And we saw Lena standing at the edge of the clearing.
'Lena?' Renco said. 'What are you doing up here? I thought I asked you to—'
At that moment, Lena was shoved roughly aside, thrown to the ground, and suddenly I saw a man standing on the stone steps behind her, and in that single, solitary instant, every ounce of blood in my veins turned to ice.
I was looking at Hernando Pizarro.
A stream of about twenty conquistadors poured out from the foliage behind Lena and spread out around the clearing, their muskets raised and pointed at our faces. The firelight of their torches illuminated the entire clearing.
They were accompanied by three olive-skinned natives who each had long, sharp spikes of bone protruding from their cheeks. Chancas. The Chanca trackers Hernando had employed to follow our trail to Vilcafor.
Last of all—nay, most ominously of all—came another olive-skinned man. He was taller than the others, bigger, with a long shock of matted black hair that came down to his shoulders. He also had a spike of bone thrust through his left cheek.
It was Castino. The brutish Chanca who had been in the same prison hulk as Renco at the beginning of our adven ture, the one who had overheard Renco say that the idol was in the Coricancha in Cuzco.
The conquistadors and the Chancas formed a wide circle around Renco, myself and the seven Incan warriors.
It was then that I noticed how filthy they all looked. To a man, the conquistadors were covered in mud and grime. And they looked worn and exhausted, weary beyond measure.
Whence I realized—this was all that remained of Hernando's hundred-strong legion. On their march through the mountains and the forests, Hernando's men had died all around him. From disease, from starvation, or just from sheer exhaustion.
This was all that remained of his legion. Twenty men.
Hernando stepped forward, yanking Lena to her feet as he did so. Dragging her behind him, he approached the temple and stood before Renco, staring imperiously down at him. Hernando was a full head taller than Renco and twice as broad. He shoved Lena roughly into Renco's arms.
For my part, I cast a fearful glance at the temple's portal.
It was still partially open, the gap between the boulder and the great stone doorway easily wide enough for a rapa to fit through.
This was not good.
If the water drained off the idol and it stopped its song, the rapas would break out of their spells and-
'At last we meet,' said Hernando to Renco in Spanish.
'You have evaded me for far too long, young prince. You will die slowly.'
Renco said nothing.
'And you, monk,' said Hernando, rounding on me. 'You are a traitor to your country and to your God. You will die even more slowly.'
I swallowed back my fear.
Hernando turned back to Renco. 'The idol. Give it to me.'
Renco didn't flinch. He just slowly reached into the pouch on his belt and extracted the false idol.
Hernando's eyes lit up as he saw it. If I didn't know better, I would have sworn he began to salivate.
'Give it to me,' said he.
Renco stepped forward.
'On your knees.'
Slowly, despite the sheer humiliation that attended it, Renco knelt down and offered the idol to the standing Hernando.
Hernando took it from him, his eyes gleaming with greed as he stared at his long-sought-after prize.
After a few moments, he glanced up from the idol and turned to one of his men.
'Sergeant,' he said.
'Yes, sir?” the sergeant standing nearest to him replied.
'Execute them.'
My hands were bound together with a long length of rope.
Renco's were too.
Lena was snatched away from Renco by two of the Spanish soldiers, and the two brutes goaded her with foul utterings of what they would do to her once Renco and I were dead, utterings which I dare not repeat here.
Renco and I were made to kneel before a large rectangular stone in the middle of the clearing, a stone that looked like a low altar.
The Spanish sergeant stood over me, his sabre drawn.
'You, Chanca,' said Hernando, tossing a sword to Castino. Ever since he had arrived in the clearing, the vile Chanca had been eyeing Renco with pure unadulterated hatred. 'You may dispose of the prince.'
