38
Fletcher woke to the sound of drums. They pounded with a deep, incessant throb, booming low and loud across the pyramid.
He was not the only one awake. Mason, the escaped slave, watched him through half-closed eyes. The boy remained silent, but nudged Malik with his foot until the young noble groaned. Moments later he was as awake as Fletcher was, the pulse of noise startling away the vestiges of sleep.
The room was a dim, bare cube, with sleeping bodies surrounding the remains of a fire now reduced to cold ashes. The light of dawn glowed from the corridor outside. They had slept through the night. He looked over and saw Malik was clutching a pocket watch. He peered at it. They had two hours left … was that enough time?
‘What the hell is that noise?’ Jeffrey mumbled from behind Fletcher.
Fletcher turned to see most of his team were awake too, as well as Lysander, Sacharissa and Caliban, who had stayed up all night on watch, in order to wake them in time and to let them know if Isadora’s team arrived. Evidently, they had not.
‘We need to find out what it is,’ Sylva said, peering out of the chamber furtively. She jerked her head back in immediately, her eyes wide with shock.
‘There are orcs out there,’ she whispered. ‘Fetching water from the river. We can’t risk going outside.’
‘That’s not the plan anyway,’ Malik said dismissively. ‘This is the safest place we could be. But yes – we need to find out what that sound is. It could be some sort of ceremony involving the pyramid.’
‘I don’t care what it is,’ Fletcher said. ‘We’ve waited long enough – the sponsors should have woken us earlier. We have to start the raid. Now.’
‘I know what it is.’ Mason spoke for the first time. His hands trembled ever so slightly, and his eyes were closed.
‘It’s the end of the orc trainin’,’ he continued, taking a deep, quavering breath. ‘Where they separate the weak from the strong. ’Appens every year. This is terrible timin’ – the area’ll be crawlin’ with orcs.’
‘Will they come into the pyramid?’ Fletcher asked.
‘They might,’ Mason replied, his eyes still closed. ‘The shamans’ll test the young ’uns for the ability to summon today, just as ’Ominum’s Inquisitors do. If there’re any adepts, they’ll be takin’ ’em into the pyramid. They come in through this back entrance and leave through the front. That’s all I know.’
‘And that’s all we’ll know, if we don’t go out and check.’
It was Verity who had spoken. She was sitting in the corner, watching her Mite crawl over her hand. It was black, and small for a Scarab, just as Apophis had been.
‘Nobody will notice Ebony here, if she flies out and takes a look.’
As she spoke, she rummaged in her satchel before tugging out a flat rectangle of crystal the size of a dinner mat. Its edges were reinforced with a steel band to prevent it from shattering, though one edge was already beginning to crack.
‘A gift from my grandmother,’ Verity said, holding it up for all to see. Ebony alighted on it, and Fletcher was amazed at the clarity of the image as the Mite’s view came into focus. Even the Oculus back at Vocans had not been so crisp and clear.
‘Glad it will be of use,’ Verity continued, tossing her hair. ‘I’ve been lugging it about this whole trip without using it once. I’d rather have one like yours, Fletcher.’
She turned her big brown eyes on him, and Fletcher smiled at the compliment. Sylva rolled her eyes.
Ebony swooped past his head, flicking a spindly leg against the lens strapped to his face. The overlay of Ebony’s view appeared, and he felt dizzied as the Mite zoomed around the room. Athena’s view was a lot more stable and less prone to sharp turns.
‘Any objections?’ Verity asked.
‘None,’ Malik said, admiring Verity’s scrying stone.
He turned to Fletcher, since Seraph was still sleeping beside Othello and Atilla on the floor, his own snores adding to the bass chorus. All the others were awake now.
‘Let them sleep,’ Malik said, grinning. ‘Fletcher, what say you?’
Fletcher paused, listening to the ominous throb of the drumbeats.
‘We need to know when the coast is clear, so we can find somewhere better to hide in the pyramid,’ Fletcher said, tapping his chin. ‘We’re sitting ducks in here. It can’t hurt to do a bit of investigating.’
Before he had even finished speaking, Ebony had buzzed out of the chamber and into the light, the image blurring as the demon jinked left and right. Higher and higher she flew, Fletcher’s overlay filled with clear blue sky and the glare of the blazing sun. Then, just as the others began to grow restless, Ebony turned and looked to the ground.
Beyond the pyramid, a teeming metropolis spread out below. These were not the grass huts that Fletcher had envisioned, but squat, heavy buildings of carved sandstone, with small ziggurats and monoliths surrounding a central plaza. It was all built around the great pyramid, except for a thin strip of beach between the pyramid’s back entrance and the river – where they had travelled last night.
