They aren’t that smart. They aren’t that organized.
Akachi glanced toward the Grey Wall, hoping for some sign that the Turquoise Serpents, Southern Hummingbird’s elite, had arrived. The smoke was too thick.
Dim shapes, drained of colour, surged about like terrified field mice. Dirts swarmed a church of Precious Feather. Beautiful women, dressed in revealing robes cut to best accentuate their varied shapes and features, fled the temple only to be trapped in the courtyard. One of the women stepped forward, blue-black hair like that of a puma spilling about her shoulders. Jainkoei and aldatu in his blood, Akachi saw the veil around her twist like gossamer threads of silk. She twined reality about her fingers, weaving the very fabric of the world. With a gesture, she scattered two carved wooden figurines in the ash before her. Uncertain, timid as their nature demanded, the Growers slowed. The Precious Feather nahualli opened the veil with a practised twitch of slim fingers and called through her allies. The carved totems became real. A leopard, mighty muscles rolling, prowled ready. Long arms strong enough to tear a grown man apart, a massive gorilla beat its chest and roared in challenge.
Peyollotl, Akachi mused. And a skilled one, if she could control two totems at the same time.
As he flew past, several jaguars and a monstrous lumbering crocodile charged from the smoke to attack the nahualli’s totems; the Loa were out in force and backing the Dirts.
The war below suddenly made sense. The Dirts weren’t this smart, they couldn’t plan. They didn’t strategically corner the Guard or split squads to be dispatched more easily. The Growers were being driven, herded like cattle, manipulated by the Loa heretics.
Precious Feather’s church fell behind Akachi, and he flew on. There was nothing he could do to help. As a hawk, he was useless in a fight against peyollotl or nagual. There wasn’t enough aldatu in his blood to thin the veil so he might become something more dangerous. If he stopped to fight, he’d have to walk the rest of the way to the Northern Cathedral. Assuming he survived the battle.
Cloud Serpent gave him a mission. Saving a few nahual wouldn’t matter if all Bastion died. He had to find the staff. He had to hunt the two Dirt girls. Nothing would distract him from his holy purpose.
Banking to look back, Akachi saw the Precious Feather nahual clubbed senseless from behind, her creations becoming disjointed and ungainly as she wobbled on weak knees. The second blow dropped her to the ground and the leopard and gorilla once again became lifeless wood totems. Was she dead, or unconscious? Filthy Growers swarmed over the beautiful nahual, tearing away their vestments.
I can’t help.
Was that who he was?
Was that the kind of man he was?
Would he turn his back on fellow nahual?
No!
About to turn back, it hit him: Everything had changed. They weren’t fellow nahual. They were priests of a god who competed with Cloud Serpent to become head of the pantheon. The realization took his breath away. The world was different now. He was no longer a nahual of the gods of Bastion. He was the Heart of Cloud Serpent. The priests of every other god would work to impede him. It would be their holy duty to kill him so their own god’s Heart might ascend to become Heart’s Mirror.
He was alone in a world of enemies, not even Captain Yejide at his side.
I should be praying that nahualli was Precious Feather’s Heart, not flying back to save her.
It felt wrong. Guilt hung heavy in his gut. Even if he was right, it felt like an excuse. An excuse for cowardice.
Captain Yejide made me brave.
He wouldn’t fail her, wouldn’t fail the memory of her.
Were she alive, whose side would she be on now?
Would she stand with Akachi, or kill him for Southern Hummingbird?
Continuing its flight toward the cathedral, the blood-tailed hawk screamed in frustration.
In the last twenty-five thousand years, Bastion had survived countless changes in leadership among the gods. She would survive this, too. Chaos would not take the Last City!
Once again focussed, Akachi flew north. Scenes of horror beyond count passed beneath him. Churches defaced, their nahual sacrificed or tortured. Over and over he saw Dirts bring down squads of Hummingbirds through sheer weight of stinking flesh. The Growers outnumbered all the other rings of Bastion combined. What chance did the Guard have?
A church of Sin Eater burned, having been stuffed full of straw and scraps of wood. The temple priest, a stooped old man, staggered about the ravaged courtyard, his once-pristine robes torn and matted in filth.
Akachi flew on, struggling to ignore the atrocities. Retreating into the hawk’s reality helped. The bird cared nothing for the world of men. Yet he could not escape his fears.
What was happening in the heart of Bastion? Had word of the Grower uprising reached the Priests’ Ring? It took many days to walk from the core to the outer ring, though there were faster means of communication. Dream messages must have been sent, nagual or peyollotl dispatched with reports.
Does father know I am Cloud Serpent’s Heart?
Would the Lord of the Hunt inform his High Priest?
Were he not a hawk, Akachi would have grinned. No one was born knowing they were a Heart. In times of peace, Hearts were born and died unaware of their potential and importance. As High Priest, his father might have assumed the role would fall to him.
Does everyone already know of Father Death’s demise?
It seemed likely, but the gods often went hundreds, or even thousands of years without uttering a single word to a mortal. It was impossible to know what they thought important.
Akachi considered the task ahead. Would Bishop Zalika await him in the dispensary like the dream promised? The thought of all those narcotics quickened his heart. Not knowing what he’d face, or how long before he’d get the chance to restock, he’d best pack some of everything.
Jainkoei! Aldatu! As much as he could carry!
He swallowed his building hunger.
After Zalika, he’d have to face the street-sorcerer and Mother Death.
I’ll need a sizeable quantity of narcotics to hunt and fight her.
A flash of shadow as something passed between Akachi and the smoke-obscured sun. The bird in him reacted instinctively, flinging itself to the side. An eagle screamed past, raking Akachi’s wings with vicious talons, banked sharply, and disappeared into the smog.
Pain flared through Akachi like fire.
The bird had been huge but misshapen, its eyes too far apart. The claws were hooked and jagged, as if carved in a rush, the feathers subtly wrong.
Street-sorcerer. It had to be.
Flying in looping serpentine arcs, Akachi tried to watch everything at once. His wounded wing, bleeding profusely and missing several critical flight feathers, hampered his progress. Impenetrable smoke blotted the sky. Had the eagle not made the mistake of passing between Akachi and the sun, he never would have seen it coming. Smaller shapes flitted beyond sight, teasing. He couldn’t shake them. No matter how fast he flew, they kept pace.
Turning, he caught sight of two falcons giving chase. With speed and agility on their side, they gained quickly.
Should he try climbing, lose them in the thicker smoke above? Could he breathe up there?
A ragged tearing pain shredded Akachi’s thoughts as the eagle crashed into him from above, clawing great wounds in his back, ripping flesh and feathers. Twisting in the air, he managed to strike at the bird with his beak, causing it to release him.