Chapter Twenty-Seven: First Step
Xolotl in his home. Xolotl in the dining hall. Xolotl in the quarries, Xolotl on the parade grounds, Xolotl marching through the gates…
The location may have changed, but the white-scaled consort never did. Anna manipulated the chronograils several times, sending us on many little time jumps throughout the first stretch of this last Event. I think about two years had passed by the time we noticed any change.
Xolotl's family had been executed, you see…for something he hadn't done. Something I'd done. He had been forced to watch as the Overseer shot his wife and son in the head, and he hadn't given any kind of outward reaction. That was what unnerved me the most—for someone so fiery and animated as Xolotl, seeing him just shut down like that…everything about it was wrong.
And so, Anna took me to the final Event in her…what did I call it? Her rollercoaster of temporal fuckery. I actually don't think I've ever called it that, but the name fit quite nicely, so I think I'll keep it. Our jumps were quick and brief, but these first few didn't exactly need to be as lengthy as the earlier ones.
We visited Xolotl at various points in time over the next couple years. And whenever we saw him…it didn't matter where he was or what he was doing; he never spoke. He never laughed or cried…never showed any kind of emotion at all. It was as if he'd died with his family, leaving only an empty body behind.
It was disturbing to watch, and I really wanted to stop…but I knew that this was something I had to see through to the end.
Then Anna jumped us into the dining hall. As I said, I think it'd been around two years, from Xolotl's perspective, since the execution of his family. Everyone was getting their evening meal, filling their bowls at the cooks' tables, then gathering in their respective groupings at the various tables that filled the giant building's ground floor. Xolotl sat alone at a small table in the corner, silently brooding over his bowl of gruel. No one came to sit with him, or even came anywhere near the table, for that matter.
Two younger consorts with lighter and darker green scales slid past, tossing a clay ball to one another. One would use his Vis to swing the ball around his body, where it would be picked up by his friend's own Vis, then his friend would swing the ball back around. If done properly, the ball would sail through the air without ever touching the ground, or any other kind of solid surface. As they slithered past Xolotl's table, one of the youths lost his grip, sending the ball flying towards the white-scaled consort. He cried out in warning…only to fall silent upon realizing that the clay ball had stopped dead in the air just shy of Xolotl's head. The white-scaled cobra continued to eat, not even looking up.
"Apologiess," the lime-scaled youth started to apologize, moving forward to retrieve his ball. "Nearly took your head off-"
"You were not even remotely closse to taking my head off, not with a throw like that…" Xolotl muttered disdainfully, finishing his thought with another sip of gruel. I shared another glance with Anna. Though the youths probably didn't realize, this was the first time the white-scaled consort had made any kind of outward expression since the death of his family. Momentous, I think, would be a good word to describe it.
"Well, why don't you show uss how to throw it properly, then, ssince you obvioussly know sso much about it," the lime-scaled consort retorted.
The darker green-scaled youth cleared his throat awkwardly and tried to pull his friend back. "Do you not know who that iss, Ixtli?" the other youth, clearly the more level-headed of the pair, hissed in an urgent whisper. "Come away, before-"
"No," Xolotl finally looked up from his gruel, fixing the lime-scaled cobra with his hard, paralyzing gray-eyed glare. "No, your friend hass already made a requesst. It would be rude of him to leave before I fulfilled that requesst…"
And with that, Xolotl made the clay ball orbit around his head. It started at a moderately fast, but steady pace…but then the white-scaled cobra began increasing the velocity of the clay ball, whipping it around his head faster and faster until it looked almost as if there was a blurry gray ring around his head. Then he released it, sending it screaming towards the lime-scaled cobra.
The lime-scaled cobra barely had time to dive out of the way, and even then…the clay ball still grazed one of his neck hoods. It slammed straight into the wall all the way at the opposite side of the dining hall, leaving a sizeable dent in the wood, sending a few splinters through the air.
The entire dining hall, all of the consorts within it…they all fell silent. I think it was the first time the dining hall had ever been that quiet in a very long time, probably since it had been burned down during Xolotl's failed uprising. Everyone stared at the white-scaled consort.
