Matthew Reilly - Temple

Positioned directly in front of the enormous wooden gate was a large flatbed wagon drawn by two horses who faced in toward the city, away from the gate itself. Mounted on the back of this wagon was a sizeable cannon pointed in the other direction.

Nearer to us, at the base of the building on which we now sat, stood about thirty miserable-looking Incan prisoners. A long length of black rope was threaded through the steel manacles that each prisoner wore around his wrists, binding all of them together in a long dejected row.

‘What are we going to do now?’ I inquired of Renco anxiously.

‘We’re leaving.’

‘How?’

‘Through there,’ said he, indicating the gate on the far side of the plaza.

‘What about the sewer entrance?’ said I, thinking it to be the most obvious escape route.

‘A thief never uses the same entrance twice,’ said Hassario. ‘At least, not once he has been detected. Isn’t that right, prince?’

‘Correct,’ said Renco.

I turned to appraise the criminal Bassario. He was in fact a rather handsome man, despite his grimy appearance. And he smiled broadly, his eyes twinkling—the smile of a man happy to be part of an adventure. I could not say that I shared his joy.

Now Renco began to rummage through his quiver. He pulled out some arrows whose points had been wrapped in cloth, creating round bulbous heads.

‘Good,’ said he, looking about himself and finding a lighted torch hanging on a nearby wall. ‘Very good.’

‘What are you planning to do?’ I inquired.

Renco did not appear to hear me. He merely stared out at three horses standing unattended on the far side of the plaza.

‘Renco,’ I pressed, ‘what are you planning to do?’

At which point Renco turned to face me and a wry smile crossed his face.

I stepped out into the wideopen plaza with my hands folded inside my saturated monk’s cloak, my sodden hood pulled low over my wet hair.

I kept my head bowed as I crossed the plaza—stepping deftly aside as clusters of soldiers ran past me, ducking quickly as horses wheeled about in my direction desperate not to sport any attention.

Renco guessed that the soldiers in the plaza would not yet know that a renegade Spanish monk—me—was aiding the Incan raiding party.

As such, so long as they did not notice my soggy clothing, I should be able to get near the three unattended horses and bring them over to a nearby alleyway where Renco and Bassario could mount them.

But first I had to clear a passage to the gate, which meant getting the flatbed wagon with the cannon on it out of our path. That task would be harder. It required that I ‘accidentally’ scare the two horses harnessed to the wagon.

Thus I carried concealed within my sleeve one of Renco’s sharply pointed arrows, ready to—God forgive me—surreptitiously jab one of the poor creatures as I walked past them.

I crossed the plaza slowly, careful to keep my eyes averted, not daring to lock eyes with anyone.

As in the other plazas around the city, this one had stakes driven into the ground all around it. Severed heads were impaled upon them. The blood on the heads was fresh and it trickled down the stakes to the ground. My fear was extreme as I passed them—such would be my fate if I didn’t get out of Cuzco soon.

The gate came into my view and with it the flatbed wagon that stood in front of it. I saw the horses and tightened my grip on the arrow inside my sleeve. Two more steps and-

‘Hey! You!’ barked a coarse voice from somewhere behind me.

I froze. Did not look up.

A large soldier with a pot belly stepped in front of me, so that he stood in between myself and the two horses. He wore his pointed conquistador’s helmet perfectly and his voice was laced with authority.

A senior soldier.

‘What are you doing here?’ said he and curtly

Said I, ‘I am sorry, so sorry… I was trapped in the city and I…’

‘Get back to your quarters. This isn’t a safe area. There are Indians in the city. We think they’re after the Captain’s idol.’

I couldn’t believe it. I was so close to my objective and now I was being turned away! I reluctantly made to leave when suddenly a strong hand landed on my shoulder.

‘A moment, monk—’ the soldier began. But he cut himself off abruptly as he felt the dampness of my cloak.

‘What the-.’

Just then, a sharp whistling sound filled the air around me and then—thwack!—an arrow smacked into the big soldier’s face, shattering his nose, causing an explosion of blood that splattered all over my face.

The soldier dropped like a stone. The other soldiers in the plaza saw him fall and whirled about, searching for the source of the danger.

Suddenly a second whistling sound filled the air, and this time a flaming arrow flew down from one of the darkened rooftops surrounding the plaza and shot low over the flatbed wagon in front of me and slammed hard into the big wooden gate behind it.

Shouts filled the air as the conquistadors opened fire on the shadowed source of the arrows.

I, however, was looking at something else entirely.

I was looking at the cannon on top of the flatbed wagon, or more particularly, at the fuse protruding from the breech of the cannon on top of the flatbed wagon.

The fuse was alight.

The flaming arrow—I did not know at the time, but I understand now that it was Bassario who fired it—had been so well aimed that it had lit the fuse on the cannon!

I did not wait for what would happen next. I just ran for the three unattended horses as quickly as I could, for no sooner did I reach them than the cannon on the flatbed wagon went off.

It was the loudest noise I had ever heard in my life. A monstrous blast of such intensity and power that it shook the world under me.

A billowing cloud of smoke shot out from the cannon’s barrel and the big wooden gate in front of it snapped like a twig. When the smoke cleared before it, a gaping ten-foot hole could be seen in the lower half of the giant gate.

The horses harnessed to the flatbed wagon bolted at the sudden thunderous blast. They reared on their hind legs and took flight, galloping off into the alleyways of Cuzco, leaving the damaged gate wide open.

The three horses I had been charged with procuring reared too. One of them bolted and ran off, but the other two calmed quickly as I held them firmly by their reins.

The Spanish soldiers were still firing blindly up into the shadowy rooftops. I looked up into the darkness. Renco and Bassario were nowhere to be seen—

‘Monk!’ someone called suddenly from behind me.

I turned and saw Bassario come running up with his longbow in his hand.

‘Well, you couldn’t have fouled this up any more, could you, monk?’ said he with a smile as he leapt up into the saddle of one of my horses. ‘All you had to do was scare the horses.’

‘Where is Renco?’ I inquired.

‘He is coming,’ said Bassario.

Just then a series of shrill, angry screams swept across the plaza and I turned instantly—and saw the row of manacled Incan prisoners charge as one at the Spaniards in the plaza.

The Incans were free, no longer joined together by the long length of black rope!

Then suddenly, I heard a death scream and saw Renco up on one of the rooftops—standing over a fallen conquistador, hurriedly taking the fallen man’s pistol, while six more Spaniards hustled up the stairs on the side of the building, chasing after him.

Renco looked down at me and cried, ‘Alberto! Bassario!

The gate! Go for the gate!’

‘What about you!’ I called.

‘I’ll be right behind you!” Renco called back as he ducked under a musket shot. ‘Just go! Go!”

I leapt up into the saddle of the second horse.