Matthew Reilly - Temple

‘Warriors,’ said he and firmly, ‘man the boulder.’ The seven warriors and my humble self hurried over to the boulder that stood to the side of the temple’s yawning entryway. Renco stood in the mouth of the portal, dousing the idol with rainwater, causing it to continue its melodious song. The cats stood before him, staring at the singing idol, hypnotised. Renco took a step inside the temple. The cats followed him. Renco took another step down and the first cat went inside after him. Another step. A second cat, then a third, then a fourth. At which stage Renco tipped as much water as was left inside the llama’s bladder over the idol, and then—after taking a final solemn glance at his people’s most prized possession—he hurled it down into the dark depths of the temple. The cats leapt inside the temple after it. All twelve of them.

‘Quickly, the boulder!’ Renco cried, hurrying out of the temple’s entrance. ‘Push it back into the portal!’

We pushed as one. The boulder rumbled against the threshold. I leaned on it with all my might, straining against the weight of the great stone. Renco appeared beside me, also heaving against it. The boulder moved slowly back into the portal. A few more paces to go. Almost there… Just a couple.., more…

‘Renco,’ a voice said suddenly from somewhere nearby. It was a woman’s voice. Renco and I turned together. And we saw Lena standing at the edge of the clearing.

‘Lena?’ Renco said. ‘What are you doing up here? I thought I asked you to—’

At that moment, Lena was shoved roughly aside, thrown to the ground, and suddenly I saw a man standing on the stone steps behind her, and in that single, solitary instant, every ounce of blood in my veins turned to ice. I was looking at Hernando Pizarro. A stream of about twenty conquistadors poured out from the foliage behind Lena and spread out around the clearing, their muskets raised and pointed at our faces. The firelight of their torches illuminated the entire clearing. They were accompanied by three olive skinned natives who each had long, sharp spikes of bone protruding from their cheeks. Chancas. The Chanca trackers Hernando had employed to follow our trail to Vilcafor. Last of all—nay, most ominously of all—came another olive skinned man. He was taller than the others, bigger, with a long shock of matted black hair that came down to his shoulders. He also had a spike of bone thrust through his left cheek.

It was Castino. The brutish Chanca who had been in the same prison hulk as Renco at the beginning of our adventure, the one who had overheard Renco say that the idol was in the Coricancha in Cuzco. The conquistadors and the Chancas formed a wide circle around Renco, myself and the seven Incan warriors. It was then that I noticed how filthy they all looked. To a man, the conquistadors were covered in mud and grime. And they looked worn and exhausted, weary beyond measure. Whence I realised—this was all that remained of Hernando’s hundredstrong legion. On their march through the mountains and the forests, Hernando’s men had died all around him. From disease, from starvation, or just from sheer exhaustion. This was all that remained of his legion. Twenty men. Hernando stepped forward, yanking Lena to her feet as he did so. Dragging her behind him, he approached the temple and stood before Renco, staring imperiously down at him. Hernando was a full head taller than Renco and twice as broad. He shoved Lena roughly into Renco’s arms. For my part, I cast a fearful glance at the temple’s portal. It was still partially open, the gap between the boulder and the great stone doorway easily wide enough for a rapa to fit through. This was not good. If the water drained off the idol and it stopped its song, the rapas would break out of their spells and ‘At last we meet,’ said Hernando to Renco in Spanish.

‘You have evaded me for far too long, young prince. You will die slowly.’ Renco said nothing.

‘And you, monk,’ said Hernando, rounding on me. ‘You are a traitor to your country and to your God. You will die even more slowly.’

I swallowed back my fear. Hernando turned back to Renco. ‘The idol. Give it to me.’

Renco didn’t flinch. He just slowly reached into the pouch on his belt and extracted the false idol. Hernando’s eyes lit up as he saw it. If I didn’t know better, I would have sworn he began to salivate. ‘Give it to me,’ said he. Renco stepped forward. ‘On your knees.’ Slowly, despite the sheer humiliation that attended it, Renco knelt down and offered the idol to the standing Hernando. Hernando took it from him, his eyes gleaming with greed as he stared at his long sought after prize. After a few moments, he glanced up from the idol and turned to one of his men.

‘Sergeant,’ he said.

‘Yes, sir?” the sergeant standing nearest to him replied.

‘Execute them.’

My hands were bound together with a long length of rope. Renco’s were too. Lena was snatched away from Renco by two of the Spanish soldiers, and the two brutes goaded her with foul uttering’s of what they would do to her once Renco and I were dead, uttering’s which I dare not repeat here. Renco and I were made to kneel before a large rectangular stone in the middle of the clearing, a stone that looked like a low altar. The Spanish sergeant stood over me, his sabre drawn.

‘You, Chanca,’ said Hernando, tossing a sword to Castino. Ever since he had arrived in the clearing, the vile Chanca had been eyeing Renco with pure unadulterated hatred.

‘You may dispose of the prince.’

‘Gladly,’ said Castino in Spanish, catching the sword and marching quickly over to the altar stone.

‘Cut their hands off first,’ said Hernando judiciously. ‘I would like to hear them scream before they die.’

Our two executioners nodded as two more conquistadors pulled Renco and myself into position—yanking on our bonds so that our arms were stretched out across the wide altar. Our wrists were now totally exposed, our hands ready to be excised from our bodies.

“Alberto,’ said Renco softly.

‘Yes.’

‘My friend, before we die, I would like you to know that it has been an honour and a joy to have known you. What you have done for my people will be remembered for generations. For that I thank you.’

‘My brave friend,’ I replied, ‘if the circumstances were to repeat themselves, I would do it all again. May God look after you in heaven.’

‘And you too,’ said Renco.

‘And you too.’

‘Gentlemen,’ said Hernando to our executioners. ‘Remove their hands.’

The sergeant and the Chanca raised their glistening swords at the same time, raised them high above their heads.

‘Wait!’ someone called suddenly. At that moment, one of the other conquistadors hurried over to the altar. He appeared older than his fellow soldiers more grizzled—a wily old fox of a man. He ran directly over to Renco. He had spied the emerald pendant looped around my companion’s neck. The old conquistador quickly lifted the leather necklace over Renco’s head, smiling greedily at him as he did so.

‘Thank you, savage,’ he sneered as he placed the emerald pendant around his own neck and scurried back to his position over by the temple’s portal. Our two executioners looked over to Hernando for the signal. But strangely, Hernando wasn’t watching them anymore. In fact, he wasn’t even looking at Renco or myself either. He was just staring off to our right—at the temple—his mouth agape. I spun to see what it was he was looking at.

‘Oh, my Lord…’ I breathed. One of the rapas was standing in the half opened mouth of the portal, peering curiously at the assembled mass of humanity before it. It loomed large in the doorway—its powerful forelimbs splayed wide, its shoulders bunched with muscle—but its appearance at that moment was oddly comical, chiefly because it was holding something in its mouth. It was the idol. The real idol. The great black cat—previously so terrifying and vicious—now looked like a humble retriever bringing a stick back to its owner. Indeed, the rapa just held the idol dumbly in its mouth, as if it were looking for someone who might wet it again and thus make it sing. Hernando just gazed at the cat—or rather, at the idol that it held between its mighty jaws. And then, all of a sudden, his eyes swept from the rapa and the idol in its mouth to the idol that he held in his own hands, and from it to Renco and myself, a wash of understanding spreading across his face. He knew. He knew that he had been deceived. The big Spaniard’s face went red with fury as he glared at Renco and me.