‘Holy hell,’ Cress whispered. ‘There’re so many of them.’
Thousands of orcs milled in the square, waving pennants and banners of stretched cloth, bird feathers and animal-skin. Brightly coloured body paint separated the crowd into a patchwork quilt of different tribes. Even their hairstyles were different, a strange mix of shaven patches, topknots and bowl-shaped mops.
But they were not alone. Smaller orcs cringed beside each group, wearing heavy wooden yokes around their necks, like oxen. They had been daubed with blue ochre from head to toe, and the stone floor was stained by their footprints.
‘The weaklings, chosen from among the captives after a year of indoctrinashun’,’ Mason said, tapping the scrying tablet where the blue patches were. ‘They’ll take part in the games for a place among the warrior elite.’
There was a great stairway on the side of the pyramid, leading down into the plaza, and Fletcher could see that the balustrades that lined it were carved in the likeness of interwoven snakes. A squat, rectangular block sat at the flat zenith, with a shallow basin hewn into the stone and a dark hole in the centre.
Mason leaned in and squinted at the tablet.
‘There,’ he said, prodding to the right. ‘Go there.’
The image magnified as Ebony flew closer, shaking as the wind buffeted the demon. In the end, the Mite settled at the top of a tall obelisk to watch the proceedings below.
‘The pitz ball game,’ Jeffrey murmured. ‘I’ve heard about this.’
As had Fletcher, for Baker’s journal had waxed lyrical on the subject.
In between two sloping stone bleachers filled with cheering spectators, two teams of blue orcs leaped and dived across a long field of sand. On either end, a stone hoop was embedded in a wall, almost twelve feet off the ground. The hoop was turned sideways like a perfectly round ear, and Fletcher knew that the aim of each team was to get the ball through the opposing team’s to win the game.
He had seen many sketches of these pitches from Baker’s study of orc villages, but had never imagined how the game itself was played, nor that there would be more than fifty players battling up and down the pitch.
Most fascinating was the ball itself: a heavy sphere of rubber, the same material the gremlins used for their harpoon guns. It was bounced from orc to orc as they batted it around with wooden clubs, which they also used to batter aside their opponents. Blue dye and red blood spattered the sand, the two colours blending together as they did on the neck of a cassowary bird.
‘It’s brutal,’ Sylva whispered as an orc’s tusk was knocked from its mouth in a spray of crimson. The crowd jumped to their feet with a roar that reached even the confines of the chamber.
‘Nah,’ Mason said, pointing to the edge of the next pitch along. ‘There’re far worse things than the pitz. Look. The venatio.’
Ebony’s eyes turned to the next pitch, where the red on the sand far outweighed the blue and the watching crowds were much thicker. Three orcs were chained together by the ankles, surrounded by a pack of hyenas. A fourth was being savaged on the ground not too far away. Armed with nothing but spears, they stabbed and whirled at the baying animals.
In the corner of the field, a pile of blue bodies had been left for the vultures. Among them, the corpses of animals could be seen, including big cats such as jaguars, tigers and lions. Hyenas and wild dogs seemed to be the most common, with crocodiles and even baboons appearing here and there.
‘The pitz ’onours the wind god. The venatio ’onours the animal gods. And then there’s the skin-pull, for the god of fire and light.’ He pointed at the next pitch, and Ebony’s view swung once again.
There could have been a hundred blue orcs on the next pitch, though there was no blood on this one. Instead, a great pit of flames burned fiercely in the centre, dividing the grounds in half. A great rope of knotted animal skins was stretched above the fires, while two teams of orcs strained, slipped and staggered in the sands in a desperate tug of war.
‘Surely they wouldn’t …’ Jeffrey whispered as the front row of one side stumbled, their feet scrabbling frantically against the edge of the pit.
‘It’s for their gods,’ Mason said dully, averting his eyes. One after the other, the defeated orcs were dragged into the flames, falling away until all that came out of the other side was a blackened rope of skin.
More pitches stretched out into the distance, where other games were being played. The nearest was a pool filled with water, where orcs in canoes beat each other with oars. Stone weights were tied to their ankles, so that the losers would drown if they fell. If that was not bad enough, the black bodies of crocodiles were thick in the pool, and already the water was tinged red around the remains of an upturned canoe.
‘That’s called naumachia. It’s to honour the water god,’ Mason whispered.
‘Who needs to kill orcs?’ Sylva said, shaking her head with a mix of wonder and disgust. ‘They’re doing the job for us.’
