by David Gilman
“Not all these guys are Mayan warriors. You see those tattoos? They’re gangster tats. No way these fellas have been here a long time.”
Max looked hard at some of the approaching men. Xavier was right—they looked more like gang members than tribesmen. Before he could give it any more thought, three or four men and a boy who looked very important, flanked by more guards, emerged from one of the darkened passageways between the buildings and walked toward them. They were dressed in a more refined manner than the men who had attacked them in the forest. Swathes of cloth, folded and tucked like skirts with leather belts, were wrapped round their waists, and they each wore what looked like a turban held by a leather thong, studded with green stones and decorated with bird feathers that half hid their shoulder-length hair.
A dozen or more men danced around these important newcomers. Flutes and chest-high drums vied with the shrill cry of clay whistles as ankle rattles whished like dry sand on a tin roof.
The royal-looking group kept their distance, staying about ten meters away from Max and the other captives, but one of the warriors had approached the newcomers and knelt before them, and was explaining something. There was a look of concern on their faces. And then Max heard Tree Walker shout out to them in Mayan.
Flint heard him as well. “He’s telling them you are Eagle-Jaguar, that you cannot be harmed or it’ll bring great misfortune to this place. He’s trying to save you.”
Max looked into Flint’s eyes and knew that being saved was probably not going to be an option.
A guard moved quickly forward and hit Tree Walker with a stout stick across his back, knocking the boy to his knees. One of the fancily dressed people raised a hand and said something. Almost immediately, a young man ran into the arena carrying a ball slightly bigger than a basketball. The guards took over again, separated Xavier, Setting Star and Tree Walker and cut them free from the others.
Max looked at the boy who was with the dignitaries. He was probably a couple of years younger than Max, but there was something about him that he just couldn’t figure out. It was a brief moment of disbelief.
Max called out, “You! Wait!” The celebratory music stopped. He ran a couple of steps toward the younger boy but was stopped by guards who pounced, kicking his legs from beneath him. Max fell hard onto the grass and suddenly felt a spear against the base of his throat. He pointed up toward the boy. “That’s my mother’s,” he said. “Flint! Tell them that the necklace the boy’s wearing is my mother’s!”
Flint hesitated and saw the simple chain that bore the symbol of the sun. “You can’t,” he said. “They think you’re some kind of supernatural creature. They’re going to give you a chance to live. If they know you’re just like the rest of us, they’ll take your head off right now!”
But the younger boy stepped forward, waved aside the guards and ignored a rebuke from the man who seemed to be the boy’s father. He knelt next to Max and spoke quickly, barely above a whisper. His fingers touched the small sun disk at his throat.
“Before I was brought to this valley, I was taught in a school. I understand you. I speak English. This was your mother’s?”
“Yes,” Max said.
The boy looked stricken. “I cannot help you unless you win the game. Stay silent or they will kill you now.”
He got to his feet before Max could ask any more questions. The boy pointed at Flint and spoke in Mayan. Then he turned and joined the others, who walked back to the archway. As Max got to his feet, the boy looked back once and then turned away again.
Max felt a surge of hope. There was someone here who might help him but, more importantly, who also knew of his mother.
Xavier and the others had been pushed into the arena as Flint explained what he had been commanded to tell Max. They were in what was called a ball court, and what looked like a basketball was solid latex. The hard rubber was heavy, and it would bounce high and fast. In this game it was forbidden to use hands or feet—only knees, shoulders, chest and elbows. This ancient game had one purpose—to choose a victim. Once the game started, it would end only when somebody allowed the ball to touch the ground. Then that person would die a horrible death by having their heart cut out.
Flint gazed back toward the pyramid. They could see that the boy and the others had joined the shaman. “Chac Mool,” Flint said. Max stared to where the group stood next to a reclining sculpture that looked like a creature sitting back on its haunches and elbows, its stomach a broad flat surface. Max realized the stains that colored the ancient limestone were blood. “That’s the sacrificial stone,” Flint said.
