Time Travel Omnibus, page 273
Cortez told us urgently, “Gentlemen, all depends on getting him to our quarters without incident. Pretend to be casual, make it seem that this is only another royal visit to us.”
So, closely surrounding Montezuma’s litter but pretending merely to escort it in friendly fashion, we all passed out through the palace. The Aztec guards outside bowed low to their ruler’s litter as it passed.
In the streets of Tenochtitlan, the sight of the royal litter and retinue evoked a similar respectful response from the crowds. None dreamed of any possible compulsion upon the king in his own capital.
We reached the great square. My steps now were dragging, my strength running out of me like water, from my wound. I was barely aware that we were passing through the courtyard gates of our Axayaca palace.
“Close and guard the gates!” blared Cortez’ voice. “We’ll announce tonight that the king has taken up residence with us sacred guests.”
“Dios, we did it!” Alvarado was exclaiming almost unbelievingly.
I felt myself falling senseless.
Chapter VI
In the Fight at the Temple
I AWOKE to find myself lying on a soft mat in a small chamber of our quarters. Bright sunlight slanted in through a small window. With it came the sound of a loud din, of shouting voices and rattling arrows and the occasional barking roar of a Spanish arquebus.
All my strength seemed to have deserted me, for when I tried to get up I became dizzy. An unfamiliar weakness gripped me, and I now saw that my hands and wrists looked thin and shrunken. A little polished mirror nearby showed me that my face—Pedro Lopez’ hawk-like face!—was pallid and pinched.
A slim brown figure in brilliant feathered garments entered the chamber, and then dashed forward with a little cry at seeing me sitting up. It was Atzala.
“Nick!” she cried. “You’re awake at last! I’ve been so worried—your wound healed but your coma seemed to go on and on.”
I looked down bewilderedly at myself and found that in fact the deep wound in my side was now only a healed, livid scar.
“How long have I been unconscious, Kay?” I stammered.
“You’ve been lying there for weeks, Nick!” she exclaimed. “You never became conscious—I was afraid you never would.”
“Thank God you’re safe, at least,” I said fervently. “But what’s been happening? It sounds as though they’re fighting outside.”
She nodded tensely. “They are. The Aztecs are besieging us here in the Axayaca palace. They’ve been attacking for several days, led by Guatemozin.”
“Burke Ullman!” I exclaimed. “That devil would incite them to attack! But we brought Montezuma here, and he’s still king—”
“He’s a king without power now, Nick. For a while after you brought him here, the Aztecs seemed stunned. They obeyed his commands, even though he was only a captive of the Spaniards. But then they began to turn against him. Guatemozin—Burke Ullman—incited them to revolt. They attacked this palace, and have been besieging us in it ever since. Cortez has been trying to make Montezuma quell the revolt.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Nick, I can’t help pitying Montezuma. He’s so broken now. He talks to me—thinks that I’m still his daughter Atzala, of course. And he’s haunted by the fact that he let the Spaniards into Tenochtitlan. He knows now they aren’t gods.”
“Kay, what about us?” I asked feverishly. “I’ve got to get you out of here. We’ve got to get to the hill of the Beam and return to our own time.” Her slim brown shoulders sagged. “It’s hopeless, Nick. We can’t get out of here now. Look at that!”
And she pointed through the open window. I stumbled over to it, with her arm supporting me, and peered wonderingly outside.
My Spanish comrades were defending the wall that surrounded this Axayaca palace. They had mounted our few guns and falconets in embrasures, and also were using crossbows on the howling horde outside.
For outside the wall swarmed thousands of yelling Aztec warriors. That fierce, feathered horde completely surrounded the walled palace, and slingers and bowmen among them kept a rattling shower of stones and arrows coming over the wall.
AS I looked, an ominous throbbing, booming sound floated down to me, from the summit of the gigantic Temple of Huitzil across the square. I looked up and saw black smoke rising from the chapel up there.
The girl beside me shuddered. “They’re sacrificing more victims to Huitzil, to insure victory over us. That serpent-drum has been booming every few hours for days.”