A cheer filtered through the walls of the chamber and Ebony’s eyes flicked back to the pitz. A team had managed to score. The winning orcs fell to their knees in gratitude, chests heaving with exhaustion. Many embraced each other, while others simply lay on their backs, tears streaming from their faces. The losers were swiftly rounded up by the crowd and marched away from the pitch and into the plaza. Spectating orcs hounded them on their way with leashed hyenas, until the animals nearly choked themselves to death in their attempts to attack.
‘You’d think they’d just lost more than just a game, the way some of those boys are going on,’ Verity said, for the losing orcs were sobbing bitterly as they were pushed to the base of the stairs. ‘Not so tough after all.’
‘They ’ave lost more,’ Mason murmured, shaking his head. ‘You’ll see. This is where we find out if there’re any adepts this year. Let’s ’ope that …’
He stopped. The shouts and drums had silenced. On the scrying stone, the crowds no longer milled to and fro. They began to part like a multicoloured curtain, as a parade entered the plaza from a ziggurat opposite the pyramid.
‘Here they come,’ Mason uttered.
A great litter was carried aloft by a herd of rhinos, their great heads tossing as they strained under the weight. It was like a carriage without wheels, and had been carved to look like an enormous orc skull. The outside was painted gold so that it shone fiercely beneath the blazing sun. It stood nearly as tall as the monolith Ebony was perched on, but it was impossible to see anything more than darkness from within.
An escort of orcs surrounded it, larger specimens than any Fletcher had seen before. Their skin was splashed with red war-paint, coupled with stripes of yellow along their chests and faces. Each was armed with a macana and wore a quiver of javelins on their backs. Jade stone-plating covered their chests, elbows and knees, ceremonial armour that shone bright green in the sunlight.
‘They must be the albino orc’s bodyguards,’ Fletcher whispered. ‘He has to be inside that carriage.’
‘If Lovett sent Lysander to take him out …’ Cress said, gripping Fletcher’s arm.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Mason muttered. ‘If the legions of orcs around us won’t put you off, look behind ’em.’
There was another group of orcs at the rearguard of the parade, wearing enormous headdresses of gaudy feathers. They were clad in nothing but bone jewellery, just a belt of human skulls protecting their modesty. Most had ritualistic scarification on their bodies and face, while others had thick plugs through their noses and ears. Despite their fearsome appearance, it was not this that marked them out from the rest.
‘They’re shamans,’ Sylva breathed.
Demons walked beside the orcs, monstrous creatures of every kind. Some Fletcher had no trouble recognising: Felids, Lycans and even a Minotaur. But others he only knew from his lessons at Vocans or the illustrations in Baker’s journal.
The two Nanaues were the most fearsome. Like Felids, they shambled along with the posture of a jungle ape, but that was where the similarity ended. Their species were as close to sharks as Minotaurs were to bulls, with great gaping mouths filled with razor teeth, a large fin cresting each of their spines and swishing, rudder-like tails.
‘Level nine,’ Jeffrey whispered, his finger brushing along their outline. ‘I wouldn’t mind dissecting one of those.’
Three Onis lumbered beside the shamans, matching them in size and form. Fletcher might have confused them with orcs, were it not for the giant horns erupting from their foreheads and their hunched-over gait. Their skin was a stark crimson red, and they snapped bestially at the crowds, with overdeveloped fangs. Though they looked humanoid, Fletcher knew them to be less intelligent than an average Mite.
The largest of all was a Phantaur, an enormous, two-legged elephant standing at nine feet tall, with great flapping ears, a grasping trunk and serrated tusks as long as its heavily muscled arms. Smaller demons scampered and buzzed around its feet, but the distance was too great to identify them.
‘Nobody has ever captured a Phantaur before to know what level they are, but I reckon that big bugger must be a level twenty at least,’ Jeffrey theorised.
‘So much for orc demons being weaker.’ Rory shuddered, holding Malachi close so that the Mite could see. ‘They must keep their strong demons back, only send their low-level specimens against us. Just think, half of Hominum is watching this. No one’s going to volunteer for the military after seeing them!’
‘Speakin’ of, we need to get the ’ell outta here, before they come in,’ Mason hissed, crawling to the doorway and poking his head outside. ‘The coast’s clear, for now.’
‘Move Ebony further back before she’s recognised by a shaman,’ Malik ordered Verity, grabbing his pack. ‘We must find somewhere to hide, deeper in the pyramid. The jungles aren’t safe and neither is this room.’
‘Agreed,’ Fletcher said, prodding Othello and Atilla awake. ‘But leave Ebony outside. We need eyes on what’s happening.’
Othello stretched and yawned, then froze as he caught sight of Verity’s tablet, the parade emblazoned across its front.
‘What did I miss?’ he groaned.