Pyramid of the Dead: A Zombie Novel (32 page)

Pizarro
turned to face
Minco
again
but
t
he
Incan
was gone
. Not needing to search
, he
found him kneeling over the prone figure
of Inguill.
Pizarro
moved to stand
behind the Incan.

“Inguill
...Inguill
,” Minco
whispe
red as he gently patted her cheeks
. “Wake up
,
my love.” She stirred and
slowly
, her eyes
opened. Minco burst into tears
of relief.
Once again her
beautiful
, knowing
eyes
held
the dark
, reflective warmth, that trace of clever playfulness
,
they used to have
. She smile
d and Minco felt his heart leap at the sight
.

Pizarro
walked away
from them
, feeling
once again
like an intruder in their private moment
s
. H
e would
have
much
rather
that she had perished
, that
witch with the foul mouth. Glancing at
Minco,
h
e would have preferred if the
y
both had died
in here
.

He returned to his men and
split them into two
groups. Addressing the first half, he said, “Go outside,
and
make
certain they’re all dead
before we even attempt to
leave the city
.”
The group saluted and marched off without question,
their trust and respect for
him
now even stronger
than before
. T
hey believed he was the one who
had
saved them from the undead
army
.

Pizarro
kept a close eye on them both, as
Minco helped Inguill
back
up to her feet
.
He sat alone
and in silence
by the
marble
altar
as he waited for his soldiers to return
, thinking
long and hard about what
he was going
to do with the
se
two
lovers.

He did
n’t
wait
long
. Two
of h
is men
came ru
n
ning
back up the long
, dark
hallway.
Pizarro
instinctively
drew
his sword but
one of the soldiers waved an unspoken negative at him. I
t was not the
undead that had them running full pelt for the chamber.

“The
city is
on fire,
” the first soldier shouted,
“I
t’s
almost upon us
.
”
The
y knew the
fire wouldn’t reach this far into the pyramid but without the great doors, the smoke
most
certainly would.

Without giving any orders
,
Pizarro
took off down the long
hallway
, gesturing for the rest of the group
to follow
his lead
.
He stopped at the entrance to count his followers as they emerged.
As they filed by him
,
he
caught sight of
Minco
and
Inguill
, limping along after his soldiers.

“I’m glad that you both made it,” he said
, his smile was now doing overtime
. “It’s good that we managed to destroy the statue in time.”

“Get out of our
damn
way,” Minco snarled back. “And don’
t forget we still need to have that
little talk about you just watching me fight Taipi.” The look
he gave
told
Pizarro
everything
that he had suspected.

T
he
Incan was not going to let this go.

*****

The bottom of the
long
passageway was littered with
a mass of
rotting
bodies. There was no space to get around them
,
so they
all
had
no choice but
to
clamber
over them to get out of the pyramid
. The fear was clear in
each
one of
the soldiers
’
eyes as they crunched and slid their way over the
scores of
rotting
corpses
. The hole that
the undead made in the
fallen
doorway had been
completely
blocked
with carcasses, so that
they had to be dragged
, one by one,
out of the way to
make a
gap
large enough
for
them
all to get through.

As
soon as
they got
to
out
side
of the
pyramid,
they saw
that
the sky was already full of s
moke. The dry and dusty buildings
of Huacas
were
more than half ablaze.
It seemed
the fires Minco had set earlier to attract the beasts had
spread rather than dying down and at
the rate it was moving
,
it would not be long before even the pyramid was
surrounded by flames every bit
as hungry as the undead
had been
.

“Everyone, h
ead straight for the gates,”
Pizarro
called out
as he surveyed the damage
. “Don’t stop
for anything
until you are outside
the city gates
.
We’ll meet up there.
”

In
silence,
the group walked
quickly
towards the exit,
stepping round bodies where they could, clambering over them where they could not. Minco felt a
small slice of
grim satisfaction that there would be no need for a burial detail. A
mass cremation was already taking
place.

