Chapter Ten

 

 

The village was about three miles away, along the winding track, and it was close to full dark by the time that they reached it.

 

Only one thing of any interest happened during the trek along the trail.

 

As they skirted another pool, they all heard moaning coming from some tall bushes with spiked stems.

 

"One of the natives, wounded by the slavers and left to die," Ryan said, drawing the SIG-Sauer and leading the way into the undergrowth.

 

But the man lying there, knees huddled to his chest, was an Anglo, with the same swarthy complexion as the slavers. He was doubled over, blood soaking through his clothes from a deep stab wound in the stomach.

 

The natives gathered around, staring blank-eyed at the moaning man. The lone woman stepped close and spit in his face, mouthing a curse.

 

Ryan holstered his blaster and drew his long panga, not wanting to waste a bullet on the man when cold steel would do as well.

 

As he leaned forward, the leader of the natives stopped him. "He is taker of us. Chainer of women and girls. Stealer of men for the holes and tunnels where the silver lives. Turner of women into sluts."

 

"So he's better dead."

 

"No. He will speak to gods for us. We take him to Teotihuacn where he will meet Coatlicue, and where he will help bring winning to us."

 

"You want him as a prisoner?" Ryan asked. "Well, I sure don't want him for anything. Yeah" He waved his hand. "Take the son of a bitch and welcome."

 

The man had stopped weeping, his eyes staring wide at the gleaming polished blade of Ryan's panga. As soon as he realized that he wasn't going to be chilled on the spot, his first reaction was one of grinning relief. Then, as he was jerked to his feet by the natives, his wrists bound behind him with strips of whipcord, he began to cry again.

 

"You're white," he said, his voice cracking. "Don't let them take me. You don't know what they'll do."

 

Krysty pointed a finger at him. "I've seen what your brutish gangs do. Anything that happens to you from these people's going to be triple deserved."

 

He tried to scream at them, but the native woman stooped and picked up a clump of dirt and grass and rammed it hard into his open mouth, tying it tightly into place with two more of the rawhide strips, silencing him. Fresh, brighter blood showed against the dark patch where he'd been stabbed, the wound that had obviously resulted in his being left behind by Bivar.

 

 

 

"OUR HOME," said the stocky native, pointing ahead of them with his good arm.

 

"Where we will bury our dead ones," the woman added. "We could not carry them now. But in morning bring them to homes."

 

Ryan had wondered about that, surprised that they hadn't made any effort to bury their own dead. The corpses of the slavers had all been dragged together while the male natives urinated on them, then they had been lifted by wrists and ankles and thrown into the pool.

 

"Look over there," J.B. said. The muzzle of the Uzi indicated an amazing structure about a quarter mile off, to the right.

 

It was a kind of pyramid, more than a hundred feet in height, with steps scaling its four sides. The top was flattened and seemed to have some kind of altar on it. The structure lay to the east of the fenced village, which stood on the edge of a large lake.

 

There looked to be about seventy huts, nearly all of them thatched with wide palm leaves. The light was mostly gone, and the cooking fires looked as bright as diamonds. Ryan sniffed, starting to salivate, scenting the delicious odor of what he guessed was probably roasting pork.

 

"Food smells good," he said, smiling at the native with the wounded arm, but the man looked back at him with no change of emotion.

 

"Meal for dead. Those taken by slavers are dead to us and to the gods. It is hard for those left behind to walk tear-blinded on path between night and day."

 

"Yeah, guess it is."

 

One of the other men with them had run ahead, calling out in the language that was a strange mixture of harsh gutturals and liquid syllables. It didn't take an expert translator to know that he was warning the village about the arrival of strangers, of the battle and of the deadand of the slim youth whose eyes glowed like smoldering coals in a fire of ash and whose hair was whiter than the eternal crest of snow on the high peaks.

 

Drums began to beat in a fast staccato rhythm, totally unlike the slower meter of the drums of the Native Americans on the high plains.

