The Usurper

by James Alderdice

  The old man shook his head. “They still need a vessel to touch our world. Evil men, would want that,” he said, pointing at the idol of Coatlicue. “It is a bell to wake them. If they could take it down into depths to wake the Blood Gods, they would. The only reason my son would have brought it here is because it was too dangerous to remain in the distant southern lands.”

  “You asking me to get rid of it?”

  The old man nodded. “My son is gone and my people have fallen. That is the reason you are here. To protect the way. To keep them asleep.”

  “You want me to throw it off a cliff? In a lake?”

  Chief shook his head. “No, they would find it and bring it here. You will take it to your headman, let him keep it safe. Then you return and keep the sacred fire safe. That is enough.”

  “Look, I got a lot of responsibilities, and I can’t be sitting in no cave the rest of my days. If someone has to tend the fire and the idol it should be your people . . .” Gathelaus realized he was talking about the old man’s dead son as if that were still a possibility, he felt bad and tried to change the subject. He laughed hoping to lighten the mood. “Hey! At least we got the idol right? They can’t use it now?”

  The old man shrugged again. “Let me show you the magical way of the old ones.” He beckoned for Gathelaus to come closer. He took hold of the jade idol of Coatlicue and rubbed his hand vigorously along the grooved white quartz base. A slight snapping of electricity and the very idol itself began to glow bright as a lantern.

  “That’s amazing,” exclaimed Gathelaus.

  “In elder days, many such items were in use in the lands of my birth. They were gifts from the gods. But this one is cursed and is only to be used to wake the Blood Gods.” He covered it in a deer hide and tucked it beside a cairn of stones. “This must be taken far away and hidden away.”

  Gathelaus rubbed his chin. “Sure, Chief. I could do that.”

  The old man nodded, quite pleased. “Then return and take up your watch as the keeper of the sacred flame.”

  “I told you, I can’t do that, Chief. I’ve got other responsibilities.”

  The old man shook his head in confusion. “Why else would the Great Spirit guide you here when my son was slain? You are the one to take possession of this honor.”

  Gathelaus frowned. He had a lot of duties and not a one of them included sitting in a cave like a damn hermit. “Look Chief . . .”

  The old man interrupted him, asking, “Are you sure it was Picts that killed the man that carried the idol?”

  “Sure, I’m sure,” answered Gathelaus.

  “Then who are they?” asked the old man, pointing out into the windswept moon-covered gloom.

  3. The Servants of Coatlicue

  Gathelaus glanced around the cavern wall and outside, he looked down the slope. At least a dozen tall lanky men, shadows taller than their souls, were approaching uphill through the snow. Three or four had long spears, the rest were armed with clubs, tomahawks and bows while the largest intruder had a full sized ax, though he was so big himself it looked like a tomahawk in his clenched fist.

  “They followed you,” said the old man, gravely.

  “Sorry, Chief.”

  “It’s all right. They would have found me eventually anyway.”

  Dark as it was, silver moonlight stole through the clouds and caught the swirling snows granting ghostly definition to the marauders, who didn’t look like Picts. They were dressed as alien as the dead man Gathelaus had found earlier that day; spotted jaguar pelts were wrapped about their loins while brightly colored feathers decorated their hair and copper armbands betrayed their foreign source. Once they knew they had been spotted they split in multiple directions, some disappearing into the frosty murk others remained as sentinels facing the cave. Their intent was murderously clear.

  One in a dark cloak called out in a language Gathelaus couldn’t fathom.

  The old man replied in the same tongue. Gathelaus still couldn’t understand a word but the old man’s message was clear enough. He told them off and they weren’t happy.

  The leader shouted something menacing again, then shrunk back into the shadows.

  “Who the hell is that?”

  “Ichtaca Eztli, he is the Blood Gods Brujo. He asks that I give up and put out the sacred flame, extinguish it. I told him—.”

  Gathelaus stopped him with a wave of his hand. “I know what you told him and I support you all the way. We had better get ready to throw down with ‘em.” He checked his pockets and felt the comfort of having four extra knives ready.