Xolotl, having absolutely zero fucks to give, ignored everyone's glances and simply went back to eating his gruel.
After a few seconds, everyone lost interest and turned their attention back to their meals. The usual din of the dining hall quickly returned. The two green-scaled youths, however, did not leave. The lime-scaled consort picked himself back up, regaining his balance, his neck hoods flaring in surprise. "How…how can you move it sso fasst?" the youth stammered.
"Because I am not a half-wit," the white-scaled consort replied, gulping down some more gruel.
"Oh, sso we're half-witss, now?" This time, it was the darker green-scaled cobra who took offense, abandoning his previous show of caution. "Perhapss you could teach uss, then, to be full-witss? Show uss how you move the ball sso fasst."
"Do I look like a teacher to you?" Xolotl grunted to the youths. Without waiting for an answer, he rose from his seat and pushed past the two young consorts, actually physically bumping the lime-scaled one out of the way. "I am not here for your amussement."
Anna's next time jump took us to Xolotl's home. Despite its tiny size, it somehow seemed a lot bigger than before. It was quieter and emptier. The white-scaled consort was at the table, lying his head down on the table top, an opened wooden bottle resting nearby. After a minute or so, there was a knock at the door, jolting Xolotl awake. The white-scaled consort laid his head back down, ignoring the disturbance…until someone knocked a second time.
"What!" Xolotl barked, not moving from the table. "What, did everyone decide to sstart dissturbing me today?" His speech was slightly slurred from the alcohol, but he still seemed to be at least moderately coherent.
The door opened to reveal a yellow-scaled consort who looked almost to be middle-aged, close to Xolotl's own age. I gave a start of surprise—I recognized that guy. It was the yellow-scaled dude who'd been throwing up blood in the quarries, the day I killed the pit boss. In the chaos that followed the pit boss's death, I guess he'd been completely forgotten. Who gave a shit about a sick consort when his friend had just murdered one of the guards?
Still, in a place like this, it was very surprising to see him still alive.
"Hello, Xolotl," the yellow-scaled consort let himself in, closing the door behind him.
"Huemac?" Xolotl raised his head, recognizing his kinsman's voice. "Sso…you're sstill alive…"
"Very much sso," the yellow-scaled consort replied, slithering over to the table and removing the alcohol bottle. "I should not be…though, one can argue that there are many thingss here that should not be. Thiss place itsself, for example. Thiss prison that we are forced to call home…should not be."
A low, irritated growl hummed from deep in Xolotl's throat. "Why are you here, Huemac?"
"Why are you interacting with other people again, all of a ssudden? Why did you nearly take off Ixtli's head, back in the hall?" Huemac retorted. "You are coming back to life, my friend. We need you."
Xolotl snorted, resting his head back down on the table. "I am curiouss… My wife could never convince me to do what you are ssuggessting. What makes you think I will do sso now?"
"Vengeance," Huemac replied, as nonchalantly as if he were reading off the top item on a grocery shopping list. "Your family wass wrongly killed."
"I killed the pit boss, and the Overseer took my wife and sson in return," Xoltol grunted, reaching for the alcohol bottle, giving another growl when he realized that Huemac had removed it. "There iss no usse in trying to-"
"I know you did not kill the pit boss," Huemac interrupted, taking a seat opposite the white-scaled consort. That was enough to shut Xolotl right the hell up. "I wass in a very bad sstate at the time, but I wass not blind. I ssaw the whole thing… The pit boss nearly beat the life out of you, but you did not once land a blow on him in return."
The white-scaled consort was listening intently, now. "I had to convince mysself that I had done the deed, for the ssake of my own ssanity…" Xolotl murmured. "I remember… I remember, now… But it hass been over two yearss. If you knew of thiss, why did you not come to me before?"
"You would not have lisstened to me, before."
"What makess you think I am lisstening to you now?"
"Why have you not kicked me out, yet?"
I watched the verbal back and forth between the two consorts, my head almost moving from side to side like I was watching a tennis match. Not that I'd ever watch a tennis match—there are many more entertaining ways for me to bore myself to death.