As they reached the outside
gates,
they
all
turned to look on as
the flames
slowly d
evoured this place
of evil
.
It somehow seemed a fitting end to this dark place.

Inguill
slipped her hand into
Minco’s
and held on tight
. “This is
all
good
news
,” she said
with a look of content on her face
. “
Now that the
city
is
at last
destroyed
,
no one can
ever
use it
s evil powers
again.
We’ll be free of
its curse
forever
.
”
Minco smiled at her and
gladly
returned her
strong
grip
.

“Come on my love,” she said. “Let
u
s go home.”
Minco felt tears of relief once more threatening to spill out to his cheeks and he pulled Inguill
tightly against
him, kissing her forehead
.
He held them back, this was not a feeling he felt comfortable with.

Almost as one, the survivors of Cuzco,
conquerors of Huacas
,
slowly
turned
away
from
the fire
and walked down the path and onto the road
back
to the capital
.

20
- The r
eturn
to
Cuzco

It was a
long,
strange journey
back to the capital
.
As they marched
along the
once busy
road
,
n
othing moved in the jungle
around them
and no sounds could be heard
. It seemed that
like Huacas
,
e
ven the birds and animals had long
since
abandoned this place.

Masses of b
odies lay all along
all
the paths and roads
they came across
. The survivors
could
n
o
t help but stare at the
array of
half-eaten
men, women and children
.
Once or twice
, a living
person was
seen
creeping out of
the jungle
. S
ome
how
,
they
had managed to keep
themselves hidden
away
from the undead and now they were timidly
and slowly
emerging
from their hiding
places,
as they heard the shouts
of rejoice
that the army of Supay had
finally been vanquished
.
A
l
though they
had
managed to stay
alive
, the shock and sadness were
still
etched all over their faces.

A
few hours after they left Huacas,
Minco stopped in his tracks and watched as
a single
middle-aged
man dropped to his knees by the bodies of two
young
c
hildren. He could see that t
hey had
recently
been turned
, for
as
their mouths were still covered in dried
and caked in
blood. The man held
the little girls
in his arms and
sobbed inconsolably, crying
out
, pleading
to the
power of the
g
ods
as he rocked them gently. Minco
could
not feel sorry
for this man. He only felt
deep
disgust
rising up from
the pit of
his stomach
.
How
could
a father
just
stay hidden
away in a hole while
his children
were
unsafe?
He wanted to strike the man down but as his hand moved to the handle of his
axe;
Inguill
gently
placed her
own
hand on his.

“
Please
, Minco
.
There
has
been
more than
enough
bloodshed
these last few days
. His
sorrow and
eternal
shame
will
be his punishment
, and he is welcome to it
.”

R
eluctantly
,
Minco
let go of his axe
and carried on walking. Inguill thought
the man w
ould never know how close he had
just
come
to joining his children
in death
.
Minco’s
foul
mood
had
n
o
t improved when
Pizarro
came
up
to the front to join him.

“Don’t forget your promise
,
Incan,” the Spaniard
said clearly enough
for everyone
around
to
hear. “The gold is to be mine
. I helped you get rid of this curse
and
now you
must keep your end
of the bargain.”

“Do not presume
to tell me my duty,” Minco said
,
his eyes
not meeting
with
Pizarro
’s greedy gaze
. Trust
me;
y
ou
wi
ll
soon
have
all
the
gold
that
you crave
so dearly
.”

Pizarro
slowed
his pace
down
and
looked
distrustfully
at Minco
.
Even after
he had given
his word
,
Pizarro
was
still n
o
t
entirely
sure
he could trust the Incan
.
Especially
not
now
,
considering that he
had left the man
to fight the High P
riest
all
alone.
Only
a few
of his
men
had been
left
alive
and his
erstwhile
hostage was back at Cuzco
, now
in the hands of Minco’s men
. He needed some more assurance
that
he would be getting his gold
,
so he
decided
to
go back down the line and
talk to Yupanqui, the Kings
younger
brother.

