Dirk van den Boom - The Emperor's Men 8 - Stormy Heavens

Copyright © 2021 by Atlantis Verlag Guido Latz,

Bergstraße 34, 52222 Stolberg (Germany)

Cover © Timo Kümmel

Editor: Rob Bignell

eBook Production: André Piotrowski

ISBN 978-3-86402-787-1

www.atlantis-verlag.de

Aritomo’s right hand trembled. It was sticky with blood and stank. He had to make an effort not to drop the knife. The man in front of him gurgled. The blood poured out of the cut carotid artery with force, the metallic smell was numbing. The man winced again, his legs hit the ground, his heels scraped the dusty floor, then he lay still.

Aritomo dropped his right hand. Once again, a conscious decision was necessary not to let the knife’s slippery handle fall out of your hand. The dead man in front of him had a contorted expression that relaxed slowly.

Steps from the outside. Then another man stood in the doorway. He did not attack, did not assault sleepers in the dark of the night, did not try to kill him with a murder instrument reminiscent of a garotte. One of the guards. One of the good guys. Aritomo felt the relief as it flowed through his body and finally washed the knife from his hand. It fell to the ground, and both men’s eyes were on the corpse for a moment.

“My lord Aritomo Hara!”

“Here,” said the latter in a weak voice and took a step back toward the place from where he’d just been brutally woken. He wasn’t feeling well. Not good at all.

“Are you unharmed?”

The Japanese involuntarily grabbed his neck and touched the thin graze. He was hurt, but it would heal. His quick reaction had saved him from worse. Death had to wait, at least tonight. His demise had come very, very close to him, however, and his cold breath made him shiver all over despite the warm night.

“I’m okay. Are there more?”

“He was the only one.”

The Mayan warrior stood waiting in the room, looked down at the dead man again, whose outline could be seen well in the glow of the torch that the guard was holding in the air.

“I know this man. He is a servant of Xicoc, a man who belongs to the court. The King must know about it!”

A statement uttered without any significant emotion. As if he hadn’t expected anything else. Aritomo looked at his right hand, drying red, and moved his fingers as if he had to find out whether they could still be moved despite the sticky covering.

“Yes,” said Aritomo softly. “But he should be taken away.”

“I will take care of that. My lord …”

“What?”

Aritomo’s response was more rash than expected, but the warrior didn’t seem to take it badly.

“The security guard in front of the house … your companion … he’s dead.”

Aritomo took a deep breath. He had feared it. There was no other explanation for this incident. He didn’t want to look at the victim, but he had to.

“Show me.”

The warrior lead the way. Aritomo climbed over the body, felt his bare feet get wet with the blood, and followed outside. The house had been made available to the time travelers so that they could finally escape the tightness of the boat. They had organized security themselves, but apparently had not expected to be attacked on friendly ground just a week after their move.

Hubris was the right word for this. And as always, hubris was quickly punished.

Aritomo finally faced the dead man, and conflicting feelings tortured him. Of course, he knew the man by name, a sailor named Kato, a simple, an obedient soldier. His neck showed deep wounds where the garotte had overpowered him, his tongue hung out of his mouth, and his eyes were wide open. Aritomo leaned down and closed his eyelids. They were so few, so terribly few. Every dead crew member was an irreplaceable loss.

Aritomo also felt unfairly treated. An absurd, almost silly emotion, but yes – here in Mutal they were the honored guests who had saved the city from its enemies and who would increase it’s might to an unprecedented level. And here an assassin sneaked in, just to kill him, Aritomo, in a very targeted manner. The man who continually tried to balance Captain Inugami, the man who perceived the Mayans as primitive savages, not as a civilization with which they had to come to terms, a man who did not want them to perish in the maelstrom of history.

Aritomo was the good one. He would not have been surprised to see an attack on Inugami.

But he. Why he? It was definitely not fair.

It also showed him that there was a significant difference in the way he saw himself and how he was seen from the outside. For this assassin here, he was just one of the messengers of the gods who unbalanced everything and questioned the traditional order and tradition – a dangerous course of action, since they would inevitably bring down the wrath of the gods on them, gods to whom these messengers did not seem to pray at all.

Aritomo hadn’t noticed. He hadn’t suspected anything. He had been carefree, stupid, naive, blinded, and thus of dangerous negligence, unworthy behavior for an officer in the Imperial Japanese fleet.

There must have been a change of mood, somewhere beneath the surface of submissive kindness, constant respect, the rush to fulfill the wishes of the visitors. It must have become too much for someone. Aritomo knew that this was the case with the King of Mutal, the young Chitam. But would he provoke someone, of all people, to kill him, the first officer of the strange boat – and with him the voice of reason that had so far been able to prevent decisions that were to the detriment of the Maya?

No, that made absolutely no sense. Someone else must have taken the initiative, a traditionalist who saw Chitam for no more than the puppet Inugami actually intended to make him. Someone who did not differentiate, but saw the threat equally manifest in all messengers. It had to be that way.

Other crew members of the boat were now awake, came outside, rubbed their eyes, asked questions loudly, then fell silent when they saw the body of their comrade and the first officer as he leaned over and stared into the void. The Mayan warriors also had gathered, somewhat apart, in their own group, and they looked guilty. However the assassin had managed to get so close to the messengers’ quarters, it was quite likely that he had received help.

Probably with the involvement of one of the guards.

Aritomo looked up, glanced at the Mayan warriors, and felt suspicion and fear spread through him. He knew which way he would follow if he gave these feelings too much room. It was the path that would lead him firmly to Inugami’s side, not just driven by fantasies of omnipotence and delusions of grandeur but by constant fear, the need for security, and the false assumption that more and more power would fulfill that desire.

It was an illusion, Aritomo was sure of that. Here, at this time, in all its apparent superiority, this fact had just been effectively demonstrated.

“Lord, we have sent a messenger to the King,” one of the Maya said to him.

Aritomo nodded. “That’s good,” he said softly. He waved two more of his sailors, pointing to the dead body in front of them. “Take him with you. Clean his body and prepare him for a funeral. I’ll conduct the ceremony myself.”

Aritomo didn’t even know if he could keep that promise. That was another point that they had never thought about before. The wealthy Maya, men and women of nobility and high priests, gained renown from elaborate tombs to entire temple buildings for the kings. Simple Maya had to be content with simple burials, not for eternity but forgotten and lost as soon as their next of kin also found death.