Casca 2: God of Death (8 page)

"It never changes," Casca said out loud, waking a sleeping Viking near him.

"What is it, lord ?"

"Nothing," Casca answered. "Go back to sleep. It is nothing of any matter...."

Casca gave the orders.

The ships sailed. In two weeks they saw their first palm trees. The weather had grown warmer every day of the voyage south along this apparently endless coast. They pulled in to rest and stretch their legs along a marshy region. Casca saw animals here that looked exactly like the crocodiles of Egypt, only smaller. They had the same appetites, and Casca almost lost a man to one of them when the fellow bent over to drink. One of the beasts grabbed his arm and tried to pull him under. Fortunately the reptile's appetite was greater than his size. The fellow's comrades dragged him and the beast to shore and dispatched the lizard with spear stabs. They took the teeth to make
jewelry.

But they were properly impressed with the beast, for they had never seen
its like before. Casca, of course, had. He told his men of the monstrous Egyptian crocodiles that were worshiped as gods along the Nile. "Some were said to be the length of three tall men or more," he explained. His men looked at him. Three tall men? But no one said anything. After all, the Lord Casca was a most unusual man. If he said a beast was as long as three men, then that was the way it was.

Further south the ships rounded a peninsula, always keeping the coastline in sight. They never lacked for food. A few hours stop and they could catch enough fish to feed twice their number. In addition, there were huge crabs, and oysters a foot across. Ashore there was plenty of game, and animals new to them. One animal that scared the crap out of them, the one they came to fear more than any other, was the snake with the beads on its tail, which it would shake at a man before biting. One Viking found to his regret that the bite was fatal. It took two days for him to die. After that the Norsemen gave these snakes a wide berth.

They continued sailing along the coast. There seemed no end to this great land. Day followed day, and they sailed on. The sun beating on them turned their skins first red and flushed, and then slowly dark. They discovered that after their skins had darkened they could work all day in the burning heat and feel no discomfort. Their furs they had long since stowed in the leather sleeping bags. Now the nights were warm enough for them to sleep naked on the deck.

Two more weeks passed, and they had to put in again for repairs, more warily this time, for they had seen fires at night – not forest fires or brush burnings, but the controlled glows that meant men were on that shore. What kind of men the Norsemen did not know, but there were people here. Sometime they must meet.

When the time came to go in for a landing, Casca stood in the bow, naked except for his loincloth. His hide was tanned brown, the many scars on his body, being slightly paler, standing out like crisscrossed hairs and ropes. He pointed the way into a good harbor. They had seen no fires for four days, and had laid off this position for two of those days. When they were convinced that there was no one else in the vicinity except themselves, they went in – but they followed the same precautions as at every landing before. First a stockade and ditch; then the ships brought in. The precautions seemed useless. They had seen nothing...

But they, themselves, had been seen.

Eyes had watched them from the forest, the eyes of men. These watchers wore the skins of an animal resembling the leopard, and, like the beast, they wore its likeness in a fantastic headdress, a headdress that made it seem as if the man's head had been swallowed by one of the cats and the man was looking out the open jaws.

These men dispatched runners to tell their leaders of Casca and his ships, and while they waited for word from their leaders, they watched the strange Norsemen.

Had the Norsemen seen them they would have seen men who were as a race handsome, swarthy, square-faced with brown or black eyes. Their bodies were lean, with no trace of fat. These men were hunters. Not of animals. Hunters of men.

They watched the strangers from the sea, puzzled by the huge ships. Careful to keep from being seen themselves, they moved through the jungles of the coast like shadows. The only metal they had was of gold, worn in necklaces and bracelets that were studded with stones of many
colors. These were the soldiers of the Jaguar, proud and cruel. Many had teeth filed to points to show their bravery and devotion, to show that they sought to imitate their god in all things.

They were part of a raiding party. They had been sent out to punish a city, a city delinquent in its tribute to their own city far in the interior, near the great marshes in the Valley of the Serpent. Now they watched Casca and his men and waited for orders.

For twelve days they watched, and then runners came back with word that the king and priests wished them to bring back one man from these invaders to be questioned to see if he was worthy of being a messenger. To aid them in the venture of securing one of the invaders' men, along with the runners came another forty Jaguar soldiers armed with spears having flint tips, with axes faced with glasslike rock. The soldiers' faces were painted for war.

