The Sacrifice (The War of the Gods Book 1) Read online

He had no choice but to think fast. “I’m not going to die. I’m not going to die, I’m not going to die,” he repeated like a mantra. He could not even reach for a mace or a stick, nor did he know how to defend himself with his body alone. He could only go back or else go on, and he would have to do it trusting his instinct, as he had no torch. Far away he heard his grandmother and Rufus searching for him. But the voices and the barking were not strong enough to let him get his bearings and find his way to them. He took a deep breath and decided to run as never before, breathing out an unequaled fury, as if he were going to conquer lands or armies.

  The spikes scratched his face and made tiny cuts, which smarted. The stinging added to his frustration, anxiety and fear, and he began to cry. He lacked air, he tried to breathe but he was drowning. He wanted to shout; that way Lulita would be able to find him more quickly, but it would also alert his attackers, so he kept quiet. Determined to go on fighting, he began to move amid the plantation like a cat. He clutched his Teitú nut tightly. Everything was still peaceful. Perhaps the attacker had got lost amid the wheat. Hope that he would be able to escape grew within him.

  At that same moment Manchego became aware of a round shape, no more than five strides in diameter. In the center a fire was burning. Two people were sitting around the fire, one of them wearing a hood that hid his face. He recognized the other at once. His heart galloped in rising panic.

  It was Mowriz, and he was staring at him. He was saying something: “Solemn sun, calming fires… Solace sun, innocent forges… Sun solacium, beardless and incentive… Sun solanum, carry me in your hand…”

  The distant screech of an owl echoed in the night. At that moment the hooded man stood up. He pushed back the hood, and the head of an owl was revealed. It had bright yellow eyes that hypnotized Manchego. Its beak reflected the light of the fire and stood out among the black feathers of its face. The boy could not stop admiring those eyes, could not stop feeling himself attracted by the mysterious strength they gave out.

  Reality became distorted. A purple mist formed, then started to turn until it became something like a platform with a tunnel opening in front of it; at the end of it a white light could be seen. The owl-headed being pointed toward it with one finger. Manchego understood that he had to enter that landscape, transported by the mist, perhaps to melt into the light. He obeyed. It was as if his body acted of its own accord.

  What was Mowriz doing there? He had survived Sureña’s attack, but he looked battered, dying. He went toward the mist. As he set one foot on that phenomenon, he felt that the coordinates of space and time shifted, that time was speeding up.

  The platform was sucking Manchego, not violently but subtly, carrying him securely forward. He turned and saw that Mowriz was coming behind him. He was muttering under his breath and seemed gone, as though dead. His usual aggressiveness was not apparent; instead he seemed to be … friendlier?

  Manchego reached the end of the tunnel. Before him was what appeared to be a lagoon of white water positioned vertically, like a waterfall of milk. He reached out and touched the fountain. It vibrated and emitted a buzzing like a swarm of bees. He put his hand through and felt an atmosphere of cold on the other side. He drew it back, scared. Mowriz, as if following orders, came forward. Without hesitating, he plunged into the white fountain and disappeared. Manchego was left astonished, motionless. He only reacted when Mowriz’s dead hand reappeared, inviting him to cross the threshold. He accepted and crossed the portal.

  ***

  The wind was blowing in silence so as not to awake the dead who scattered their laments around in gushes of blood and misfortune. A sandstorm swallowed the blood and the whirlwinds prevented him from seeing further than two strides away.

  The place was unknown to him, the stench of fear enveloped everything, the howl of a corpse rent the air. Mowriz took from his belt a metal sword, long and solid. The being with the head of an owl might have given it to him.

  Mowriz beckoned Manchego to proceed, and so they did. The boy felt death all around him, keen to consume him. They moved warily. The shepherd, barefooted and in his pajamas, felt utterly out of place.

