War God: Nights of the Witch Read online

  Alvarado pushed the wallet into Bucephalus’s saddlebag alongside his gold, and was about to mount up and ride for Santiago when he remembered Zemudio’s falchion.

  It had turned out to be a damn fine weapon.

  Indeed Alvarado could imagine situations – a crowded battlefield, a press of combatants – where it would be the best weapon a man could possibly have and where a rapier might be useless. He looked around the blood-smeared scene and a ray of late-afternoon sunlight glanced off the big blade where it lay in the dust. He walked over and picked it up. It felt heavy and unwieldy, yet Zemudio had handled it as though it were a tin toy! It would take some getting used to, Alvarado supposed, but he had yet to encounter an edged weapon he couldn’t master.

  He glared down at Zemudio’s headless body – so much for the hero of the Italian wars! – and paused to give the corpse one more kick. ‘Who’s the bastard now?’ he yelled. Then he stuffed the falchion into his sword belt, marched to Bucephalus and climbed into the saddle.

  The sun was sinking into the west and it was an hour’s ride back to Santiago, with visibility falling and evening coming on. Alvarado spurred the great war horse into a reckless gallop.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Santiago, Cuba, Thursday 18 February 1519

  Cortés was dreaming.

  Strangely he was both within the dream and an external observer of it.

  Stranger still, it seemed he could change aspects of the dream simply by thinking about them!

  For example, he was at this moment walking through a green meadow covered in lush grass laid over firm turf. He thought, Perfect riding country, and at once found himself on the back of the grey mare, Altivo, which he’d ridden when he was a boy in Extremadura. All the sensations were completely realistic – the smell and the feel of the horse, the sun on the grass, the wind in his hair.

  Then, inexplicably, Altivo vanished, the scene changed, and he found himself inside a giant Gothic vault, all delicate ribs and soaring arches like the great vault of the Cathedral of Plasencia, but made entirely of dazzling white crystal and enclosing a vast space that seemed filled, flooded, engorged with the purest and most perfect light. Cortés was at the centre of the nave. Rows of empty pews, likewise of crystal, surrounded him, their ranks marching two hundred paces forward to the edge of the transept. Straight ahead, on the left side of the crossing, where the nave, transept and choir all met, was a pulpit, full five fathoms high, approached by a slender spiral stairway, sculpted, it seemed, from a single mass of transparent ruby.

  At the pulpit, but almost too blinding for the eye to tolerate, stood a figure, human yet not human, from whose body rays of intense white light burst forth in splendour.

  Do I gaze on God Himself in his Heavenly Church? Cortés thought. And he remembered Moses on the Mount, who had also seen God face to face, and he felt fear.

  It wasn’t like battlefield fear, which he’d learned to master better than most. It was something else, something he could not name, something arising from the tremendous radiant power emanating from this being of light who seemed to reach out and entrap him as though in an invisible net and then draw him forward.

  Cortés watched the crystal floor of the nave slipping by beneath his feet, hints of buried rainbows swirling in its depths, but felt no physical contact, seemed to be floating as much as walking – which was strange until he remembered this was a dream. He tried to change the setting again but the trick wouldn’t work this time and he was pulled irresistibly towards the base of the pulpit.

  As though the wick of a lamp had been lowered, the radiance surrounding the figure dimmed as Cortés drew closer, becoming more bearable to the eye, finally revealing a tall and robust man standing in the pulpit. He had a rugged demeanour, more like a soldier or a labourer than a cleric. He was clean-shaven and fair-haired, perhaps forty years old and dressed in a simple hemp tunic, yet he projected an unassailable aura of charisma and authority – that quality of exceptional personal presence and spiritual power that the Moors call Baraka.

  ‘I’ve been watching over you all your life,’ said the man. ‘I’ve seen that you’ve done well …’ His voice was quiet and his tone intimate – as a father speaking to a son, or a friend to a friend – yet it seemed effortlessly to fill the entire vault, and there was something about it that was arresting, unsettling, almost physically probing.

