There was sudden drop off and lowering his makeshift lamp, he could see no bottom. Listening brought no answer either. He concluded he had been wrong about the direction the servants of Coatlicue had gone. He made his way back up and soon found an off-shoot tunnel almost at the beginning that veered off to the left. It had been invisible from the top and you would have had to go down the steep shaft ten feet to see it. Scuffs upon the stone revealed that indeed men had passed this way. But how long ago? Gathelaus wasn’t sure.
He followed this second route for but ten feet when a hole met him. It cut straight down unknown fathoms. There was a narrow ledge going round it but Gathelaus felt it was too narrow. Being that it was only a four-foot jump across, Gathelaus leapt. Passing the deep defile, the tunnel remained horizontal and made for easier travel, but it also had dozens of abrupt nooks and hollows. Lurking shadows made Gathelaus constantly look over his shoulder expecting an attack at any moment. There were too many places to hide, too many eyes he felt rather than actually saw watching him.
Sweat dripped from him and the foul air was stifling. There was no sound but the beating of his own heart and once he confused the sound for that of a kettle drum. The long tunnel ended with a cave in of boulders.
Determining he had made a circuit of the entire tunnel and yet found nothing, he went back the way he had come. The initial tracks had been lost on the stone floor and he knew which way to return to the surface but not to pursue his enemies. Deciding he had to carefully watch his back trail just as he did on the slanted route for the sake of yet another hidden passage, he blew into his pipe lamp for the best glow possible to see the telltale scuffs of dust marking human passage. Sure enough, almost back to the defile he had to leap over and there was another twisted back passage defying his sight to find it.
This way also had a hole but it was only about five feet deep. Dropping down in, Gathelaus saw that it continued much like the one above and so he journeyed on, hoping to spy tracks in the dust.
After another short distance, he found the tunnel again had a hole this time almost ten feet across but this was easily enough clambered down as the stones themselves remained uneven enough as to form a natural ladder of sorts. Then it pancaked out to just a little over a foot high and Gathelaus was forced to crawl on his belly for some twenty feet.
It was midway thru that Gathelaus came face to face with a sister of what he suspected he had stepped upon earlier. The rattle shaking tail like a maraca while the wedge shaped head of a rattlesnake was swaying yet looking him dead in the eye. It was a big one, maybe six or seven feet long. Its tongue flashed out tasting the air. Gathelaus stared at the thing right back, frozen as the ice above ground.
Unsure how to break the standoff without giving his position away Gathelaus blew into his pipe lamp flaring a bit of flame and heat into the rattlers face.
It slithered past him, heedless.
Once he was sure the snake had gone its own way, Gathelaus continued his crawl to where the passage opened up. There were lights here and there, torches crackling venomous orange light while belching hellish black smoke. A chanting was droning from somewhere unseen yet none too far off accompanied by the relentless throb of a skin drum.
Gathelaus got up and dusted himself off, wary to watch for more rattlers. There was enough dim light now that he extinguished his own lamp and put it into his pocket for later. He guessed he was close to only having enough fuel for his return journey anyhow.
Here the cavern roof raised up and was almost lost in its cathedral like loftiness. Pillars of living rock, stalactites and stalagmites met in twain touching the floor. Gathelaus looked about in wonder. The torches left by the wayside led toward yet another greater chamber. Beyond that threshold, weird greenish light reflected upon a black sea of infinity. He couldn’t tell what gave off that unusual light, but he was sure that there was a great underground lake beneath the old man’s sacred hill!
Cautiously passing from one great chamber to another, Gathelaus marveled at the scope of this amazing sight. But any amount of wonder was dimmed by the awful glimpse of the servants of Coatlicue and their blasphemous ceremony.
The high priest, the one the old man had named Ichtaca Eztli, the Blood Brujo, was the source of the chanting. Beside him, two kneeling warriors drummed with bare hands, keeping a primal rhythmic beat. At least six or seven warriors stood sentinel-like nearby. They were almost black in the shadows, so outlined by both the guttering torch light and the bright illumination from the idol of Coatlicue.