Xolotl opened and then promptly closed his mouth. He had no good answer to Huemac's last question, and the yellow-scaled consort already knew that. When Xolotl spoke again, it was another question, rather than an answer. "I sseem to recall assking you to join me, nearly twenty yearss ago. You were one of the firsst to refuse. Why the change of heart?"
"Because you were arrogant and impatient," Huemac certainly didn't sugarcoat his response. "There were many of uss who would have joined your rebellion, but it wass plainly obviouss that you would have led uss all to ruin. But now…much time hass passed. You are no longer the fool who led fourteen young ssoulss to their deathss. There are sstill many of uss who would follow you once again…provided you learned from your passt misstakess. Provided that thiss time, you do it properly."
"Get out," Xolotl gave a low, threatening hiss, clearly done with this conversation. "Leave me in peace. Get out!"
Huemac blinked once, then rose from the table, headed over to the door and opened it. Before he went outside, however, the yellow-scaled consort glanced back inside. "We cannot do thiss without you, Xolotl. We are many, but our Vis iss weak. If you change your mind…you know where to find me." And with that, Huemac closed the door behind him and vanished into the night.
Xolotl was silent. After about a minute, he slowly uncoiled himself and rose from his seat at the table, making his way over to the alcohol cabinet. He retrieved the wooden bottle he'd been drinking out of, removed the stopper, held it up to his mouth with his Vis…but he didn't drink. He tried at least three or four times to down the shit in the bottle, but every single time he would falter at the last second.
Finally, the white-scaled consort let out one of the most bitter cries of frustration that I've ever heard, hurling the wooden bottle to the floor so hard that it shattered into splinters, splashing its contents all over the place.
Then he completely demolished the entire alcohol cabinet. I had actually been standing right next to the fucking thing before he went all psycho on it, so I quietly shuffled away towards the door, where Anna was watching everything go down, avoiding getting hit by any kind of debris. Once the last of the wooden alcohol bottles was destroyed, Xolotl collapsed against the wall in a puddle of spilled booze, weeping quietly to himself.
I started to fidget a little bit, my discomfort growing exponentially. "Do we really have to be here for this?" I murmured to Anna. "This is the kind of shit I feel we really shouldn't be watching…" I mean, come on! After spying on the poor guy for the past twenty or so years of his life…this just felt really unnecessary!
"Jus' give 'im a sec," Anna replied.
And sure enough, after a few more seconds of weeping, Xolotl took a deep breath and dried his eyes, picked himself up off the floor. He slithered over to the door and opened it, breathing in the not-so-fresh outside air…and hesitated. After casting one last glance behind him, however, he stalked off into the darkness, not even bothering to close the door.
Anna gestured with her head for me to follow, and we stole out of the house, hot on Xolotl's heels. The white-scaled consort was moving at a pretty fast pace, and we had to jog to keep up. We headed in a direction that was not towards the parade grounds…so we were going deeper into the network of shacks and slums that made up the area where all the consorts imprisoned in this camp lived.
After making a series of twists and turns, we soon found ourselves emerging into a square of sorts. I know calling it a square is a bit of a stretch—it was really just a small space where four of the alleyways happened to converge. That was where we caught up with Huemac. Xolotl called out to Huemac just as the yellow-scaled consort was disappearing down one of the other alleys. Huemac stopped, turning back to hear what Xolotl had to say.
"If what you ssay iss true…" Xolotl murmured, faltering for a moment before finding his voice once again. "If what you ssay iss true, I will go to the bassement of the Hall after my evening meal tomorrow. If anyone wishess to follow me, have them meet me there. My wife and sson will be avenged…and if anyone actually showss up, sso too will our entire people be avenged." And with that, Xolotl turned and slithered back down the alley he'd just come through, leaving us alone in the square with Huemac.
The yellow-scaled consort said nothing. He breathed in a deep breath and tasted the air, and then he, too, left the square.
"Time to jump?" I asked Anna.
"Ooh, see, you're gettin' so goodsies at this!" she chuckled. "Ya, we gotta walk over to the dining hall, then we'll jump."