  Cortés came to a halt at the edge of the crossing and gazed up at the extraordinary ruby pulpit poised in space thirty feet above him, and at the awesome and terrifying man who stood in it. ‘Who are you?’ he asked. He fought down his fear. ‘Are you God? Are you an archangel?’

  ‘You already know who I am …’

  ‘I do not know you, sir, I swear it. But give me some hint, some clue, and I will place you …’

  The man laughed and it was a deep, rich sound. ‘You had an episode of sickness as a child, Cortés, do you remember?’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘A fever of the lungs brought you close to death, a priest was called, the last rites were spoken?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But your nurse called down heavenly help.’

  It was true. She’d been called Maria de Esteban and she had called on Saint Peter to save the dying child who miraculously recovered.

  Even as Cortés gasped, suddenly getting it, he had to remind himself again that this was a dream. Only a dream. ‘You are … the blessed Saint Peter?’ he asked.

  ‘I am the rock on whom Christ built his Church and the powers of Hell cannot prevail against me … Your own patron saint, Cortés – yet only now you know me!’

  ‘But why? How …?’

  ‘Never mind all that. What I need you to remember, is that all of this’ – his voice suddenly boomed – ‘is by no means only a dream. On the contrary, Don Hernando, all of this is very real. All of this is very serious. You are to do God’s work.’

  ‘Thank you, Father,’ said Cortés. ‘I have tried to do God’s work in these islands.’

  ‘And with great success! The Taino were too deeply sunk in idolatry and superstition for their souls ever to be saved …’ Peter hesitated. ‘I see, though, that some still live?’

  ‘Only those who willingly accepted the faith and were ready to serve us …’

  ‘Oh well, good then. Very good. Besides … a far greater task lies ahead of you …’

  ‘In the New Lands, Father?’

  A faraway look had come into Peter’s eye. ‘You will be the sword of God there, Don Hernando. Overthrow the heathens and the devil-worshippers, bring them the word of Christ and you will be rewarded in this world and the next.’ The saint turned, descended the ruby stairway, his simple tunic hitched up over bare feet, and he came to stand opposite Cortés in the midst of the crossing. His eyes were utterly black, calm, steady, like deep pools of midnight, but his skin was pale and somehow bright, even dazzling, as though lit from within by the heat of some immense banked-down fire.

  He placed his huge, calloused hands – soldier’s hands, labourer’s hands – on Cortés’s shoulders. ‘I have great plans for you,’ he said.

  ‘I am honoured, Father, and ready to serve.’

  ‘But there is a condition.’ Peter’s eyes held Cortés prisoner. ‘The friar Muñoz has a part to play in this. You must set aside your dislike for him. He is rough and crude in his ways but a tireless worker for God. Heaven will not bless your expedition without him.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Tlascala, Thursday 18 February 1519

  His name was Shikotenka, he was a king and the son of a king, and a ten-mile run was nothing to him, so much part of his usual routine that he didn’t even break a sweat. The sun was low in the sky now, edging down towards setting, and though the day was still warm there was a breeze in the mountains, blowing off the snowbound shoulder of Popocatépetl, which kept a man cool. The early evening air caressed his skin, and the rugged green peaks of Tlascala spoke to him of freedom, filling his heart with joy
.

  Shikotenka could keep this pace up for two days if he had to, but he wouldn’t have to. Already he could see the great forest where his fifty lay waiting, and his mind began to move ahead to the bloody work they must do together tonight …

  If Guatemoc’s body had not been found …

  If no special alarm had been raised …

  If they were blessed with the luck of the gods.

  His hand went to his hair and he tugged out the little silver amulet that had betrayed his position this afternoon. It was a sensual, naked figure of Xochiquetzal, goddess of love, female sexual power, pleasure and excess.

  Zilonen’s favourite deity, of course.