They waited.

The strangers they watched were cautious, and the look of them said they were fighters – but so were the Jaguar men.

They watched.

And they selected their man, the one they would take back as a messenger – the big one with the twisted muscled arms and many scars. He was apparently the leader. He was the one they would have.

To attack the fort would be foolish. If they were patient, time would present them with the object of their desires. In the meantime the raiding party punished the offending village by burning it to the ground and taking all the young men as slaves. When they had their last man, they put all the captives in a slave coffle and waited in the jungle for the other Jaguar men to capture the "messenger" Casca. The captured slaves were bound with ropes of woven leather for the journey to the capital of, the Jaguar men, the great city of
Teotah. These men were the Teotec.

Now, all that remained was to capture Casca. The Jaguar men were patient...

The time came – as they knew it would. The pale strangers decided the area was uninhabited and began to venture forth in small parties, hunting and exploring. The watchers in the trees made sure that the strangers retained the delusion of an uninhabited land. No sign of the watchers did the Vikings see at any time, even though many of them passed so close to Jaguar soldiers that they might have reached out and touched them with their fingertips had they known they were there. The Jaguar men were not interested in them; they waited for the leader.

Finally, Casca came out walking with the Vikings. He wore no
armor. It was too hot, and there was no reason he could see why he should load himself with steel and brass that would surely bake him like a fish in this climate. He took only his short sword. He, Olaf, and a man named Ragnar walked out into the jungle, away from the eyes of their shipmates.

Once the wall of the jungle closed on Casca's small party, the Jaguar soldiers began to move. Making the sounds of birds, they gave directions to their comrades that the quarry was near and soon to be had. Slowly they closed in – first from the rear to cut off escape, and then from the sides. They crept forward, sometimes crawling on their bellies like snakes. Slowly, patiently, inch by inch, they tightened the trap on the Vikings. Casca and his two companions knew nothing of what was going on around them. They had not been raised in woods like these. Even if they had, the mottled hide of the hunting cat that the jaguar men wore was a nearly perfect camouflage from any reasonable distance, and against the bushes and trees they were almost invisible.

To Casca and his companions the walk was a lark. Casca pointed out the monkeys in the trees. He had seen monkeys himself when he was in the East, but the animals were totally strange to the Vikings. They asked Casca if these little people were gnomes or spirits.

"No," Casca laughed, "they are just animals. But they do have some of our traits, I see." He pointed out one amorous little bastard who was hanging by his tail and getting a little off a squealing female of his species.

The Vikings joined in his laughter.

But suddenly Casca froze.

A sense of uneasiness came over him. There was no tangible reason for it, but Casca had been around too long, had known too much danger not to intuitively sense when he was being watched. He felt that eyes were on him right now. Someone was close. Speaking softly, he alerted Olaf and Ragnar to the danger. He drew his sword on the pretext of examining a strange fruit on a tree and cutting it down. The others did likewise, pretending to taste the fruit. At least now their weapons were in their hands. There was no reason to expect an attack, but if one came, they were prepared for it.

And come it did.

Without warning, fifty jaguar skin-clad figures screamed the cry of the hunt and threw themselves from the trees onto their prey. Weird, strange figures they were in their fantastic dress, but the Vikings were of the stuff that they would fight the One-Eyed Loki himself if he gave them just a little in the way of odds.

The Vikings' swords and axes whirled through the air, cutting down one fur-clad brown figure after another. Back to back, they fought their way to a great tree that would protect their rear. They fought and sliced the oncoming Jaguar soldiers to pieces. The attackers seemed to be more interested in taking them alive than dead, and the Vikings made maximum use of that fact – until a sudden thrust from one of those ugly stone-tipped spears pierced the eye of Ragnar, sending him to Valhalla, if the Valkyrie could find this place so far removed from their homeland.

Catching his breath, Casca carved one more Teotec to the waist and told Olaf that he was going to rush them and for Olaf to slip around the tree and head for the camp, that he would return as soon as he was able. He stopped Olaf s protest with a curt: "Obey. Or die." Nodding reluctantly, Olaf did as he was told.

