shall have privacy and leisure in which to slay you slowly."

"How you talk!" she chided me, with maddening composure. "G'nda Ké lured Yeyac and his men into this trap, and what thanks does she get?"

"You lying bitch!" I snarled, then told two warriors nearby, "Take this female and hold her tight between you and march her with us when we leave here. If she disappears, so will you two, and in fragments."

Next moment, I was being tightly embraced by the Cuáchic Nochéztli, as he exclaimed, "I knew the white men could not long hold captive so valiant a warrior as my lord Tenamáxtzin!"

"And you have proved a more than capable substitute in the meantime," I said. "As of tonight, you are my second in command, and I will see that our Order of Eagle Knights bestows on you its accolade. You have my congratulations, my gratitude and my esteem, Knight Nochéztli."

"You are most gracious, my lord, and I am most honored. But now—let us make haste away from this place. If the Spaniards are not already on their way, their thunder-tubes could fling their missiles as far as here."

"Yes. When our men have retrieved all their weapons, rally them and start a withdrawal northward. I will catch up to you as soon as I have attended to one final matter."

I sought among the throng until I found Ualíztli, and asked him:

"What of that dear, brave girl, Pakápeti? She saved both our lives, tícitl. Was there anything you could do for her at the last?"

"Nothing. She was dead and at peace before she hit the ground."

"But that other—whatever caused her assailants such horror. What was—?"