Phoenix and another guard pinned the sacrifice, a small bat, to the Stone as High Priest Itztli drew closer. The priest tore the bat's chest open and wrenched its bloody heart out with his teeth. He flared his wings wide.
"Cama Zotz!" he cried out. "Lord of the Underworld, king of darkness—to you I offer this life!"
Phoenix released the dead bat and flapped away from the Stone to stand a respectful distance from the priest, king, and queen just as a thunderous roar tore through the chamber, like a waterfall, like an earthquake. Then all sound was sucked from the chamber and came rushing back in from all directions. A presence of pure sound coiled and swirled through the pyramid, brushing Phoenix's very wingtips. All her breath left her. The other guard flinched away, throwing his wings over his head protectively.
The current of sound pulsed and surged into Itztli's open jaws and he staggered back.
King Shroud stepped forward, head bowed. "My Lord, the eclipse is nearly upon us. The sun will be darkened only a few hours after it rises tomorrow. I have been told it will last no longer than three minutes." He drew a breath. "How are we to free you from the Underworld?"
Itztli—no, not Itztli, Zotz—then spoke in a voice far stronger than the priest's: "You must kill the sun!" he shrieked. "Give me life, life enough to tear the sun from the sky and plunge the world into darkness! One hundred hearts, on this Stone under the eclipse!"
Phoenix stared in reverence and awe and more than a little fear. The dark eyes of the Underworld glowed from each corner, and the possessed priest continued to speak Zotz's words. "When this is done I shall reign over both worlds, join them into one. With my coming, the living and the dead will be reunited and the world rebalanced from the chaos my sister's treachery left it in."
Zotz's twin was rarely spoken of. She was mentioned only in Itztli's mutterings as he hunched over the Stone, deciphering the images etched on its surface; in the hushed whispers between lesser acolytes, baffled or angry at the idea of a rival to Zotz. Phoenix herself only knew the goddess's name: Nocturna. As a member of the royal guard and a high-ranking warrior, she had overheard much of what was spoken in the royal chamber.
"Shroud and Raxka," Zotz said to the king and queen, "if you succeed you shall rule and lead my armies across the earth, to the north and the south and across the oceans. The Humans, who have turned away from me and begun to raze this jungle, will be destroyed."
"It shall be done, My Lord," Shroud answered.
Then the room was utterly silent but for Itztli's coughing as he gasped for air. It took a moment for Phoenix to realize that Cama Zotz was gone.
Queen Raxka quickly regained her bearings. "Phoenix," she barked, "gather all guards and soldiers. We must organize hunting parties. Capture every creature you can. It is a matter of hours before the eclipse."
Phoenix bowed and departed.
She spiraled down the twisting staircase and swept into the entrance passage where hundreds of Vampyrum roosted. "The eclipse is mere hours from now!" she bellowed, silencing a few chattering bats. "One hundred hearts are to be offered to Zotz in its darkness! Now go! Hunt!"
Several other higher-ranking guards gathered around her and they roused the rest of the colony, all but the very young, old, and weak. Everyone who could hunt. Phoenix and the other warriors organized every able-bodied bat into groups that would scour different areas of the jungle for sacrifices.
Outside the pyramid, Phoenix's heart seized as she saw the eastern sky lightening. Dark blue changed to gray and the stars began to fade from view. Dawn was not far off. There wasn't much time.
Phoenix swooped and hovered as the bats under her command awaited their orders. "Metnal, search around the blackwater lakes—small bats roost under overhanging branches. Nosos, Akbit, lead your groups through the canopy. Izta, the ground. Find rats and any other beasts you can catch." She directed at least a score more of bats and their soldiers before being left with her own. "Don't kill anything—these lives are for Cama Zotz. The rest of you, follow me."
The sun broke the horizon, flooding the treetops with light. It was rare for bats to hunt in daylight, never mind an entire colony. The Vampyrum were unexperienced hunting in such conditions, and so, predictably, they weren't as formidable as they were in darkness. Different animals were awake now. Many soldiers were tired from the night's hunting for themselves.
Still, Phoenix was determined. Vampyrum Spectrum were Zotz's creatures. They had power granted by their god. Victory was certain.
She and her patrol streaked through the middle layer of the rainforest, shooting out sound to search for any sign of movement. It was much darker underneath the vast, luxuriant canopy. Hardly any sunlight filtered through, especially not this early in the day. One bat veered off to the side and sank his claws into the shoulders of a still-sleeping bird. It shrieked once and flapped before giving up as the bat turned back to the pyramid.
More and more bats branched off, spreading out. Phoenix landed on a thick, mossy branch and crawled along its length, scanning lower branches for prey—perching birds, climbing rodents. She slowed her breathing until she could hardly hear it. Over birdsong and buzzing insects, she heard tiny claws scrabbling on wood below. The pointed, twitching nose of a mouse opossum moved into view on the branch beneath hers. Slowly, she tensed her muscles, and faster than the opossum could think to flee, she sprang and pinned it to the bark with a wing. Her grip was strong but not enough to crush it. It writhed for a few seconds and then went limp. It was still alive, though—she could feel a heartbeat.
"Ker!" she called as another Vampyrum soldier winged past. Ker backpedaled and looped around toward Phoenix. Wanting to waste no time ferrying captives to the dungeon, Phoenix said, "Take this back to the pyramid." She tossed the mouse opossum at Ker, who deftly caught it in his claws. He bowed as well as he could in midair and changed course.