“God, we can’t get out through that horde,” I muttered, appalled. “Guatemozin would be waiting to seize us. Burke Ullman wants to make sure that he is the only one of us who returns to the Twentieth Century with the treasure-secret.”
“He doesn’t have that secret yet, Nick. Perhaps he hopes to be named king in Montezuma’s place, and learn it then.”
“Take me to Cortez,” I said after a few moments. “I’ve got to know if he intends to try breaking out of here. If he does, you and I must be ready then to make a dash for the Beam.” Atzala-Kay supported me on the way through the chambers and courts of the big palace, to the main hall. I was still dreadfully weak, but a little strength was now coming back to me.
In the great hall, dozens of our Spanish soldiers lay wounded on mats along the wall. Father Olmedo was bending over one who was dying. Alvarado came in from outside, his face bleeding from an arrow-scratch, his blue eyes blazing with battle-light. He saw me and hailed me.
“Lopez, you’re up at last! That’s good—we need every man now against those hellish heathens outside.”
Close behind him, their armor scratched and dented by combat, came Cortez and Sandoval. Cortez’ face was dark and taut. He addressed himself to the girl beside me.
“Princess, did you inform your father of my request that he address his people?” he demanded.
Atzala-Kay shook her head. “The king says that he cannot do it. He says that the people will not listen to him now.”
“Por Dios, he’s got to do it!” flared Cortez. “He may be able to calm those howling wolves out there. Come—I’ll see him myself.”
We followed the leader to the spacious quarters of the palace in which Montezuma and his retinue of councillors and women lived.
Montezuma came forward slowly to meet his Spanish captor. I saw that the Aztec ruler was indeed a broken man. His handsome face had a gray, colorless look, and his dark eyes were haunted. He shook his head miserably when he heard Cortez’ stern request.
“The people will not listen to me now, Malinche,” he said dully. “They deem me a traitor. By now, they will have chosen another king.”
“You are their rightful king and it behooves you to bring them to order,” Cortez insisted relentlessly. “You must do it, and do it now.”
His iron will crushed Montezuma’s resistance. The Aztec emperor falteringly agreed.
With his councillors, and with Atzala, he went up heavily to the flat roof of the big palace. A few of us Spaniards followed at a little distance. We kept a little back, as Montezuma went to the terraced edge of the roof and stood there in the sunlight looking out at the Aztec horde.
The furious assaults of the Aztec warriors upon the wall ceased abruptly. They had recognized the king. Thousands of fierce faces turned up toward him, in a manner that still had some of the old-time awe in it.
Montezuma’s voice rang thinly through the sunlight. “My people, you must desist from these mad attacks. The teules are our friends. That is why I came to live with them. I, your king, order you to withdraw.”
A fierce yell came back from the Aztec horde. “You are no longer our king, traitor. We have chosen Cuitlahua as our ruler!”
MONTEZUMA’S brilliant figure seemed to sag, at that news. But he raised his hand and began to speak again.
“You have not the right to choose another king when—”
He was interrupted by a heart-chilling screech from far out in the Aztec crowd, the ominous Mexican war-cry.
“Up, Tlateloco! Cuitlahua and Guatemozin lead us now!”
At the same moment, a bow twanged and two arrows buried themselves in Montezuma’s body. He began to fall.
“Alvarado! Quick, get him back!” I yelled, and stumbled forward.
Atzala was bending over the fallen king. Alvarado and Sandoval dashed past me as I stumbled weakly forward, and helped lift the prone figure and bear it back to safety.
Arrows and stones were now showering upon the roof. The Aztec horde was surging forward against the wall with an intensified fury.
“Tlateloco! Tlateloco!” they yelled. “Death to the teules!”
Cortez’ voice blared orders. “Mesa, sweep them with the guns! De Oli, take your crossbowmen to the north wall—they’re thickest there.”
We bore Montezuma to his own chambers. His wounds were fatal, one glance sufficed to show. But he was still alive, and opened his eyes as Cortez’ iron figure stalked into the room.