Inguill’s dark eyes shifted to Minco once the Spaniard had fallen back into line and out of earshot.
“Are you going to let him have the
gold
?
”

“If it was
my decision to make, then
it would be a
no,” he replied. “
Unfortunately, the decision must be left
to the King. I just hope he realises that even though
it was
Taipi
that
raised the dead
,
it was
prompted by
all
the trouble the Spaniards caused.
We need the King to make the right decision, and I pray that he gives me the call.
”

Inguill looked back
at
Pizarro
as he laughed and chatted amongst the others
.
The
sight made
her
cringe.
She too hoped the King would
come to
the right decision
.

*****

As they made their way home
,
scores of refugees who were afraid to travel alone to the capital joined them;
they seemed to need the protection of the soldiers
.
In less than a day
and a night
, they had gathered two hundred or more people along the way
.

The journey got even stranger.
The people
they collected
sang songs of victory
as they walked along
but
they
somehow felt
nothing more than
hollow to both Minco and Inguill. They had seen far too much death
and destruction
t
o feel any
kind of
happiness. Minco
thought
long and hard
about what was left of the
mighty
E
mpire. M
ost of its soldiers had been
called to Cuzco
even
before the beasts attacked. There were probably less than a thousand men left and they were spread throughout the
vast
empire
in
various towns and garrisons.
The Empire still had a few enemies and their present weakness might just be the opening they after. He needed to get the army back up to strength- somehow.

Inguill
also thought about
the future
, her future
. S
he
knew
she
would have much to do
.
There were
so
many souls to pray for and thousands of family members to help
get
through
their grief.
She
did not know how she could answer their questions, chief among them, how
their gods could
have
even
allowed this
nightmare
to occur
. Although s
he did not have
the answer
s,
she still held
enough
faith
to know
that there must have been
a reason.

E
ven the great
Pizarro
had
more than his fair share of
worries.
H
owever
,
h
e was certain that one way or the other
,
he w
as
soon
going to have
all the gold that he
would ever
need.
And
he was prepared to make it certain that
no one
would
get in his way.

*****

T
hey could not cross the ravine by the bridge
, and the tree had long since fallen
away
, so
nearly another full day
was
added onto their journey.
Minco sent
some freshly recruited
runners ahead to spread the news of their victory. He wanted to get things to get back to normal as quickly as
possibl
e
. The
Incan
people needed to get
back
to
the normalcy
of
work too.
T
here would
be little
time
available
for grieving
, there was far too much to be done
.

The nights
the survivors
spent in the jungle did not bring much sleep
and for those who did, the nightmares of recent events soon had them screaming themselves awake again, staring with wide, dark-rimmed eyes at the campfires.

“We
both
need to speak to the King as soon as we get back,” Inguill said
as she and
Minco
lay
huddled around a little fire of their own
making
. “
Things must change.
I
will not spend my life the way we were
.”

Minco
looked
puzzled. “What
do you mean
?”

“I will no longer live
my life like
a lie,” she
said, looking resolutely
into his eyes. “Our love must be open
for all to see
. I
no longer
care what the
law says
. I want to hold you and kiss you
whenever
I can.
”

Minco
could not help but
smile. “That sounds good,” he whispered. “You won’t get any argument from me.”
They
held each other tightly,
taking
so much
comfort in one another
.

*****

As the
procession
c
rested the last
hill and
the
city came into
view
, none of them
felt much
joy
or relief
in
their hearts. The
sight
that
w
ould once have brought great happiness
, however
now
was
just
a
nother
scene of
mindless
slaughter and death.
Outside its
mighty
walls
,
a sea of white
lay where the grass should have been. No one guessed what it could be until they got close. When the people event
ually recognised it, there was a chorus of barely
choked sobs and
wild
wails of despair amongst them.