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 hairy countenance. They knew their riders were tall dusky red men, and Porter looked more like a wild animal. The horses neighed and jostled and Porter softly nickered back to them.
Just as Porter was almost upon the sleeper, the man’s eyes shot open. Porter’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. Porter slammed the man into a tree trunk but lost his own footing and fell backward. The enraged guard was so intent on stabbing Porter that he didn’t yell an alarm but lunged forward. Porter 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, Porter 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 drawn the attention of the others. Still there was no motion or sound coming from the cavern, so Porter sped over the bleak snowy distance back to the gaping socket-like entrance.
As he neared the cavern’s mouth, he drew his guns and slowed his pace. There was no longer a sacred fire burning nor any other sound. Porter 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. Porter would give the old man a respectable ceremony and internment once the matter at hand was dealt with.
The cave den was ransacked. 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.
Porter approached the doorway and looked into the stygian darkness. A fetid, disagreeable, reptilian smell slithered out. It was overwhelming. Tracks in the dust 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 Porter had they been able too. Porter 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 it was black as pitch and Porter 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 Porter 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 Porter found a wand of sage and the sacred pipe that the old man had smoked. By fashioning a smoldering wand of sage to the bowl of 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, Porter carefully watched his steps. Whatever it was 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 kind could have lurked in this perpetual darkness?
Porter went beyond his initial exploration until he came to a fork in the passage. He decided to go left—as that was the direction the boot prints in the dust lead—and 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, Porter slowed and gingerly made his way down the tunnel. Small lumps in the rock gave slim purchase and he continued down for some time. Then it ended.
His makeshift lamp revealed a sudden drop off with no visible bottom. Listening brought no answer either. He concluded he had been wrong about the direction the servants of Coatlicue had gone, and made his way back up and soon found an off shoot tunnel that veered off to the left. It had been invisible coming down from the top and Porter couldn’t have seen it on his original pass. Scuffs upon the stone revealed that indeed men had passed this way. But how long ago? Porter wasn’t sure.
He followed this second route for only ten feet before a hole met him. It cut straight down to unknown depths. There was a narrow ledge going round it, but Porter felt it was too narrow. Being that it was only a four-foot jump across, Porter 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 Porter 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 his face 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, Porter 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 but this was easily 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 and a half high and Porter was forced to crawl on his belly for some twenty feet.
It was midway thru that Porter came face to face with a sister of what he suspected he had stepped upon earlier. The rattle was shaking like a Mexican maraca while the wedge shaped head of the rattlesnake was swaying back and forth 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. Porter stared at it right back, frozen as the ice above ground.
Unsure how to break the standoff without giving his position away with gunfire, Porter blew into his pipe lamp flaring a bit of flame and heat into the rattlers face.
It slithered past him, otherwise heedless.
Once he was sure the snake had gone its own way, Porter 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.
Porter 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. Porter looked about in wonder. The torches left by the wayside led toward yet another even greater chamber. Beyond that thresh
old, 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, Porter 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 Porter, 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 Porter 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 an Indian maiden, writhing in palpable fear. Her hands and feet were bound to the altar by some means Porter could not yet ascertain. Her back arched as her cries of terror and pain created a horrifying counter-measure 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 eerie light.
Porter 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.
Porter 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.
Porter 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 drum beat 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 Porter 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 Porter’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.
Porter slammed the handle of the knife on the back of the warrior’s skull, just as the other turned around shouting warning to his companions. The servant of Coatlicue launched himself at Porter with his own blade high like a scorpion’s stinger.
The Blood Brujo halted his dirge in angered shock. He commanded his men to respond.
Porter caught the leaping attack and hammered the warrior into a stalagmite, and heard the man’s spine crunch against the primeval pillar like a dry log splitting. He drew his Dragoon and shot 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.
Porter moved cautiously toward the unholy altar. The maiden was silent and watched Porter expectantly with fearful eyes. He held one hand up to try and make her understand that he was there to help while also keeping his Dragoon at the ready for the attack that would surely come from the remaining servants of Coatlicue. He was surprised in that she didn’t quite look like Paiute as he had expected, but instead resembled the tall litheness of the foreign Mexica Indians; granting too that she was also a beautiful 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 pistol 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 Porter got to the altar and the closer he got to the idol 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 Porter’s head. The Dragoon blasted taking the warrior in the chest but another charged from the other side.
The servant of Coatlicue took Porter to the ground, trying to bash his brains in with a stone. Porter lost his grip on the Dragoon 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 gave a weak cry, as he lost all breath.
Porter grasped his Dragoon and fired a warning shot at a retreating shadow. A shriek told him he had at least wounded his opponent. Porter 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 Porter couldn’t determine what was causing it. An earthquake?
Porter 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.
Porter was surprised, “You speak English?”
“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 Porter 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 Porter.”
“Behind you!” she shouted.
Porter turned with the Dragoon and knife just in time to face three foes.
His first shot knocked one away, but the next pull of the trigger was a disheartening click!
Both warriors were upon him in an instant and he bashed one in the face with the empty pistol while thrusting the knife at the other. He caught the one in the face with the muzzle of the Dragoon but the other dodged the blade.
The one with the bashed face came back and struck Porter with his war club, but it was a glancing blow as the other warrior had caught Porter in an arm bar and was trying to stick him with his own knife.
Wheeling about, Porter 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 Porter’s.
One of the warriors shouted something to the darkness.
Porter 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 Porters brains in when he fell back i
n an awful gasp.
Waving Grass stuck him with Porter’s lost 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 Porter, 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 Mexica,” 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?”
Porter 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.
Porter 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.
Porter shouted, “Hold on, least let me cover you!” He fired a couple of blind shots in the direction he thought the arrows had come from.
He must have guessed wrong because one flew perilously close to him, he felt the wind of it part his long wild hair. Waving Grass ducked back down behind the pillar of the idol.
Cold Slither: and other horrors of the weird west (Dark Trails Saga) Page 3