We were able to use the chronograils this time, thank god. I could already say that I hated time travel with a passion, but time traveling via the chronograils, at least, didn't give me any splitting headaches. And so, for the next fifteen or so minutes that it took us to reach the labor camp's dining hall, I didn't complain once.
Anna took my hand and warped us forward by a bit less than a day—I could tell by watching the brightening and subsequent darkening of the sky. When we came out of our jump, the previously quiet and empty dining hall was suddenly full of consorts. Laborers back from their work in the quarries, waiting to have their evening gruel.
Xolotl was sitting at his usual table, sipping away at his gruel. Anna and I headed over in his direction when we walked into the place, and we didn't have to wait long. After the white-scaled consort finished his meal, he pushed his bowl away and sat silently at the table for a minute or two. I knew he was going to head downstairs to the basement, but he almost seemed hesitant to go. Maybe he was afraid no one would show up, maybe he was dreading what he would have to do if anyone did show up… I just don't know.
But in the end, Xolotl stood up, and he headed straight over to the cooks' counters. We followed him behind the tables where the gruel was served and into the basement. Anna and I had been down here before, when Ahuilitzli's father had been cremated on that funeral pyre.
Well, there was no funeral pyre, this time… This time, there was Huemac, waiting for Xolotl at the base of the ramp. Oh, and over two hundred consorts, as well, all of them packed into the underground space, all of them falling completely silent when the white-scaled cobra entered their midst.
"As I ssaid," Huemac smiled, leading Xolotl from the ramp, presenting the crowd of gathered cobra-consorts behind him. "We are many."
Anna whipped her chronograils back out, and we launched into another series of short, brief time jumps, similar to the ones we'd taken earlier when we'd watched Xolotl during his time of mourning. This time, however, we remained in the lower level of the dining hall.
I couldn't really tell you how far ahead in the future we jumped, cumulatively. A year? Two? Three? I figured I'd just ask Anna when we slowed down.
Xolotl was training the consorts. My consorts were snakes—their Vis was quite literally a part of their souls. It was how they interacted with everything around them. Their equivalent of human hands. But, when focused enough, it could also be used as a weapon, as well as a shield from other weapons. That was the problem with these consorts—they'd been in captivity for so long that they'd forgotten how to use their Vis for anything except menial labor.
I could understand some of the logic of introducing Xolotl to their midst. Regardless of the white-scaled consort's many flaws, I'd be the first to admit that Xolotl was crazy good with his Vis. And because he was from the future (relative to this time period), he was quite literally the only consort here who knew how to use their Vis to its fullest potential. Huemac hadn't been lying when he'd said the consorts couldn't free themselves without help.
Xolotl was ruthless as a trainer. I'm sure a good number of his volunteers were having second thoughts when they suddenly found themselves at the mercy of the white-scaled consort's wrath after failing trial after trial, time after time. But Xolotl had learned from his past mistakes. He was patient, and he took his time with the two-hundred or so would-be insurgents. Before, he'd ignored Glimmering Scales's warnings and had sparked his uprising after only a month or two of preparation. This time, though…he trained his volunteers for years. Every single night, he would meet in secret under the dining hall with a portion of his trainees, and he would instruct them how to hone and strengthen their Vis, how to learn to sense and block incoming attacks, how to focus on objects with enough force to crush them…basically your standard Telekinetically Fucking Shit Up 101.
After a few jumps, I began to notice divisions within the consorts Xolotl was training. Some of them seemed to be focusing much more heavily on using their Vis for offensive purposes, while others seemed to be training to use their Vis to defend themselves and their brethren. And a much smaller third group seemed to be drilling with Dersite energy rifles, which struck me as very interesting.
After taking me through a good number of these small time jumps, Anna pulled me up the ramp and out of the basement. "Okay, Sir Sourpuss, this is it," she said to me. "Second-last jump. Two to go, then you can go back. Let's go back to our place on the wall…c'mon, I'll flash us there."
"Wait, no, let's just-" I held up my hands, trying to protest, but Anna took me by the arm before I could finish my thought and pulled me into another flash of that goddamn red light. When the light faded, I found myself standing on the battlements of the wall that surrounded the Dersite sub-compound in the north of the camp. It was the exact same place where we'd watched Xolotl's failed uprising.
