Pyramid of the Dead: A Zombie Novel (2 page)

Pizarro
sheathed his
sword
after wiping
the
slender
blade through the
already matted
hair of one of the fallen beasts
. Looking
down
at the Incan
, anger burned
in his eyes
as
h
e held out hi
s hand to assist him up
.

“
Fool,
I
told
you we
had
to
stay together.
”
H
is tone
also
showed
Minco
, no doubt
quite
deliberately
he guessed
, that
h
e was far from
happy. “I
need you to take
us to
this
City of the Snake, to Huacas.
Y
ou won’t
be able to
do that if you’re dead
.
”

Minco
had learned the Spaniard
’
s language well. As head of the defence force for the capital city, Cuzco
, he had been
ordered to find out everything
he could
about these visitors
. The order
had
come
direct
ly
from the
King
himself
when these strangers
from a distant land
had first
set foot on
Incan
land
more than
four years before.

“It
wa
s an Inca
n
problem and
it had to
be fixed by an Inca
n
,” Minco
said as he
ignored
Pizarro
’s
hand, rose unaided,
and
began to
dust himself down. “
You
may
well
ha
ve saved my life
today
, Spaniard,
but what I had to do, I had to
do alone
.”

Pizarro
smiled at the native
as he thought to himself
.
These
damn
Incans might be
many
things
,
but this one was
nothing if not brave
.
He may be
m
ore than a
little foolhardy, but
he was
definitely brave.
Pizarro
dusted Minco’
s back as
he straightened his face enough to continue
.

“M
y friend, if you
’
ve learned any
thing
during
these las
t few
days
,
i
t’
s that we need each other,” he said. “To
have any chance of
defeat
ing
these
damn
monster
s
,
we
’
ve
got
to stick together
, no matter what
.
” He looked around at the jungle that surrounded them
, li
stening
for the approach of
any
more of the undead
army
. “
Come on
, we
’
ve
got
to get moving
. The
noise will
no doubt
bring more of them
. We need
to
get
far
away from here
before
they
turn up
.
Now
Minco
,
will
you
just
please
tell me
w
hich way
we
need
to
go?”

Minco
thought
long and
hard before raising his arm and pointing
over
towards the west. “
Over there,
we need to go
a
l
ong that path. One more day
and
night
’
s travel and
we
’
ll be at
the gates to
Huacas,” he said
before moving
to stand
face to face with
Pizarro
. “I
’
ll stay with you
Spaniard
, but only until we
’
ve
succeeded
. Then I
’
ll make you
and your kind
leave my
land
forever
. T
hat is a
promise. A
ll
that
you have brought
to
my people is death.”

Pizarro
seemed to
ignore the
threat. He gave a
casual
nod
before going over and
ordering
his men down t
he path. “Full speed,” he shoute
d. “Double file
with
swords drawn
. There
’
ll be more of the
walking
dead
around- be prepared.”

*****

As they marched along the
barely visible
path,
Pizarro
sped up and
joined Minco
who
had taken
up a
position
near
the front
of the marching soldiers
. H
e
had
chose
n
to walk
alongside the
King
’s
younger
brother
,
Yupanqui,
a man
who
was
so brave he must have hid
den
away
in the bushes
when they
fought
to rescue Minco.
Still
, as he was part of the royal family,
Minco was pledged to protect him
with his life
.

“J
ust
remember who
it was that
raised this
undead army. I
t was not me or
any of
my men. It was one of you
who done it
,
don’t
you
ever
forget that,
my friend,
”
Pizarro
told the Incan
as they walked
along at pace
together
. “
Don’t
you
dare
try and
blame me
for all this
death
.
All I want is
for
peace to return.”

He was lying, of course
.
He
only
wanted to keep Minco on his side
for
he
would
be useful in their quest. In truth
,
a
ll he
ever
cared about was the gold
,
his
gold
.
If n
o
t for
his
unending
lust for
their
treasure
,
he
and his men
would have sailed off into the sunset
a
long
time
ago.

Minco
conceded
a little nod to
the Spaniard.
T
his
too
was nothing but
a
lie. A
ll he wanted was
to take his
revenge
, a
nd he was prepared to wait
for as long as it
would take
.

2
- The Spaniards Return
to Inca

The P
ort of Puna-
almost
two
months before.

Pizarro
could
n
o
t help but smile
at the sight before him
. H
e stood
proudly
on the bridge of his flagship
as the
impressive
flotilla edged along the coast and
at last
,
entered the bay.
It felt that he had been away
from here
for far too long,
but
h
e
had
always planned
to
return to these
rich and
fertile
lands for a
second time
. A
ctually
,
he believed
that this
journey
was
always
his destiny
.
It had been
a
lmost f
our years
to the day
since he first set foot on these shores
and
got
ten
that
first
,
small taste of the
riches
it held
. T
his time
he
was back with
plenty of
reinforcements
a
nd
h
e was
after more than a
little
appeti
z
er
this time
. H
e was
back to
take his
fill
of
their
gold.

