Matthew Reilly - Temple

‘An interesting choice,’ remarked the criminal.

‘Well?’

The criminal Bassario stood. ‘Get me out of this hole.’

Renco immediately went to fetch a wooden ladder resting against the far wall.

For my part, I was worried about Hernando and his men.

They could arrive at any moment and here Renco was bar gaining with a convict! I hurried over to the door through which we had entered the prison hall. When I got there I peered around the stone doorframe—

—and saw the dark demon-like figure of Hernando Pizarro striding down the stairs toward me!

My blood curdled at the sight—the wild brown eyes, the hooked black moustache, the scraggly black beard that had not been shaved for weeks.

I whirled back inside the doorway and started running.

‘Renco!’

Renco had only just lowered the ladder into Bassario’s pit when he turned and saw the first Spanish soldier come charging into the prison hall behind me.

Renco’s hands moved quickly and in an instant he had his longbow raised with an arrow drawn back to his ear. He let fly with the missile and it streaked across the room, careering right for my head. I ducked and the arrow smacked into the forehead of the soldier behind me. His feet flew out from under him and he was thrown to the floor in a heavy heap.

I rushed out onto the network of stone bridges, ran quickly over the foul dungeon pits.

More conquistadors entered the prison hall behind me, Hernando among them, firing their muskets wildly.

By this time Bassario had emerged from his pit and now he and Renco were running across the wide section of dirt floor at the far end of the prison hall.

‘Alberto! This way!’ Renco called, pointing at the wide stone doorway at that end of the dungeon.

I saw the opening at the other end of the hall, saw a solid squared-off boulder suspended above it by a pulley-like mechanism. It wasn’t a big boulder—it was roughly the size of a man—and it was exactly the same size and shape as the doorway beneath it. Two taut lengths of rope held it above the doorway, each rope weighed down by stone counter weights, making it easier for the prison guards standing on the elevated guard-walk to raise and lower the boulder into the opening.

I ran for the door.

Whence I felt a terrible weight slam against my back and I was thrown forward. I fell heavily onto one of the narrow stone bridges and saw to my surprise that I had been pummeled from behind by a Spanish soldier!

He knelt astride my body, drew his dagger and was about to run me through when abruptly an arrow struck him in the chest. In fact the arrow hit the soldier with such force that it knocked his peaked steel helmet clear off his head and threw him bodily off the bridge and into the pit beneath us!

I looked down into the pit after him, only to see four bedraggled prisoners converge on him as one. I lost sight of the hapless soldier, but an instant later I heard a scream of the most utter and absolute terror. The starving prisoners in the pit were eating him alive.

I looked up just in time to see Renco slide to the ground next to me.

‘Come on!’ said he, grabbing my arm, pulling me to my feet.

I got up and saw that Bassario had arrived at the far doorway.

Musket fire rang out all around us, the rounds kicking up bright orange sparks as they bounced off the stone bridge beneath us.

Just then, a stray round hit one of the ropes that held the squared-off boulder suspended above the stone doorway at the far end of the hall.

With a sharp twang the rope snapped…

… and the boulder began to lower itself into the door way!

Beneath it, Bassario looked up in horror, then back at Renco.

‘No,’ Renco breathed as he saw the descending boulder.

The doorway—forty paces away from us, and the only way out of the dungeon—was being sealed up!

I evaluated the distance, took in the speed at which the boulder was grinding down into the square stone opening.

There was no way we could make it.

The doorway was too far away, the boulder descending too rapidly. In a few moments, we would be sealed inside the dungeon, trapped and at the mercy of my bloodthirsty countrymen who were at that very moment racing out onto the network of stone bridges behind us, firing their muskets.

Nothing could save us now.

Renco obviously did not see it that way.

Despite the roaring body of musketeers behind us, the young prince quickly looked about himself and spied the pointed steel helmet of the Spanish soldier who had fallen into the pit beneath me.

Renco dived for the helmet, grabbed it, and then turned and threw it side-handed, sliding it across the dusty floor of the dungeon toward the rapidly-closing doorway.

The helmet slid across the dirt floor, spinning laterally as it did so, its silver pointed peak glinting in the firelight.

The boulder in the doorway kept descending, grinding against the sides of the stone opening.

Three feet.

Two feet.

One foot.

At which moment the rapidlyspinning helmet slid into the threshold of the doorway and wedged itself perfectly in between the descending boulder and the dirt-covered floor, stopping the boulder’s downward movement! Now the thin boulder stood poised a bare foot above the floor, balanced on top of the helmet’s pointed steel peak!

I looked at Renco, astonished.

‘How did you do that?’ said I.

‘Never mind,’ said he. ‘Go!’

We ran off the bridge together and dashed across the wide section of dirt floor that led to the partially-open doorway— where Bassario stood waiting for us. In a dark corner of my mind, I wondered why Bassario hadn’t just run away while Renco was occupied saving me. Perhaps he thought he stood a better chance of survival staying with Renco. Or maybe there was some other reason…

Frighteningly loud musket fire rang out all around us as Renco dropped down onto his behind and slid feet-first through the narrow gap between the boulder and the floor.

My slide was somewhat less graceful. I dived headfirst onto the dust-covered floor and wriggled clumsily on my chest through the gap and out into a stonewalled tunnel on the other side.

I was getting to my feet just as Renco kicked the helmet out from under the boulder and the great squareshaped stone completed its sealing of the doorway with a loud whump.

I sighed, breathless.

We were safe. For the moment.

‘Come, we must hurry,’ said Renco. ‘It is time we farewelled this wretched city.’

Back in the alleyways. Running posthaste.

Renco led the way, with Bassario behind him and me last of all. At one point in our runnings, we came across a stockpile of Spanish weapons. Bassario took a longbow and a quiver full of arrows; Renco, a quiver, a rough leather satchel—into which he placed the idol—and a sword. For my own part, I took a long glistening sabre. For indeed, although I may be a humble monk, I hail from a family that has bred some of the finest fencers in all of Europe.

‘This way,’ said Renco, charging up a flight of stone steps.

We hurried up the stairs and came to a series of uneven roofs. Renco hastened out across the rooftops, hurdling low dividing walls, leaping across the small gaps between the different buildings.

Bassario and I followed until at last Renco fell to the ground, behind a low wall. His chest heaved as he breathed, rising and falling quickly.

He looked out over the low wall above him. I did the same. What I saw was this:

I beheld a wide cobblestone plaza filled with perhaps two dozen Spanish troops and as many horses. Some of the horses were freestanding, while others stood harnessed to a variety of wagons and carts.

On the far side of the plaza, set into the outer wall of the city, stood a large wooden gate. This gate, however, was not indigenous to Cuzco, but was rather an ugly appendage affixed to the city’s stone gateway by my countrymen after the city had been seized.