Then Casca gave a great roar that bounced off the trees and sent hundreds of monkeys into a chattering fit. He threw himself on the
Teotec warriors, hacking, beating them back, using every trick he had learned in the Roman arena. Like a living whirlwind he sped among them, killing and hacking. But his sword was knocked out of his hand by an obsidian-lined club, numbing his right arm. Though Casca went on to kill three more with his open hand blows, they eventually overcame him, smothering him under the weight of their piled-up bodies.

The
odor of those bodies was itself overpowering.
Shit! What in Hades do these people wear for perfume?
he thought, not at the time being familiar with the use of the juice from the glands of the skunk as an aid in warding off avaricious mosquitoes!

Quickly the downed Casca was trussed up like a side of beef, removed from the scene of combat, and taken into the jungle. To the jaguar men the mission was complete. They had what they wanted. Let the other pale stranger go. He was of no importance. This one would be the best messenger they had ever had – if his courage and fighting skills were any indicators.

Olaf and a rescue party made their way back to the sight of the ambush, but of Casca – or of even wounded or dead enemies – there was no sign. Only puddles of blood, now covered with flies, at tested to the violence that had taken place. Under a bush they found Casca's short sword. Olaf stuck it in his belt. After further fruitless searching they returned to their camp. Olaf relayed Casca's order that they were to await his return. For Olaf, it was enough. He would obey – and wait while he had life. So would the others. Here they would wait until the Lord of the Hold, the Walker, returned. As he said, so he would. Of that Olaf had no doubts. Casca was not as other men.

The magnificently garbed Teotec warriors were preparing for the journey to the interior. On one of the hills facing the beach and ocean they had assembled their captives and Casca. By signs they made it known that if the captives made no trouble they would be well treated. Using their fingers they indicated that it would take ten to twelve days to reach the city that was their destination. Casca was impressed. The warriors were handsome in their elaborate feathered robes and weird headdresses of jaguars and other strange beasts and birds. Professionally, he evaluated them as a military force. There seemed to be at least one dominant group in the unit escorting them. These men wore the emblem and likeness of a leopard like animal, but one with which he was unfamiliar. Some of the men seemed to be of higher rank than the others. He presumed these to be officers. They wore the elaborate costumes of feathers and skins. The common soldiers, however, wore plaited suits of some kind of fiber. Their shields were mostly of wickerwork, though some shields were of animal hides stretched over a wooden hoop. None carried weapons of metal. He would have thought they had no knowledge of metalworking at all had not a few worn ornaments of gold. The most common weapons were spears and clubs edged with stone. Nowhere was a bow or anything like it to be seen.

He concluded that a well-trained Roman legion would have made short shrift of the lot – but at the moment he did not have access to a Roman legion. The trip began, the captives led by the ropes of woven leather.

Day after day the party made its way deeper into the interior. They passed many villages, and Casca looked curiously at the inhabitants of this strange land. As a rule they were a handsome and ruddy-colored people, with square features and jaws, but with eyes like pieces of obsidian peeking out from beneath black hair cut shoulder length and with bangs.

During the days of their trek, Casca was introduced to many new foods. One was a yellow grain made into large fat cakes, something like those he had known in the East. There was a particularly tasty tuber plant. But the prize of the lot was a hot spice that burned the inside of the mouth like acid. Something the natives called "
chile" – as near as he could make out the word. This the natives used every time they cooked. Surprisingly enough, though, after a couple of days of eating the "chiles" regularly, he began to develop a taste for them.

On the trail the party was joined for short periods by others carrying market items – as Casca decided they do all over the world. There were pelts from the great spotted
cat, snake skins over ten feet long, and birds – thousands of brilliantly colored birds. The whole countryside seemed to have a madness for bird feathers.

The trail led up and up. Casca knew they were climbing and he was puzzled by it. Was this strange land that big that the interior should be so high? They left the tropical regions behind and entered a desert landscape where the vegetation was sparse, but cacti of many kinds flourished. Several times he saw the strange snakes with beads on their tails that they would shake at one if excited. Although Casca already knew it, his captors indicated by signs that the bite of the reptiles was poisonous.

He became aware of a certain ceremony, endlessly repeated.

As the war party and its captives approached a village, a deputation consisting of the village leaders would come out and make obeisance to the leader of the
Teotecs and offerings of food and drink would be tendered. Before the party continued on its way many of the inhabitants of the village would come to where the prisoners were, bringing their children. They would smile and bob their heads in what was obvious approval. Several of the bolder souls would come close enough to touch a prisoner on the head and then touch their own, grinning all the while, obviously pleased. Casca surprised them the most, held them the most in awe. His paler skin and sun-streaked hair seemed to fascinate them.