The idol was operating just like the old man had shown Gathelaus, it was activated and giving off the most intense yet eerie green light he had ever beheld. It sat upon a short pillar and shone upon a vast section of the domelike cavern. It almost seemed to glow brighter in time with the throb of the drum, waxing and waning to the terrible beat.
A woman’s sudden scream woke Gathelaus from the horror of the pounding drums.
5. The Purloined Princess
On the other side of the chanting Blood Brujo, stood a large rectangular altar of cyclopean stone and upon that lay a Pictish maiden, writhing in palpable fear. Her hands and feet were bound to the altar by some means Gathelaus could not yet ascertain. Her back arched as her cries of terror and pain created a horrifying countermeasure to the Blood Brujo’s droning chant. Just beyond the altar a forbidding precipice waited. Dark gulfs which could not be plumbed by the idols intense glow lapped at the shore of weird light.
Gathelaus made his way closer, stepping ever so carefully, wary that one of the warriors might sense his presence.
The maiden wailed aloud again as the Blood Brujo increased his own voice in a majestic yet terrible fervor.
Gathelaus thought that over the din of the chant, the wails and the drums, he could hear something stirring within that awful precipice. Had the old man been right? Were there really Blood Gods sleeping here? If so, this sound and fury would surely wake them.
One way or another, he was gonna stop this abomination.
Gathelaus stalked up behind the furthermost warrior and slammed the knife handle down on his head, cracking his skull. He caught the warrior as he crumpled and laid him down beside a boulder, hoping none would look back and notice. Regardless he had to give himself better odds before letting them all know he was there.
The drumbeat boomed throughout the cavern and a sickening rumble answered back, echoing off the distant walls from across the black lake.
Creeping up beside the next warrior would be riskier, this one wasn’t that far from the next man beside him and the odds of one or the other noticing Gathelaus would be high. But he would gamble on taking them both out quick.
The Blood Brujo’s chant grew louder and wilder as did the drums and shimmering idol. Some strange thing gasped from below in the unknowable pit and Gathelaus’s hackles washed over him in a tide of both awe and disgust.
He had to move as swiftly as he ever had in his life. He was lightning, he was the son of thunder, he had to be.
Gathelaus slammed the handle of the knife on the back of the warrior, just as the other turned around shouting warning to his companions. The servant of Coatlicue launched himself at Gathelaus with his own blade high like a scorpion’s stinger.
The Blood Brujo halted his dirge in angered shock. He commanded his men to attack.
Gathelaus caught the leaping attack and slammed the warrior into a stalagmite and heard the man’s spine crunch against the primeval pillar like a dry log splitting. He drew his sword and slashed the two closest attackers. They collapsed with savage cries escaping their lips. The others swiftly retreated into the shadows like roaches.
The drums and chant were silenced but a dull vibrating echo still sounded throughout the magnificent chamber. First sounding like it was above, then behind and then below.
Gathelaus moved cautiously toward the unholy altar. The maiden was silent and watched Gathelaus expectantly with fearful eyes. He held one hand up to try and make her understand that he wa
s there to help while also keeping his blade at the ready for the attack that would surely come from the remaining servants of Coatlicue. He was surprised that she was so beautiful a maiden.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I’m here now. I wish you could understand me. I’m gonna get you out of this.”
He waved the sword about as the sound of a rock fell somewhere behind him, slowly chipping and rattling over the smooth stone floor.
Nothing was there.
Shadows warped and retreated somewhere beyond his range of vision. The closer Gathelaus got to the altar, the closer he got to the idol and the more he was blinded from seeing what was behind him.
The maiden suddenly gasped.
A warrior charged from the black with a ghastly bone tomahawk raised at Gathelaus’s head. Gathelaus’s falcata stroke opened the warrior across the chest but another charged from the other side.
