It was a bold promise, but fortune favored the bold, Audie reminded himself.
“The place where they are being held will be heavily guarded,” the man said with a frown. “But when they bring the prisoners out, to take them to the Bowl of the Gods, there might be a chance . . .”
Audie nodded. “Then that is when we should strike. That will give time, as well, to spread the word among the rest of the people. When Tenoch dies, everyone who wants to throw off the yoke of Aztec rule should rise against them.”
The man frowned again. “Many will be killed.”
“The tree of life must often be watered by the blood of free men,” Audie said, shamelessly paraphrasing Thomas Paine.
The Blackfoot looked at him solemnly for a long moment, then finally nodded. “I am called Bearpaw.”
“I am Audie, and this is Nighthawk.”
“Umm,” the big Crow said.
“Bearpaw, my friend,” Audie went on, “I believe that together, we are on the verge of doing great things.”
CHAPTER 41
Preacher had been awake for a long time, so after he was strung up in the cell again, he did the only sensible thing, the thing that most frontiersmen learned to do whenever they got the chance.
He fell asleep.
Granted, his position wasn’t very comfortable, but he knew it wasn’t likely to improve any time soon. He leaned his head back against the wall, ignored the soft, terrified whimpers coming from Nazar, and dozed off.
When he woke up, sunlight was sifting down through the ventilation openings in the roof. He didn’t know exactly how long he had been asleep, but his head had drooped forward and the muscles in his neck were stiff. He rolled his head and shoulders around as best he could to loosen them up.
A few feet away, Nazar hung from his bonds. He seemed to be more asleep than awake, although he was still mumbling softly. Preacher supposed exhaustion had finally caught up with the little priest.
Beyond Nazar was Elk Horn, awake and glaring at Preacher.
Not pure-blood Blackfoot, the mountain man reminded himself, but it was easier to think of him that way. He met Elk Horn’s hostile stare and said in the man’s native tongue, “I’m sorry, old son. I reckon I know what you’re thinkin’ right now.”
“If not for you, my woman would still be alive,” Elk Horn rasped.
“Yep, that’s it,” Preacher agreed. “There’s some truth to it, but Tenoch and his men bear most of the blame. They’re the ones who figure they can go around killin’ anybody who gets in their way. They’ve gotten away with that for a long time, haven’t they?”
Elk Horn had no answer for the question. He turned his head to look away from Preacher.
Their conversation had penetrated Nazar’s stupor. The little priest raised his head and blinked slowly as he peered around the squalid cell, making him look more like a turtle than ever. “They are going to kill us,” he said in English.
“Everybody dies sooner or later,” Preacher said. “I’ve always figured how a man dies ain’t as important as how he lives.”
Nazar snorted contemptuously. “Those are noble words, but they will mean nothing when Tenoch starts to cut your chest open with a flint knife. Then you will scream and beg for death.”
“Not likely,” Preacher snapped. “I don’t plan on givin’ him that much satisfaction. I don’t expect it’ll come to that, though.”
“Oh? Do you think the gods themselves will come back and rescue you?”
“Nope. I’ll go out fightin’, though. I’ll make those varmints kill me before they ever get a chance to sacrifice me.”
“Again, noble words. Empty words.”
Preacher didn’t want to waste any more breath arguing with Nazar and leaned forward a little to look past the priest. “How about it, Elk Horn? As soon as they cut us loose to take us outta here, we jump ’em and fight to the death?”
“It is the way of men,” Elk Horn replied grudgingly.
Nazar said, “You are both mad. I will cling to life as long as I can and beseech the gods for a miracle.”
“You do that,” Preacher said.
The three men fell silent again. Preacher wondered if their captors were going to bring them any food or water. It seemed unlikely, since they were fated to die before the day was over.
Eventually, the bar was removed and the door swung open. Eztli strode in, followed by several guards. She was clothed again, if you could call it that. The outfit was so skimpy and revealed almost as much flesh as when she’d been nude. The huge feathered headdress she wore would have done a better job of covering her if she’d held it in front of her. Modesty obviously meant nothing to her.