  The corpse’s howling increased in intensity. The beast was close. In seconds, the ill-treated body showed itself to them, tall and eaten away, dressed in horrible bloody rags, its flesh in the process of rotting away. It had marks on its ribs. But most shocking of all was that it had three dying heads on its shoulders howling with pain, letting forth such a terrifying lament that Manchego could only think about fleeing. He had no time to think about this. Mowriz and the three-headed corpse became entangled in a fight which promised to shed a great deal of blood.

  Mowriz defeated the corpse, and although he had been bitten badly in the neck and was bleeding profusely, this did not prevent him from going on with his mission of guiding Manchego through the sandstorm. They came to a door.

  It was the entrance to Ramancia’s shop. Manchego felt a strange burning, a pinch of hatred and misfortune. He collapsed, with no control over his legs. His lip split when he fell against the cobbled floor. Manchego had an arrow buried in his abdomen. He was bleeding to death. He began to weep. Lulita! Luchy! Rufus!

  Chapter XIV – Unexpected violence

  Luchy was shaking Manchego, who was not waking up from his dream. The boy seemed a lifeless puppet. It occurred to her to try another method: she poured a glass of water over him.

  Manchego opened his eyes abruptly. He touched his soaking face and hair, the rest of his body. Yes, he was alive, and safe.

  “It looked as if you were having a nightmare,” Luchy said, full of concern.

  Manchego laughed with relief.

  “It was terrible!” the girl said. “You were kicking, breathing very fast. What happened, you silly? Don’t scare me like that…What do you have there?” she asked, looking at her friend’s clenched fist.

  “What a nightmare,” Manchego replied, squeezing the Teitú nut.

  “It’ll be nothing in comparison to the way Balthazar’ll bend your ear if you keep being late, you silly,” she scolded him with folded arms.

  Manchego looked through the window. It was true, it was getting late! Rufus came in and greeted him with several licks.

  “And why didn’t you wake me up?” the boy asked the dog.

  Rufus replied with a few barks and wags of his tail. It did not take long to gather together his clothes and get dressed. He was about to put his boots on when he saw that his feet were covered in mud. He had no time to think about it, or clean the mud off. He put one boot on. And the other? He searched all over the floor before it occurred to him to go to the shelf with the metal objects. There it was.

  Fear came over him, then straight away an intense curiosity, above all when he found a note under an ornament the size of a thumb, with the body of a man and the head of an owl… Manchego picked up the note and read carefully: “Ramancia’s shop. Six in the evening.”

  The note was written in charcoal on a thin piece of wood. The writing was that of a small boy. Manchego’s heart beat faster. Who could have put that note there? Could it be a joke? The dream… could it be possible?

  ***

  Luchy and Manchego were sitting in the Observatory, under the Great Pine, side by side, almost touching, wishing some casual move would bring them closer still. Neither of them dared, for fear of rejection, for fear of losing everything.

  “They’ve closed the school, Mancheguito,” Luchy began. “They say one of the teachers was murdered by the Mayor’s soldiers, and others were taken to the dungeons. It’s a disaster, something really terrible. At least I’m home, helping my parents make their caramel pudding…” Luchy shivered and lowered her voice: “I miss you.” And she leant her head on her friend’s shoulder.

  Manchego blushed, and he noticed that his muscles had tensed. What should he do now? He stayed still. He wished he could find the courage to stroke her head or pet her. A little kiss on the face would be t
he best thing. But he could barely even breathe. They stayed like this without speaking, in pleasant, comfortable silence. Manchego enjoyed the feeling. Who knew when he would have Luchy like this again?

  “What do you think we’ll be like in five years’ time?” the shepherd wondered aloud.

  “What do you mean?” she asked nervously.

  “Well….uh… you and me, our friendship, what’ll it be like in five years?”

  “Well, the same, I should say. What d’you think?” Luchy said, blushing. Manchego did not notice.

  “I guess it’ll be the same, but… d’you think something might happen between you and me?” he said, a little more specifically. He hoped Luchy would not notice that his hands were shaking and that he had broken into a cold sweat.