“Malinche, you can let me die now,” he whispered with bitter irony. “There is nothing more I can do for you.” Father Olmedo pressed earnestly forward. “Do you not wish to die in the true religion of Christ, rather than in idolatry?”
Montezuma shook his head feebly. “No, I die in the faith of my fathers. Leave me, all of you—all except Atzala.”
We obeyed, leaving Atzala alone in the room, bending over the dying king. Out in the big hall, Cortez looked at us gloomily.
“We’ve played almost our last card, gentlemen. With Cuitlahua and that devil Guatemozin leading the Aztecs, they’ll never stop attacking.”
De Montejo, covered with dust and blood, came staggering in. “They’ve breached the north wall and are breaking in!”
Cortez shouted to us. “Out to the breach, every man! If the fiends get in among us, we’re lost.”
I snatched up helmet, breastplate and sword and followed the others out. My long weakness was passing, and while I still felt faint and dizzy, I realized the importance of holding the Aztecs out.
If they overwhelmed us, with Guatemozin as one of their chief leaders, then both Kay and I would be wholly in Burke Ullman’s power!
By using heavy logs as battering-rams, the Aztecs had managed to breach the masonry wall at the north of the palace. They were fighting like wildcats to get through the break, and a dwindling group of Spanish swordsmen were endeavoring to hold them back.
“Mesa, move your guns to command the breach!” Cortez was yelling to our gunner. “Men, hold them out with your swords meanwhile!”
“Easier said than done, that!” gasped a bloody, breathless figure beside me whom I recognized as Sergeant Bernal Diaz. “They’re fiends from hell. They’ve taken four of our men captives—see!”
HE POINTED and I glimpsed a knot of Aztecs outside dragging the helpless four Spanish captives across the square toward the looming Temple of Huitzil.
“Strike hard or all our hearts will fry before that cursed idol!” yelled Alvarado. “St. Jago and at them!”
I found myself in the very thick of that crazy fight at the breach. A sea of distorted brown faces swam in front of my blurred vision as I struck and stabbed, shoulder to shoulder with my comrades.
We piled Aztec bodies waist-high in the breach and still they came at us like tigers. Had they stood back and used their bows and slings through the breach, they must have killed us all. But their fanatic religion made them intent on taking living prisoners to offer Huitzil, and they utterly disregarded their own danger to lay hands on us.
“My God, Captain Lopez, do you suppose any of us will ever see Spain again?” panted Bernal Diaz to me as we fought.
“Not if they break through,” I gasped. “Why in hell’s name doesn’t Mesa bring up the guns?”
I, Nick Clark, had almost forgotten that I was a man of the Twentieth Century in this moment of bloody struggle. The supreme importance of protecting Kay from the yelling horde made me temporarily as blood-mad as my cursing, panting Spanish comrades.
De Oli, fighting beside me like a madman, was seized with another of our men by the maddened Aztecs. With yells of triumph, the two captives were dragged out into the horde outside the wall.
“After them!” roared Alvarado. “We can’t let them take our comrades to sacrifice!”
But at that moment, Cortez’ voice blared through the din. “Stand clear of the breach! Mesa has the guns ready!”
Mesa and his gunners had dismounted half of our few little cannon from the walls, and had trained them upon the breach in which we were struggling.
Barely in time, we darted aside. The guns roared, hurling a shower of missiles that struck the Aztecs crowded in the breach. In a twinkling, they were a heap of dead and dying. The others recoiled.
“Now close the breach while we have the chance!” Cortez ordered. “Timbers and stones there—quickly!”
All of us worked furiously, dragging the squared timbers and stones in readiness for such emergency. Soon, the breach was barricaded.
The Aztecs had drawn back outside the walls, daunted by the fearful execution just done to them. Their heart-chilling howls filled the air in deafening volume. And we saw De Oli and the other captive, being dragged up the side of the pyramidal Temple of Huitzil in the distance.
I felt dizziness and weakness overcoming me as I staggered back into the palace. Atzala came running to meet me in a corridor.
“Nick, Montezuma is dead!” she told me. Her eyes were full of tears. “He just died, believing that I was his daughter—”
“He’s better dead,” I said dully, still gasping for breath.
