“What about Preacher?” Boone ventured to ask. “Where is he? Is he . . . ?”
“Alive?” Nazar laughed humorlessly. “Yes, he is alive . . . for now. He is a prisoner in a fighting pit, waiting to be sacrificed at sundown along with me and this man, who tried to aid him.” Nazar jerked his head toward the prisoner who had been in the cell when Boone and his two companions were brought in. He frowned speculatively at Boone. “I wonder if now there will be six sacrifices, instead of three.”
Boone didn’t know the answer to that, but he was glad to hear that Preacher was still alive. The mountain man might be in a bad fix, but as long as he was drawing breath, there was a chance he might turn the tables on his captors.
Boone thought of something else and started to ask Nazar if he’d seen any sign of Audie and Nighthawk, but he closed his mouth before any words could come out. He didn’t completely trust the little priest not to sell them out in an attempt to save his own life.
With Preacher still alive . . . and with Audie and Nighthawk maybe on the loose somewhere in the city . . . there was reason to hope that things could change. If nothing else, Boone wanted a chance to go down fighting, rather than being sacrificed as a helpless victim.
He would bide his time and not say anything.
After a few minutes, Nazar asked grudgingly, “What happened when you tried to escape? Did you make it through the cliffs?”
Boone told him about running into the party of Aztec warriors bringing the Blackfoot chiefs to the hidden valley. He didn’t mention that Audie and Nighthawk were no longer with them at that point.
“I know about the Blackfeet,” Nazar said, nodding. “They were taken to the pit where Preacher fought three men. They know Preacher from the world beyond the Wall of the Gods.”
“Yeah, from the stories I’ve heard, Preacher’s had plenty to do with the Blackfeet. They helped him get his name.” He didn’t elaborate on that story. It might not be a good idea to mention that Preacher and the Blackfeet were mortal enemies everywhere except in the valley.
Nazar already seemed to have gathered that. “They called him Ghost Killer.”
“It’s a good name for him, I reckon.”
“No more. Before this day is over, he will never kill anyone again. He will be the one claimed by the gods.”
“We’ll see.” All Boone could do was mourn Zyanya . . . and wait.
CHAPTER 45
Nothing had ever yet been found to stop the sun from wheeling inexorably through the sky. It continued its merciless pace, sliding steadily toward the mountains to the west of the valley, with their notch that would soon throw slanting rays of hellish light into the Bowl of the Gods.
With only the three corpses to keep him company, Preacher had nothing to do but think. He figured that Audie and Nighthawk would strike when it came time to take the prisoners to the amphitheater. Preacher, Nazar, and Elk Horn would all be out in the open then, and a swift, unexpected attack might free them.
Whether or not they could battle their way free of the city if they got loose, Preacher didn’t know, but his fists clenched in anticipation of trying.
At the same time, he mused about the hidden valley and its very existence. He had been in Shadow Valley before and had never dreamed that the lost outpost of a barbaric empire lay right on the other side of the Sawtooth Cliffs. How long might it have remained so, completely unknown to the outside world, if it hadn’t been for the earthquake that had reopened the long-closed passage?
How many other bizarre things were hidden away in the vast sweep of the Rocky Mountains? Preacher had seen probably more of the frontier than any other man alive, and yet he had scarcely set foot in even half of it. There was no telling what else was out there.
He remembered something Audie had said once, when the former professor was quoting one of the plays old Bill Shakespeare had written. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy. Preacher shrugged his shoulders. “Something like that, anyway.” He didn’t recall who that Horatio fella was, but the sentiment was sure true, especially when it came to the frontier.
He had paced himself with the water the woman had brought him, to make it last, but when the sun was just a hand high over the mountains there didn’t seem to be any point in worrying about that anymore. He drank the rest of the water and tossed the skin aside. It wouldn’t be much longer.
That prediction proved to be accurate. A few minutes later, several guards appeared at the rim of the pit. One of them dropped the end of a rope down to Preacher. They were going to make him climb out.