  Luchy moved a little away and looked at him more closely. Manchego returned her gaze.

  “I don’t think so. We’re best friends, aren’t we? And between best friends it’s better if that kind of thing doesn’t happen. Friendship’s more important, don’t you think?”

  Manchego did not seem too happy with this reply. He shrugged. “You never know…”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “We need to keep our eyes open and our hearts ready for anything.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Lulita. I guess she doesn’t want us to go our separate ways.”

  “I don’t want us to be parted either, not for anything in the world, Mancheguito.”

  “Luchy… I’m very … I’m fond of you,” he began hesitantly. He wanted to use the word love, but he did not dare, it would have sounded too amorous and that was not what he wanted to convey. Or was it?

  Their eyes met. “I’m very fond of you too, Mancheguito. You know I’ll always be here to give you support. In everything.”

  Manchego went red. They both burst out laughing and their laughter infected Rufus, who started to bark. They stayed like this for some time, with the dawn holding them in its warm orange embrace.

  ***

  At four o’clock, Manchego was finishing his work in the fields. During the day he had pondered on the dream and had concluded that it had not really been a dream. There were the tracks of his bare feet all over the plantation, and most of all that round flat area, with the dead embers of a fire in the center.

  He went into the stable and started to comb the horses’ manes. Sureña and Granola looked him up and down, as if they were checking it was really him. Ever since that day Sureña had defended Manchego from Mowriz and his goons, there had been an intimate bond between them.

  The boy went on thinking about these latest events and their mysteries. There was a mirror that had belonged to a certain Black Queen. He was curious to know more, but the Queen’s name terrified him. At six this evening someone wants to meet with me at Ramancia’s house… but who? the shepherd recalled, lost in thought.

  Six o’clock coincided with the curfew. He shook himself, he did not know what to do. The wise thing would be to warn Grandmother, Luchy and Balthazar that he was going to set off for the village with the intention of solving various riddles. But he knew the reply would be a categorical no, and he needed to go to the village, whatever danger might be involved.

  He took his machete and tied it to Sureña’s saddle. The white mare accepted the responsibility gracefully. With his heart in flames, Manchego raced out towards the village.

  ***

  The evening was dark. A streak of lightning crossed the sky, followed by the echo of thunder in the distance. Manchego crossed Ranchers’ Avenue and went into The Encounters, the road which took him to the Salient Booth. Wherever he looked there was nothing but horror. Chaos had spread, it would not take long to reach the ranches. What would they do then? Flee? Settle somewhere else? He went on, perhaps making the most reckless decision of his existence.

  Hundreds of corpses were piled up in the area around the Salient Booth. They were not the bodies of soldiers but of village people, mingled with broken carts, mutilated horses and the penetrating smell of putrefaction. This was the result of trying to escape. By the gods … has all this happened in such a short space of time? the boy thought, shocked.

  They cantered along the Poor Sector, among garbage and filth, and the noise of fighting. He passed a group a people who looked at him as though begging for help. He kept going. What could he do?

  His white mare, elegant and beautiful, caught the attention of a group of soldiers. They began to whisper among themselves. Manchego went on, trying to look composed, but soon two soldiers left the group and came for him. His heart galloped at the same rhythm as Sureña’s progress; his arms, legs and hands were shaking. He should never have come, but he was already here and there was no turning back.

  Several houses had resisted. Doors and windows were boarded up and many people were waiting outside in the hope of being offered shelter. The cold war had heated up and now it had been openly declared; the village had risen up in arms against its local government. In the streets there was no trace of the village’s previous bustling life.

  There were fewer corpses than in the Poor Sector, but some showed a brutal cruelty: bodies hanging from nooses, heads stuck on pikes. Manchego felt sick. He soon forgot about them as the moment he realized it was not longer just two soldiers running after him but a group of twenty. They would make mincemeat of him and the mare. A spear whistled by very close to his ear. He turned in the saddle to look back. There were the soldiers running to catch him. Manchego spurred the mare and Sureña broke into a frantic gallop.