  “They mean to wake the Snake Goddess. There are more men out there than you can see. Might be more on their way here.”

  Gathelaus spat. “Sure hope you’ve got some supplies in here so we can wait them out. At least the bitter cold is on our side.”

  “They won’t wait. They come for blood,” said the old man, solemnly.

  “I was afraid you’d say that.” Gathelaus checked his two swords then motioned to his boar spear. “Man that spear, Chief. If they rush us you can get at least one or two, I’m sure.”

  The old man took the spear in hand. It was a long weapon with a flanged neck that Gathelaus had bartered from a veteran of the Vjornish battalion. He hadn’t used it much yet but it would sure do the trick.

  The wind howled outside the cavern. Gathelaus expected to hear the cry of attack, the unnerving yipping and yowling of braves on the warpath, but instead there was no sound but the mournful wind.

  “What are they waiting for?”

  “Ichtaca Eztli is wise as a serpent and he waits for our nerve to drop so that his men may attack us unexpectedly.”

  Gathelaus grimaced but kept both swords in hand. His mare nickered. He responded to her, “It might get loud, Hoss. You gotta have some patience too.” The storm seemed to have passed but the roiling skies with pinpricks of stars overhead only made it all the colder. Not to mention that the wailing wind hadn’t let up either. It seemed like over an hour had passed and the fire was starting to die down. Then Gathelaus said, “And you said they wouldn’t wait.”

  “I just meant that my supplies wouldn’t matter for this confrontation. It will be decided by morning.”

  “Maybe you ought to let that fire go out, they won’t be able to see us too well in here, if you think they’re coming before daybreak.”

  The old man shook his head, though he never took his eyes away from the threshold. “I must keep the fire burning. The evil ones must be held at bay.”

  Gathelaus cursed under his breath, but accepted that the old man had to do whatever he set his mind too. The old man had lived out here as a hermit shaman for who knew how long anyway?

  The wind ripped a freezing blast into the cavern, hushing the fire dangerously low. The coals flared bright red while the flames themselves vanished. The old man in a panic, put down the spear to cast more twigs and sage to the glaring embers. Smoke roiled up and the blaze snapped awake in a flickering yellow-orange dance accompanied by castanet-like snaps.

  Then warriors were at the entrance, first one, then another and another until their muscled tattooed bodies blockaded the cold light of the stars.

  The old man made a dash to grab the spear and lunge at the intruders, but arrows sprouted from his chest like pins in a cushion. He fell backward over a cairn of stones.

  Gathelaus slashed with both swords and took down the bowman assassin as well as the warrior beside him. The chamber filled with a healthy gout of smoke and flame from the war cries and echoed at the throaty retort. A bow just beyond the border of the cavern sent arrows chaotically into the cave. Even a thrown knife smashed into the wall just above Gathelaus’s head.

  The mare’s scream echoed into the canyon as arrows ricocheted from the ceiling above. One shaft buried itself into the animal’s shoulder blade. Snorting and kicking in pain, it snapped its reins and dashed out into the night, carrying far too much of Gathelaus’s supplies with it.

  An awful cry of
triumph followed by the thwack of arrows and the horses screaming stopped somewhere out into the licking darkness.

  Gathelaus prepared to fight, though he no longer saw anyone. All was silent again as the grave again. Cold blackness beckoned like a spurned lover outside the flame-lit cavern. Gathelaus found it to be a curious paradox. He stood amidst swirling smoke and snow combined at the entrance, this was the juncture of cold and heat, flame and ice, life and death.

  Shallow breaths raced from the old man who was crumpled over a few paces from the fire. Gathelaus reached for the old man and laid him flat to examine his wounds.

  “Keep the flame burning,” the old man said, as blood welled at his lips and across his chest from the wicked shafts.

  “We got other worries, Chief. I’m outnumbered now, plus the horse ran off with the saddle bags of food. You haven’t bartered any have you? Out here as the shaman mystic?”

  The old man, coughed up blood, smiled and said, “I’ve been a fool many years but I recognize now that a new blood and people had to come here, had to hold back the darkness. My time is over. It is you and your people’s problem now. You must keep the Blood Gods asleep. You must keep them contained.”