She went over to Preacher, the sandals she wore making soft sounds on the stone floor. Stopping in front of him, she regarded him up and down with the same sort of haughty, arrogant gaze he had come to expect from her.
When she spoke, her voice was as musical as ever, as pretty as the rest of her. Too bad it all went with such a dark soul, Preacher thought.
“You know, I’m pickin’ up a few words of your lingo,” he told her. “If I was to stay around here long enough, I might learn to speak it. I got a hunch you and your beau don’t intend for me to be around that long, though.”
She turned her head and barked something at Nazar. He sighed. “The high priestess wishes me to serve as a . . . a messenger?”
“She wants you to tell me what she’s sayin’, and you’ll tell her what I’m sayin’,” Preacher explained.
“Yes. That is it.”
“So go ahead. What was she jabberin’ about?”
Nazar said, “She would have you know that your attempt to kill Tenoch failed. He is as healthy as ever.”
“Don’t reckon I believe that. I stabbed the son of a gun in the neck, and he lost a lot of blood. He may be alive, but he ain’t hale and hearty.”
Nazar frowned as he puzzled over how to translate Preacher’s response. After a moment, he spoke to Eztli, whose glare darkened. She spewed out some obviously angry words.
“She says you will see for yourself when Tenoch carves out your heart and offers it to the great god of war Huitzilopochtli when the sun touches the Bowl of the Gods this evening. But you will suffer before then.”
“I’m sufferin’ now, just listenin’ to her.”
Nazar shook his head. “I will not say that to her.”
“I don’t care whether you do or not, old son.” Preacher met Eztli’s cold stare. “I reckon she’s got a pretty good idea of what I’m sayin’. The two of us seem to understand each other. I understood just fine when she stretched out on a pile of furs and offered herself to me.”
Eztli stepped closer to him and bared her teeth in a feral grimace.
“You see?” Preacher said with a grin. “She knows what I’m gettin’ at.”
Another torrent of words came from Eztli. Then she stepped back and motioned the guards forward.
Were they taking him out of here? Preacher wondered. Was it already time for him to put up such a fight that they would be forced to kill him? He glanced at Elk Horn, saw the Blackfoot straining at his bonds. Whatever was about to happen, he wanted to be free so that he could be part of it.
That wasn’t going to happen. The guards wrapped several lengths of braided rope around Preacher’s arms and legs, binding him so tightly that he couldn’t put up any sort of struggle when they cut him down from the wall. He seethed inside as they lowered him, then picked him up by the ankles and wrists and carried him out of the cell.
Eztli snapped an order over her smooth, bare shoulders, and more guards freed Nazar and forced him to come along with them. The little priest didn’t put up any fight.
The group marched through the streets until they reached a large sunken area surrounded by sheer stone walls ten feet high. Preacher’s captors perched him at the edge of the pit. At Eztli’s orders, some of the ropes around his arms and legs were cut, but not enough so that he could get loose easily, then one
of the guards gave him a hard shove in the back.
Preacher couldn’t stop himself from falling forward. He twisted in mid-air so that he would be less likely to break any bones when he landed, but the impact was still enough to jar him when he smashed down on the pit’s stone floor. Three warrior-priests armed with war clubs stared at him.
Eztli said something in a loud, clear voice. Nazar translated, “You will be given a chance to free your hands and feet. Then you will fight these three men, who have been told they may not kill you no matter what you do. Their job is to break your arms and legs in several places, so that you can cause no trouble when you go to be sacrificed to Huitzilopochtli.”
“How come she didn’t just go ahead and have ’em do that while I was hangin’ on the wall in that cell?” Preacher asked as he started working at the bonds on his wrists and ankles, wondering how the men had gotten into the pit . . . and how they might get back out after their work was finished. Ladders that had been pulled up?
“Because there are visitors to the city, and Eztli wishes to entertain them.”