He didn’t mind, as long as he got out of there. While some of the warriors held the other end of the rope, Preacher took hold of it and began to climb, using his feet to walk up the rough stone wall.
When he got to the top, other guards grabbed his arms and jerked him out of the pit. He thought of throwing a couple into the pit to start a ruckus, but he remembered the note the woman had dropped. If he made a move, it might ruin any plans Audie and Nighthawk had made. He had faith in his friends. They had never let him down.
With spears ringing him and sometimes poking him hard enough to break the skin, he was prodded along the street toward the amphitheater where the Aztecs intended to sacrifice him. Another group of guards and prisoners came out of a side street to join them.
Preacher wasn’t surprised to see Nazar and Elk Horn, since he knew the two of them were scheduled to die along with him, but he was disappointed when he recognized Boone Halliday and the other two prisoners. Their legs were free, but their hands were tied. Their presence meant the fugitives who had fled the city hadn’t gotten away after all.
“Preacher!” Boone exclaimed.
“I’d say I’m glad to see you, boy, but I sure ain’t,” the mountain man replied. “I’d rather you and those other fellas and that gal o’ yours were a long way off by now.”
At the mention of Zyanya, Boone’s face fell.
Preacher saw the reaction and knew what it had to mean. “Aw, hell. The little Aztec gal . . . ?”
“She . . . she didn’t make it,” Boone said as they were all marched along the street toward their appointment with destiny. “She was killed when we ran into some of Tenoch’s men who were bringing a bunch of Blackfoot chiefs to the valley.”
Preacher nodded. “I saw those fellas. Tenoch plans on makin’ a treaty with ’em, I reckon. I warned ’em not to trust the varmint, but I don’t know if it did any good. Probably not.”
“They’re going to have a . . . a mass sacrifice, aren’t they?” Boone swallowed hard. “They’re going to kill all six of us?”
“That’s what they’re plannin’, looks like,” Preacher said. “Whether or not they actually succeed in it . . . we’ll have to wait and see about that.”
The mountain man’s words were enigmatic enough to make Boone glance sharply at him. “What do you mean by that?”
Preacher just shook his head slightly to indicate that he didn’t want to explain.
After a moment, Boone nodded slowly. “I think I know what you mean, Preacher. The same idea occurred to me.”
Preacher kept his eyes open as the procession trooped along the street. He wanted to be able to make a move of his own as soon as he had the opportunity. But as they neared the amphitheater he began to frown. What if he and Boone were both wrong about Audie and Nighthawk?
What if no help was coming, after all?
In that case, all they could do was die as well as possible, Preacher thought grimly, and that meant with the blood of their enemies on their hands.
They could see the amphitheater ahead of them. Nazar began to make frightened noises. He dragged his feet, and the guards flanking him solved that problem by taking hold of his arms and lifting, so that they were half-carrying him. Nazar had to pump his legs quickly just to keep from tripping and falling. If he had, the warriors would have just dragged him on to his fate.
Quite a few of the Aztecs were waiti
ng in the amphitheater, Preacher noted, but not as many as had been on hand for the sacrifice he and Boone had watched when they’d first arrived in the lost city. The spectators on hand didn’t seem to be as enthusiastic as that earlier crowd, either.
But the two most important figures were on hand, Preacher saw as they reached the tiered steps leading down to the bloodstained stone altar. Tenoch and Eztli waited by the altar, along with the wizened little shaman whose job would be to hand the sacrificial knife to Tenoch.
Tenoch raised his arms in triumph, and the cheers from the crowd grew louder. A much smaller bandage was tied around his neck, and he certainly appeared healthy.
Maybe the war god Huitzilopochtli had healed him of his injury, Preacher thought dryly—although the mountain man didn’t really believe that for a second.
Spear points prodded him again. Preacher began walking down the tiers. They were wide, too wide to take with one step each. Two strides were required to cross them. As Preacher descended first, followed by Nazar, then Elk Horn, then Boone and the other two trappers, he thought about how his hands were free while the others were still tied. If anybody was going to start a ruckus, it would have to be him.