 

And there was the strident sound of a brass trumpet, ripping apart the quiet of the evening.

 

"Giving us a welcome," Dean said, walking closer to his father.

 

"Yeah. We got nothing to fear, son. All we've done them, so far, is a big favor."

 

"Long as they don't reckon us for slavers," J.B. said softly.

 

Ryan had already considered that one, and he'd been glad to see that native go racing ahead, babbling out the tale of what had happened that afternoon. The village would already be stricken by the loss of so many of their number at the hands of Bivar and his men, and any pale-complexioned outlanders were likely to risk a hostile reception.

 

"By the Three!" Doc was wiping perspiration from his forehead, but he hastily put away his swallow's-eye kerchief as he saw the reception party coming toward them through the high, spiked gates. "It's either the Akond of Swat or the great panjandrum, or perhaps it's Atahuallpa himself, long-dead monarch of the Inca people."

 

Ryan had been met by some bizarre-looking men and women in his time, but he'd never seen anything to match the arrival at this obscure, isolated village, somewhere in Central or South America.

 

There were eight of them making a stately progress toward the strangersall males, judging by their height and build.

 

But it was impossible to be sure, as all eight wore amazing, intricate masks. They were built on a thin wooden frame, covered in huge nodding feathers of turquoise, green and coppery blue. The faces were stylized, with eyes of white shell, teeth of jade and cheeks made from a black stone that Ryan guessed was probably obsidian.

 

The effect was impressive and, to be honest, Ryan thought, more than a little frightening.

 

The men wore long cloaks down to their bare feet, fringed with the same gorgeous feathers. The cloaks looked to be woven from linen and were a range of colors. Black predominated, with red, yellow and green.

 

Only one man wore an emerald cloak and he was the tallest, walking at the center of the half circle. His mask was even more ornate than the others, and he carried a long sword at his hip, made from the same black stone.

 

Mildred's brow was furrowed, as though she were struggling to remember something from the past. "Green means royalty, I think," she said. "And yellow is connected with food. Black was either priests or nobles. I can't recall which. Red might be warriors. The color of blood, you know."

 

The drums continued to beat from the village until the man in green held up his hand, flourishing the black sword. The crowd of nearly two hundred natives at his back fell silent, along with the drums.

 

He called out in his own tongue, and the native with the wounded arm replied at length, gesturing toward Ryan and the others, miming them opening fire and then acting out the deaths of the slavers.

 

Finally he pointed at Jak, though he didn't look at the young man. He touched his clenched fist to his chest, then to his forehead, and finally to his lips in what was undoubtedly some kind of religious ritual.

 

"Play this cool, Jak," Ryan whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

 

"Sure."

 

The sword dipped and every man and woman and child dropped to their knees, temples touching the dirt.

 

"The man who would be king," Doc said, thoughtfully. "I'm certain our guesses are correct. They regard the lad as some kind of long-lost god or monarch. Or, perchance, a combination of both."

 

Only the green-clad man remained standing, his face invisible behind the feathered mask.

 

"You are come to us," he said in a ringing voice. "The wait has been long. If you had come a day sooner, then the men with whips and chains would have been scattered and we would not be in mourning."

 

"We scattered some for you this afternoon," Ryan said, not wanting the moment to slip away.

 

"We heard this. And we thank you. Thanks to the servants of the awaited one."

 

"Friends, not servants," Krysty pointed out, but nobody seemed to hear her.

 

"My name is Itzcoatl. In your way of speaking it means the Serpent of the Black Stone. The brother who you helped is called Chimalpopoca. Smoking Crest. We are the people. Called, in our tongue, Macehualli."

 

"Aztec names," Mildred breathed. "Mother of God, but these are lost descendants of the ancient Aztecs."

 

"How do you come to speak our own language?" Ryan asked. "Are there other Americans near here?"

