Chris Blake - Mohican Brave

Gladiator Clash

Knight Quest

Viking Raiders

Greek Warriors

Pirate Mutiny

Egyptian Curse

Cowboy Showdown

Samurai Assassin

Outback Outlaw

Stone Age Rampage

Mohican Brave

Aztec Attack

For games, competitions and more visit:

www.time-hunters.com

With special thanks to Lisa Fieldler

Cover

Title Page Time Hunters: Mohican Brave Chris Blake

Dedication With special thanks to Lisa Fieldler

Prologue

Chapter 1: Harvest Time

Chapter 2: Deer Hunter

Chapter 3: Rising Sun

Chapter 4: Wigwam Welcome

Chapter 5: Gone Fishin’

Chapter 6: War Dance

Chapter 7: Snowed In

Chapter 8: Tomahawk Terror

Chapter 9: Sweating It Out

Chapter 10: Trick or Treat

Who Were the Mightiest Mohican Braves?

Weapons

Mohican Brave Timeline

Time Hunters Timeline

Fantastic Facts

The Hunt Continues …

Discover A New Time Hunters Quest!

Copyright

About the Publisher

As far as Zuma was concerned, there were only two good things about being a human sacrifice. One was the lovely black pendant the tribal elders had given her to wear. The other was the little Chihuahua dog the high priest had just placed next to her.

I’ve always wanted a pet , thought Zuma, as the trembling pup snuggled up close. Though this does seem like an extreme way to get one .

Zuma lay on an altar at the top of the Great Pyramid. In honour of the mighty Aztec rain god, Tlaloc, she’d been painted bright blue and wore a feathered headdress.

The entire village had turned out to watch the slave girl being sacrificed in exchange for plentiful rainfall and a good harvest. She could see her master strutting in the crowd below, proud to have supplied the slave for today’s sacrifice. He looked a little relieved too. And Zuma couldn’t blame him. As slaves went, she was a troublesome one, always trying to run away. But she couldn’t help it – her greatest dream was to be free!

Zuma had spent the entire ten years of her life in slavery, and she was sick of it. She knew she should be honoured to be a sacrifice, but she had a much better plan – to escape!

“Besides,” she said, frowning at her painted skin, “blue is not my colour!”

“Hush, slave!” said the high priest, Acalan, his face hidden by a jade mask. “The ceremony is about to begin.” He raised his knife in the air.

“Shame I’ll be missing it,” said Zuma. “Tell Tlaloc I’d like to take a rain check.” As the priest lowered the knife, she pulled up her knees and kicked him hard in the stomach with both feet.

“ Oof! ” The priest doubled over, clutching his belly. The blade clattered to the floor.

Zuma rolled off the altar, dodging the other priests, who fell over each other in their attempts to catch her. One priest jumped into her path, but the little Chihuahua dog sank his teeth into the man’s ankle. As the priest howled in pain, Zuma whistled to the dog.

“Nice work, doggie!” she said. “I’m getting out of here and you’re coming with me!” She scooped him up and dashed down the steps of the pyramid.

“Grab her!” groaned the high priest from above.

Many hands reached out to catch the slave girl, but Zuma was fast and determined. She bolted towards the jungle bordering the pyramid. Charging into the cool green leaves, she ran until she could no longer hear the shouts of the crowd.

“We did it,” she said to the dog. “We’re free!”

As she spoke, the sky erupted in a loud rumble of thunder, making the dog yelp. “Thunder’s nothing to be scared of,” said Zuma.

“Don’t be so sure about that!” came a deep voice above her.

Zuma looked up to see a creature with blue skin and long, sharp fangs, like a jaguar. He carried a wooden drum and wore a feathered headdress, just like Zuma’s.

She knew at once who it was. “Tlaloc!” she gasped.

The rain god’s bulging eyes glared down at her. “You have dishonoured me!” he bellowed. “No sacrifice has ever escaped before!”

“Really? I’m the first?” Zuma beamed with pride, but the feeling didn’t last long. Tlaloc’s scowl was too scary. “I’m sorry!” she said quietly. “I just wanted to be free.”

“You will never be free!” Tlaloc hissed. “Unless you can escape again …”

Tlaloc banged his drum, and thunder rolled through the jungle.

He pounded the drum a second time, and thick black clouds gathered high above the treetops.

“This isn’t looking good,” Zuma whispered. Holding the dog tightly, she closed her eyes.

On the third deafening drum roll, the jungle floor began to shake and a powerful force tugged at Zuma. She felt her whole body being swallowed up inside … the drum!

“How many apples do we need to make a crumble?” asked Tom. He was perched on a branch of the apple tree that grew in their back garden.

His mother, who was busy raking brown and gold leaves into a pile, looked in the basket at the base of the tree. “That’s plenty!” she said.

“Good. Then this one is mine!” said Tom, picking a ripe apple from the tree and sinking his teeth into it with a loud crunch.

“I guess harvesting is hungry work,” his mum said with a smile.

“Tell me about it!” Zuma sighed. She was stretched out on her stomach in the grass, watching Tom pick the fruit. “When I was a slave my master had acres of crops. And guess whose job it was to pick everything? Mine! But I wasn’t allowed to eat anything.”

Tom’s mother couldn’t hear Zuma – or see her, either. Nobody except Tom could hear or see Zuma when they weren’t on an adventure.

It was still hard for Tom to believe that his friend had lived hundreds of years earlier in ancient Mexico. He had accidentally freed the Aztec slave girl and her feisty dog, Chilli, from their imprisonment in a drum that he’d found in his father’s museum. Since then, they had been travelling through time together in search of six golden sun coins that would buy Zuma her freedom. So far they had found four of them.

Zuma reached over to the compost heap and plucked a steak bone from the pile. Chilli sat up on his haunches, panting happily. Zuma tossed him the bone. The Chihuahua caught it in his teeth, chewed it a bit, then began digging a hole to bury it in. Clumps of grass and dirt flew up everywhere. He nearly choked on his apple when Mum’s rake brushed dangerously close to Chilli’s bottom. She couldn’t see the little dog, either.

Mum stopped raking and frowned at the dirt on her otherwise tidy lawn. “Where are all these holes coming from?” she wondered aloud.