That would just get him run through with several spears, more than likely, but that was better than giving Tenoch the bloody satisfaction of sacrificing him.
He had tensed his muscles to do that when he saw something that made him pause. One of the Aztecs he was passing in the crowd looked around at him—but it wasn’t an Aztec at all. Nighthawk was dressed like one of them, slumping to conceal his great size. A faint smile tugged at the big Crow’s mouth as his eyes met Preacher’s. Nighthawk hardly ever smiled, and when he did it meant only one thing.
All hell was about to break loose.
CHAPTER 46
Preacher’s eyes searched among the crowd for Audie, but he didn’t spot the former professor. He was willing to bet that since Nighthawk was there, Audie wasn’t far away.
As he searched among the faces in the amphitheater, Preacher noticed that many of them seemed to be more Blackfoot than Aztec in appearance. Had they come because Elk Horn, one of their leaders, was going to be sacrificed—or did they have something else in mind?
It was hard for Preacher not to grin when he thought about what the next few minutes might bring. That expression would have looked out of place on the face of a man going to his death, though, and he didn’t want to tip off any of the guards.
However, he said quietly to Boone in English, “Be ready for whatever happens.”
“Really?” Boone whispered back.
“Umm,” Preacher said.
Understanding flashed in Boone’s eyes.
They had reached the bottom of the tiered steps. The guards forced them toward the altar. Tenoch and Eztli wore self-satisfied smirks as the prisoners were brought before them.
At a snapped command from Tenoch, the guards pushed Nazar up next to Preacher.
Tenoch jabbered at him for a moment, then Nazar said in a trembling voice, “The great high priest commands me to tell you that you will be the last to die. You will watch while . . . while the rest of us are”—he stopped and swallowed hard before he could go on—“sacrificed to the great god Huitzilopochtli.”
Eztli pointed at one of the trappers who had been brought back with Boone.
“That one first,” Nazar said.
The man started to curse and struggle, but he was no match for the guards who had hold of him, especially with his hands tied. They forced him toward the altar.
Somewhere in the crowd, a powerful voice bellowed in the Blackfoot tongue, “Now!”
Despite his size, Audie had learned how to project his words to the back of large lecture halls when he was still a professor. The order he had given rang out clearly, filling the whole amphitheater.
As the echoes of the shout began to roll away, men throughout the crowd leaped at the warriors, wrestling spears and clubs away from them and striking with all the pent-up fury of men who had been enslaved all their lives, men who had seen their families suffer under that same iron heel.
The amphitheater erupted in bloody chaos.
Preacher struck with all the speed he could muster, leaping at the high priest and swinging a punch that smashed into Tenoch’s jaw and knocked him sideways into Eztli. While they were tangled up with each other, Preacher chopped the edge of his hand down on Tenoch’s wrist. Tenoch dropped the sacrificial flint knife the old shaman had handed him.
Preacher caught it in mid-air and slashed at Tenoch’s throat, but the man twisted out of the way in time to avoid the deadly blade.
Guards crowded between Preacher and the high priest and priestess. He couldn’t see them anymore, and he had his hands full fighting off the attackers and avoiding the spears they thrust at him.
Nighthawk swooped toward the altar like a giant bird of prey. From behind, he caught hold of two warriors by the neck, lifted them, and smashed their heads together with such force their skulls cracked. They dropped like rag dolls when he let go of them.
He repeated the maneuver twice more, killing six warriors before they realized that death rampaged among them.
Audie emerged from wherever he had been concealed and dashed among the prisoners, wielding a knife as he cut their bonds and freed them. As soon as Boone was loose, he bent, grabbed a fallen spear, and rammed it through one of the warriors. He let out a fierce whoop as he fought to avenge Zyanya.
Nighthawk had gotten hold of a club. He laid out enemies around him like a man scything through a field of wheat as he battled his way to Preacher’s side. The mountain man had tucked the flint knife inside his leggings and had a war club, too. Fighting back to back, the two men were soon the center of the melee around the altar.