The servant of Coatlicue took Gathelaus to the ground, trying to bash his brains in with a stone. Gathelaus lost his grip on the falcata but not the sacrificial knife. He stuck the attacker in the ribs and ripped out. The obsidian blade cut through flesh and bone and even the jaguar skin tunic of the warrior like it was feasting on him. The warrior cried out, falling back.
Gathelaus grasped his falcata and slashed at a retreating shadow. A shriek told him he had at least wounded his opponent. Gathelaus gauged there were at least three or four more of the servants of Coatlicue hidden in the inky blackness. He kept his back toward the altar and watched.
The vibrating hiss was stronger now though Gathelaus couldn’t determine what was causing it. An earthquake?
Gathelaus backed into the altar and felt the maiden struggling against her bindings. He turned to look at her saying, “You can’t understand me, but I’m here to help.”
“I can understand you. We must hurry and escape this chamber,” she said, urgently.
Gathelaus was surprised, “You speak Vjornish?”
“Cut me loose!” she insisted, holding her bindings toward him as far as she could manage.
The binding appeared to be snakeskin of some sort and Gathelaus was perplexed as to how such a reptilian rope could have been fashioned, but his sacrificial dagger cut through them like nothing. “What’s your name?”
“Call me Waving Grass.”
“I’m Gathelaus.”
“Behind you!” she shouted.
Gathelaus turned with the falcata and knife just in time to face three foes.
His first cut knocked one away, but the next slash of the blade was a disheartening miss!
Both warriors were upon him in an instant and he bashed one in the face with the hilt while thrusting the knife at the other. He caught the one in the face with the guard of the falcata but the other dodged the obsidian blade.
The one with the bashed face came back and struck Gathelaus with his war club, but it was a glancing blow as the other warrior had caught Gathelaus in an arm bar and was trying to stick him with his own knife.
Wheeling about, Gathelaus slammed the warrior who trapped his arm against the stone altar and beat his face to a pulp against the corner stones. He lost the knife however and it went flying away into the shadows. Waving Grass disappeared after it.
An arrow skittered across the altar, letting all three men know that the Blood Brujo didn’t value any of their lives, so intent was he in ending Gathelaus’s.
One of the warriors shouted something to the darkness.
Gathelaus kicked the shouting one and let fly a crunching blow into the face of the other.
The kicked warrior raised his war club and was about to dash Gathelaus’s brains in when he fell back in an awful gasp.
Waving Grass stuck him with the obsidian knife. “We have to get out now!” she cried.
Another arrow skittered across the stones nearby having just barely missed. They each took shelter behind the altar.
The booming voice of the Blood Brujo taunted them.
“What the hell did he just call me?” asked Gathelaus, as he traded the cylinders in his Dragoon.
“He isn’t calling to us. He is trying to awaken the gods in darkness. The Blood Gods of the Tultecacan,” she said.
“Well, thanks for your help. That warrior would have stuck me with his club if it weren’t for you.”
She nodded. “How did you find me?”
Gathelaus finished loading and glanced around the side of the altar. “I’ve been in the wrong place at the wrong time for the last few days. It just keeps getting better and better. Good luck for you I suppose.”
“We can’t stay here,” she urged.
“I know but we can’t have you getting stuck by one of his arrows.”
“Better that than what is waking behind us,” she said, looking back fearfully.
Gathelaus took a moment to glance back at the precipice. He couldn’t see anything down there but the vague twisting movement of shadows but clearly that was where the rumbling, buzzing, hissing sound came from. Something strange and unknowable was writhing down there, and it seemed to be rising.
“If we stay here, it will devour us,” she said, standing up to run.
Another arrow flew perilously close to Gathelaus, he felt the wind of it part his long hair. Waving Grass ducked back down behind the pillar of the idol.
“Do you know anything about all this?” Gathelaus asked her.
She nodded. “Some of what they said on the journey here.”