Phoenix took to the air and flapped deeper into the jungle. Vines coiled around fleshy trees all the way to the canopy. Some bore bright flowers. She swept in closer to the flowers, hoping to find a bird or even a bat that had stayed awake past dawn. Nothing. Nothing crouched beneath giant ferns nestled in mossy nooks between boughs, or scrambling along a branch. She glanced at the treetops, swiveling her ears to better pick up sounds.
Monkeys and birds screeched, insects droned. She couldn't separate anything nearby from the usual rainforest cacophony.
Then: The ripping, tearing sounds of feeding. She shot out echoes and heard movement higher in the trees, on a wide bough behind a curtain of broad, waxy leaves. On nigh-silent wings, she flew closer. Through a gap in the leaves, she glimpsed a leathery wing. A bat's wing.
A Vampyrum bat's.
She swung down and shoved the screen of leaves aside, revealing a female Vampyrum feeding on a trogon. The bat flinched back and dropped the bird's carcass.
"What are you doing?" Phoenix hissed, stepping closer. She bared her teeth in a snarl. "You're to keep them alive!"
The other bat cringed away. "I—it was a mistake. Its neck snapped on impact." She didn't look at Phoenix.
"And yet you waste time eating?"
"It was already dead. I didn't want to—"
Phoenix struck her with a wing, cutting off her words and sending her stumbling back. She didn't have time for this bat's excuses. "You won't need to eat when Zotz reigns. In hours, none of this will matter." She looked up at the leaves overhead and glimpsed a bird fluttering by. She was throwing away precious time. "Keep hunting," she said. Glaring back at the cowering bat before her, who was pressing a claw to a bleeding scratch on her cheek, she added, "For your god."
The bat winced and nodded. Phoenix flared her wings and departed without sparing her another glance. She heard frantic flapping as the bat fled and abandoned the trogon.
Perhaps half an hour later, she realized that it was still darker than it should be. Shouldn't the sun be getting brighter now, as it rose higher? She'd rarely stayed up much past dawn, but she knew the day must be brighter. Uneasily, she flapped up to the canopy. Emerging from a tight weave of branches, she saw that the sunlight was, indeed, waning when it should be growing stronger. She darted a glance at the sun from the corner of her eye. In the split second that she looked...she'd seen that nearly half of it was missing.
The eclipse was coming.
She dove back into the trees and raced through the jungle, shouting, "Back to the pyramid! Get back to the pyramid! Take what you have and fly—the sun is nearly gone!" The cry was taken up by other Vampyrum, spreading the word throughout the rainforest. She angled her wings and set course for the pyramid.
Zotz's coming was nigh, and she would do all she could to ensure it.
The sacrifices were gathered in the royal chamber. Phoenix held a rat in place on the Stone, a claw around its muzzle so that it wouldn't bite. She, along with almost every other Vampyrum in the chamber, gazed through the circular portal in the ceiling—watching, waiting for the moment when the sun was darkened completely. The king and queen stood beside Itztli, staring as intently as the rest. The moon crept over the sun, and bit by bit, the thing that trapped Zotz in the Underworld was swallowed by shadow.
There was no moonlight. There was no starlight. It was pitch black and Phoenix could only see by sound. No birds sang, no beasts chattered, not even the insects hummed. All was silent but for the priest's words.
Itztli spoke quickly but reverently, offering the first life to Cama Zotz, and Phoenix heard bones crack and flesh tear. Almost instantly, Phoenix felt her god's presence—the same current of sound she had sensed before dawn. An acolyte chanted praises. Itztli scrambled over the Stone, methodically tearing out the hearts of each sacrificial victim. He sliced open the chest of the rat Phoenix held captive and it slumped lifeless. Phoenix took flight and hovered apprehensively in the air, painfully aware of how little time they had.
There weren't enough sacrifices. She cast sound over the throng of creatures again and again, and each time it became more and more certain that their numbers fell far short of a hundred. How long would the eclipse last again? Three minutes? The soldiers couldn't find enough in three minutes. Itztli was barely moving fast enough to kill a hundred in that time.
As the high priest reached the last sacrifice—not the hundredth, only of how many they had—Phoenix plunged down and sank her claws into the shoulders of a Vampyrum guard. Itztli let the corpse of his recent kill, a Proboscis bat, fall to the floor and Phoenix threw the stunned guard down onto the Stone. Itztli didn't hesitate before slashing his ribcage open. Phoenix lashed out and sent another bat slamming into the Stone. Itztli killed him too.
This is taking too long, she realized as she flung another Vampyrum down, and kept doing so, again and again, seizing the nearest bat as soon as she'd released the one before. She and Itztli were the only ones doing anything. The guards and soldiers shrank back, avoiding Phoenix—to afraid, too selfish to give their lives for Zotz. Shroud and Raxka were nowhere to be seen. Traitors. Disloyal cowards, she thought. She hurled one more bat into Itztli's path.
"Fly down there!" she roared at the quailing guards, high up near the portal. Ready to flee. "Lay down your lives in the name of Zotz! Prepare for Zotz's coming!" The weaklings didn't move. But soon, soon they should see that they must. Zotz needed every life possible to return to the Upper World.
The eclipse was nearly over. She had done what she could. She had only one thing left to do.
Phoenix threw herself onto the Stone. She didn't flinch as Itztli's jaws streaked toward her and sharp teeth sank into her flesh. Excruciating pain stabbed deep into her and she felt her ribs snapping.
Then the pain was gone, and for a moment everything was muted, slow. Itztli held a bloody mess of an organ in his fangs. Her heart.
This is my purpose. This is my duty. Zotz is my god. I give my life for his reign.
In a second all was dark.