Crystal Rain Read Online Free

himself. Footprints everywhere! In his mind’s eye he could see the long line of prints leading across the muddy copse he would leave as he ran.
    “Sweet, sweet, Quetzalcoatl.” He dug at his left hand with a fingernail. He scratched until blood trickled down into the skin between his index finger and thumb. Quetzalcoatl didn’t accept blood sacrifice. Many others demanded it, though, and Oaxyctl had to try something . He scratched and scratched until the blood flowed freely and mixed with the rain.
    “This is not even my land,” Oaxyctl said. “But I would fertilize it with my own blood for mercy.”
    A trellis tree snapped and shook in the wind. Oaxyctl jumped. He looked around, his eyes wide. The wind died. The world fell silent. In the distance a frog let out a long belching croak, then shut up.
    Oaxyctl broke from the protection of the forest and sprinted across the mud. The ground threatened to slip out from under him. He flailed his arms to keep balance. Hyperventilating and sloshing through puddles, he got halfway across the two hundred yards before he heard a long, sharp whistle in the air above him.
    He froze.
    The Teotl landed in front of him with a wet explosion of mud that plastered Oaxyctl from head to toe and threw him backward from his feet. Oaxyctl sat up and huddled forward. He shook with fear and averted his gaze.
    He wasn’t scared of dying. No. He was scared of far worse. Oaxyctl feared the pain that was sure to come.
    “ Notecuhu ,” he whimpered. My lord . “Please, it is a great honor.” He crawled forward, not taking his eyes off the mud that almost touched his nose.
    Squelch, squelch. The sound of the clawed feet slushing forward sent shivers roiling down Oaxyctl’s gut. He tasted bitterness coming up his throat and his nose flared as he smelled rotted flesh. Face this like the warrior you are, he urged himself. Be noble. Meet an honorable death and give
your heart willingly. He thought these things even though some deeper instinct in him raged to fight tooth and nail to the last gasping second.
    But that would accomplish nothing, Oaxyctl knew. His body tensed like rope about to fray and snap, and Oaxyctl steeled his soul.
    “ Amixmähuih? ” the deep and raspy voice of the Teotl asked.
    “I am not afraid,” Oaxyctl said.
    “Cualli.” Good . The Teotl wrapped two sandpapery thumbs around Oaxyctl’s neck. The four fingers rested on his spine. “ Quimichtin. Spy. Traitorous creature, we know of your betrayal. But we are not done with you.”
    The Teotl cupped Oaxyctl’s chin with its other hand. It drew a long bead of blood up his neck with its second thumb. The hand was ribbed with tatters of pale, blueveined skin.
    “I was found out.” The Nanagadans had caught him and sent him back over the mountains to work for them. “What could I do?”
    The Teotl ignored his rationalization of double treason. “What you will do now is what I bid you. You know where other quimichtin are here, ones that you have not betrayed just yet. Give them away. The black human warriors that live on this side of the mountains will trust you and let you walk among them if you give them this information, and if you fight on their side.”
    Oaxyctl dared to look at the Teotl’s legs. External bones ran down the midnight black cartilage of its thighs. On each side of the Teotl’s hip, rain and pus quivered along the joints of tentacles, one of which stirred, coils shifting to reveal tiny jaws.
    “I will do so.” Oaxyctl looked back down.
    The Teotl shifted its grip and pulled Oaxyctl out of the mud. Oaxyctl struggled for air as two thumbs pressed down on his chest and the Teotl’s fingers on his back pushed his shoulder blades in. He dangled above the mud. Oaxyctl faced the god and panted. Here stood a being whose kind dwelled in Aztlan’s sacrificial pyramids. It wore a cape of flayed human skin, the empty, floppy arms knotted around
the Teotl’s neck, feet twined around the tentacles by the