but was stopped by guards who pounced, kicking his legs from beneath him. Max fell hard onto the grass and suddenly felt a spear against the base of his throat. He pointed up toward the boy. “That’s my mother’s,” he said. “Flint! Tell them that the necklace the boy’s wearing is my mother’s!”
Flint hesitated and saw the simple chain that bore the symbol of the sun. “You can’t,” he said. “They think you’re some kind of supernatural creature. They’re going to give you a chance to live. If they know you’re just like the rest of us, they’ll take your head off right now!”
But the younger boy stepped forward, waved aside the guards and ignored a rebuke from the man who seemed to be the boy’s father. He knelt next to Max and spoke quickly, barely above a whisper. His fingers touched the small sun disk at his throat.
“Before I was brought to this valley, I was taught in a school. I understand you. I speak English. This was your mother’s?”
“Yes,” Max said.
The boy looked stricken. “I cannot help you unless you win the game. Stay silent or they will kill you now.”
He got to his feet before Max could ask any more questions. The boy pointed at Flint and spoke in Mayan. Then he turned and joined the others, who walked back to the archway. As Max got to his feet, the boy looked back once and then turned away again.
Max felt a surge of hope. There was someone here who might help him but, more importantly, who also knew of his mother.
Xavier and the others had been pushed into the arena as Flint explained what he had been commanded to tell Max. They were in what was called a ball court, and what looked like a basketball was solid latex. The hard rubber was heavy, and it would bounce high and fast. In this game it was forbidden to use hands or feet-only knees, shoulders, chest and elbows. This ancient game had one purpose-to choose a victim. Once the game started, it would end only when somebody allowed the ball to touch the ground. Then that person would die a horrible death by having their heart cut out.
Flint gazed back toward the pyramid. They could see that the boy and the others had joined the shaman.
“ ‘Into the jaws of Death, into the mouth of Hell rode the six hundred …,’ ” Max muttered quietly.
“That’s not Shakespeare,” Flint said, a little uncertainly.
“No. But it’ll do,” Max replied.
Then someone blew a whistle. The game of death was on.
Riga had followed the tracks that Max and the others had left. Every scuff mark told a story, and when he heard the war cries and drums, it was as easy as a stroll in the park to locate the boy he hunted. Skirting the river, he gained high ground, ignoring the discomfort of the wound in his leg, letting the pain be something to beat at every step.
He saw the curtain of bloodred mist that rose from the valley floor as the hot lava sizzled through the wet ground. Like a dragon with bad breath, it continued its hissing roar unabated, as if its tongue were licking the jungle floor.
By the time the warriors had tied their captives, Riga was almost in sight of them. The earth tremor had caught him unawares. Some rocks around him were shaken free and went smashing into the gorge below. It happened so quickly he nearly tumbled from his precarious perch. Pain shot through his thigh, and blood seeped into his trousers-the jolt had torn a couple of stitches. He knew he should not let the wound become infected; it might easily prove fatal in this tropical heat.
If he went back through the cave, he could find a way out and get medical help. But then Max would escape him forever-a thought he considered for hardly an instant. He could find plants to keep the wound clean.
Using a small pair of binoculars to track the warrior group’s movements, he watched as they disappeared under the rain forest’s canopy. It seemed they were heading for that scalding river of fire.
Tightening his sweat rag across the wound, he gripped his rifle and made for the dragon’s tongue.
The ball bounced. Xavier ran like a midfield player and took it on his chest as if preparing to drop it and kick a long pass, but the weight of the ball thudding into him forced the boy to crash down onto his back.
“Don’t let it touch the ground!” Max yelled as he ran forward.
Xavier squirmed, arching his hips, pushing his face into the pungent-smelling rubber that now felt as though it was crushing his rib cage. Max was right there and saw Xavier push his body up with his hands and feet, keeping the ball clear of the ground and trying to flick it toward Max’s uncertain stance. How to stop it from touching the ground? As the ball came clear of Xavier’s body, Max went down on his knees, felt the grass burns cut into his skin, ignored it, caught the ball on his shoulder and pushed himself up as hard and fast as he could, forcing the ball onto the sloping walls, allowing the others to run and take the rebound.
Tree Walker, more muscular than Xavier, used the top of his bicep to hit it back on the sloping wall toward Setting Star, who pivoted like a gymnast, took the ball onto her knees, fell back and flicked it above her head. It was too low, its weight making it impossible to move with any great degree of skill. It would not be long before trying to push the solid ball of rubber would exhaust or injure them.
Guards and warriors whistled and cheered. They beat drums and blew conch-shell trumpets. Their yelling faces and thunderous roars broke through in waves to Max as he fought the deafening sound of pounding blood in his ears. It was like a ribald crowd at an FA Cup final, only there was more to lose than the cup-and there would be no medal for the runners-up.
Xavier had football skills, and if anyone could keep the ball off the ground, he could. He outran Max and Tree Walker, his skinny frame sluicing sweat, his long hair flicking droplets to the ground as he twisted and turned, and on more than one occasion saved each of the others from dropping the ball.
It was, Max realized, an amazing achievement for the slightly built Latino boy. How much longer could any of them keep going in this crippling heat? Who would be the one to die?
Max could see Xavier was tiring. He had retrieved the ball and, in what had to be a near impossibility with a ball that size and weight, bounced it from knee to knee. He cried out, “Max!”
With an effort Max would never have expected of the boy, he got the ball high enough onto his chest, dropped it again onto his knee and then hefted his scrawny leg upward so the ball was in place for a header. He jumped, making contact, and aimed the ball directly to Max.
Then Xavier sank to his knees. He was out of the game. It was down to Max and the other two now. Max struck the ball with his shoulder, and it felt as though he had been punched by someone twice his size. Muscles and tendons would not be able to last much longer. Faces blurred; Max felt giddy. He saw the children screaming, watched as Flint waved his hat and roared encouragement, as the guards in their war paint became a surreal and macabre tapestry.
The ball!
It was in the air. Tree Walker had kicked himself against the side of the wall, powered into it from a low angle and struck it with his elbow. His arm snapped. He writhed in agony.
Setting Star was too far away. She ran like a sprinter out of the blocks. The rising cacophony became deafening. Tree Walker would die. He was the last to touch the ball. She dived in a hopeless attempt to catch the ball and amazingly got an arm to it. It skidded against the side wall, caught the pockmarked face of a gargoyle and spun away into no-man’s-land. None of the players would reach it. Setting Star would die for her brother.
In a startlingly brief moment, Flint saw Max’s face. The whole world stopped for that one blink of an eye as, in some kind of shocked understanding, he realized something about Max had altered. Every muscle in his body had contracted, a surge of power gathered down his back, his shoulders hunched, his eyes narrowed, and his teeth bared into a snarl.
Orsino Flint knew he was looking into the
In three catlike strides, covering a huge distance, the ragged boy from England launched himself and leapt like a predator toward the stricken girl and the ball that was now only inches from the ground. There was a collective gasp from the crowd at the shock of seeing the impossible.