Preacher glanced up. The pit was surrounded by the warrior-priests and strangers whose garb was different from the Aztec garments. His eyes narrowed as he realized he was looking at actual Blackfoot war chiefs from outside the hidden valley. He thought he might have even laid eyes on a couple.
One of them spat out a familiar name in Blackfoot. “Ghost Killer!”
Preacher grinned at the man. He’d freed his ankles, so he lifted his wrists to his mouth and began using his teeth to untie the bonds around them. Tied so tightly, it took a while, but eventually he loosened the ropes enough to twist out of them. He put a hand on the stone and pushed himself to his feet.
He figured the Blackfoot chiefs being there had something to do with Tenoch’s plans to expand a new Aztec empire beyond the valley. Tenoch and Eztli wanted to impress their visitors by having Preacher crippled right in front of them.
Preacher didn’t care about the odds. He was free and had another chance to put up a fight, which was more than he had expected when he was recaptured. With a fierce smile of anticipation on his face, he turned toward the three men in the pit with him.
For a second, they all looked a little doubtful about the wisdom of being there then Eztli shouted a command and they charged at Preacher, lifting their war clubs to strike him down and break his bones.
CHAPTER 42
Preacher didn’t retreat. For one thing, there was nowhere for him to go. The pit was a square about twenty feet on each side. For another, the Good Lord hadn’t put any backup in him. He had always believed it was better to go on the attack whenever possible.
Instead of waiting for the warriors’ charge to reach him, he went low and launched himself in a diving tackle at the legs of the man in the middle of the trio. His arms closed around the warrior’s knees and drove his legs out from under him. With a startled yell, the man fell forward over Preacher, hitting his face on the pit’s stone floor with stunning force.
Preacher rolled away as the momentum of the other two men carried them past him. He came nimbly to his feet and struck as they stopped to turn toward him. Leaping high, he crashed a kick into the small of one man’s back. He hoped the blow would break the warrior’s spine. At the very least, it knocked him down, so as Preacher landed on his feet again he faced only one opponent.
That one was big and burly and surprisingly fast. With a yell, he darted at Preacher and swung the club in his hands. He didn’t aim the blow at Preacher’s head but rather at his shoulder, and as the mountain man twisted aside, he remembered what Nazar had said about the men being under orders not to kill him.
That gave Preacher an advantage. He didn’t care if he sent all three varmints west of the divide.
As the third man tried to catch him on the backswing, Preacher stepped in and grabbed his arm with one hand while he used the other to pound a punch into the warrior’s ribs. The man grunted but it didn’t really seem like the blow shook him much. He bulled forward, lowering his shoulder and driving the mountain man toward the closest wall. Preacher knew that if he was caught between the warrior’s weight and the unyielding stone, his ribs might snap, so he let himself fall, grabbed the front of the man’s buckskin shirt, and heaved. A foot planted in the man’s stomach levered him up and over.
The move took the warrior by surprise. He was unable to stop himself before the top of his head slammed into the wall. Preacher heard a sharp crack like a branch breaking, and when he rolled over and came up on one hand and one knee, he saw that the man had dropped to the bottom of the pit in a limp sprawl that signified death from a broken neck.
The other two were back on their feet, not out of the fight like Preacher had hoped. The one who had fallen on his face had blood smeared across his features from an obviously broken nose.
They began to proceed in a more strategic fashion, separating and slowly circling him so they could come at him from two different directions at once.
Preacher knew that if he waited for them to make the next move, he would be playing into their hands. Again he went on the offensive, charging one of the men as he shouted at the top of his lungs.
The warrior slashed at him with the club, but Preacher went under the swing and grabbed the man around the midsection in a bear hug. Hearing feet slapping the stones behind him, he twisted, taking the man he had hold of with him. His head was in the way when his companion’s war club came down in a stroke originally aimed at Preacher.
With a crunch of bone, the war club smashed into the back of the man’s head. His eyes opened wide and blood shot from his nose. He fouled himself as he died. Preacher shoved the body at the remaining warrior, who stumbled as he tried to get out of the way.
