The cavalry charge burst into the clearing and set off an instant wave of panic that rippled across the city streets. Hastelloy locked eyes on the ball court structure and altered his course accordingly. A few arrows were launched in their general direction, but the timing was woefully off. They had never tried to hit something moving so fast.
He led the charge past the ball court and ignored the pedestrian tunnel in favor of a head-on approach to the tallest temple. Hastelloy prompted his panting horse up the main steps until he and his men reached the summit. He dismounted his horse, and pulled a musket from behind his saddle while four of his men charged into the house and dragged the man with the golden headdress out with the entire city watching in horror.
Hastelloy looked the man up and down for a moment before pulling the trigger on his musket. The weapon sent its projectile and a cloud of smoke into the air, and caused the high priest to jolt enough that his golden hat fell from his head.
A few silent seconds passed before an earth-rattling thunderclap sounded in the distance. An instant later, the stone watchtower exploded from the impact of a cannonball. The impressive show of power caused the high priest to fall to his knees and cower before Hastelloy with the entire city still braving to look upon their godlike leader for the first time.
“Bring me the pale skin prisoners,” Hastelloy demanded of the high priest in all five native languages that he knew.
One of them must have been recognized, because after the high priest recovered enough of his wits to stand up again, he shouted an order down to his subjects. Five minutes later, the white man Hastelloy saw on the road the day before was ushered up the temple steps to stand in front of Hastelloy with hope blazing in his eyes.
“Who are you,” Hastelloy asked of the man.
“My name is Geronimo de Aguilar,” he finally said after struggling to decipher a language he had not heard or spoken for quite some time. “I was a Franciscan friar who came here to teach the good news of the lord to these people. The ship I travelled aboard wrecked along a coastal reef eight years ago.”
“And that left you stranded among the people you intended to convert to Christianity. How has that noble effort been going for you?” Hastelloy asked.
“Not well, but at least the lord has seen fit to keep me alive to continue trying to do his work.”
“What happened to the rest of your crew?” Hastelloy asked.
“Fourteen men and two women made it safely ashore, but after all this time the lord has only seen fit to keep me alive.”
Hastelloy did not trust a word this man was saying. The mainland coast was an easy target for slave gatherers. It was the primary reason that the natives were so hostile toward any Spanish settlement they attempted to establish on the mainland. If this man was a slave trader as Hastelloy suspected, then he would still be useful as a translator but would require constant guard against running away.
“A Franciscan friar you say? I recall that they use a breviary prayer for every day of the week. If that’s the case, then you should be able to tell me what day of the week it is,” Hastelloy challenged.
“Today is Wednesday,” the man answered without hesitation, and he was correct. “Even in my eight years of enslavement I have maintained my faith.”
Hastelloy let a bright smile light up his face as he extended his right hand in friendly greeting, “Friar Aguilar, it is nice to make your acquaintance because I need your help.”
“As long as you get me away from here, I will gladly be your humble servant,” the friar said with a bow of his head, which prompted the high priest to mimic the gesture.
“Tell him I mean his city and his people no harm.”
The friar translated the message and relayed back the high priest’s response. “He asks what you want of him and his people.”
“I want his unquestioned obedience to me, and I will accept his golden hat as a symbol of his loyalty,” Hastelloy ordered.
The high priest wasted no time dropping to his knees to pick up his proud headdress, and he offered it to Hastelloy with a bowed head.
“He says that his city of Coba is yours to rule,” the friar translated.
“Good. Now moving on to the real reason I’m here. We are heading inland; I need locals who can both translate the languages we will encounter and serve as advisors on the local politics between tribes. Will he be able to help me with that?” Hastelloy asked with a nod of his head toward the high priest still on bended knee.
The friar nodded with a clever look in his eye. “The high priest is rather fond of collecting women from surrounding tribes to tend to his . . . holy needs. I’m sure we can convince him to part ways with a few of them.
An hour later Hastelloy and his fifteen cavalry men left the conquered city of Coba with Friar Aguilar and twenty lovely native women in tow, whom he had selected for their linguistic abilities and tribal affiliations.
Chapter 37: Sacrifice
FROM THE INSTANT Nanook saw that metal cylinder on wheels belch forth its terrible flames that obliterated the great watchtower, he was on the run. The stone pillar had stood guard over the city for four hundred years, and these white men destroyed it in an instant with their fearsome weapon.
Nanook followed the newcomers out of a need to know the outcome. He pointed them to the great city because he believed that Coba would destroy them, but they could not. No one could.
The invaders fought through Nanook’s trap, and it was an obvious trap if they looked at it in hindsight. The invaders may have let him go before, but if they caught him again, he was as good as dead. He knew it, and that is why he ran.
He ran without regard for being quiet or leaving the branches and trees motionless on his way by. His mind did not even consider which direction he fled. The terror in him left his mind completely blank. He saw nothing and he felt nothing. He just ran to get as far from the source of terror as he could.
Nanook had been running for what seemed like an eternity before the burning in his lungs forced him to slow down to a brisk jog. At the same time, his thoughts began to widen and consider the broader scope of threats around him. He was miles away from the newcomers by now, but the jungle was an unforgiving place to those who did not respect its many perils.
