Matthew Reilly - Temple

‘Kill them!” he roared to our executioners. ‘Kill them now!’

It was at that exact moment that a myriad of things happened at once. Our executioners raised their swords again—reaimed at our necks now—and had just begun to bring their blades down in two great swinging arcs when abruptly a sharp whistling sound cut through the air above my head. Not a moment later, with a powerful thud, an arrow lodged itself in the nose of my executioner, sending a garish fountain of blood exploding from his face and hurling him clear off his feet. For its part, the rapa in the portal—after seeing the crowd of people standing in the clearing before it and sensing another tasty human meal—immediately dropped the idol from its mouth and leapt ferociously at the nearest Spaniard, not a moment before the eleven other rapas rushed out from within the temple one after the other after the other— and commenced their own attack on the crowd of conquistadors.

Castino had seen the other executioner drop to the ground beside him, struck by the arrow, and had momentarily halted his lunge at Renco’s neck, a look of stunned incomprehension on his face. I knew what he was thinking. Who had fired the arrow? And from where? Castino obviously decided he would answer these questions later, after he had killed Renco. He quickly raised his blade again and brought it down with tremendous force— whence another arrow slammed into his sword’s hilt and sent it flying from his grasp. Not a moment later, a third arrow whistled down from somewhere above us and struck the rope binding Renco’s hands together, cutting it cleanly in two, releasing him. Renco immediately leapt to his feet, just as Castino—now swordless—swung at him with one of his gigantic fists. Renco quickly yanked the conquistador who had been holding him to the altar in between himself and the oncoming blow, and Castino’s mighty knuckles hit the conquistador square in the face, shattering his nose in an instant, pummelling it into the back of his skull, killing him with a single blow! Just then another conquistador levelled his musket at Renco and fired at exactly the same time as Renco pivoted on the spot—bringing the dead conquistador around in front of him, using him as a shield—and the musket’s shot opened up a ragged red hole in the centre of the dead soldier’s chest. As Renco went off to join the fight, the conquistador holding my wrists across the altar drew his sword and glared at me with evil intent. But then faster than a man can blink—an arrowhead exploded out from the centre of his face and the conquistador flopped down onto the altar stone in front of me, facedown, an arrow sticking out from the back of his head. I looked up into the darkness beyond him, searching for the source of the arrows. And I saw him. Saw the figure of a man positioned up on the rim of the canyon. He was silhouetted against the moon, crouched on one knee with a longbow extended in the firing position and an arrow drawn back to his ear. It was Bassario! I gave a cheer, and then I immediately set about unravelling my bonds. It cannot be understated the carnage that was going on around me at this time. It was mayhem. Pure and utter mayhem. The clearing in front of the temple had become a battlefield—a ferocious, bloody battlefield. Fighting went on everywhere, in about a dozen separate battles. Over by the temple, the rapas had already killed five of the conquistadors, and now they were attacking four more Spaniards and their three Chanca trackers. Elsewhere in the clearing, the seven Incan warriors— avoided by the rapas due to the monkey urine that covered their bodies—fought with the remaining Spaniards. Some of them fell as the conquistadors fired their muskets into them, others hacked into their Spanish foes with rocks or stones or whatever weapons they could lay their hands on.

Despite all the murder and bloodshed that I had seen on my travels throughout New Spain, this was indeed the most brutal and primal example of combat that I had ever witnessed. Beside me, Renco and Castino had both picked up swords and were now engaged in the most ferocious of swordfights. Castino, taller than my brave companion by at least two heads, held his sword two handed and unleashed upon Renco a rain of powerful blows. But Renco parried well done handed, just as I had taught him—dancing backwards in the mud like a classical Spanish fencer, maintaining his balance as he retreated toward the foliage. As I finally released the rope from my left wrist and stood, I realised just what a keen student Renco had been. It was clear to me now that the pupil by far outclassed the teacher. His swordsmanship was dazzling. For every mighty blow that Castino threw at him, Renco would quickly bring up his sword—just in time to stop it. The two men’s swords clashed with ferocious intensity. Castino swung, Renco parried. Castino lunged, Renco danced. And then Castino unleashed a devilish blow, a blow so hard and swift that it would have taken the head off any ordinary man. But not Renco. His reflexes were too quick. He ducked under the blow and in the fleeting instant that followed, he leapt forward, up onto a low rock and launched himself into the air, negating the height difference between himself and Castino, his blade cutting through the air so swiftly it whistled, and before I even knew what was happening, I saw his sword embedded horizontally in the tree trunk behind Castino’s neck. Castino just stood there, his mouth hanging open, his eyes wide. A moment later, his sword dropped out of his hand. And then abruptly his entire body just dropped away from beneath his ugly head. Renco had cut his head clean off his shoulders!

I almost cheered. Which is to say I would have cheered, had I not had other things with which to deal. I spun to survey the battlefield around me. Small battles were still being waged all over the clearing—but the only obvious victors seemed to be the rapas. It was then that I saw the idol. The real idol. It lay on the threshold of the portal, tilted over onto its side, at the exact spot where it had fallen from the rapa’s mouth earlier. With the length of rope still tied to my right wrist—it was about two paces long—I grabbed a sword and a torch from the ground beside me and ran for the temple, through the clashing of blades and the screams of the ravaged conquistadors. I reached the portal and fell to the ground next to the idol, grabbed it just as one of the Spanish soldiers rammed into me from behind, bowling both of us in through the portal and into the temple! The two of us tumbled down a set of wide stone steps, down into the darkness of the temple, a tangled mix of arms, legs, idol and torch. We hit the bottom of the stairs and fell apart. We were inside a dark stonewalled tunnel of some sort. My foe clambered to his feet first so that he now stood against the wall, in front of a small alcove set into it. I was still sprawled out on the floor, flat on my behind, with the idol sitting in my lap. As the Spanish soldier stood over me, I saw the emerald necklace looped around his neck and I recognised him instantly. He was the wily older soldier who had relieved Renco of his priceless pendant earlier. The old fox drew his sword, raised it high. I was defenceless, completely exposed. At that moment, with an obscenely loud roar, something very large leapt over my head from behind and rammed into the conquistador at frightening speed. A rapa.

The cat hit the Spaniard with such colossal force that he was thrown back into the alcove behind him. His head struck the wall with the most sickening of sounds and just exploded, cracking like an egg, a foul spray of blood and brains shooting out from the hole that was instantaneously created in the back of his skull. The wily old soldier collapsed into the alcove, but he was well and truly dead by the time he reached the floor. The cat began to ravage him on the spot, its tail licking back and forth behind its body as it did so. I seized the moment, grabbed hold of the idol and charged back up the stairs, out of the temple. I burst out into the night, thankful to have escaped death once again. But my revelry was shortlived. No sooner was I out of the portal than I heard a sharp click click from somewhere behind me, followed quickly by a coarse shout of ‘Monk!’