  They reached the Central Park. Manchego was agitated, in a cold sweat, overcome by terror. He had to hurry and go on to Ramancia’s shop, but what he saw before him rent his heart: the statue of the god of light was headless and covered in excrement and blood. Beggars lay sleeping at its feet.

  The boy felt he would burst with rage. He tightened his grip on the Teitú nut and in that instant a pulse of light surged from his body. Sureña was not immune to the energy and felt the fire take hold in her heart, a hot breath issue from her nostrils. The warrior mare was ready. They threw another spear, which tore his clothes. The mare, catching sight of the soldiers, charged against them neighing furiously.

  The soldiers formed a sort of phalanx: twelve spears aiming at the chest of the charging horse. Manchego wanted to make her swerve, but the mare, intoxicated by the passionate desire to bring down her enemies, went faster. Not more than five strides from crashing into the phalanx, the animal swerved unexpectedly and rose on her hind legs.

  There was an explosion. The phalanx was swept up in flames amid the agonized cries of the soldiers. A group of villagers had appeared by surprise, determined to finish off the Mayor’s bullies. The fire did not stop a pair of those soldiers, who hurled themselves on the group, perhaps hoping their flames would catch on their attackers’ clothes.

  Sureña was not content to remain a mere spectator. She went for one of the soldiers and thrust at him with her powerful chest, then crushed him on the ground with her hooves. The other was knocked down by the villagers, armed with spears: home-made, but with very sharp points.

  The skirmish was soon over. The leader of the village group, a tall, dark man, with a badly-trimmed beard, came over to Manchego.

  “It’s not advisable to be in the streets at this hour, my lord. Seeing we could, we helped with what we had. For days we’d been wanting to set a trap for these soldiers, so we had a bomb of fermented lard in store for them as a present. Maslon, Desmond, take the swords away from those bastards. The armor as well, we’ll use it to make arrows.”

  The man turned, alerted by a moan. It was a soldier, who was still in his death-agonies. He raised his sword and drove it into the man’s neck,

  “Now we’re off, sir. I invite you to come to the Asaetearas Fort, where a few of us have got together to organize the resistance. Out of the three groups we created, only ours is left. We’re short of food and water…I watched y
our skills as a rider and your horse’s spirit. You’d both bring a lot of courage to our group.”

  “Captain!” cried a ragged man who was running toward them, breathless. “A gang’s on its way! They say there are a couple of hundred of them! We’ve never had to face that many! Something must’ve alerted them, and they’re on the move.”

  “My lord,” the leader said to Manchego, “did you hear that? Maybe it’s the moment for you to join our side.”

  “I’m honored by your request, Captain, but…I have a mission to accomplish and I can’t delay it.”

  “Where are you heading, my lord? Maybe we can escort you there?”

  Manchego felt flattered that the man should address him as lord. “I’m on my way to Fifth Avenue and Seventh Street, to the Villa Sexta del Nuno quarter, five blocks from Amrias Santas, Captain,” Manchego replied proudly.

  The Captain eyed him curiously. He came closer.

  “My lord,” he whispered in his ear, “are you sure you want to go there? Nobody wants to set foot in that quarter, my lord.”

  As the boy did not flinch, the Captain went on explaining:

  “Let’s see how I can put it… you see …they say that place is haunted, there are walking corpses and a fort full of soldiers that makes it impossible to go on. I don’t know what your mission might be, sir, but if you want to go on, I can only offer you my escort as far as Fifth Avenue and Sixth Street; after that you’re on your own. Are we agreed?”

  Manchego nodded in acceptance. The Captain turned, and Manchego called out: “You haven’t told me your name!”

  The Captain took off his helmet, revealing lank hair plastered to his head by sweat. “They call me Savarb. When the chaos broke out I was a woodcutter, and before that I was a member of the militia. What’s your name, sir?”