Pyramid of the Dead: A Zombie Novel (34 page)

He
started towards a pile of luxurious cushions, intent on sprawling there until his wound was tended to, but
stopped as a new tho
ught rushed through his head.
His eyes grew wide as he spun on his heels to face Yupanqui
again
.
“You have to s
end som
e men
over
to the temple,” he blurted
, angry
with himself
at his mistake
. “We
must
get to his woman before he does.
Tell
them to bring
her
back here.
”

The King did
just
as he w
as ordered
. He sent the last six guards that
remained
in the palace
to
get
the High Priestess
,
Inguill
. T
hey were to bring her
to him
, whether
she resisted
or not
. The
new
monarch sat
proudly
in his plush throne
, watching
Pizarro
. It
almost seemed that he looked to the Spaniard for his
next order to arrive.

Obviously,
Pizarro
recognised
this too.

*****

Once again
,
Minco was being chased
but
this time
,
he was not heading for the gates
of a city
,
and he
headed for
the temple,
to collect
his
Inguill
. His route was
not direct-
he
had
to lose
the soldiers
that were
chasing him
first.
As he raced
through the streets
, he lost his pursuers and
a few minutes
later, he arrived at the
temple. H
e pulled up short at the corner of a building adjacent to the temple
,
realising that
he was
already
too late.

He watched
with clenched teeth as some of the palace guards
grabbed
the violently struggling Inguill and held
tight as they pulled her down the steps
.
She screamed and cursed, hurling insults and threats at them. He was about to
attempt
a
rescue
when
he heard the other soldiers
calling
out
behind him.

“T
here he is!”
One of the
Spanish
voices bawled
. “
Kill him! Don’t let him escape
us
again
.”

Minco judged the distance between himself and the
men
that were
rushing towards him
.
The other soldiers, having heard their comrades call, already surrounded Inguill
. He felt his
heart
drop,
as he knew that he c
ould never survive against such odds.

“I
wi
ll
come
back
for you,” he shouted
. “Be brave
, my love
.”
With those parting words, Minco sprinted
down
the
roadway with the guards still
behind him
.

*****

Pizarro
grimaced as the
nervous looking
Incan woman rubbed a
pungent
green mush
deep
into his wound. The smell
was
filling his nostrils
and it was almost as unbearable
as the pain. But he soon forgot
his discomfort when he saw
Inguill being dragged by
her arms into the Kings chamber. He pushed the
young
woman away
from his arm
and rose to meet the High Priestess.

“Well my dear,” he sne
ered at her. “It seems things have changed a little
since last we met
.
” He looked around the vast room
. “
A
new King
sits
on the throne
and your
lover
,
Minco
,
will soon be dead.”

“You will burn in hell
for all eternity
,” Inguill s
eeth
ed
at him
. She looked down
in horror
at the pool of
dried
blood
on the floor. “Our g
ods will reward you with n
ever ending
pain
for your foul deeds
.”

“
You may
be right
,” he said as he
closed the distance between them
. “But before that
happens
,
Yupanqui and I will rebuild this empire and make i
t
far
more powerful than it has ever been
before
.
This
, young lady,
is the start of a new
world
order.
”

Inguill looked
in disgust at the new k
ing sitting silently on his elegant throne. He was clearly
happy
to let
the Spaniard do all of the talking
. All Yupanqui
had done since she arrived
was
to
adjust
the
golden
crown
on his brow. She thought that perhaps
just
having
the title
of monarch
was enough for him.

“Now
,
my dear,”
Pizarro
continued. “I’
ll likely
kill you s
oon
but first
, you and I
need
to have
a little chat.” He collected a
small
leather bag from beside his cushions
. “Here, t
here is something
that
I must show you.”

*****

With only
his truncheon left
,
Minco knew he needed to rearm
himself
. That
would be no issue. Amidst the remains i
n th
e street
,
there
were plenty of axes and swords
to be found
.
Soon, he
found a bronze axe
nearly identical to the one he always carried
.

He
had to leave the city, though he was loathed to leave Inguill in close quarters with
Pizarro
and the
new
false king. But for the moment, he had
neither the strength to fight
n
or the odds to win.
He
kept on running
, whispering a prayer for Ing
uill
’s
safe
ty
.
He also promised
that one day he would return.

*****

As soldiers from all over the empire
came to
Cuzco to help with the funeral pyres,
the
rebuilding and
the restoration
of
orde
r
,
the
y were met by the
Spaniard
Pizarro
at the gates
. He informed them
all that
Cuzco had a new Protector
. The king had given the position to
Pizarro
himself.

As easy as that,
Pizarro
had been placed
in charge of the
combined
armies
of
the
Inca
n Empire
. There was
r
esentment
to his title
on the faces of the newcomers but that did not worry
Pizarro
. H
e kn
ew
very
well how loyal the Incans were to their k
ing. If they were prepared to
lie
down and
die for him
,
the
n the
order to follow a stranger’s word would be accepted witho
ut question
.

And h
is first order was not what they
might have
expected.
It was
not to help with disposing
of
the rotting bod
ies or fixing their
shattered
defences. Instead
, they were to go into the jungle, into the hills and mountains, to find and kill
the man called Minco
, the previous Protector
. They were n
ot to
capture or
return him
to
Cuzco;
they were to kill him on sight.

*****

Minco watched from on top of a tree
deep
in the jungle as close to a thousand soldiers exited the
gates of the
city and split up into
a number of
various directions. He knew immediately what
, or rather who,
they were
going
after, but instead of running away
or hiding
somewhere
,
there was one thing he needed to do first.

*****

A group of
four young Incan soldiers made their way along the barely visible jungle path. Their eyes darted back and forth
looking into the thick foliage.
However,
it was
n
o
t
just
the
search for a
fugitive that made
one of
them worry.

“Are you sure
that
they’re all dead?” One
of them said to another who
was walking
right
alongside him.
“What if there’s still a few of them out here?”

“No need
to
worry
about that
,
Gian,
” he said. “They told us they were all gone, they wouldn’t send us out
here
if there was.” His friend
however
did not seem
that
reassured by his answer.

“Did you ever meet this
man
,
Minco?” the first one said. “I wonder why he raised the undead soldiers.
What do you think he was trying to do?
”
All the time h
is eyes still kept peering into the jungle.

“Yes,
it was
j
ust the once,” he replied. “He s
eemed like a good, honest soldier.
I also know a couple of men who served under
him;
they’d nothing but good things to say.
I’ve
got
no idea what went wrong
with him
.
Perhaps he just went mad.
” He then stopped dead in his tracks
and turned to his colleague
. “
Can I ask you one small
favour
?”

His fellow soldier
stopped
too, turned,
and nodded.

“Just s
hut the hell up
for a while
!” The soldier almost spat in his face. “Keep the damn noise down or we’ll never find anything
out here
!” he then spun around and continued on his march.

The first soldier
chuckled to himself and
was about to
speed up and
join
the others before the truncheon landed on the back of his head. Knocked unconscious he fell down into a bush and disappeared from sight. The other three soldiers did not
hear or
see this attack,
for
they were
already
too far ahead. They also did not see
the warrior
Minco
as he silently
set off after them.