  “No old man, you got time left. This is your job, not mine,” Gathelaus argued. But the old man’s spirit was wind-walking away up to the stars.

  A crunch of snow outside the cavern brought Gathelaus rearing up. He took the boar spear and cast it at the unseen opponent. A startled cry and the crumpled sound of groaning and tumbling down the hillside in the snow told Gathelaus he had hit someone.

  A deep throated voice called something infernal out in the vast palpable darkness, but Gathelaus had no idea what was said. A scuffle near the entrance made Gathelaus blink. Another rush was coming. He quickly drew his swords. He was ready when they came.

  War whoops shattered the silence. A barrage of arrows skittered into the dark and then men were inside the cavern.

  The titanic ax man, face splashed with black and white war-paint meant to resemble a deaths head, strode into the cavern. He swept his vicious weapon at Gathelaus’s head.

  Gathelaus lunged backward to avoid the death stroke. The ax head bit into the unforgiving stone wall and sparked as fragments chipped off.

  Rolling away from another blow, Gathelaus slashed twice, barely missing each time. He held off the attack, ready to stab forward. It had to count.

  A screeching wild man with bright feathers in his hair and raccoon-like eye makeup, loosed an arrow at Gathelaus but miraculously missed. Falling to his backside, Gathelaus lost his short sword and scooted away from another hammering blow of the ax man.

  As the wild man took another arrow from his quiver, Gathelaus turned the blow and slammed his own blade down. It split the wild man’s head like a canoe. But the blade stuck.

  Gathelaus had just enough time to duck as the ax man swung again.

  Another tattooed warrior was at the entrance, then another and another, tomahawks and bows in their skilled hands.

  Gathelaus grabbed the stew pot from beside the fire. He swung it up just in time to hit the ax man square in the chest as his own weapon hung perilously overhead. The blow threw the big ax man against the cave wall; he slumped down, leaving a ghastly red smear behind.

  Using the pot like a mace, Gathelaus swung and jellied the brains of the nearest attacker. He charged at the two warriors remaining in sight shouting like a man possessed.

  The two warriors at the door stared at their departed and ruined comrades and at the angered white man, they turned and fled into the night.

  Gathelaus chased after them into the darkness. They tumbled down the snowy embankment in a mad rush to escape his wrath.

  Then Gathelaus remembered he had lost his swords. He halted beside the sheer edge of the hillside, still watching the warriors retreat. He fumbled in his woolen pockets for a knife. When a sudden crunch in the snow behind him brought a crack to the skull and swift blackness on dreamy wings spun from spider-webs took him far, far away.

  Gathelaus fell twenty feet off the leeward side of the exposed cliff, right between two jutting fingers of stone.

  His opponents looked down at his body. He wasn’t moving.

  4. Blood Brujo

  Gathelaus awoke with his face terribly cold. He was face down in pink snow. He slowly looked about and was relieved that most of the blood in the snow wasn’t his own. The man he had stabbed with the boar spear was broken atop one of two pillars of granite he had landed between. The boar spear lay mostly buried in eth snow beside the corpse. Thankfully there was quite a cushion of snow where Gathelaus had met the ground. It seemed his enemies believed him dead. His mare lay less than a hundred yards away with fields of hoar frost sprouting over her stiff body. The rosy finger of dawn was just teasing at the backside of the mountains, but Gathelaus couldn’t see any light issuing from the cavern above. At least he had the boar spear.

  He slowly perked his head up to look about for any foes. None it seemed were outside any longer and he listened a long while before moving. Far down and around the hillside, he saw more than a dozen picketed horses. One man lay nearby the animals as if on watch but Gathelaus guessed by the way he sat at a near dead fire that he was asleep.

  The others must be in the cavern going through the old man’s things. Not that there had appeared to be much that he could recollect. They must be after the idol and going into that sealed tunnel.

  Cold as he was, he needed a drink. He took a mouthful of snow and washed it down with his flask. He would get the jump on those men soon enough, but he needed more weapons. Scooting to his dead horse, he felt inside a saddle bag and grasped a long falcata. He reached in the saddle bags and also found the sacrificial obsidian knife from the dead man. Lighter and shorter than his favored blade, the knife was still a mean contender.