“ ‘Into the jaws of Death, into the mouth of Hell rode the six hundred …,’ ” Max muttered quietly.
“That’s not Shakespeare,” Flint said, a little uncertainly.
“No. But it’ll do,” Max replied.
Then someone blew a whistle. The game of death was on.
Riga had followed the tracks that Max and the others had left. Every scuff mark told a story, and when he heard the war cries and drums, it was as easy as a stroll in the park to locate the boy he hunted. Skirting the river, he gained high ground, ignoring the discomfort of the wound in his leg, letting the pain be something to beat at every step.
He saw the curtain of bloodred mist that rose from the valley floor as the hot lava sizzled through the wet ground. Like a dragon with bad breath, it continued its hissing roar unabated, as if its tongue were licking the jungle floor.
By the time the warriors had tied their captives, Riga was almost in sight of them. The earth tremor had caught him unawares. Some rocks around him were shaken free and went smashing into the gorge below. It happened so quickly he nearly tumbled from his precarious perch. Pain shot through his thigh, and blood seeped into his trousers—the jolt had torn a couple of stitches. He knew he should not let the wound become infected; it might easily prove fatal in this tropical heat.
If he went back through the cave, he could find a way out and get medical help. But then Max would escape him forever—a thought he considered for hardly an instant. He could find plants to keep the wound clean.
Using a small pair of binoculars to track the warrior group’s movements, he watched as they disappeared under the rain forest’s canopy. It seemed they were heading for that scalding river of fire.
Tightening his sweat rag across the wound, he gripped his rifle and made for the dragon’s tongue.
The ball bounced. Xavier ran like a midfield player and took it on his chest as if preparing to drop it and kick a long pass, but the weight of the ball thudding into him forced the boy to crash down onto his back.
“Don’t let it touch the ground!” Max yelled as he ran forward.
Xavier squirmed, arching his hips, pushing his face into the pungent-smelling rubber that now felt as though it was crushing his rib cage. Max was right there and saw Xavier push his body up with his hands and feet, keeping the ball clear of the ground and trying to flick it toward Max’s uncertain stance. How to stop it from touching the ground? As the ball came clear of Xavier’s body, Max went down on his knees, felt the grass burns cut into his skin, ignored it, caught the ball on his shoulder and pushed himself up as hard and fast as he could, forcing the ball onto the sloping walls, allowing the others to run and take the rebound.
Tree Walker, more muscular than Xavier, used the top of his bicep to hit it back on the sloping wall toward Setting Star, who pivoted like a gymnast, took the ball onto her knees, fell back and flicked it above her head. It was too low, its weight making it impossible to move with any great degree of skill. It would not be long before trying to push the solid ball of rubber would exhaust or injure them.
Guards and warriors whistled and cheered. They beat drums and blew conch-shell trumpets. Their yelling faces and thunderous roars broke through in waves to Max as he fought the deafening sound of pounding blood in his ears. It was like a ribald crowd at an FA Cup final, only there was more to lose than the cup—and there would be no medal for the runn
ers-up.
Xavier had football skills, and if anyone could keep the ball off the ground, he could. He outran Max and Tree Walker, his skinny frame sluicing sweat, his long hair flicking droplets to the ground as he twisted and turned, and on more than one occasion saved each of the others from dropping the ball.
It was, Max realized, an amazing achievement for the slightly built Latino boy. How much longer could any of them keep going in this crippling heat? Who would be the one to die?
Max could see Xavier was tiring. He had retrieved the ball and, in what had to be a near impossibility with a ball that size and weight, bounced it from knee to knee. He cried out, “Max!”
With an effort Max would never have expected of the boy, he got the ball high enough onto his chest, dropped it again onto his knee and then hefted his scrawny leg upward so the ball was in place for a header. He jumped, making contact, and aimed the ball directly to Max.