  Shikotenka pressed the amulet into a fold of his loincloth, where it should have been all along, and looked ahead.

  Now less than a mile away down an open grassy slope, the forest was a huge imposing presence on the landscape, abundant with hidden life, a place of refuge and a place of mystery. Above, the leafy canopy was still lit a brilliant green by the dying sun, but down amongst the trees there was already a mass of shadow – as though night was not something that fell but something that rose from the ground like a black mist.

  Shikotenka allowed himself to focus on the image – was there a song in it? – until a short, thin spear whistled past his ear, followed a heartbeat later by another that sliced a shallow groove into the flesh of his left thigh. Both weapons buried themselves in the ground with tremendous force and he saw as he ran by that they were atlatl darts launched from spear throwers.

  He risked a quick glance over his shoulder, ducked as a third dart whooshed past, threw himself into a somersault to avoid a fourth and came up running, zigzagging left and right, losing much of his forward momentum.

  Shikotenka was being hunted by three Mexica scouts. Quite how they’d crept up on him, he couldn’t understand, because he’d been constantly on the lookout for precisely such a threat. But their shaved heads painted half yellow and half blue announced their rank as Cuahchics, the best of the best.

  Two of them were armed with atlatls and had hung back to aim and throw their darts to maximum effect. The third was a runner …

  A very fast runner.

  Over longer distances he probably wouldn’t amount to much, but he looked to be absolutely lethal as a mid-distance sprinter. Having to evade the darts was slowing Shikotenka down. Less than half a mile remained to the cover of the forest, but it was obvious the Cuahchics would catch him before he made it.

  He was still zigzagging. Two more darts came in, both near-misses, slowing him further. He sensed without wasting time looking back that he’d lost most of his lead and thought – might as well get up close and personal. At least that would stop those cursed darts, since presumably the other Cuahchics wouldn’t want to spear their brother-in-arms?

  Would they?

  Shikotenka heard footsteps behind him, closing fast, skidded to a halt and in one fluid movement whirled, drew Guatemoc’s beautifully balanced macuahuitl from its scabbard at his back, and brought it crashing down on his pursuer’s head.

  The only problem was that the man’s macuahuitl got in the way first.

  As the obsidian teeth in the wooden blades of the two weapons clashed, there was an explosive spatter of broken pieces and it was luck that one of the larger fragments pierced the Mexica’s right eye … He had a hard will, no doubt, this fearsomely painted Cuahchic, but the splinter of obsidian distracted him long enough for Shikotenka to catch him with a swooping blow that took off both his legs just above the ankles.

  The Cuahchic went down hard, as one does with no feet, but continued to crawl around on his knees on the ground, spurting blood, roaring curses and lashing out with his macuahuitl.

  Pointless stubborn pride, thought Shikotenka, as he hacked off the man’s ugly blue and yellow head. Utterly pointless.

  Out of the corner of his eye he’d been watching the other two Mexica. They’d abandoned the spear-throwers, as he’d expected, and were closing in fast.

  The forest was invitingly near but Shikotenka knew he wouldn’t make it. He took a strong two-handed grip on the hilt of the damaged macuahuitl and stood ready for battle.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Tenochtitlan, Thursday 18 February 1519

  For routine purposes, with a hundred sacrifices or fewer, victims approached their deaths only up the north stairway of the great pyramid of Tenochtitlan.

  When greater numbers were required, as was the case today, the south, east and west stairs were also opened and a team of trained sacrificers – a knifeman and his four helpers who held the victims down – waited at the top of each staircase.

  But on certain very special occasions, as when eighty thousand victims had been harvested to inaugurate the great pyramid in the time of Moctezuma’s grandfather, up to forty additional killing teams would be deployed working back to back all around the summit platform.

