Mission To Mahjundar (28 page)

“I don’t think the villagers are all that happy about the situation,” Shalira said. “I overheard a lot of angry discussion last night about how much they had to pay to the rulers, and the fact they couldn’t keep the spoils from our capture. Or at least not all the loot.”

“But the Nathlemeru have the army to enforce their laws and taxes.” Saium twisted his head to see their destination, but gave up after a minute. “We’re in deep trouble.”
 

Mike took another look at the faraway city. “Why?”
 

Heaving a deep sigh, Saium shook his head. “One of the things the lower classes provide to the priests who rule this land is living sacrifices for the altar.”
 

Eyes wide, Shalira said, “I thought such things were only legends, stories to frighten children. What are we going to do?”
 

“I don't think they'll harm you, sweetheart.” Mike tried to layer as much reassurance into his voice as he could.

“Because I'm blind,” she answered bitterly. “I don't care about me. I can't bear for you to suffer such an awful fate.”

“Remember Johnny,” he reminded her softly.
 

Everett had been quiet all day but now, hearing Johnny’s name in the flow of Mahjundan, he spoke up. “Somehow I can't be too confident about your sergeant getting us out of our next destination. The village maybe, but not a fortress like this.” He nodded at the small city they were slowly approaching.
 

The road led straight across the valley to the plateau. It soon became apparent they were heading toward a single massive gate set into a wall of stacked boulders. Despite the lack of visible connecting material, the rocks appeared to be securely seated one on top of the other in an intricate pattern standing ten feet high, which must have taken thousands of hours to build. The gate itself was fashioned from huge tree trunks, bigger around than a man's arms would reach, lashed together lengthwise with tough leather strips. Mike couldn't begin to imagine the labor involved in bringing the old-growth wood here from the forest many miles below. As their cart approached the wall, curious guards, standing on an unseen walkway on the other side of the wall, pointed at them and shouted.
 

Dominating the city was a huge, pyramid-shaped, earthen mound several hundred feet high, built in five layers, top crowned by a temple. At one end of the building a curiously shaped stone tower reached into the mountain sky.
 

As the cart approached, the heavy gate was swung open by four men. Their captors had hasty, excited words with the leader of the city guards. The guards, dressed in maroon tunics and pants, equipped with leather helmets and crude shields, exhibited more organization and discipline than the motley crowd of villagers escorting the prisoners.
 

 
Mike checked with Saium. “Can you understand what they're saying?”
 

“Bits and pieces. The captain of the guard sent for an official to decide whether to accept the gift or not. Apparently it isn’t the proper season for bringing tithes, but the villagers are arguing that since we were captured in combat, with an oracle, we must be given to the priests at once.”
 

“Combat!” Mike snorted. “Nice way to characterize an ambush where we couldn't fight back. If it had been any kind of fair combat, I can guarantee you
we
would not be sitting here.”
 

Sit they did, for more than an hour in the hot sun, waiting for the functionary who could make extraordinary decisions regarding offerings. The villagers left Mike and his companions tied to the cart, while they collapsed in the shade from the city walls. Mike watched their captors passing bulging water-skins to each other and tried not to think about how thirsty and dehydrated he was getting. Shalira was offered a drink by a city guard, who grabbed the container away from her when he realized her intent to share it with her friends. The water spilled onto the floor of the cart. No more was forthcoming.
 

Finally the priest arrived. Several inches taller than Mike, he wore sweeping robes of drab green, flecked with red. Heavy, elaborately worked gold earrings hung from his distended ear lobes, and more gold gleamed from his neck, wrists and hands. On his shaven head there was a single lock of curled black hair, clipped with three bold black-and-white feathers. He conversed with their captors from the village as he circled the cart, examining them cursorily from a safe distance before yelling something at the city guards.
 

Dropping their spears, two men jumped into the cart, causing it to lurch perilously. Cursing as men grabbed her arms, Shalira sought what little protection Mike could give from this new assault.
 

“Take your damn hands off her,” he shouted. Reflexively, they stepped back, obeying the note of command in his voice. “Saium, tell the priest who she is, quickly.”
 

Saium began talking in the lilting language of the hill people, which the priest gave evidence of understanding. Three Feathers, as Mike had labeled the man, inclined his head and answered Saium with a brief sentence. Then he shouted another command to the guards. They backed off and jumped from the cart. One extended his hands beckoningly to Shalira, looking beyond her to Mike, his meaning plain.
Tell her to cooperate or else
.
 

“They want you to get out of the cart,” Mike told her. “I think you’d better do it.”
 

She threw her arms around his neck, burying her face in his shoulder. “I have to stay with you.”
 

He ached to be able to hold her. “Better do as they ask. Don't make them angry. The strategy here is to stay alive as long as possible, remember? Hope for Johnny to come through for us.”
 

She was silent for a minute. Then her breath caught on a sob. She lifted her face for a kiss. “I love you.”
 

“I love you, too,” he said without hesitation or embarrassment, kissing her as long as he dared.
 

Turning carefully, Shalira walked over the rough wicker surface to the tail of the cart. The city guards lifted her to the ground. One of them kept his grip loosely on her wrist, drawing her aside.
 

Walking to her, Three Feathers put his hand under her chin and tilted her head left and right. He snapped his long fingers directly in front of her eyes. Evidently satisfied Shalira was indeed blind, he nodded and gestured impatiently for her to be taken farther out of his way. Then he gave his full attention to the matter of the cart and the remaining prisoners. The other guard moved smartly to assist the priest in climbing into the small space.
 