  Deciding he didn’t want anyone coming up behind him again, he slunk toward the lone sleeping guard with the horses. Stepping silently through the snow was difficult and the foreigner’s horses were suspicious of his bloody countenance. They knew their riders were tall dusky red men and this thing approaching looked more like a wild animal. The horses neighed and jostled and Gathelaus softly nickered back to them.

  Just as Gathelaus was almost upon the sleeper, the man’s eyes shot open. Gathelaus’s hand clamped over his mouth before he could yell, but the muted man drew a blade of black obsidian. They tumbled into the snow wrestling with their knives and sheer will. Gathelaus slammed the man into a tree trunk but lost his own footing and fell backward. The enraged guard was so intent on stabbing Gathelaus that he didn’t yell an alarm but lunged forward. Gathelaus rolled and caught his opponents’ arm and rolled over it bringing him into a deadly embrace on the ground. Still holding the arm with the knife with his own left, Gathelaus snapped the man’s neck between his right arm and right knee. He then placed the man near enough as he had been beside a tree, to look as if he still slept on his watch.

  He watched a long moment to be sure their tussle hadn’t been spotted. Still there was no motion or sound coming from the cavern, so Gathelaus sped over the bleak snowy distance back to the gaping socket-like entrance.

  As he neared the caverns mouth, he drew his blades and slowed his pace. There was no longer a sacred fire burning nor any other sound. Gathelaus crept through the entrance. Bloody drag marks went from the mouth to the cliff-face. The dead including the old man, had been drug out and tossed over the side of the cliff. Gathelaus would give the old man a respectable ceremony and internment once the matter at hand was dealt with.

  Inside the place was ransacked beyond what even the fight would have caused. Clearly the marauders had been looking for something and they found it. The deerskin beside the cairn was lying open and the idol was missing. The once sealed doorway was broken open, the stones and mortar cast aside.

  Gathelaus approached the doorway and looked into the stygian darkness. A fetid disagreeable reptilian smell slithered out. It was overwhelming. Tr
acks in the dust clearly showed that the men had ventured inside and followed the tunnel into the waiting abyss.

  Whatever these men hoped to accomplish was demonic. They had killed the innocent old man for it and would have killed Gathelaus had they been able too. Gathelaus resolved that while he wasn’t about to become the keeper of the sacred fire, he sure wasn’t going to let these servants of evil get away with disrespecting it. He stepped through the threshold.

  Inside was black as pitch and Gathelaus couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. The air however was hot, fetid and uncomfortable, almost as if something was breathing directly in front of his face. He stepped careful and felt his way along the gloom. The tunnel abruptly sloped downward, and no hand holds were readily apparent. He had to turn back.

  The light of day beckoned somewhere far behind; it seemed a mile away and even with that guide Gathelaus tripped a number of times on invisible stones and once, something else that moved beneath his boot. Whatever it was clawed at his foot but could do nothing against the thick ox hide and moved on.

  Back in the original chamber Gathelaus found a wand of sage and the sacred pipe that old man had smoked. By fashioning a smoldering wand of sage to the pipe and blowing when needed, he was able to fashion a dim orange light. He wanted to keep it dim so that his lighted approach wouldn’t give himself away to the servants of Coatlicue.

  With the dim orange glow, Gathelaus could watch his step. Whatever was alive that he had stepped on a few moments before was gone now. He wondered if it had been a hand or foot of one of the servants of Coatlicue but if that had been the case surely they would have ambushed him by now. It must have been an animal but what could have lurked in this perpetual darkness?

  Gathelaus went beyond his initial exploration until he came to a fork in the passage. He decided to go left as that was the direction it appeared the slight dust trail lent itself to. The tunnel sloped downward for some distance. His pipe lamp’s glow cast shadows but the light was soon swallowed by the hellish black. Searching for handholds, Gathelaus gingerly made his way down the tunnel. Small lumps in the rock gave slim purchase and he went down for some time. Then it ended.