  Regardless of whether one, or four, or forty teams were at work, it had been discovered through repeated trials that each team was capable of processing approximately one victim every two minutes. There were uncertainties and imponderables that could make extraction of the heart and the elements of butchery a few seconds shorter or longer in some cases, but on average it was a two-minute operation, with each team killing thirty victims per hour. Sacrificers typically became exhausted after two hours of relentless effort and began to lose efficiency, but fresh teams stood by to take over smoothly without causing any interruption in the flow.

  All afternoon, at the rate of thirty per stairway per hour, the five hundred and twenty women Moctezuma had called for, some sobbing, some silent, some hysterical, had climbed in four miserable columns to meet their deaths.

  Moctezuma was outraged to hear their complaints. They should feel honoured to offer their hearts, their lives, everything they had, to so great a god as Hummingbird! They should be rushing to the sacrificial stone with excitement and joy, not inviting bad luck on all concerned by voiding their bowels and dragging their feet.

  Moctezuma led the team at the top of the northern stairway but, unlike the knifemen of the other teams, he’d refused to take a break. The sorcery of the teonanácatl mushrooms still coursed through his veins and he felt tireless, ferocious, superhuman – his energy seeming to swell with every life he took.

  After this morning’s ceremony with fifty-two male victims, all of whom he had despatched personally to Hummingbird, he’d been killing women nonstop since the mid-afternoon. He’d been enjoying the work so much it was hard to believe nearly four hours had passed, but the sun had been high in the sky then and now lay just a few degrees above the horizon. In the great plaza at the foot of the pyramid the shadows of evening were growing long and deep, and priests were busy lighting hundreds of lanterns. But as he plunged the obsidian knife into yet another breastbone, and plucked out yet another pulsing heart, enough daylight remained to show Moctezuma that the entire northern stairway where he’d been at work was drenched in a slick and dripping tide of dark blood, through which his last victims, goaded by their guards, were being forced to wade wretchedly upward.

  He giggled. The steps would be slippery. Someone might get killed!

  Moctezuma’s assistants spread out the next victim in front of him, a pretty screaming young thing with barely a wisp of pubic hair.

  As he fell on her and tore out her heart, the power of the mushrooms, which had been coming and going in waves all afternoon, surged through him again, this time with enormous force, like the current of some great river or the career of a whirlwind. He had the feeling that he’d left his body – or rather, as he had felt earlier in Hummingbird’s temple, that he was both in his body and out of it at the same time. So at one level he could see exactly where he was and what he was doing. He was on top of the great pyramid of Tenochtitlan, cutting women’s hearts out. But at another level he again experienced himself to be elsewhere, transported high and far away into a rarefied empyrean zone, and once more in t
he presence of bright-skinned Hummingbird himself …

  The god licked his lips. ‘That last was a virgin,’ he said. ‘Quite tasty …’ He made a sad face: ‘But unfortunately most of the victims you’ve sent me this afternoon have not been of this quality. One or two have even been grandmothers. There were three prostitutes. Once again I’m disappointed in you …’

  Moctezuma had already opened the chest of his next victim. He stopped abruptly, slipped out the sacrificial knife and smashed its heavy pommel into his own forehead, splitting the skin and drawing a burst of blood. ‘I beg your forgiveness, master,’ he said. He was aware that to his assistants, to Ahuizotl and to the other priests in attendance, he must appear to be addressing an invisible figure. ‘We will find virgins for you, lord,’ he promised. ‘A thousand virgins – ten thousand if you require.’ He eyed Ahuizotl, who was looking alarmed. ‘It may take a little time, lord, that is all …’

  ‘Time …? I see … You speak to me of time?’

  ‘Yes, master.’

  ‘So you have time to wait, while enemies more powerful than you can possibly imagine raise forces against you? You don’t care that wild beasts fight beside them in battle, some carrying them faster than the wind, others with monstrous teeth and jaws that tear men apart? You have no urgent need of knowledge of these enemies? Of their mastery of unknown metals? Of their terrible Fire Serpents that vomit lightning?’