Touch the wrong tree, and its sap could give you an itchy rash for weeks. Encounter the wrong snake, or step on a poisonous frog, and you would be dead within minutes. The mighty jaguar was a constant menace that had devoured many victims. As fearsome as those threats were, by far the greatest danger in the jungle came from the hunters.
Hunters set traps throughout the jungle, and their snares did not discriminate which type of prey they caught. Nor did the hunters themselves care which quarry they ensnared. Everything in the jungle had value to them, especially human beings. That was the last thought Nanook had before an excruciating yank on his right leg preceded his entire world being flipped upside down.
While his body flew up into the air, he had time enough to see that a rope lassoed his right ankle before his face collided with a tree. The impact dizzied him to the point of nearly losing consciousness. He hung there, upside down by one leg for hours. He fought the pain and tunnel vision until the rush of blood to his head pushed his mind over the edge and into darkness.
Nanook awoke to a rocking sensation. A creaking sound accompanied each sway from side to side that seemed faint and far away at first but quickly grew in volume. He suddenly realized that the source was right next to his head. Nanook snapped his eyes open to see a wagon wheel groaning and creaking as it slowly turned right in front of him.
He was lying on his side and did not move a muscle as his eyes stole a look around. He was in a cage with at least ten other people, all of whom were unconscious. Nanook looked beyond the cage, where he saw a sight that terrified him far more than the newcomers and their weapon.
Walking next to the wheeled cage, he saw two men with tattoos all over their faces, chests, and arms. Ornamenting them further were s
everal bone fragments that pierced their ears and eyebrows. They were hunters, but not hunters of animals. These were hunters of men.
Nanook raised his head enough to glance behind, where he saw two more prison carts behind his own. He turned his head to observe the other side of his cage. Before he could see much of anything though, the end of a club crashed through the bars to bash him back into unconsciousness.
Hours or maybe even days later, the other occupants of his cage stirred Nanook awake. They were all clamoring over one another. Those unfamiliar with their circumstance moved closer to the right-side bars for an unobstructed look. The ones who knew better cowered against the far side of the cage. It was only a few feet, but it still gave them some sense of separation from the horror they now faced at the hands of the Aztecs.
Everyone around, even the great city of Coba, feared the Aztecs. They were once a peaceful people, but that all changed when Montezuma took power. Now the Aztec Empire had no equal in greed nor cruelty. If they wanted land, they conquered it. If they wanted resources, they took them. If they wanted slaves or sacrifices, then they deployed hunters in all directions to capture them.
The boy kneeling next to Nanook threw himself against the cage door in an attempt to break free but to no avail. The cage was well constructed. When he reared back to try again, an older man seated next to the boy restrained him by grasping his shoulders. “It’s no use. You cannot beat these people. Your only hope is to avoid them, and we have all failed in that effort.”
“What do you know about it old man?” the boy growled as he shrugged free of the man’s grasp. “You may be ready to die, but I’m not.”
“Years ago I learned all I needed to know fighting against Montezuma’s army. They cannot be beaten because they do not die,” the man said in a hushed voice, as if he were giving away a guarded secret.
“You’ve lost your head old man,” several of the captives jeered.
“That will be all of us soon enough, that still does not change what I saw,” he insisted. “I hit many of their warriors with my bow. I even stabbed two of them with my sword only to watch their healers provide healing water to their wounds and rise again as if nothing happened. Montezuma has the favor of their god, and that is why they do not die. Turn around and look for yourselves.”
Nanook sat up, looked to his right, following where the old man was pointing to, and witnessed a spectacular sight. He had heard stories filled with both wonder and horror about this place, but none of them did it justice.
To welcome the arrival of the new captives, twenty thousand people gathered at the city center in a festival of music, song, and dance. The people erected a grand temple to enlist the favor of their serpent god, Quetzalcoatl, for granting them wondrous healing and new life.
The temple was a pyramid featuring a series of square terraces with stairways up each of the four sides to the temple on top. Sculptures of a plumed serpent ran down both sides of the northern balustrade. It was late afternoon and the sun, striking off the northwest corner of the pyramid, now cast a series of triangular shadows against the balustrade. Nanook could hardly believe his eyes as the shadows created the image of a feathered serpent crawling down the pyramid to reach the ground and infuse the people and soil with its life-giving power.
“To deem themselves worthy of Quetzalcoatl’s blessing, the Aztecs offered sacrifices. One life for every Aztec life their god saves,” the old man told all of them.
Nanook looked at the top of the grand pyramid and saw a priest standing there wearing a feathered headdress while wielding a long sword. Next to him rested a waist-high stone slab. Upon that slab, two muscular helpers held a slave facedown with only his head protruding past the edge of the stone. The priest raised his sword into the air and drew a flurry of cheers and applause from the celebrating masses below. Then in one swift motion, the priest brought down his weapon.