 
Muttering an incantation to himself, Three Feathers rolled the long fingers of his left hand in a black leather pouch at his belt as he stopped in front of Saium. When the priest withdrew his hand from the pouch his fingers were covered with a clinging reddish dust, glinting in the waning sunlight. As if admiring the effect for a moment, he spread his fingers wide. Then, with a serpentine suddenness, the official leaned forward and drew a strange symbol on the old man's forehead. Apparently seeking to battle one magic with another, Saium shouted a defiant chant. Frowning, the priest cuffed the bound prisoner across the face with a beringed hand. The red powder clung to Saium's skin, continuing to glow. Reaching out with one obscenely long fingernail, the Nathlemeru forced Saium to meet his eyes. Satisfied, Three Feathers laughed derisively and moved away.

Now he stopped in front of Mike, who met the merciless stare measure for measure, straightening up as much as he was able against his bonds. This close, the stench from the priest was overpowering, a mixture of strange spices, blood and an underlying note of rotted flesh. Deliberately, slowly, like a caress, he drew the same intricate symbol on Mike's forehead, dipping back into the pouch for more powder while Mike swore at him. The priest only shook his head, unperturbed.
 

 
Everett too was quickly painted, and then Three Feathers stepped from the cart.
 

Coming out of the gate was an empty litter, carried by two more of the guards in maroon uniforms. The chair was an elegant affair of gaily painted wood, tiny enameled wind chimes suspended from the gilded handles. The cheerful music of the little chimes was an incongruous counterpoint to the deadly seriousness of the overall situation. The guards set the conveyance in front of Shalira. Striding to her, the Nathlemeru priest whispered something in her ear. She shifted away from him but the guard's grip on her arm forestalled any real attempt at escape. A moment later she’d been efficiently handed into the litter, which the waiting bearers lifted in a smooth motion, setting off through the city’s entrance.
 

The cart lurched forward as the yoked beasts were driven through the city gate. Craning to look back, Mike took note of the priest chanting over the heads of the kneeling villagers while a guard paid them with small gold bars. One of the city men led two of the pack horses after the cart. Mike felt the first faint hope he'd had all day at the sight of their gear, lashed to the horses.
 

The priest shouted something at the cart, with a harsh laugh as punctuation.
 

“What did he say, Saium?”

“He says Her Highness will make a fitting bride for Tlazomiccuhtli, their chief deity. There’s no doubt the rest of us will be sacrificed, probably as soon as we reach the temple. Even in the lowlands we’d heard rumors of this insatiable god, who demands human flesh and beating hearts to feed upon.”

Mike glanced at Everett, breaking into Basic. “We can make a fight of it, Agreed? I'm not going under the knife without trying to take a few of them down too.”
 

The other murmured agreement.
 

He was given no chance to act on the brave resolve. For about ten minutes the cart lurched its way through nearly empty streets past houses firmly shut up, awaiting some future occupants. One cross street appeared to lead to a deserted open-air market place. Shortly thereafter, the cart came into a tremendous square where thousands of people could have stood. The five level pyramid and its crowning temple stood at the far end of this space.
 

“Why so few people here?” Mike stared at the vast courtyard in front of the pyramid.

“They have all the tribes gather for the great religious festivals, but only the priests, the soldiers and women dwell here. The priests do their work and studying free of less exalted influences.” Saium shook his head. Continuing his analysis, “Doubtless they keep slaves as well, but we’ve already been marked for sacrifice, not for service.”
 

The painted mark on Mike’s forehead itched and burned slightly. Flexing his hands against the ropes, he was ready for any chance at resistance. Much better to die a clean death in an honest, if hopeless, fight than to be sacrificed like an animal to some alien god. Maybe Johnny could find a way to rescue Shalira, at least, if he found his way undetected to the city.
 

The sun was beginning to set below the peaks lining the valley. The remaining light was an ugly red tone, casting ominous shadows across the base of the temple. Once the cart stopped at the bottom of a set of broad stairs, the beasts of burden shuffled their feet nervously and blew, and, for the first time all day, demonstrated an independent desire to keep moving. The men carrying Shalira’s litter hadn’t paused, but proceeded up the several hundred stairs until disappearing from view into the gloom at the top.
 

Mike concentrated all his attention on waiting for their captors to make a mistake, however slight, giving him a chance to grab a weapon and make a fight of it.
 

The priests and their soldiers apparently were used to dealing with fiercely determined warrior prisoners. Two soldiers jumped into the cart and efficiently shackled each man's ankles with heavy chain. Then, one at a time, Mike and the others were released from the ropes binding them to the cart and their wrists quickly chained behind their backs. Finally the guards dragged each man to the ground, yoking them all together with a long neck chain and leather collars.
 

“Too good at what they do,” snorted Saium. “Efficient killers. We've no chance at all, Major.”
 

“I've been in worse spots and gotten out.” Mike pointed with his chin. “There’s a disagreement going on.”
 

The three priests were arguing. Three Feathers pointed at the temple and made agitated gestures while the other two were plainly reluctant to do whatever it was he wanted. The senior official gained his way eventually through sheer force of will. Ascending the stairs, he didn’t deign to see if anyone followed.
 

The guards chivvied the prisoners to follow him. Mike discovered the leg shackles allowed him exactly enough motion to handle the narrow steps and not an inch more. By the time he reached a small platform at the top of the first flight, his head was swimming, his leg muscles a solid mass of pain. Between the high altitude, his possibly-broken ribs and the exertion of climbing the deliberately difficult steps, his heart was pounding so loud he could hear it. Every time he inhaled his lungs pressed on the broken ribs with excruciating pain.
 

He was given no chance to stop and rest, however. The guards prodded them to continue up the next flight of the torturous steps. At one point, Saium stumbled, threatening to drag them all off their feet, but the nearest guard grabbed him, lifting him bodily to the next stair.