The Serpent Codices: The King and the Plumed Serpent

Chapter VIII: A Glimpse of Hope (Part 2)

The warriors surged toward the enemy, seizing the initiative under Yhábi’s contemptuous gaze. The soldiers of Cot brandished longswords, while the Eagle Warriors leveled the spears in which they held unrivaled mastery. Yhábi signaled his own host to advance, as Zazil and Elías bore witness from the heights.

“Watch closely, boy. This may be the last battle your eyes ever behold,” Zazil remarked. Without another word, he leapt from the canopy, sprinting toward the fray with supernatural speed.

“Wait!” Elías cried, plunging into a run behind him. Terror gripped the boy, and adrenaline surged so violently he felt it might pour from his lips. Yet he knew he had to act; he had never been the sort of coward to crawl back into the shadows.

At the precise moment of impact, the Nahual warriors shifted, their forms twisting into savage beasts as they slammed into the front lines of Ikal and Yarátu’s forces. The slaughter began. Though the defenders fought with desperate ferocity, they were drowning in the enemy’s superior numbers.

However, some of the Cot warriors—buoyed by a sudden, surging power—managed to repel the onslaught behind shimmering energy fields. Such magic had not been seen for an age, for the people of Cot had felt their essence wither since the god Quetzalcoatl departed their world.

From atop his mount, Yhábi scanned the chaos for the prize he owed his king. He spotted the boy instantly, marked by a singular aura. Unbeknownst to Elías, he was projecting power into the warriors around him. Only the enemy could perceive it, for the Usurper King had long ago bound a portion of the bracer’s flame within Yhábi himself.

Yhábi spurred his beast forward, charging toward Elías and Zazil.

“He’s going for Elías!” Yarátu roared to Ikal. Seeing the enemy move, the Eagle Prince set off in a desperate pursuit.

“Boy, he’s coming!” Zazil warned as Yhábi and his monstrous steed carved a path through the sea of soldiers. Elías, paralyzed by indecision, gripped his sword and shield with white-knuckled intensity, bracing for the end.

When Yhábi reached them, he unleashed a sudden gale that sent both friends spiraling into the air; the mastery of wind was his dark specialty. Elías crashed into the dirt several meters away, dazed. The villain dismounted his Ahuitzotl, and the beast lunged at the struggling Zazil.

“So, you are the one we have spent an eternity awaiting,” Yhábi sneered, his blade glinting as he drew near. “I truly thought this day would never come. But now that it’s here… you are nothing extraordinary. You are small. Trembling. A mere child.”

Elías scrambled to reclaim his fallen gear.

“And what do you intend to do with those?” Yhábi mocked. “You cannot even balance that blade.”

Before he could utter another insult, a spear whistled toward his head. With a blur of steel, Yhábi sheared the projectile in two. Yarátu was upon him. Leaping from his puma’s back, the Prince landed between the villain and the boy. Sensing the shift, the puma diverted to aid Zazil against the Ahuitzotl.

“You will not touch him!” Yarátu hissed, drawing the heavy blade from his back. “Zazil, I ordered you to keep him clear of the slaughter.”

“The last Great Tlatoani of the Sacred Mountain,” Yhábi said with biting irony. “The formidable Eagle Prince.”

“You will not lay a finger on the boy. This time, you do not leave this field alive. You will pay for my brother’s life.”

The villain erupted in a cold laugh. “There it is! The fire of the Eagles still flickers in you. Though you shouldn’t call yourselves that anymore—your eagles are extinct. How does it feel, knowing your ‘glorious’ past is a corpse that will never rise? You were the one who led Aztlán’s finest to their graves; that blood is on your hands. But take comfort: once I’ve slaughtered the rest of you, you will fade into myth… and no one will be left to remember your name.”

“Always the Usurper’s lapdog,” Yarátu countered with a grim smile that visibly rankled his opponent. “You have spent your life serving the wrong masters. It is a tragedy to see a man betray his people, his gods, and his true King.”

“I should have finished you in the Dead Forest, along with the rest of your brood,” Yhábi spat. “You should have died like your brother. I remember him well… he was so confident right up until he died begging for mercy.”

Rage boiled over in the Eagle Warrior. “There was no honor in my brother’s death. There is no honor in the cowl of a coward who strikes by night. He would have broken you in fair combat, which is why you crawled through the shadows. You should have killed me when you had the chance, for today, I am his vengeance.”

In that heartbeat, Yarátu felt a dormant power thrumming through his veins; the magic was returning. He thrust his arm forward, unleashing a violent blast of wind. Yhábi countered with his own, and the two forces collided with a thunderous roar.

The gale-clash looked like two twin cyclones locked in a struggle for dominance. Both men shared the same bloodline—the lineage of Dani Baá—descendants of the ancient wind-callers. After a few agonizing seconds, the vortices merged and exploded, forcing both warriors to leap back. Upon landing, Yarátu hurled his sword like a kinetic projectile, guided by the wind. Yhábi barely caught it against his silver-clawed gauntlet.

“Curse you, Yarátu!” he howled, realizing how close the steel had come.

Yhábi pressed his palms together and conjured a whirlwind so potent it swept the Eagle Prince off his feet, slamming him into a massive tree trunk. Seeing his mentor fall, Elías lunged. He swung wildly, but the villain slipped every strike with ease.

“The air is not my only gift!” Yhábi snarled.

Flame erupted from his palm—the black sorcery granted by the Usurper. In this world, fire was the mark of the shadow-worshippers. Instinctively, Elías raised his shield. The subsequent blast of fire sent him hurtling backward. Had it not been for that split-second reflex, the young King would have been incinerated.