Preacher took the war club from the man whose skull had been crushed, leaped over the corpse, and went after the third man, who frantically blocked the mountain man’s swings as he tried to back away. When he hit the wall, he couldn’t go anywhere else.
Rather than boring in, Preacher backed off a little. His bare chest rose and fell as he breathed heavily. The sleep he had gotten in the prison cell had helped him some, but he was still far from being in top fighting shape.
Good enough to kill two Aztec warriors and put the fear of God in a third one, he thought grimly.
He glanced up at the people surrounding the pit. The Aztecs had cheered as the warriors attacked, but now that Preacher had killed two of the trio, they had fallen silent. Eztli looked mad enough to chew nails.
The visiting Blackfoot chiefs were silent, but that was to be expected. They looked on with great interest, but they weren’t going to cheer one way or the other, despite the intense hatred they felt for Preacher. He couldn’t help but grin at them, which made their expressions turn sour.
As always, though, there was a shadow of respect in their eyes for the man they knew as Ghost Killer.
Eztli snapped an order at the lone remaining warrior-priest. He looked like the last thing he wanted to do was follow it, but he screwed up his courage and charged Preacher again, yelling harshly.
He swung the war club, aiming the blows at Preacher’s head. Tenoch might have wanted the mountain man crippled but kept alive for the sacrifice at sundown, but from the looks of it, Eztli had abandoned that plan and wanted Preacher dead.
The clubs flashed back and forth as Preacher parried the blows each time one fell. A while back, he had fought a duel with swords, and this battle reminded him of that clash even though the weapons were much more crude.
The warrior fought with a desperate, manic intensity. He had seen Preacher slay his two companions and knew the same fate was in store for him unless he killed the mountain man first. When all was said and done, only one man would be left standing alive in the pit.
His haste caused him to be careless. After one particularly hard, out-of-control swing, he found himself wide open and couldn’t bring his club up in time to block Preacher’s counterattack. The warrior tried to jer
k away, succeeding only in causing Preacher’s club to glance off his jaw.
The blow shattered bone. The warrior stumbled back a couple steps with his mouth hanging open as blood welled from it.
The terrible pain drove him to attack again as a choked cry escaped from his ruined mouth and jaw. Preacher darted out of the way of the clumsy charge and swung his club with such ferocious power that the third warrior’s head was literally torn from his shoulders as the blow landed. The head flew across the pit and bounced off the opposite wall as the blood-spouting torso took another step and then collapsed. The crimson pool around the body spread rapidly as the blood continued to pump for several seconds.
Surrounded by dead men, Preacher held the club and glared up at the men around the pit. None looked like they had the least bit of desire to climb down in there with him.
Eztli let out a scream of what sounded to Preacher like pure frustration. She rained words down on him then turned to Nazar, still held by two guards, and jabbered at him for a few seconds.
When the high priestess fell silent, Nazar swallowed hard and said, “You will be left here until the time comes for your sacrifice. The dead . . . the dead will keep you company.”
“Better company than some I could think of, I reckon,” Preacher drawled. “At least they died fightin’, like men.”
Nazar flushed. “I risked my life to help you, and now I will lose it. What more can I do?”
Preacher shrugged. “Reckon you’ve got a point.” He turned to the Blackfoot chiefs, lifted his arm, leveled a finger at Eztli, and went on in their language. “This one is treacherous, despite her beauty. She cannot be trusted. None of them can. Before you make any treaty with these people, you should think about that. You know me. You know the Ghost Killer does not lie.”
He didn’t know how much of the Blackfoot tongue Eztli understood. The way it was spoken in the valley was different from the outside world, anyway. As a priestess, it was possible that she didn’t speak anything except pure Aztec.
Eztli shrieked at him, realizing that he was trying to undermine her with the visiting chiefs. She didn’t like it, hurried over to the Blackfeet, and began hustling them away from the pit. They didn’t take kindly to that, especially from a woman.
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