The uprising was going on all around the amphitheater, with heavy casualties on both sides. From what Preacher could see of the clash, he wasn’t sure there were enough Blackfoot descendants to overwhelm Tenoch’s followers. But if he could kill Tenoch—cut off the head of the snake—maybe that would be enough to swing the tide.
With that thought in mind, he looked for Tenoch, but he didn’t see the high priest . . . or Eztli, either. Maybe they were hiding, waiting for the warriors to take care of the unexpected rebellion.
Gradually, Boone and the other trappers, along with Elk Horn and several more of the Blackfoot descendants, formed a ring around the altar with Preacher, Nazar, Audie, and Nighthawk. The Aztecs withdrew a little, creating a lull in the battle. Preacher scanned the rows of the amphitheater and saw that most of the fighting was over—and their allies hadn’t won. More and more warriors were turning away from the bodies of their vanquished foes and coming down to join the forces surrounding Preacher and his friends.
Looked like this might be their last stand, the mountain man thought.
Sure enough, to make sure they were there for the finish, Tenoch and Eztli appeared again, striding forward through the ranks of warriors with looks of smug arrogance on their faces.
As the sun almost touched the western mountains, splashing garish red light over the scene, Tenoch spewed some words.
Preacher glanced over at Nazar, who said, “We are no longer worthy of giving our hearts to the great god Huitzilopochtli. We are to be slaughtered like animals, and our insides will be taken out and strung along the streets.”
“Let him come and try,” Preacher growled.
Tenoch snatched a war club away from one of the men. He thrust it in the air over his head and opened his mouth to shout the command for his men to close in and kill them.
A rifle blasted, and the war club flew out of Tenoch’s hand as a heavy lead ball slammed into it, breaking it in half.
Preacher had never been more surprised to hear a gunshot in his life.
But he had never been happier to hear one, either.
While the boom of the shot still filled the air, a familiar voice yelled, “Let ’em have it, boys!”
More shots rang out. T
he Aztec warriors began to fall. Preacher looked toward the top of the steps and saw Miles O’Grady and several other trappers firing into the Bowl of the Gods. Other men were spread out around the amphitheater, and their rifles began to roar, as well.
Like a wave, trappers came down the steps, emptying their rifles, hauling out pistols and firing them, tearing into the warriors with knives and tomahawks. Some stayed where they were to reload and pick off more warriors.
The first volleys had cut down at least half of Tenoch’s men, and the others stood no chance against the fierce attack by the men from the outside world. The warriors were falling right and left.
Preacher and his companions joined the fight. He had no idea how O’Grady and the other trappers had appeared just in time, but he wasn’t going to wonder about it just yet.
He lunged toward Tenoch and swung the war club, hoping to cave in the high priest’s skull.
Tenoch darted out of the way and grabbed the club before Preacher could pull it back. In a heartbeat, the two men were locked in a deadly, close-up struggle as they wrestled over the weapon.
A few yards away, Nazar was trying to stay out of the way as much as possible when Eztli suddenly appeared in front of him and thrust a spear at him. Nazar couldn’t avoid the attack. He grunted as the spear point sank into his body. He fell to his knees. Eztli pulled the spear out and spat on him as blood began to well from Nazar’s chest. She laughed and turned away contemptuously.
Somehow, Nazar found the strength to get back to his feet and throw himself at Eztli’s back. He tackled her from behind, knocking her forward onto the bloodstained altar, got an arm around her neck, and hung on as she tried to buck him off. He pressed down harder and harder on her throat until she finally stopped struggling.
Nazar’s head dropped forward, and the two of them lay there on the grim stone slab, still as death.
Preacher had his hands full with Tenoch. The high priest succeeded in ripping the club away, but before he could use it, Preacher punched him in the throat. Tenoch gagged and hesitated. Preacher bulled against him, forcing him back, and Tenoch sprawled on the altar, lying across it, near the heads of Eztli and Nazar. Preacher snatched the flint knife from his leggings and brought it up, then drove it down with terrific speed and force.
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