As Yhábi closed in for the kill, Yarátu struggled to his feet. He seized a jagged shard of his broken spear and flung it. Yhábi vaporized the wood mid-air with a flick of fire. With a sharp whistle, he summoned his beast. The Ahuitzotl abandoned its fight with Zazil and the puma—leaving the great cat wounded—and slunk to its master’s side.

“My dear Ahuitzotl, you look hungry,” Yhábi crooned. “There is your feast.”

The monster lunged at Yarátu. Summoning his last strength, the Prince called his sword to his hand via a gust of wind and drove the steel deep into the beast’s throat. It let out a harrowing, gurgling shriek.

Yhábi, losing all patience, seized Elías by the throat and hoisted him into the air. “Stop struggling. My King wishes to offer his regards.”

Suddenly, an arrow whistled through the air, burying itself in Yhábi’s hand. He snarled, dropping the boy and turning his murderous gaze toward the newcomer: Ikal.

“He is not alone!” the warrior of Cot declared.

“You lot should have been carcasses years ago,” Yhábi spat, wrenching the arrow from his flesh. “I will ensure you never see tomorrow.”

He unleashed a torrent of fire. Ikal threw up an energy barrier, but the heat was relentless, growing in intensity until the air itself seemed to blister. Yarátu tried to intervene, throwing his blade again, but it only grazed the villain’s cheek. Ikal’s shield began to crack.

Just as the defense faltered, Zazil threw himself into the path of the flames, catching the fire with his bare hands as his own power flared to life.

“What do you hope to achieve, Cot filth?” Yhábi roared.

“My friends are not alone!” Zazil shouted over the roar of the flames. “No one is!”

“Then you shall be the first to burn!”

Yhábi poured every ounce of malice into the attack. A massive explosion erupted from the collision of powers, swallowing Zazil in a blinding flash. Elías watched in horror; his friend was gone.

Grief and incandescent rage took hold. Elías felt his hands begin to sear with an inner heat. Instinctively, he thrust his left hand toward the enemy. A bolt of lightning tore through the sky, striking Yhábi squarely and throwing him back like a ragdoll.

The thunderclap was so deafening that every soldier on the field froze, clutching their ears. As the light faded, the warriors of Cot and the Eagles felt a tidal wave of magic return to them—the ancient spark, long thought lost. They fell upon the enemy with renewed divinity. The Nahuales fought back with bestial savagery, but the tide had turned.

Elías stared at his hands, trembling. Ikal ignored the victory, sprinting to Zazil’s broken form.

“My friend! Stay with me!” Ikal choked out, trying to lift him.

Zazil offered a weak, bloody smile. “It seems… we have our God-King back after all. I suppose I owe him an apology.”

Across the field, Yhábi dragged himself up. His armor had saved his life, but his flesh was charred, his clothes in tatters. “How… how is such power possible?”

“I will give you the answer,” Yarátu said, stepping forward. “Standing before you is the true God-King of Aztlán.”

“The Great Plumed Serpent,” Yhábi whispered with a jagged laugh. “So… that being was right. He found a way back.”

Yarátu frowned. “What ‘being’ do you speak of?”

“It matters not! The boy’s power is yet unformed. I will end this now!” Yhábi lunged at Elías, but a massive squall caught him mid-air. Yarátu engaged him once more, the two of them dancing through the air in a blur of wind and fire.

The villain eventually landed a crushing blow to Yarátu’s stomach, sending the Prince’s sword spinning away and pinning him to the earth with a blast of pressure. Yhábi stood over him, laughing.

“Your resistance ends here. Your Eagles are dead, and your glory is a ghost. I almost pity you.” He raised his blade for the execution.

Elías froze. The power had left him. But before the strike could fall, Ikal snatched a spear from a fallen warrior and hurled it. It went wide.

“You missed!” Yhábi jeered.

“I know,” Ikal replied, a grim smile touching his lips.

The spear hadn’t been aimed at Yhábi, but at Yarátu. The Prince caught it in mid-air and, before the villain could blink, drove the point through Yhábi’s heart. The general’s eyes went wide with shock and fury.

“I told you I would kill you with my own hands,” Yarátu whispered, watching the light fade from the traitor’s eyes. “For my family.”

The General of the Taíj was dead. Panic rippled through the enemy ranks. Their leader had fallen to the “extinct” magic of the past. The survivors broke and fled into the dense jungle of the mountains.

The battle was over, leaving a charnel house in its wake.

As the survivors gathered, they didn’t cheer. Instead, one by one, they dropped to their knees before Elías.

“Why are you doing this?” the boy asked, overwhelmed.

“Because,” Yarátu said, kneeling as well, “we stand in the presence of the true God-King.”

The silence was broken by the arrival of Solvit, descending on his white falcon. He looked pale, his face etched with horror despite the victory.

“Solvit, we’ve done it!” Yarátu called out. “The Taíj have lost their general!”

“We won a battle, Yarátu. Not the war,” Solvit said breathlessly. “I bring dark news.”

While they had fought in the field, Iktan had led a shadow strike against the village of the Cot. They had put the great trees to the torch, taking the inhabitants by surprise. The refuge of centuries was gone.

When Elías, Ikal, and Yarátu reached the village, the devastation was total. The air was a thick, oily shroud of burnt wood and scorched flesh—a scent that would haunt Elías for the rest of his days. The “house-trees” were skeletal remains of fire. Survivors wandered like ghosts through the embers.

Elías stared at the charred remains of those who couldn’t escape—the old, the very young. It was a cruelty that transcended war. Beside him, Ikal wept for the second time in his life for the death of his people. Yarátu stood silent, the tears carving tracks through the soot on his face, his expression an empty mask of grief.

The young King looked at the ruin, feeling the crushing weight of a crown he had never asked for, and the hollow ache of a victory that felt like a defeat…

…"

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