Pyramid of the Dead: A Zombie Novel (15 page)

*****

The
amassed
armies of Cuzco
, of the Empire,
formed their battle lines
less than
a hundred yards outside the city walls. All of t
hese
hardened
soldiers
had
faced many an enemy before but the sight before them
must have
sent shivers
racing along
their spines
. Charging
at them
down the
lush
, green
hillside was an army of
thousands of undead
men and women
. There was no shouting, no blaring of trumpets and no banging of drums
like
the charge
back at the port of Puna
. Death was head
ing
right for
them
,
and it came
all too
silent
ly
.

All that lay between
the army of
Cuzco and the
army of the
under
world
were
the Spaniards
,
and it
seemed that they had now changed their minds
about
waiting for the word of
Pizarro
before they moved. The sight of
an
army of
Huacas
charging towards
them,
sent them
running;
some
riding those fine white steeds
as
they headed
straight
for the gates to the city. Minco k
new they would find them locked.
It was now all too
simple;
t
hey would have no option but to help
his own men
in defeating the
army of Supay
.

Minco
took his
place;
he
stood high up on the city wall
to see the battle unfold
. He
watched
with disgust as
some of his men drop
ped
their weapons
at the
horrendous
sight before them
and r
a
n back towards
the
supposed
safety of
Cuzco. Minco could
well
un
derstand their fear
,
but
he
vowed that he would
sear
ch out and punish tho
se cowards
once
the undead had been defeated. The army
must
always be loyal and disciplined; Minco
would have
had no choice but
to make an example of them.
That
example would be their deaths.

However,
for now, i
t was time for the battle to begin.
On Minco’s order
,
the sun
light
was
nearly
blocked out as
hundreds of soldiers sent
w
ave
upon
wave of
sharp edged
stones flying
through the air towards the
rapidly
advancing horde.
As they reloaded their slingshots, Minco could see that
t
his first attack
in the Battle of Cuzco
had been
far from
successful;
it was barely worth the effort
.

All that w
ould stop the undead was severe damage to the
head or
brain. Rocks bouncing off
their
faces, necks and bodies had
next to
no effect
, they did
n
o
t
even slow
down
their
bloodthirsty
charge
. By the time they were too near
,
l
ess
than two
hundred
of them
, well under a
tenth of their total number
had fa
ll
en under the
barrage
of stone
.
The slingshot attack
, usually one of their most potent tactics,
had
clearly
failed and
the undead
army
eagerly
raced
deep
into the main body of his
soldiers
.

Minco watched
from his
high
vantage point
as axes, truncheons and
staffs fought against the
jaws,
teeth and hands
of the undead
. It was not a fair fight
-
far from it. The soldiers of the Ukhu Pacha
flooded
over their terrified foes
, ripping and tearing flesh as they moved
forward
like a
great
flood
towards the
majestic
city
. Even
from his distant perch
,
Minco watched as
arterial
fountains of blood sho
t up
high
into
the sky.
H
e
listened to
the
wild
screams of terror
,
pain
and death
as the
y
blended into a
long chorus of unbelievable horror
that
vibrated through
out
the valley
. Then suddenly,
a
line of
the
Spaniards changed the song.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The fire sticks, the
ir
long muskets
,
fired
over and over
again
,
deep into the mass of
rushing
bodies
. The shots
they sent out
were indiscriminate,
both
the dead and the living fell
motionless
under the
se
volley
s
of
hot
lead. The foreign soldiers
did not care
who
or what
they hit
. T
hey just wanted to
keep the advancing forces at bay
and
in their
mad
panic;
they
had no thoughts of
separating the undead from the living
.
Their shots
may have
slowed the
advance
down
but
there was no way they
could
ever
stop it. S
till they came
in
seemingly
never ending
wave
s
. No matter how many were felled
,
t
he
numbers
were constantly
replenished
as their victims rose
up
again
,
taking the places of the fallen
as
new
servants of
the great
Supay.

One
young
Spaniard rose from his knee after reloading
,
but before he could
lift
up
his muske
t
,
he found himself
face to face with one of the demons. A once pretty girl clasped her hands on his cheeks,
pulling
him
to her as if
preparing
for a
kiss. She did
take a
taste
of
his lips, but only as she
tore
them
away from the young man’s face, chewing the tender morsels in the
deep
,
red gash that was her
mouth.
With a terrible, cadaverous
grin,
she dragg
ed him backwards
, back
into her army.
Siza, the Tambos girl, may have escaped Tarapoto
,
but
she
still
had found her way to Cuzco
with the rest of the undead
.

“Retreat! Retreat!” one of the Spaniards shouted
out
. “Get
back
inside the city walls
,
come on
,
move it
!
” He had seen
more than
enough
death
already
.
F
ar
too many of his companions
had
already
been
pulled away from the line and into the
hungry
maw of this bestial
army. This wasn’t their battle
. What was happening here?

The problem was that
t
hey were
n
o
t the only ones to
decide to
run. Almost all of the defenders of Cuzco
still
breathing
had seen that
they had already lost
this battle
. Swarms of
terrified
men
, Incan and Spaniard alike, raced
in fear
towards the narrow gates. S
everal
hundred
of them
were attempting in a panic
to get through a
mere
ten foot wide gap
at once
. S
oon enough
, they found themselves
gridlocked;
they also found the gates still locked
.

The unlucky ones at the rear
fell as the undead jumped on their backs,
merrily
chewing away on their
sweet juicy
flesh. The
ir
screams
of agony and despair
only fed
the
already
mad panic
at the front
. T
hose
men climbed on top of one another in a desperat
e attempt to
escape
from
the reaching hands of the undead
.
Dozens
of
men
were crushed to their death
s
under the feet of their
own living
comrades.
Other
s
were
badly
injured
, even crippled
in the crush
and could only lie
on the ground, waiting for
the hands of the undead
to
reach
down
and pluck them
up like fallen
fruit
.

S
creams of pain were
quickly
joined by calls for help and
the
sobs of
utter
hopelessness. These
pitiful
sounds seemed to
further
encourage and
lure
the monsters
that were
right
behind them.

Minco sent more of his men
over
to the gates
in an attempt
to hold them
firm
against the creature
s
advance
.
H
e was about to join them
himself
when
something
far
in the distance caught his eye. H
e saw a solitary figure standing
atop
a
large
rock
, far behind
the advancing horde.
Minco squinted, trying
his best
to bring the figure into focus and growled savagely when he realised
that
his suspicions had been correct.