I nearly collapsed against the side of the wall, clutching my head as the throbbing ache returned. God damn it all, I hated time travel…
It was nighttime, probably getting close to morning. There was a light rainfall, enough to fill the silence of the night with a soft pattering. I took a moment to close my eyes and take a few deep breaths, trying to clear my head of everything but the sound of the rain. "How long do we have to wait?" I asked Anna, already having a good idea of what was to come.
"They'll attack before sunrise," Anna replied. "Half an hour, maybe. Figured we'd just chill for a bit…never know when you might get another chance to relax! Skaia ain't ezzactly known for givin' its heroes downtime."
"I can have all the downtime I want back in the present," I grumbled. "Can't we speed things along?"
"Oh, I get it," the corners of Anna's mouth curved up in a wry grin. "Don' wanna spend any more time alone with lil' old me, huh?"
A few minutes ticked on by without either of us speaking. Every once in a while, a Dersite guard would move past, patrolling the top of the walls.
I don't know why I spoke. I don't know why this question popped into my head, but I could hear myself speaking before I could stop myself, and I instantly regretted it the moment the first words came out. "Did you ever like me, Anna?"
Anna arched an eyebrow and looked at me like I had two heads. "Where's this comin' from?" she asked.
I gave a shrug, already swearing up a storm inside my mind. "Dunno, I've just been thinking about things a lot… And you asked me out, sophomore year, not the other way around, so…what gives? You can be a real bitch a lot of the time, but if I've learned one thing from all this it's that you don't do shit for no reason."
Anna didn't answer for the first few seconds. I don't know if she didn't want to answer, or if she was just trying to think of a good way to convey an answer…either way, she let out a little sigh and leaned back against the parapet. "I could see the future, you know," she finally said to me. "I knew that a meteor would hit the high school on April 13th. And I knew there wasn't anythin' I could do to change it. It started on my thirteenth birthday, I'd start dreamin' of the high school blowin' the fuck up… Every fuckin' night, the same dream, over and over… Started gettin' drunksies all the time so I wouldn't have to have that fuckin' dream, but it only worked some of the time."
"Why didn't you tell anyone?"
"Oh, yeah, tell everyone that a fuckin' meteor's gonna blow 'em all up on ezzactly April 13, 2009," Anna scoffed, rolling her eyes. "Great fuckin' idea, Einstein. Who would ever think I was crazy? Certainly not, hm… I dunno… Everyone?"
"Well-"
"No, just shut it," Anna held up a hand, quelling me. "You wanted to know my shit, so now you gotta know. There were a lotta things I'd see in my dreams, things that hadn't happened yet…but the dream about the meteor hittin' the school came every night. And horrible as it sounds, I'm almost glad that meteor blew up the school back on day one… Proved I actually could see the future, an' I wasn't just insane… I knew that I couldn't save everyone. I knew, somehow, that you and Cass…you an' Cass were the ones I had to save. An' in a nutshell, the only way both of you would survive that explosion was if you convinced her to cut class by taking her out on a date. Trust me, nuthin' else woulda worked. And if I hadn't gone out with you during junior year, you never woulda worked up the balls to even talk to her, let alone ask her out on a fuckin' date…"
That was enough to make me frown. "You can't know that for sure-"
"I can, and I did," Anna cut me off once again. "Saw the future, remember? Seer of Time? So, yeah. I had to bite the bullet an' go out with a kid who I wasn't even remotely attracted to, 'cuz if I didn't, you an' Cass never woulda left school on Meteor Day, and then the rest of us'd be stuck in a doomed timeline…" she reached into her Seer robes and pulled out her flask, which seemed to have been refilled, somehow. Anna drained it in three giant gulps before putting it back. "Whew…" she muttered. "Kinda went off on a rant, there. Didn' really mean to, I've jus' never been able to talk about it."
Well. Uh… Hm. This was kind of awkward…
It was like that awkward moment when you realize that that annoying kid you've always hated actually has some kind of mental illness…then you start to feel like an asshole.