Then Xavier sank to his knees. He was out of the game. It was down to Max and the other two now. Max struck the ball with his shoulder, and it felt as though he had been punched by someone twice his size. Muscles and tendons would not be able to last much longer. Faces blurred; Max felt giddy. He saw the children screaming, watched as Flint waved his hat and roared encouragement, as the guards in their war paint became a surreal and macabre tapestry.
The ball!
It was in the air. Tree Walker had kicked himself against the side of the wall, powered into it from a low angle and struck it with his elbow. His arm snapped. He writhed in agony.
Setting Star was too far away. She ran like a sprinter out of the blocks. The rising cacophony became deafening. Tree Walker would die. He was the last to touch the ball. She dived in a hopeless attempt to catch the ball and amazingly got an arm to it. It skidded against the side wall, caught the pockmarked face of a gargoyle and spun away into no-man’s-land. None of the players would reach it. Setting Star would die for her brother.
In a startlingly brief moment, Flint saw Max’s face. The whole world stopped for that one blink of an eye as, in some kind of shocked understanding, he realized something about Max had altered. Every muscle in his body had contracted, a surge of power gathered down his back, his shoulders hunched, his eyes narrowed, and his teeth bared into a snarl.
Orsino Flint knew he was looking into the ch’ulel of the beast.
In three catlike strides, covering a huge distance, the ragged boy from England launched himself and leapt like a predator toward the stricken girl and the ball that was now only inches from the ground. There was a collective gasp from the crowd at the shock of seeing the impossible.
Silence fell.
Max’s attack, for that is what it was, never wavered. He stretched out; his sinews demanded he stop. The rush of air told a part of his brain that he was still off the ground.
He was too late!
The ball was on the ground.
Almost.
Max’s fingers curled like a jaguar claw and caught the edge of its weight. No human hand, let alone a boy’s, could stop it from rolling onto the grass. But Max’s did. It dug into the impenetrable, it squeezed the uncrushable, and it threw the ball of death clear from the girl.
The children cried out. The guards and warriors bellowed their approval.
They had their victim. The ball rolled away.
Max Gordon had sacrificed himself.
* * *
Riga clawed his way forward. The cheering had stopped, but now the jungle exposed the hidden city, and he followed the watercourses down the hillsides toward the blind side of a high pyramid where smoke and incense swirled across a small group of men who stood before a sacrificial stone.
The tumbling water would obscure any noise he made—not that he intended to make any—and he could see that one of the channels fed a waterwheel in a building adjacent to the pyramid. It had no doors, but the entrance was pitch-black. No light penetrated it. Maybe that was the way to get into this ancient settlement without being spotted.
Riga was no stranger to house-to-house fighting. He made his way down, scanning the ground for Max.
And then he saw him.
The guards had quickly surrounded Max and, as he staggered to his feet, made it clear by pointing their spears that he should move forward toward the huge steps of the pyramid.
Flint ran forward and helped the exhausted Xavier to his feet. “You did well, boy.”
Xavier nodded, grateful for the compliment from the man who had always been an enemy. After a moment, he got his bearings, watching the children run to Tree Walker and Setting Star. Max was already thirty meters away, surrounded by the grinning, joyful warriors. Now there would be blood.
“Max, no …,” Xavier whispered.
“We can’t help him now, son. We have to find a way out of here. There might be a chance when they’re distracted …” Flint did not allow himself to finish the sentence.
“When they kill Max, you mean? No, no, we have to do something. We have to,” Xavier insisted.
But the brief thought of bravely trying to rescue Max was cut short as the guards turned back to Xavier and the others. They were to be herded along as witnesses to the sacrifice.
Max began the long climb upward. The steps were chest-high, and he had to lift himself up with his arms and drag himself up each level. This alone, without the exertion of the ball game, would have exhausted anyone. Perhaps it was designed so that the victim would have no fight left in him once he reached the sacrificial stone at the top of the pyramid.
