Aztlan: The Courts of Heaven by Michael Jan Friedman Page A

that the guy I’d put down wasn’t alone.
    Fighting through the agony just inside my shoulder blade, I flung an elbow at what I judged would be my attacker’s head. It hit something hard enough to make him grunt in pain.
    I whirled, my hand stick in my fist. I was hoping to follow the elbow with a shot to the guy’s face.
    Usually, I restrained myself from using my hand stick that way. But the lizard turd had put a knife in my back—I wasn’t going to treat him like my Aunt Xoco.
    Unfortunately, the guy was faster than I was. He grabbed my wrist, preventing me from using my hand stick, and slugged me in the jaw with the hilt of his knife.
    I took a step back to regain my balance but my foot slipped on some debris and shot out from under me. The next thing I knew, I was lying on my back empty-handed, and my adversary was on top of me. I grabbed his knife hand but he got a shot in with his other one.
    Then he pulled his fist back to hit me again—but I managed to roll out of the way this time. As a result, he hit the ground instead of me. It must have hurt because he stopped trying to pound me senseless and clutched his hand to his chest instead.
    I took advantage of the respite to belt him in the teeth. It sent him spinning off me, as I’d intended. But he still had a knife in his fist, and the pain in my back was getting worse by the second, and I was starting to get a little lightheaded from loss of blood.
    As far as I knew, the other guy’s knife was lying on the ground, and so was my hand stick. But I didn’t know where and I didn’t have time to look for them. It was all I could do to scramble to my feet and brace myself for my assailant’s next attack.
    He had just raised his knife when I heard the screaming. It echoed throughout the remnants of the pyramid, making it sound like there were many people screaming instead of just one.
    Instead of just Calli .
    The guy looked around. No doubt, he would have liked to make the screaming stop. But he couldn’t.
    Not that it mattered. There was no one around to hear it, no one who would come running over to lend me a hand. And the first guy who had attacked me—the one I had knocked out—was getting up.
    It was going to be two against one.
    Except the guy with the knife didn’t go after me as I figured he would. Instead, apparently more perturbed by the screaming than I thought he would be, he grabbed hold of the other guy and started dragging him away.
    I had a crazy thought about going after them. Then I came to my senses. The gods had smiled on me. The last thing I wanted to do was encourage them to reconsider their generosity.
    Only when the masked guys were gone did the screaming stop. A moment later, Calli swung around one of the wall fragments and came running into my arms.
    Which would have been just fine if I hadn’t been stabbed so recently in the back. Unable to help myself, I let out a curse.
    She let me go, her eyes widening. “What’s the matter?”
    I showed her my back.
    “Gods, Maxtla, you’re bleeding!”
    “It’s not as bad as it looks,” I grunted.
    “Good, she said, trying her best to keep her composure. “Because if it were, you’d be dead.” Then she took her shawl off, folded it over, and pressed it against my wound.
    “By the way, nice job,” I rasped.
    “Job . . . ?”
    I jerked a thumb in the direction in which the masked guys had taken off. “You scared them away.”
    She pulled in a tremulous breath. “That can’t be.”
    It seemed unlikely, all right—if the masked guys were members of the Knife Eyes, as I’d sort of assumed at first. But what if they weren’t?
    Either way, I had to let my chief know what happened. “My radio,” I said.
    I didn’t have it on me any longer. And a quick scan of my surroundings didn’t produce any sign of it.
    “I’ve got mine,” said Calli. “Who should I call?”
    I gave her Necalli’s code. She tapped it in, then handed me the radio.
    A moment later, Necalli asked,