There was some kind of meaning to the repeated ceremony, but he could not figure out what it was.

The trails they traveled on were well used. Traffic on them was regular, if not heavy. What surprised him was to find that each night, when they stopped on the trail, it would be at already-prepared facilities – permanent facilities. Used as he was to the Roman civilization, he was surprised to find in this strange land an equally elaborate organization – if not the same, at least along the same lines.

As the party crested a hill on the twelfth day, Casca caught his first look at their destination. Shock – and wonder – engulfed him. There in the vast bowl of the plateau below them was a city such as might compare in grandeur and size with many Roman and Greek cities he had seen. Yet it was strange also. It resembled what he imagined had been the cities whose ruins he had seen in Mesopotamia. There were straight streets and broad avenues, temples and pyramids. From this distance the pyramids looked like those fellow soldiers in the legion who had served in Egypt had described to him. The walls of the city flashed with
color even at this distance. It had the feel of being filled with low, square buildings; it had the look of being clean-and of being laid out geometrically. Thousands of the inhabitants were visible. At this distance they looked like ants as they went about their business.

The leader of the
Teotec pointed proudly to the scene below.

"
Teotah!" he exclaimed, then pointed to the sky and repeated, "Teotah."

Teotah ... Teotec ... City of the gods. Good enough. At least I should be able to find out what's going to happen here
, Casca thought. The plain below was shimmering with the heat of midday. Cacti, those long-leafed spiny plants that reached heights of over six feet, were abundant. There were also fields planted with crops of which Casca knew nothing – but the fields were obviously well cared for and well-tended.

The Jaguar leader sent one of his men ahead as a runner, apparently to announce their arrival. The full party continued at a more leisurely pace. Crowds had already gathered to look at the captives as they entered the city from the south along a broad thoroughfare. Casca was able to get a good look at those looking at him. For the most part, the men he saw wore only a loincloth of white or brown, the women a two-piece dress consisting of a skirt and jacket. Many of these were decorated with geometric patterns. They caught Casca's eye because they resembled the designs he had seen in Greece. But other of the designs
were a random blending of colors, no order at all, just colors mixed for the pleasure of it. It was obvious which were the married women; they wore their hair in a bun. The young girls wore their hair loose or in braids wrapped around their heads like crowns. As on the trail to this city, many of the natives would come out and touch the prisoners, making hand signs and smiling. Casca couldn't figure what the hell this was all about; it was a repetition of the ritual that had puzzled him on the journey.

Before the party entered the city proper they passed through the outskirts where merchants hawked their wares and vendors sold the crops of the region. Casca noted that workers and farmers were careful to keep their distance from those of the upper classes – at least he thought they were the upper classes since their dress was more elaborate and their manner more authoritative. There were some whom he took to be the nobles of the city for they were carried in sedan chairs not very different from those of Rome.

As they entered the city proper, Casca could see that the walls were painted in a bright, rich coloring the like of which he had never seen elsewhere in his travels, painted with bold murals, but he was hustled along before he could get a really close look at them. The people lined the avenues leading to what was a great square. They were orderly, mannerly. There was none of the hate and vile behavior that he had witnessed in the Roman mob indulging itself when captives were paraded through the streets. These people were quite well mannered, almost docile, and their deference to the Jaguar men was obvious.

But there was something strange about the whole procedure.

Something that did not quite fit.

It was not too long before he found out what it was....

The Jaguar men stood before the great pyramid.

The priests came forth to look at the captives and determine which would have the
honor of being the first to carry their prayers and messages to the gods. The native captives obviously knew their fate and were reconciled to it. The eldest priest, in a great feathered rendition of a monstrous serpent in emerald and cobalt blue feathers, selected one of the brown-skinned captives with a quick motion of his wrist. The man began to sob. Casca guessed that something unpleasant was about to happen. Perhaps they had the same thing here as in the Roman arenas where he had fought. The elderly priest spoke quietly and gently to the man and motioned to the top of the pyramid and to the skies. The man gained control of himself and was led away by two guards. The guards' treatment was firm but full of respect.

A chill ran up Casca's spine, a feeling of premonition....