She caught my arm. “Nick, he told me the secret place of the royal treasure before he died! He said that I must convey the secret to Cuitlahua, the new ruler.”
“The treasure?” I repeated. I had almost forgotten it in the desperate urgencies of our situation.
“Yes, Nick—he told me just where it is hidden. It’s in a cavern cunningly concealed in a ravine on the north slope of Popocatapetl.”
HER dark eyes were flashing with hope as she continued. “Nick, why couldn’t I bargain with Guatemozin—with Burke Ullman? If I agreed to tell him the treasure-secret, he would surely in return allow us two to get through the Aztecs to the Beam.”
“No, Kay!” I exclaimed. “It would be mad folly to try that. Ullman would get the secret from you and then destroy us both. He intends to be the only one to return to the Twentieth Century with that secret.”
I swayed, my fatigue and weakness overcoming me. She grasped my shoulder to support me.
“Nick, you’re sick and exhausted! You must lie down and rest—you shouldn’t have been out there fighting—”
I was only dimly aware, so great was my drunkenness of exhaustion, of dropping to a mat in the chamber to which Atzala-Kay led me.
I must have slept like a drugged man. I knew that several hours had passed when I awakened, for now it was dark outside the window. An uproar of excited cries in the courtyard had awakened me.
“Kay!” I called. There was no answer. She was not in the room.
I felt sudden alarm. I grabbed my helmet and sword, and stumbled through the palace in search of her.
Montezuma’s body lay in one room, between flaring torches. The grief-stricken women of the dead king were wailing and chanting over him. But Atzala was not there, nor was she in the torchlit courtyard outside.
Sandoval came toward me, his handsome face pallid in the flickering light. “Lopez!” he exclaimed to me. “That princess, the girl Atzala—”
“What of her?” I cried in fierce alarm. “What have you done to her?”
“We did nothing to her!” he swore. “But she has escaped from us! She darted suddenly over the wall a few minutes ago before our sentries could prevent. And the Aztecs out there have seized her and are dragging her to the temple!”
I felt a freezing horror as I realized what had happened. Kay had carried out her plan of going out to bargain with Guatemozin-Ullman for our liberty.
I sprang frantically up to the wall. Night shrouded Tenochtitlan, but torches tossed and bobbed all around the great square where the Aztec horde still kept watch upon our palace-strong-hold.
The altar-fire upon the summit of the lofty Temple of Huitzil flashed quivering red rays across the night. A great mass of Aztecs was moving up the side of the temple. Their exultant shouts, that Sandoval hastily translated, came clearly to our ears.
“To Huitzil with the traitress Atzala! Let she who loves the teules share their fate!”
An urgent Aztec voice rang above the tumult—a voice that I recognized as that of Guatemozin—of Burke Ullman.
“No, do not take the princess to sacrifice!” Ullman was vainly commanding. “She possesses the secrets of dead Montezuma—”
Burke Ullman knew that in dying, Montezuma would have bequeathed the treasure-secret to Atzala! Ullman, avid for that secret, was trying to save her life long enough to gain her knowledge.
But even Guatemozin could not check the blood-mad Aztecs now. They now hated Atzala as they had hated her father Montezuma, as supposed traitors to them. They meant her to be sacrificed with the Spanish captives.
“No, Lopez!” cried Sandoval to me in sudden alarm. “Alvarado, help me! He’s gone crazy!”
I HAD tried to fling myself down over the wall, to rush to Kay’s aid. In that moment, I was quite incapable of calm reason.
Sandoval and the others held me and prevented me, dragging me down from the wall into the torchlit courtyard. I raged there like a madman.
“Are you going to stand here and let them sacrifice De Oli and our other comrades as well as the princess?” I cried. “Listen!”
The great serpent-drum atop the teocalli had suddenly begun booming and the ominous reverberation was greeted by fiendish cries from the Aztec horde to whom it signalled the beginning of sacrifices.
Alvarado swore vehemently. “Diablo, Lopez is right! We can’t stand by and let them tear out our living comrades’ hearts!”
