Pyramid of the Dead: A Zombie Novel (11 page)

This time
was
different;
the
other priests did no
t rush
over
to the
aid of their Mayta
in peril
. They scattered to the four winds in a chaotic attempt to flee
from the beasts
. They
were
already
far
too late. T
he smell of the blood sent the rest of the
surrounding
undead into a
feeding
frenzy. Withi
n seconds
,
all
of
the holy men had been dragged
down
to the ground
,
while Taipi could only watch in horror as the undead boy gnawed away along his hand and then sank its teeth into the soft
, plump
flesh of his forearm. His screams and the screams of the others seemed distant
and
foreign to his ears now
.

Taipi
himself
was dropped down to the floor
,
his
knees buckling in
shock and agony. He
stared at the stump
of
his
left
arm
, not caring that all around
him;
his priests were being eaten
as well
.

He
was the important one. He was meant to be spared, to
lead
this army.
It seemed that Supay and his army had other ideas.

He watched in agony as sprays of his own blood spurted in hot gouts over his
own
robe and onto the black, stone floor. As he felt the last of his
lifeblood slipping away,
he thought that might be the only blessing. But before he could slip away, Taipi began to hear a deep voice inside his head, at first sounding faraway, then growing, growing until it was the only sound he could hear.

The voice was his reality, his life and his death.

The great and terrible
Supay was
speaking
to him.

Now
Supay was
his god
.

8
-
The
March
of
the
Und
ead

Once
more,
t
he
massive
gates
of the
City of Huacas
swung wide open and the
feared
soldiers of Supay poured through them like a
great
flood of the damned
.
The undead soldier leading this
army was none other than the reanimated corpse of
Taipi
himself.

Supay
was pleased with his new
general for his army.
This man
who
in life
was
a holy man for
deities,
pretending to be his equals or greater, now belonged to him
alone
.
His
grey
,
clouded
unblinking
eyes never wavered from the path ahead.
His
master
needed
more souls
and the Taipi c
reature knew exactly where to find them
.

Supay
’s
army
numbered less than fifty
but
soon
enough
,
that number
would grow.
For e
very
victim that they took as they swarmed
like locusts
through the jungle
,
a new soldier would join its ranks
.
There would be many soldiers gained on the road to Cuzco alone
, and that number would be needed to bring the capital to its knees
.

O
nly a few hundred yards from the gates
of the Forbidden City, the army found the
terrified
young
priest
who had
run from the pyramid before the others had even gone inside
its evil walls
.
He hadn’t gotten far.
S
itting
cross-legged
by the side of the road
,
he was
rocking
ever so
slightly
back and forth as he chanted incantations to his pathetic g
ods.

Somewhere
, deep
in his heart, the priest had known it would come to this
;
and here
it was
,
cutt
ing
a
deadly
swath down the path
towards him
. Even on seeing
the Ukhu Pacha
approach
,
t
he
young man
did
n
o
t
bother to
try
to
run. He kne
w there was no place left to go
,
nowhere
safe from the madness
.
Instead, he
continued
with
his prayers,
even when Taipi
easily lifted him of
f
the ground with his one remainin
g
good
hand.
His chanting prayers were calm, even resigned until the former
High Pries
t
of Cuzco closed its jaws over his mouth and bit down on flesh and bone
.

*****

Only a short time later, the growing swarm of the undead came upon
the
first settlement
on their
deadly
journey
to Cuzco
.
I
t was
a
small
farming village
called
Chineco. A
s Taipi and his army surrounded the
doz
en
or so
clay and straw huts
,
they
could
sense
and smell the living
inside
.
They
stopped and
listened to
the sounds of
families
inside, eating t
heir b
reakfast,
laughing
,
and full
of life,
j
oy and
love.
However,
Taipi and the others felt nothing but hunger and a feral kind of excited anticipation
.