Luckily, before I could feel like too much of an asshole, we were interrupted by a rebellion.
The last time we'd watched an uprising from the walls of the Dersite compound, there had been several explosions out on the perimeter of the camp. Guard towers had been blown up, as well as the main gates. But then everything had gone wrong because Xolotl's plan had really been hinging on the fact that he assumed all the consorts would rally behind him when he called for them. Then a Dersite gunship had been radioed in, and all the consorts who'd attempted to escape through the destroyed gate were slaughtered.
This time, however, it was not an explosion that sparked off the uprising. This time, it was the horrible, ear-raping screech of tearing metal. And it was coming from behind us.
Anna and I whipped around just in time to see the Dersite compound's giant radio tower come crashing down. Two of the tower's four metal anchors had been twisted and warped until they could no longer bear the weight of the radio tower above, and so they gave way, tearing the two undamaged anchors away with them. After much protest, the entire tower fell over, smashing onto the nearest Dersite mansion.
Alarms started to go off, and a spotlight in a nearby guard tower was turned onto the wreckage of the radio tower. The sabotage was illuminated by the spotlight just long enough for me to spot two long, dark shapes slithering away from the ruined tower, melding away into the shadows. Consorts. They must've coated themselves in some kind of black paint, or oil, or some other substance to render them almost completely invisible in the darkness.
More spotlights clicked in from all the other guard towers that ringed the entire camp, and Dersite guards started to pour out of the mansions, moving quickly up to the top of the walls that surrounded their compound, preparing themselves for a potential riot. The guard sergeants were barking out orders, getting their subordinates into position.
I couldn't really tell what was happening down there, out in the slums of the labor camp. But something was happening… Xolotl was being quiet. Quiet, but effective. Every once in a while, I could hear the faint sound of gunfire, as well as an occasional scream, but that was it. One by one, the spotlights in the perimeter guard towers winked out, extinguished. The labor camp was plunged into darkness once more.
I looked up at the sky, saw the brightening eastern horizon. While we wouldn't see a skaiarise because of the eternal rainclouds, I still knew that it wouldn't be long until the daylight started seeping through the veil of precipitation. If the consorts aimed to get things rolling before daytime, they'd have to move quickly.
The Dersite guards stood rock-solid still, their energy rifles aimed down towards the parade ground, waiting for any sign of movement. I started to get a bit anxious. What was taking Xolotl so long? Shouldn't he have shown himself by now? I had to resist the urge to tap my feet.
Energy bolts started to hit the walls, and Dersites began to fall. The consorts were sniping them. I tried to see where my cobra-dudes were firing from, but it was impossible to tell. It was almost like those 'Nam movies where the Americans are suddenly ambushed by Charlie, only you never see where the enemy actually is. All you can see are brief little snippets of muzzle flashes coming from random bushes. Same thing here, only replace the bushes and jungle with slums of wooden shacks.
The Dersites must have been uber surprised at the fact that the consorts were using their energy weapons. For a few fatal seconds, none of them knew how to react, allowing the consort snipers to pick off a good number of them before the Dersites wised up and started to duck.
As the Dersites began to take cover behind the parapet, I could see consorts emerging from the slums. There were a few dozen of them, maybe around a hundred. Almost half of Xolotl's insurgents. They all charged forward into the small expanse of mud and dust that separated the Dersite compound from the slums while the guards were confused, making a beeline for the walls.
I saw that some of them were carrying long, makeshift wooden poles, constructed from what looked like crossbeams from the roofs of the sturdier shacks. The rest of the consorts who'd revealed themselves ran alongside their brethren who were carrying the poles. They seemed to be using their Vis to protect the pole-carriers from the Dersite guards' weaponsfire. Xolotl had trained them well—they were able to deflect a lot of the energyfire raining down on them…but they weren't gods. A lot of energy bolts still got through, and it wasn't long before consorts started to fall. Several times, a pole-carrier was struck by energyfire, and one of the accompanying consorts would have to grab it with their own Vis before it tumbled to the ground.