He had to concentrate! He had to use every breath to feed his body, to hold on to his remaining strength. And each time he climbed higher, he looked around him. If nothing else, he would get to see the surrounding countryside, the other buildings, places his mother might have been. Perhaps she, too, had escaped from this terrible place. The thick curtain of crimson mist was beyond the perimeter of the buildings, and he felt the air grow hotter from the molten lava. The jungle sizzled and he could hear rocks cracking as the lava cooled.
Water tumbled down the hills through the trees and disappeared into the ground. There was no sign of any escape route. The sun was blistering; Max was weak from lack of food and water, and he was desperately thirsty. His knees and elbows were badly grazed and painful, and he could feel the bruises forming where the ball had struck his arms and chest. It felt as if he had been beaten with a baseball bat.
He glanced down and saw the others, under guard, watching him. He did not want to die like this and hoped against hope that at the top of the pyramid, the boy who wore his mother’s necklace might reach out compassionately and save him.
Crunching fear twisted his stomach. Had his mother been sacrificed? Was this the terror his father had run away from?
If you’ve got one breath left in your body, then you have a chance. Don’t die like a lamb to the slaughter, Max. Keep fighting, son. It’s your life. Don’t let the killers and the thugs take it easily from you.
Dad’s voice. Why hadn’t he fought?
Two steps left.
He looked around. The panoramic view showed the mountains, the river, the smoldering, troubled volcano and the far horizon, where another world lay hidden beneath the rim of the earth. A crease in the tree canopy looked wrong. It was a strange shape, a gaping hole in the natural curvature of the treetops. He wiped the sweat from his eyes and stared into the glare. It was a camouflaged satellite dish nestling in the tree line above a partly exposed smaller building.
The breeze caught his face. It had changed direction. The incense and smoke cleared. He looked up into the eyes of the waiting men. Any thought of fighting his way clear and finding an escape through whatever lay at the back of this pyramid was snatched away. The shaman wore a painted wooden animal mask, some kind of mythical creature whose curved open jaw exposed vicious teeth like a snarling wolf. Even the boy wearing his mother’s pendant looked frightened. And, unexpectedly, there were four other men in attendance—guards. The shaman lifted the sacrifici
al knife and pointed it at Max. There was no need for him to climb the next couple of steps. Two men jumped down and hauled him up.
Max shuddered, fear rippling through him.
A lamb to the slaughter.
This is how they killed lambs. They cut their throats. Did they feel fear? Did they smell the blood of others? Max felt revulsion as he thought of the times he had seen lambs playing in the fields around Dartmoor High, because, like them, herded to the slaughterhouse, he was now helpless.
He could smell the men’s sweat, and the sweet, cloying incense stung his eyes. It was a nauseating mixture. The shaman was chanting something quietly beneath his breath. The guards waited, ready to do his bidding the moment an order was given. The others sat on stone benches awaiting Max’s execution, a cruel entertainment to satisfy an ancient ritual.
Only the boy stood. Max’s mouth was dry from the exertion and the heat, and now the smoke scratched the back of his throat. He needed to buy time. Every single second was vital now, because the longer he could delay the inevitable, the greater the chance of escape—somehow.
He gazed at the boy. “Don’t let them kill me yet. Please, before I die, tell me what happened to my mother.”
The boy turned to his elders, spoke quickly to them, and Max saw them nod.
Hope restored.
And then it got better. The boy offered Max an animal-skin water bag. Max grabbed it before anyone could change their mind and gulped as much water as his breath would allow. That water was high-octane fuel to his starved body. The shaman snatched it away and commanded the guards, who then grabbed Max’s wrists.
“Wait! Not yet!” Max shouted.
Skin scraped from his back as they manhandled him onto the stone sacrificial table, his wrists and ankles held by the four men. The shaman put his hand on top of Max’s chest—to feel the heartbeat. Max squirmed. There was no need to feel for his heart as far as Max was concerned; it was banging so hard it would burst out of his chest of its own accord.