Far Fetched Fables

“Mouth of the Jaguar” by Evan Dicken (Originally published in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly #20.) Hummingbird was to be the final sacrifice of the day. The man before her struggled on a raised stone slab, chest heaving as a flock of blood-spattered priests pinned his arms and legs. Sunlight glittered on the Cazonci's obsidian dagger--curved like a jaguar's claw to better hook bone and tear flesh. The crowd around the ziggurat waited, caught in the anxious pause between lightning and thunder. The blade fell, but Hummingbird's gaze was not on the shrieking victim. Above, the sun was white-gold in a sky clear as the eastern sea. Lake Pátzcuaro sparkled in the light, the riot of sedge and cattails along its banks flecked with motes of bright color as wading birds combed the shallows for fish. The breeze shifted, cutting the heavy pall of incense with scents of wood smoke and cooking meat from the city below. Although they had been the enemies of her people for generations, the Tarascans shared much with the Azteca.