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brain awake to perform the movements. After several hours, he switched, and by
morning, before Oaxyctl stirred awake, and John began coughing and hacking
blood, Pepper was rested, awake, and ready.
The storm, thankfully, had subsided in the early-morning hours.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
John struggled up and looked out around him at the endless white. Two men in
front pulled the sled over a small hill, and the sled sped up. Oaxyctl ran
back and grabbed the front to slow it. The impact shook
John.
"You're awake?" Oaxyctl gasped.
John's eyebrows crinkled when he blinked. "How long have I slept?" The pain
came in waves from all over his body.
"All day today at least. How do you feel?"
"Not so good." John shivered. "Did Pepper kill Lionel?"
Oaxyctl tucked the edge of John's hood in. "I did. Once I saw what he was
doing."
"He was a spy." John tried to scratch his nose, but he realized he was
strapped into the sled, and he didn't have the strength to pull his arms out
from beneath the ropes. "For the Azteca."
"Yes."
And John still couldn't decide what he thought about Oaxyctl.
Pepper yelled. Oaxyctl turned around. "I must go. This madman is making me
pull you through the storm."
John wriggled. "Be careful." The talking exhausted him. He closed his eyes.
"Pepper is dangerous."
"I know." Oaxyctl walked back behind the sled and pushed.
The slow trek continued. As John faded out again.
He still couldn't help. But the fever had broken. The pain ebbed, somewhat.
John watched the broken ice around them pass, and Pepper bearing them on. The
man was a horse. He pulled without a grunt and ate enough food during their
breaks to raise Oaxyctl's eyebrows.
They untied John's arms and had him try to sip a bit of warm broth, but he
threw it back up.
"We just need to get there." Pepper saw Oaxyctl's worried look. "I won't eat
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your food. No worry."
He stamped out the fire, lay John back down carefully, and leaned close. "Keep
strong," he told John. "I
know you're in bad shape, but you can handle that kind of pain. It's the
infection that's most dangerous."
He stood up, walked away, and soon the sled was on its way.
"We're close, aren't we?" John asked Pepper during another break.
Pepper nodded. "I think so. I saw the coordinates you tried to hide."
"I can feel her." John felt unease at the pit of his stomach. A prickling in
the back of his neck. A shape under the snow nearby. He remained focused,
alert through the haze of continuous pain. He must hang on to life. There was
Capitol City, and his family, later, but right now his sole focus was
survival.
He thought about Shanta. Often. He wondered if she was hanging to a thread,
somewhere far south of him.
At least Jerome lived, he consoled himself. Pepper had seen this.
They were close. Every image in John's head told him they were right where
they needed to be.
"Look." Pepper pointed to a glazed mound of snow three miles away. "Something
is under there. The snow is piled around it, but it looks like it was warm,
and then refroze."
"Ma Wi Jung?"
John whispered.
"Maybe. It could be the top."
Pepper found more energy. He bounced toward the rope and picked it up. The
sled jerked forward, and Pepper forced through the snow with determination.
John felt the movement before he saw anything. The sled rocked and a hunched
shape leapt toward
Pepper. John caught the blur of a muscled humanoid shape with white, shaggy
fur and long blades on each finger.
He shouted a warning, but it came out as a croak.
Pepper spun, kicked up snow with the back of his boots, and squatted.
He fired twice before the mass of muscle and hair struck him dead-on. Without
a sound they both rolled, locked together, deeper into the snow. Chunks of ice
flew with them.
Oaxyctl pushed the sled on.
"We have to help," John said.
"Do what? You have a gun? You can't even stand," Oaxyctl huffed. John leaned
back with a groan.
His head upside down, he looked at Oaxyctl's wide eyes behind him.
"You're scared."
"God of gods, yes!" Oaxyctl snapped. He battled for footing and slipped when
he pushed the sled too far in front of him.
John mustered his energy and leaned to his side. Snow kicked up into the air
as Pepper and the Teotl wrestled. One of them started snarling, an eerie sound
that floated toward the sled.
Another pair of shots ended the struggle.
Pepper loped back over the snow. John saw blood dripping from his elbows,
staining the snow as he caught up. Pepper's forearms flapped ribbons of loose
flesh.
The air around the man steamed.
"Move!" Pepper growled. He spat a tooth out. It bounced off the edge of the
sled.
"Is it dead?" Oaxyctl demanded. "Is it really dead?"
Pepper scowled at him. "Dead? No. Slowed down. Best I can do right now. I blew
off its head. It'll take a while for the eyes to grow back."
What the hell? John coughed as he tried to form the words.
"Here." Pepper shoved the shotgun in under the straps holding John in and took
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over pushing the sled.
His clothes dripped sweat, water, and ice.
They moved closer to the mound of ice.
Over the whip of the winds a steady wailing from the Teotl began. Oaxyctl
swore something in his language.
The ground transitioned abruptly from snow to ice and the sled got free,
skittering forward and turning in a lazy circle.
Several hundred feet behind them the Teotl, shaggy and covered in snow,
trotted in circles. It's large, padded feet kept it on top of the ice; it
moved quickly, patting the ground in front of it with its clawed hands until
it found their tracks, and it paused.
Then it turned straight toward them and sprinted.
Pepper skidded up to the sled and pushed it out toward the mound with another
good shove. Oaxyctl stumbled behind, alternating a half-run with an all-fours
crawl to get across the ice.
"Where is it?" John asked, his throat on fire. "How do we get to the
Ma Wi Jung?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