Still, despite their losses, the consorts were able to get the poles across the no-man's-land that surrounded the walls of the Dersite compound. Once they reached the foot of the walls, the pole-bearers planted one end of the poles into the ground, then they started tipping them upwards, bringing them up and around until the tops of the poles hit the parapet of the walls. Immediately, the consorts on the ground started coiling themselves around the poles, slithering up towards the top of the walls.
They were using the poles like siege ladders. And now that the siege poles were in place, I noticed that the consort snipers were redirecting their aim, concentrating their fire on the areas of the battlements right where the poles reached, discouraging any of the Dersite guards near those poles from simply leaning over the parapet and firing down at the climbing cobras.
While this was certainly effective, siege ladders were a costly tactic. Not all of the consorts who climbed the poles made it to the top. I didn't want to look over the edge of the walls, because I knew there would be more dead consorts than I wanted to see. The first few consorts who reached the battlements were likewise slaughtered by the Dersites' energy weapons, but after a couple grisly, bloody minutes they were able to start carving out a foothold on the walls.
The consort snipers broke cover and sprinted across the no-man's-land, following the example of their brethren who'd gone before them. They now served as riflemen instead of snipers, climbing the poles and joining their kinsmen on the battlements. Introducing the riflemen—riflecobras?—onto the battlements was enough to start to tip the fight into the consorts' favor. While they'd managed to carve out several footholds, those footholds mostly comprised of a group of consorts doing all they could to keep themselves from getting torn apart by the almost constant weaponsfire raining down on them from the Dersites. When their kinsmen with energy rifles arrived, the Dersite guards started to lose ground.
I could see the wisdom, now, of opening the rebellion by destroying the radio tower. Without communications, the Dersites could not call in any gunships to suppress the insurgents. This labor camp was now isolated, alone.
The remainder of the Dersite guards, the ones who were being held in reserve, jogged out of the barracks, moving up towards the walls to reinforce their beleaguered comrades. That spelled trouble for the consort attackers—sheer force of numbers would quickly overwhelm them if nothing was done. Luckily, this event had been planned for.
"There's our guy," Anna pointed down into the no-man's-land, where I could see the rest of the insurgents emerging from the slums. Over a hundred strong, the second wave of cobra-consorts surged across the moat of mud and dust, sprinting towards the gate, moving like sidewinders flying across sand dunes. Leading them was none other than Xolotl. I'd wondered where he'd been, this whole time…
Xolotl reached the gate first, ordered all his comrades to stand back. I leaned over the edge of the wall, watched as the white-scaled consort took several deep breaths, summoning the strength of his Vis as he prepared to strike. And when he attacked…boy, did he attack… He unleashed the full strength of his Vis against the gate, sending a telekinetic surge into the wooden structure with the force of something probably rivaling Grond.
I say rivaling Grond because, like the famous wolf-headed battering ram from Lord of the Rings, Xolotl's attack was enough to absolutely wreck the living shit out of that gate. I didn't actually see the gate come down—all I could hear was the ear-splitting crack of the shattering, splintering wood, followed closely by the thuds of the fragments hitting the ground. When I glanced over the inside edge of the battlements, I could then see the second wave of insurgents surging like a tidal wave into the Dersite compound through the now-open gateway.
The Dersite reinforcements were caught by surprise by the shattering gate, and so were only poorly prepared to deal with an entire wave of consorts on their own. They'd just been expecting to support their comrades on the battlements, to help mop up a few points of resistance…certainly not to repel a full-blown assault from the ground.
Xolotl was the first one to tear into the disorganized Dersite guards…and holy motherfucking shit, he was absolutely terrifying in combat. He quite literally left a trail of blood wherever he went; a trail of blood, Dersite corpses, severed carapacian body parts, and even internal organs in some cases. When I've fought with my Aspect, I've snapped necks, crushed ribs…nothing too visible, I guess? But Xolotl…he fought bloody. His kills were brutal in every sense of the word, and… You know what, I don't think I need to describe them all—I think you get the idea. If you find yourself in a battle with Xolotl, just pray that he's on your side.