The severed head bounced down the stairs, gaining momentum with every bound until the awaiting crowd caught it and passed it around as a trophy. The two helpers up top removed the body from the slab and stacked it on top of a dozen others. There, blood continued gushing from the neck wounds and flowed down the temple steps to add its life-giving powers to the people and soil below.
It was at that point that Nanook’s carriage passed behind the temple. The slave hunters sold their quarry to the awaiting priests and moved on while counting their coin, leaving Nanook and the others in the hands of the Aztec priests.
There was nothing he could do. His arms were bound behind his back. There were hundreds of warriors all around to prevent escape. Nanook figured he could meet his end crying and screaming like an old woman, or standing tall to take pride in giving his life to the gods.
In his mind, his sacrifice would infuse the soil with his life force to bring about a bountiful harvest in all the land, even the land of his family. He did not want to die, but at least it would be with purpose and with Quetzalcoatl’s blessing. Perhaps that would grant him favored status in the next life.
When Nanook reached the top of the pyramid, he took a deep breath and relished his final moments. No one except the high priests ever got to enjoy this view from on high. The pyramid towered over the vast city like a beacon summoning Quetzalcoatl. The sight of the city, the rivers, and the surrounding jungle down below was even more beautiful than he could have imagined. He felt so close to his god as the priests lowered him onto the sacrificial stone.
He would miss his family and friends. He hated the Aztecs with every fiber of his being for stealing him away from those he loved. At the same time, he loved them for giving him this holy moment. The last thing Nanook experienced before darkness claimed him was the sound of gracious cheers welcoming him to the next life.
Chapter 38: Finding Common Ground
A HUNDRED YARDS ahead of his army, Hastelloy watched three natives step out from the jungle line and walk toward the middle of a small clearing between their two forces. That prompted him to look back at Friar Aguilar and the native woman he had come to know as Doña Marina. What an asset she had proven to be over the last few days.
For evidence of that fact, Hastelloy needed to look no farther than behind his own six hundred soldiers, where another thousand native warriors now backed their cause. Not only could she translate multiple languages, Doña also knew how to stoke the fires under the local tribes and their collective hatred for the Aztecs to gain allies.
Thanks to her, rather than expending valuable men and resources conquering villages by force, Hastelloy was able to enhance his military might through negotiated alliances. From what he learned along the way, he would need all of them to stand against the almost mythical might of the Aztec Empire.
He still had questions about their sudden rise to prominence, but every local story and legend he heard about them supported his suspicions that they had indeed found the replicator and were using its healing properties. If Tonwen knew about this, his head might explode thinking about the possible damage their technology was doing to these people’s natural development. It was a situation that needed fixing, and he had Doña to thank for that understanding.
I will miss her counsel terribly if the chieftain does not allow her to continue her service, Hastelloy thought as he motioned with his head toward the clearing. “Come, it appears your father is anxious to speak with you.”
Hastelloy spurred his mount forward and heard the hoof beats of two other horses fall in behind him; Doña was also a quick study on how to handle a horse. Behind them, three leaders from nearby tribes who had allied with Hastelloy proceeded on foot. As they trotted out for friendly parley, he watched the eyes of the native leaders grow wide with wonder. None of them had ever seen a horse, and here three of the powerful animals bore down on them. Hastelloy imagined the fear running through them must have been similar to that of the Roman armies when they first saw Hannibal and his war elephants. Terror was a powerful weapon, even at peaceful negotiations.
“Greetings and wi
shes of good fortune upon you and your family,” Hastelloy recited to the natives in their language after dismounting his horse and handing the reins to Friar Aguilar. Doña then took over the duties of translating from that point on since the memorized phrase was the extent of Hastelloy’s ability to speak their language.
“You honor us with our words yet threaten us with your army and weapons,” the chief declared with his eyes transfixed on Doña. It was obvious that the man was struggling with his impulse as a father to embrace his long-lost daughter and his duties as the leader of his people.
“You mistake my intent,” Hastelloy asked of Doña to translate for him. “I am told that the Aztecs have taken much land from you and captured many of your people in recent years.”
“This is true,” the chief replied with a solemn nod of his head that also hinted at a level of shame the man carried for letting his people down.
“Along with the Nahuas, the Tlaxcaltec, and the Totonac tribes,” Hastelloy said while gesturing to each of the tribal leaders standing behind him, “I represent an army intent on striking back at the Aztecs. We will avenge the losses we have all suffered from their relentless attacks and theft of land and people.”
The chieftain looked at each of the native leaders and validated Hastelloy’s claim by receiving a nod showing their approval. Then his eyes moved on to Doña, and the lines around his eyes hardened with doubt. “You speak of the Aztecs’ theft of people while using the enslaved words of my own daughter. I do not trust these words. You say one thing, yet do another.”
Hastelloy nodded his head in agreement and cast a smile filled with regret toward Doña. “You are right to doubt the words of a slave owner. That is why I am here, returning your daughter to you. I offer this gift as a show of respect and a sign of my true intentions. All I ask is that you consider adding yourself and your mighty warriors to our army so that we may bring the Aztec’s tyranny to a quick end.”
Origins: Discovery Page 23