One hundred and eighty
well-trained
mercenaries
,
twenty-seven
fine
Arabian
horses and
one single
,
l
arge
cannon
had
joined him
on this mission
.
He was
,
of course
,
many things
to many people
-
both
good and bad-
but
no
t
one
of them
could say
he was
n
o
t
always well
prepared.
And i
f the
se damn
savages
wouldn’t give him
exactly
what he wanted
, he
was
more than
ready
to take it
all
by
force.
In fact
, deep down
,
as he loo
ked around
with pride
at his
mighty
arsenal
,
he hoped
that
they would resist.

As h
is men disembarked
from the six
triple-
masted
ships
upon which
t
he
y had arrived
,
they
quickly and efficiently
set
up
camp
in the
quaint
,
semi-circular
bay
.
After close to two months at sea
,
he could clearly see the delight on his men’s faces to be back
at last
on terra firma. It was a simple joy that he shared too.

With his men hard at work
beside him
,
Pizarro
stood on the white
,
sandy beach and
watched the
villagers
with a keen interest
. They
had seen the
line of
ships arrive but
were
still
keeping their distance
,
forming a
deep
line high up on the
nearby
hillside that swept up from the edge of the beach
.
Y
ears of
fighting
experience
triggered a
tingle deep
with
in his mind as
a
larm bells rang in his
head. This
was a sight he did
n
o
t like.

“Almargo,
Diego de Almargo,” he called out
as he scanned
around
the
lines of his
crew for his trusty right hand.
A portly, bald
,
and
well
-
aged man raced over to
join
his master.
He was n
ot what one would expect to see in
a
recent
soldier but
Pizarro
had
, and always w
ould
, trust
him with his life.

“Yes, Colonel,” he said as he huffed and puffed
over
to his side. “What can I do
for you
,
sir?”

Pizarro
was no longer a
Colonel;
he had left the service of his k
ing a few years before
;
in fact
,
it was
just after his
first
trip to these Incan lands
.
Amassed around him
now
was
his
own
private army
and although they no longer had any
official
ranks
,
both
h
e and Almargo had served together
for many years
.
T
hose
blood stained
days
in the light infantry during the long Italian campaigns
felt
like
a lifetime ago,
or it did
f
or
Pizarro
at least.

“Set
up
the guards,
my friend. W
e
’re going to
need
to form
a
defensive line
,
”
Pizarro
said
,
as his eyes scanned the shoreline and
the
n back up to the
locals
. “I don’t like the look of them
;
those
damn s
avages seem to
be planning something.
” He
gently
placed his hand on his man
’
s shoulder.
“
We
may have
to give
them
a
little
lesson
.
Make
sure
the cannon
is
ready
. T
his could
be the
perfect time to
show them our power
.”

Almargo
glanced
over
at the r
idge
,
and then
nodded to his master. This was nothing
new
to them
;
b
oth
of
these m
en had faced and defeated their enemies
many times
before. Their base
back
at what is now called Panama
,
was littered with the
unmarked
graves of those who had
been foolish enough
to stand against them.
A few more dead
savages
would
n
o
t
rest
too
heav
il
y on their souls.

As t
he
long night came and went
,
and the
morning
sun
came
rolling
over th
os
e
pretty
hilltops
,
the villagers
would
once again
prove
that
Pizarro
was
right.

The f
irst
rays of
light brought the
heavy noise of
beating drums and
blazing trumpets, an
ear-splitting
chorus
that
lasted
well
over
an hou
r.
Pizarro
was
n
o
t sure if the Incans
done
this
to intimidate their enemies
,
to rally their
own
troops, or
for that matter
,
a
little
bit
of both
.
A
s he looked through his spyglass at the
native
s with their
wooden shields, cloth tunics and animal skin helmets
,
fear was the last thin
g on his mind, even if they did have him
outnumbered
almost
ten to one.
Almargo was no longer at his
masters’
side;
he was walking up and down the line ensuring the men were ready.

The instruments
suddenly
went quiet
,
and
it was
then
that
the
high-pitched
screaming
began
and
they were on the move
.
Swarms of the villagers washed down
through
the fields from
the hills
high above. Feathered h
eaddresses waved back and forth as they got closer, forming
a beautiful sea
of
wild
colour
within the
dull
shades of
green maize.

“Steady,”
Pizarro
said to the
four
men
that
were
standing
at
the cannon, one had
his hand
held just
above the fuse
,
ready to set it alight. “Please w
ait
gentlemen;
just
wait
until I tell you.
” He kept a watch on the coming army. “
Just l
et them get a little
bit
closer.
”

His
new
foes
were only a
couple of
hundred feet away when
a
still
smiling
Pizarro
finally
gave the order.

“Fire!”

Like a thunderclap
from the
gods,
the
mighty
cannon fired and the
huge
spinning
ball of iron flew
deep
into the mass of
rushing
bodies.

T
here, t
hat’ll give them something to scream about, thought
Pizarro
.

The noise
around him
grew even louder as nearly
a hundred muskets fired
as one. A line of
men
immediately
knelt down
and started to reload
, shoving a
lead
musket ball
and a handful of
gunpowder
down the long barrel. Thi
s
allowed
a
second row
of the soldiers
behind them
to
fire into the
now
rapidly
thinning
crowd.
The
y knelt to reload
,
and as if without almost any break
,
the first
row was rising
up
to
fire
once more
.
Over and over again
,
t
his
deadly
sequence
was repeated while
the
thunderous
cannon
continued to
beat its periodic cadence of destruction
.