After a few minutes of watching the Dersite guards get their asses handed to them by the second wave of consorts, Anna whipped out her chronograils, grabbed me, and pulled me into our last time jump. We only shifted a couple hours into the future. It was daytime, now—nearly mid-morning. At Anna's behest, I grabbed hold of her and used my Aspect to float us both off the walls and down to the ground. Dersite corpses were littered all over the compound, but the consorts who'd died in the uprising had been lain out in neat rows at the foot of the walls.
We went to the parade ground. All of the consorts were gathered at the one end of the parade ground, watching as a line of prisoners was brought out to be executed, just like any other day…only there were a few crucial differences. The line of prisoners consisted of the surviving Dersite guards, including the Overseer. Upon the Overseer's platform stood Xolotl, who seemed to have just finished speaking to the crowd of consorts.
Damn, we just seemed to be missing all the good speeches…
The consorts of the Desert Fires were all silent. They weren't going wild, or cheering for their newfound freedom. The sheer concept of freedom was so alien to them that I think it was gonna take a long time for them to get acclimated to…well, to life.
Xolotl gave a nod to Huemac, who was standing ready at the far left of the line of Dersite survivors. Using what I recognized as the Overseer's energy pistol, the yellow-scaled consort made his way down the line of survivors, executing them one by one with well-placed energy slugs to the back of the head. The Dersites died without a fight. And when Huemac reached the Overseer, at the far right end of the line, Xolotl stopped him.
The white-scaled consort slithered off the platform, taking Huemac's place behind the Overseer. The Dersite commandant looked back at Xolotl as the white-scaled consort took the energy pistol, and I could almost feel the utter contempt in his gaze. "Think you've gone and beaten us, do you?" the Overseer snarled. "Think you've won an entire war just because you managed to sack a single labor camp? You have no idea what lies ahead for-"
Xolotl cut the Overseer off midsentence with an energy slug to the face. After the Dersite's corpse fell to the ground, the white-scaled consort finished the whole thing by baring his fangs and spitting on it. And that was that.
"Too quick a death for that one, if you assk me," Huemac grunted, speaking loud enough only for Xolotl to hear.
"Would that he had more than one life to give," Xolotl murmured in agreement. "But we agreed to do thiss in front of everyone. A public display. We musst not act like barbarianss in front of our kinssmen, no matter how much we wish to. We are not them," the white-scaled consort gestured at the line of recently executed Dersites.
Anna cleared her throat, getting my attention as Xolotl started making his way back to the Overseer's platform. "Time to get you back to your present time," she said to me, taking my arm. "We're donesies here."
"What about Xolotl?" I gestured at the white-scaled cobra. "He coming, too?"
"Ya, but he's still got some shit to take care of, here," Anna replied. "I'll drop him off at the same time as you, though, so don' worry!"
"Wait, I-" I held up my hands, starting to protest, but before I could even finish that sentence there was another blinding flash of red light, followed by that quintessential time traveling headache of the ages… Jesus, if I kept doing this, I wouldn't be surprised if I went all-out Desmond Hume and started bleeding from the nose.
When the light faded…I found myself back in the Skaian temple of the Desert Fires, standing in front of the bronze brazier where the council fire was burning. I was back in Aztlán, the central city of the Desert Fires, in a room full of desert elders and clan chiefs…and from their perspective, I'd just reappeared after vanishing in a flash of red light along with a drunken stranger. They were confused, and confused people had a tendency to start shouting.
Matters only got worse when, about three seconds later, there was a second flash of red light, and none other than Xolotl himself appeared. The white-scaled consort looked about a hundred kinds of bewildered and disoriented, looking around at his new surroundings, his mouth hanging open in awe.
I looked around for Anna, but she didn't seem to have come back with Xolotl. She'd probably jumped to some other indeterminate point on the alpha timeline, off to do more Time shenanigans, and leaving me hanging out to dry in the meantime. I cleared my throat awkwardly and turned to face all the gathered consorts, not to mention Xolotl.
Yay, now I get to try and explain what the fuck just happened before they decide to put me back on that sacrificial slab, just outside.
"Not one much for goodbyes, are you, Anna," I grumbled to myself.
END OF INTERMISSION I