 

"Americans." Itzcoatl savored the word in his mouth as though it were a suspicious new herb and he wasn't altogether sure whether he liked the flavor or not.

 

"Are there any?"

 

"No. We have not seen Americans for" He hesitated. "More moons than there are fingers on the hands of many warriors. Not in the memory of any person of the tribe."

 

"But there were Americans here?"

 

Itzcoatl considered the question, his face invisible. The smoke from the many fires billowed around him, making him look like a creature from ancient myths, rather than a human being. "There is atemple. Right word? Temple some miles from here with a door that is never opened."

 

"The gateway," Krysty whispered to Ryan, who nodded his agreement.

 

"That is part of many places where Americans built in the years before the crops failed. Our fathers' fathers' fathers worked for them. Helped them in their preparation for war. When they departed it was a sad day for all of the people. The dead they left we buried in honor. Some took their own lives. None stayed alive. We learned their way of speaking, and because we thought that they would return, we have kept up learning of their speech. I think I speak it more good than other man. But it becomes harder with each child. One day it will be lost."

 

"What is the other language you speak?" Mildred asked. "I don't know it."

 

The feathered head turned toward the woman, the white shells gazing blankly past her. "We call it Nahuatl. The old tongue we know from the far-off old days."

 

She nodded, then said to the others, "I'm sure that's a word from the Aztecs."

 

One of the men dressed in a black robe leaned toward the leader of the tribe and said something. Itzcoatl nodded. "Quauhtlatoa, who is called Speaking Eagle, reminds me that we are poor What is the word? Someone who receives strangers."

 

"Hosts?" Krysty suggested.

 

The man nodded. "Yes. You bring us the waited one and save the lives of our brothers and sister. And we remain beyond the walls, breathing out empty air and words. You will all stay and eat with us now?"

 

"Thanks," Ryan said. "Just a couple days, perhaps, then we'll have to be on our way."

 

There was something in his remarks that upset the Macehualli people. The plumed masks gathered close, and all the body language showed tension and anxiety. Ryan could hear the fluting exchanges between the leaders of the tribe, but it was Itzcoatl who quelled it, snapping out an order and holding up his left hand. His right hand dropped to the jewel-studded hilt of the polished black-stone sword on his hip, producing silence.

 

The voice from beneath the mask sounded strained. "We fear you leaving soon. We cannot repay the debt if you leave quickly. So stay as long as you want."

 

"Thanks again. Be glad to stay awhile."

 

This was obviously a reassuring remark as the tautness eased from the listeners.

 

"Good, good." Itzcoatl muttered something over his shoulder. Two men moved forward and took the arms of the prisoner, with surprising gentleness, and led him away.

 

"You'll chill him?" Ryan asked, not caring much one way or the other. As Krysty had said, being a member of the slavers' gang carried its own risks.

 

"He will be used," the chief replied. An odd choice of words, Ryan thought.

 

Throughout all the exchange, it had been glaringly obvious that the real subject of interest was Jak Lauren. Since they had all scrambled upright, every eye in the crowd was glued to him, following his every movement. When he brushed a hand through his magnesium hair, a fascinated ripple ran through the natives.

 

"You will be shown to your huts. Will two be enough for your needs?"

 

Ryan nodded. "Sure. Be fine."

 

"The meal being cooked now is not good enough for" the white eyes in the mask moved toward Jak, "not good enough for any of you. Go to your huts and rest, and women will bring water for washing. Then, later, we can feast."

 

He turned and walked back in a stately manner, followed by what seemed to be his inner council, through the tall gates, the crowd of natives parting like the Red Sea. They all moved back even farther as Ryan led his friends into the village.

 

The drums resumed their slow, ponderous beating, and the trumpet blared once more.

 

As Jak strolled through the gates, the entire gathering fell again to its knees in salute.

 

"Never been god before," the albino whispered. "Could get used to it."

 

The air was filled with the smell of oiled bodies and smoke and cooking meat.

 

Ryan felt very hungry.