The priests went one by one until they had faced and spoken with each prisoner. The prisoners were then taken and lodged in separate huts.

Then it was Casca's turn.

The old priest, with his escort of lesser holy men, slowly faced this stranger from the sea. Smiling a toothless grin, the old man said in gentle tones, “Xiteohua uotec, Chmpe xaoca huacn?” Then he pointed to himself and said, "Tezmec" He thumped his meager chest and repeated, "Tezmec." Placing his ancient hand over Casca's heart, he thumped the chest and said."Chicxa ?"

Casca didn't know what the hell the words themselves meant, but he got the general idea. He nodded as if he understood and said, "I am called Casca."

The old man backed away from him. There was puzzlement in the ancient eyes. "Chicxa?" he asked, tentatively.

"Casca.
I am Casca."

Disbelief was in the old priest's eyes. He turned quickly to the Jaguar man who had been in charge of the capturing force and fired a stream of rapid questions at him in a staccato voice. One word was repeated so much that Casca could identify it. It sounded like "
quetza." Shit. That must be my name he's trying to say. Must be the way they say Casca.

But that was the only word he could make out. While the priest and the leader were talking, Casca took a better look at the pyramid. It was a big thing. A series of stairs led to the top. Whatever was up there was not visible from
where he stood, but carved all along the steps was a continuous line of serpent heads, flanking the staircase all the way to the top. Casca looked back at the priest.

The Jaguar leader was now on his knees, drawing a picture in the dust. Obviously he was trying to get across to the high priest how the strangers had come to this land and how they were captured, and either drawing a picture in the dust did the job better than words – or maybe there were no words to explain easily in this language what he had seen. He drew what even Casca could tell was a rough sketch of the Viking
longships. Then the leader drew a larger sketch of the figureheads on the long-ships. Then the leader drew a larger sketch of the figureheads on the longships, the dragon heads. At this the old priest became extremely agitated. Looking back and forth between Casca and the sketches, he pressed his questioning of the leader. And again and again the word quetza was repeated.

The thing that seemed to excite the old priest the most was the dragon head of the
longship. He kept pointing at its rude drawing in the dust.

I don't know what the hell he's getting so worked up about over a piece of carving
, Casca thought.
They certainly have plenty of carvings here
. Again he took in the imposing pyramid. In addition to the painted stuccoed facings, much of the structure was heavily decorated with carvings…. heads of the great serpent ... and the likeness of another ugly bastard that Casca knew nothing about. Further, the body of a great serpent was intertwined in high relief between carvings of sea shells and snails. Casca raised his eyes higher. He saw that there were six levels to the pyramid, each decreasing in size toward the top. At the very top there was what appeared to be a temple constructed of dark wood. He couldn't see it very well from where he stood, just the upper portion of what appeared to be a temple. If there was anything else up there it was beyond his vision.

Finally the old priest seemed satisfied with the Jaguar leader's story and came back to Casca. He looked him up and down, chattering in approval at what he saw. The scarred, muscular body of the prisoner seemed to please him particularly. He nodded in approval and patted Casca on the shoulder. Then he took a shining dagger of black obsidian from his belt and cut Casca's bonds.

What the hell? Casca thought. But the sudden pain in his wrists caused by the blood flowing in and setting the flesh cramping and on fire took his mind off the odd behavior of these religious bastards. The old priest gave rapid orders to the Jaguar men. Two escorted Casca across the great square and into a building set slightly apart from the others. Guards stood at the doors. Their flint-tipped spears and feathered shields were different from those of the Jaguar men and bore a snake emblem.

Casca noticed a slight reluctance when the jaguar men turned him over to the Serpent warriors guarding the doors.

Oho ... a little rivalry between the snakes and the cats. Perhaps to my advantage....
As he entered the interior of the building he momentarily lost his vision, coming as he did from the bright glare. As his eyes adjusted to the dark he saw that his new guards were making him welcome with smiles and bobbing heads. They were pointing out the different features of his quarters. There were two rooms and a small latrine. The walls inside were covered with pictographs representing heroes and legends he could not yet decipher – but they did serve to brighten up the room. Over in the corner near the window was raised benchlike affair on which were several reed mats and a couple of woven blankets.
Bed,
he thought,
that's what I need
. His captors showed him how to cover the windows and made signs to show that food would soon be brought to him.