David Gilman - Blood Sun

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 sacrificial 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.

The shaman recoiled, pulling back his hand as if burned, said something to the other men, who looked scared, and then took a step backward.

The boy spoke again. “He says you are a creature of power and that he must call on all the forces of the Vision Serpent to destroy you. He will take your heart and burn it. It is the only way your ch’ulel can be sent back to the otherworld.”

Max twisted his head, trying to appeal directly to the boy, wanting eye contact. “Don’t let him kill me! Come on, mate. Help me out here! Come on!”

“I cannot,” the boy said, lowering his face to Max’s. His mother’s pendant swung close to Max’s eyes. Max struggled, but the men held him firmly. It couldn’t end like this!

“Your mother came here, by mistake. She was going to join your father on the other side of the mountains. At the sea. Have you seen the ocean?”

“What?”

“I have never seen it. Your mother told me many stories about it. I was sick. Your mother helped me. I was only a boy.”

Max had to concentrate more than he ever had before. He had to understand what was going on-what had happened. This wasn’t a nightmare he was going to wake up from. This was moments before his own death.

Max cried out in despair and fear. He could not move a muscle. Now the men put their weight on his legs as he bucked again. The shaman said something to the boy, but he responded with a stinging reply, and the shaman obediently waited for the moment when he could plunge the knife into Max and cut out his heart.

“My mother! Tell me!” Max begged.

“Before the people came here and took the children’s parents away, everyone lived together. We are the last royal family of the Maya. We are descendants of the great kings. Many of those warriors do not belong in this valley. They were brought here by the outsiders. They made us their prisoners. It is because our people have something in our blood these men want.”

The boy gazed away across the darkening sky, as if seeking a way for his memories to escape. He quickly slipped the pendant over his head and curled it into Max’s open palm, his wrist held tight by the shaman’s henchmen.

“Your mother got sick. She saved me, but we could not save her. There was a white man here, the one who controlled everything. He had a helicopter, but he would not take your mother. He left her to die. He did not want her to speak of him. Two of our people took her through the Cave of the Stone Serpent, but only one survived. Your mother told us that if we could find your father, he would get her to a doctor.”

“My father?” Tears welled in Max’s eyes.

The boy nodded. “She said he was beyond the mountains. Your father carried her for days through the jungle. He ran until he could run no more. At the place where the white stone stands at the ocean. That is where he buried her. That is all we know.”

Dad ran. He ran to save her! Farentino lied! I got it wrong. Dad had run to save her !

The boy touched Max’s forehead. “It is the time we call blood sun, when the sacrifice must be made. Go to your mother. She is waiting for you in the otherworld. Do not be afraid.” He stepped back.

This was it.

The shaman raised the knife, the light glinting on the blade; a wave of sound came from below as the children, Flint and Xavier screamed for Max’s life.

Max lifted his head. Tears stung his eyes. He gripped the pendant until it cut into his skin. Mum, Dad. I’m sorry! Please help me . Then that moment of pure love and desperate fear deserted him.

Anger erupted like a volcano unleashing its power. He would not die like a lamb; he would not show how scared he was-he wouldn’t! He would leave them with the foul taste of a curse in their superstitious lives. Thunder rolled around the mountain peaks. The air was still. He sucked in a lungful and spoke each word with as much force as he could muster. “I am wayob ! I am Eagle-Jaguar! And my father will kill you all!” he snarled.

He spat as hard as he could into the shaman’s face. The shaman’s head snapped back, blood splattered the group and the guards released their grip.

The sacrificial priest was dead.

Riga lowered the rifle. No one but him was going to kill Max Gordon, and the kid deserved a better death than having his heart cut out or getting a long-range bullet through the head. The gunshot had been swallowed by the rolling thunder and torrential streams that splashed down the hillsides. Riga moved; his injured leg slowed him down, but he had figured out that Max had only one escape route.