That was curious to Gathelaus, he hadn’t thought yet about their incredible journey just to get her and perform the ritual he had interrupted. He spoke softly now, hoping she would barely hear him above the rising hissing sound. “You hold tight, I’m gonna destroy that idol and see if I can’t bring back the darkness that is only helping him and hurting us.”
She had been keeping a lookout and only half listening to his words, but when his suggestion dawned on her, she turned and cried out, “NO!”
But it was too late. Gathelaus picked the idol and cast it against the cavern wall.
Time seemed to stop for a moment as Gathelaus looked at the shock and terror on her face. He could swear he actually saw the illuminated jade idol suddenly fracture like a spider’s web across a mirror.
Blooming like the noon day sun, a gargantuan bright explosion followed by a crackle of electricity radiated outward from the idol as it vanished in a million tiny shards. A gust of wind slapped Gathelaus and Waving Grass end over end and they found themselves on the edge of the precipice, though they still could not see into it as the light had been snuffed out save for a few guttering torches some distance away.
That weak orange light as if flitting between great fingers of shadow barely reached them but the intense hissing was almost right at their feet. Without being able to have any sight of the precipice, Gathelaus could sense the deep gulf behind him, as if the very air was being sucked downward.
Gathelaus helped Waving Grass to her feet. “Sorry, bout that. I just wanted to even the odds,” he said.
She was sobbing, trembling, and shaking her head, “The Blood Gods are awake.”
6. The Blood God Wakes
Something unseen yet big around as his arm, moved beside Gathelaus’s left foot. He kicked it away. “Let’s get moving then. We have some concealment now if not cover.”
He had to pull Waving Grass along as the explosion had almost sapped her will and sense. They had only taken a few steps when Gathelaus’s cat like reflexes caught the arc of a blade aimed at his throat.
Dodging back, the invisible obsidian blade stole a button from his collar. The Blood Brujo snarled in maddening anger at having missed.
Gathelaus’s hand shot up and he caught the return swing of the knife and racked the priests arm back, before slamming him against the altar. He pounded the hand against the multi-angled stones until the knife dropped from the wicked priests grasp.
But the priest had a few tricks of his own. He swept his leg out and dropped Gathelaus against the altar so he
could slither out of his hold. He then blew a handful of some mystic dust into Gathelaus’s face.
As dark as it was, Gathelaus was now completely blind. His senses reeled with the loss of sight, the stink of reptiles and the deafening sound of echoing hisses and rattles. His own blade was knocked from his hand.
The Blood Brujo struck again and again, hammering blow upon blow against Gathelaus, as he twisted serpentine, attacking from a new angle at every moment. Finding a tomahawk from one of his fallen warriors, the Brujo picked up the deadly weapon and raised it for a death blow.
Gathelaus, blinking madly, prayed in this most dire hour and it was answered.
Shaking off her dazed fear, Waving Grass, plunged the sacrificial knife into the Blood Brujo’s back all the way to the hilt.
Stricken, the dark priest wheeled, slapping her away, sputtering some Tultecacan curse but he could not reach the knife handle halfway down his back.
Gathelaus stumbled and caught hold of the Brujo’s cloak and yanked him down. Still blinking and with tears running down his face, Gathelaus picked him up again only to punch him, sending the priest flying across the altar.
Tears fell like rain and sight had almost returned. He felt the gentle hand of Waving Grass, the purloined princess, at least that’s what he now thought of her. “You saved me, Sister.”
She helped him stand, guiding him away from the altar. “We must hurry,” she said.
“I’m coming.”
Something grabbed Gathelaus’s right foot and pulled.
Turning about, terribly off balance, Gathelaus could barely see the dark shape of the Blood Brujo. The wretched priest wasn’t out of this yet. He twisted Gathelaus’s foot forcing the half-blind Northman down.
Despite Waving Grass holding him with her left shoulder, Gathelaus went down as the Blood Brujo shot up.
Leering with a broken face, the Blood Brujo drew a copper knife from his belt and slashed at Waving Grass like he was swatting flies.
The Usurper Page 12
