Smoke in the Glass by Chris Humphreys

Author:Chris Humphreys [Humphreys, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orion Publishing Group
Published: 2019-04-02T21:00:00+00:00

Boring, Intitepe thought. How boring it is, putting down rebellions.

Crouched on the hilltop, he watched as the last of his soldiers marched quietly into the defile below him, before turning back to the plain ahead, and the rebel camp that lay there. It was scarce dawn and these rebels would be as predictable as all their forebears. A few would be in hide tents, most would be sprawled upon the bare ground, drunk on fermented cactus juice and on their petty triumphs – the burning of towns, the rape of women, the killing of tax collectors.

On a few occasions in the past they’d also been drunk on immortality.

Like last time, Intitepe thought, and yawned. It happened once every hundred years or so, some boy born in some peasant’s hut who, nonetheless, had a god’s blood in the veins. Hailed as a saviour, there were always some disgruntled people who would acclaim the child – or man, if the immortality had just been discovered – and march to place him on Intitepe’s throne. But it was already occupied, as the child or man would discover as he died, the way all other rivals had, when the lava consumed them. Immortal women were sometimes born too. Though they were not prophesied to kill the god, he didn’t like the idea of other immortals around, and had … accidents arranged for them. The few he deemed truly harmless he let live. Like the Crone of Palaga, who’d died at eighty, been reborn, and lived to one hundred and seventy-seven before her latest relatives, bored with her ceaseless demands, cut her head off.

This present revolt, though, had the more common origin, starting in some isolated village of Iztec province – among fishermen this time, his spies had told him – where they had killed the Fire God’s tax collector, marched to the next villages, killed whoever opposed them in those, added to their forces then marched on the province’s main town, killing the governor and sacking it before settling down to drink it dry. That these had moved further south in search of more destruction, more plunder, showed that they were bolder – or drunker – than many. Most rebels, after their initial successes, scurried back to their homes and hoped that retribution would not follow – though Intitepe always made sure that it did.

Will I fight today? he wondered as he yawned again. He’d put on his full armour – interlocking links of supple hardwood from chest to thigh, lined in iron, arm and leg guards of pink clam shell, his helmet hewn and crafted from blackheart tree. He had his stone-tipped war club, Skull-crusher, and his obsidian long dagger, Slake-thirst. He supposed he could do with the exercise. He often accompanied his relay runners for the first stage of their journey but hadn’t lately. A vague unease had kept him in his palace for some weeks now. Truly, though, how much exercise was there in slaughtering drunk peasants? How much of a

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