The door to the first
of these
hut
s
burst open
and
a half dozen of the undead
crammed themselves through the entrance. A
mother screamed
at the horrific sight
before her
,
beasts
pouring in
to her home
with
faces and bodies
all rotted and torn.
S
he
swept up her
two
small
children
protectively in her arms, a
boy and
a
girl
, both
screaming
out
in
unnerving
terror
.
Their
father picked up his
heavy
scythe and
stepped in front of his family, swinging futilely and falling
deep
into the arms of the beasts,
which
instinctively saw him as a potential addition to their ranks. They bit strategically, tearing out his throat and lowered him to the floor to allow him time to bleed out while they concentrated on the farmer’s wife and children.

The man’s last sight was of his wife and children being devoured piece by piece.
As he cried
,
he heard the voice, it soon drowned out the screams of his children.

*****

The further they got
away
from Huacas and the closer to Cuzco
,
the
more the army
grew
.
M
any m
ore
small
farming and
fishing
settlements
were found
. Supay’s army fell upon them all, turning those they saw with potential
,
and devouring the rest
with glee
.
Taipi
stood in the centre of one village and watched the chaos
around him
with a devilish delight, he
was
very
proud at the progress of
his army
. By
the end of the first day
, they numbered well into the hundreds
. But h
e
also
knew there
had
not
been
much resistance
thus
far
. S
oon
they would have
their first
challenge
, when the army reached
the town of Tarapoto.

Located
on the main road from Cuzco to the cities
in the north
, Tarapoto
was
a
favourite stop for the rich and powerful in the
ir culture
.
Almost two thousand men, wome
n and children
lived
with
in its prim and proper buildings and at the centre of the town
,
was one of the finest Tambos in the
entire
empire. This elegant meeting and resting house was well known
to all
for serving
nothing but
the finest food and drink. Due to its importance
and location
,
the town also had a permanent ga
rrison of troops based within the structure
.
It housed
o
ne hundred and fifty
men
,
each
of whom had
sworn
with their lives
to protect the town and its people.

This day would be the greatest
test
of
their pledge.

*****

Ayar Ochi was
the man
in charge of the
town’s
garrison.
S
till
only
in his twenties
,
he was relatively young to be in such a posit
ion of power and responsibility
, though it did not surprise those who knew him
well.
He was a skilled and
driven
young man
.

E
ven with such a powerful position
, however,
all
h
e
’d
ever
wanted
was to ge
t
away from Tarapoto. His dream was to
o
ne day
lead
the soldiers at
the capital,
Cuzco.
All
that
h
e
had
desir
ed
for years
was
to be
what his older brother, Minco
,
was now-
the
Protector of the largest
city
in the Empire, to be in charge of thousands of warriors
.

Ayar was
standing
in the
pretty
town square
,
getting more and more bored by the minute as he chatted
the day
away
with
some of the local
dignitaries
when the first screams began from the outskirts of town
.
Feeling a dark rush of adrenaline, Ayar made
quick
apologies
and excused himself from the
nobles
, rushing to ring
on
the
golden
alarm bell that would
rally his
consignment of
men
to his side
. They gathered
in the square
in record time, having heard the screams for aid themselves and
without the need for any orders
,
Ayar led them racing to those in need
.

As Ayar and his men
round
ed
a bend
in the street
,
the sight
assaulted their senses and stopped the breath in his chest
.
There what looked like a handful of men, were kneeling on the ground
...and
eating
some of his people.
It
only
took
a moment to realise that these c
reatures were no longer
human.
Their
faces were blank and colourless
,
their skin
all
bloodi
ed and torn. As these
evil
monsters
heard the
soldiers
approach,
the
y
abandoned
what was
left
of
the mutilated bodies
and charged with hungry
intent
towards
th
ese
new targets. Somehow
,
t
hey
seemed to kno
w
that
these
heavily
armoured men would make fine additions to
their ranks
.

Ayar was
the
first t
o meet
with
the undead
invaders
. His
trusty
axe landed
perfectly on
top of
the lead
beast’s
head.
The sound that
a
ccompanied
his strike
was
surprisingly not a heavy crack.
Instead,
Ayar
felt
a
revulsion rising in the form of bile at the dull, wet squish
instead
. Ayar
wrestled
the axe
free, the
now still
monster toppled forward never to move again
.