'I am bid to serve Inti, the Sun. I will pray to him for guidance, and if it be his will, I will perish in the temple at the time he chooses for me.'
'Bah. Better to die fighting. Still, I am no priest, and I should not tell a priest how to die. Each must do what each must do.'
'That is the law, my son.' The Priest put a withered hand on the younger man's shoulder. 'I cannot fight with you, but I can pray that you fight well.'
'I accept your prayers, old man. They worked in the past, though the past is done. I go to organize the stone stingers.'
He turned and started up the steps, leaving the Priest to stare worriedly down the mountainside. The morning sun glinted sharply off the distant white worm that was the Urubamba River. How soon, he wondered? How soon before the sunlight shines off the armor of the Silver Men? If only he could remember the old ways, the old magic.
But so much had been forgotten since the first Inca had started the Empire.
'We will confront them at the steepest part of the trail,' the teacher told the assembled band of farmer- warriors. 'If we cannot hold them back there, then we have no chance. Their long-necked llamas will have trouble climbing that place.'
'A steep climb will not slow their fire arrows,' said a voice from the back.
'Are you afraid of fire, Tamo?' asked the teacher. The man who'd spoken lapsed into silence.
'We are ready, then, save for the Priests and the children.' The teacher prepared to step down from the speaking stone when another voice broke in:
'What of Yahuar?'
The teacher had to smile. 'Crazy Yahuar? Let him play his pipes in peace. Perhaps the Silver Men will let him live. I have heard that they too have tolerance for the mad. Let Yahuar remain with the Priests and the Chosen Women, where he belongs.'
Laughter rose from the warriors, and the teacher was glad. Now when the time came the men of the city would raise their legs at the Silver Men in defiance. If the goes willed it, the teacher would make a drinking cup of his enemy's skull. If not, at least they could die like the true children of Viracocha.
At the farthest end of the city, Crazy Yahuar sat on the lower steps of the temple, which were coated with the tears of the moon, and played his panpipes. Children attended him, still unaware of the importance of the coming battle. Women mocked him or smiled sadly at his innocence as they hurried to stock food and water for the men. The priests ignored him, busy making preparations for death.
Yahuar sat on the silver and played and smiled. And watched the sky across the gorge of the Urubamba. It was clouding quickly. Rain pelted his cheeks, ran in drops down his hooked nose. The haunting five-tone notes of his panpipes drifted out over the edge of the cliffs and down into the mists that rose from the roaring river.
'Filthy country, Capitan.' The soldier tugged insistently at the reins of his reluctant mount while keeping a wary eye on the heights above.
'Filthy but rich, eh, Rinaldo?' Capitan Borregos scrambled to the crest of a protruding boulder and turned to survey the war party strung out down the mountainside.
He had fifty fighting men, twenty arquebusiers, and three hundred Indian auxiliaries. They had left the cannon at the bottom of the gorge since the men had rebelled at the prospect of hauling the six-pounder up the precipitous slope. Well, with any luck they'd have no need of it, and if worse came to worst, it could shield any retreat.
But Borregos had no intention of retreating. He'd worked too long to pry these men away from the comforts of conquered Cuzco. It had been less difficult than he'd expected, though.
Most of the wealth of that plundered city was well on its way to Spain by the time these men had arrived in Peru. Cortes and the Pizarro brothers had stripped the Inca capital of its gold and silver and jewels. The city had been full of desperate, anxious men eager for a chance at the loot that had aroused the interest of all Iberia. Such men made good fighters, willing to obey any order that promised a golden reward.
No Priest traveled with Borregos's party. The fathers made him nervous, with their moaning and whining over the deaths of infidel Indians. Their presence would make the necessary butchery awkward. So Borregos and his men had slipped out of Cuzco quietly, in clusters and couples, to avoid the attention of the authorities as well as the Church.
He turned and shouted to the Indian standing nearby. Omo started at the mention of his name, hurried over to the Capitan's rock. He was Cotol, from a tribe of Puma worshipers who lived far up the coast. The Cotol had no love for the Inca. Many of Borregos's Indian allies were Cotol. A degraded race, Borregos mused, with none of the primitive dignity of their Inca masters.
'Are you certain of this trail, Omo?'
The Indian replied in broken Spanish. 'Yes, lord. This is the right way. This is the only way. Soon we be there, at the greatest place in all the Four Corners of the World. It is small because it is secret, and more important even than Cuzco.'
'And this is where the gold is?'
'Yes, lord. The temple atop the mountain city is consecrated to the memory of Viracocha, the first Inca, the Creator. The walls of the temple are plated with the sweat of the sun, its roof and floor with the tears of the moon. It is here that Huanya Capac, the last great emperor, brought much treasure for safekeeping. It was here that Viracocha first touched the earth amidst fire and thunder and sent down his children to be Incas and lords over the world.'
'You're afraid of this place, aren't you, Omo?'
'Yes, lord.'
'Then why do you go onward? Why not return to your home in the far north?'
'Because my lord would have me killed.' The Indian's gaze did not meet Borregos's. Which was as it should be, the Capitan thought.
'That's right, Omo. Until we've finished our business here. Then you can go home, with all the llamas you and your men can drive.' Borregos could be generous. He had little use for llamas. It was gold he was after. Sweat of the sun, the Incas called it. His eyes gleamed.
'Come on, men!' he shouted at the struggling. troop. 'For good King Charles and for glory!' Drawing his sword, he brandished it at the cliffs overhead.
'He can keep his glory,' muttered one of the bearded, dirty soldiers m the column as he urged his horse upward, 'so long as there's plenty of gold.'
'Don't forget the Chosen Women,' grinned his companion. 'This is a big temple place. There ought to be plenty of them, too, and no priests to trouble our pleasure.'
'Aye, I'd forgotten them,' the other soldier confessed. He shoved at his mount with renewed strength. 'This will be a memorable day.'
The farmer-warriors fought bravely, and the Priests prayed hard, but sling-stones and cotton armor were no match for bullets and Toledo steel. The Spaniards' closeorder fire eventually drove the defenders back from the trailhead. Once the invaders crested the first wall and achieved relatively level ground where they could use their horses, the end seemed near.
The teacher retreated with his surviving fighters to the great temple of the sun that rose from the far end of the city. There the Spaniards paused, impressed but not awed by the massive stone structures. Sacsayhuaman in Cuzco had been larger and better defended, but it too had fallen.
For now the invaders contented themselves with looting and burning the thatched buildings of the city and enjoying a late afternoon meal. On three sides of the temple the cliffs fell away to sheer precipices thousands of feet high. Their prey had nowhere to go. Though the men were anxious to press in to the real treasure, Capitan Borregos counseled them to rest and regain their strength.
There was gold aplenty even in the common houses, and while the unchosen women were not as comely as those who served the temple, the conquistadores were momentarily sated. Within the barricaded temple the teacher and his warriors listened to the screams and shouts and bit their gums until they bled.
'What are we to do now?' asked one badly lacerated warrior.
'We should not stay here. We must go out and meet them and die like men,' said the teacher.
