Neil watched in fascination as the men in the ring leaped into the air, their feet flashing. The dancers swarmed around them dizzily, their voices raised in a wailing chant. The drums increased in tempo, their beats resounding against the stone building behind Neil. The trumpets blasted loud and clear, shattering the night air with their stridency.
And then, above all this, sounded a shriek, a vicious shriek that electrified the air. It grew in volume, and was joined by many voices raised in shouts and cries.
The dancers stopped, the music trailing off to a weak moan behind them.
Talu leaped to his feet in the glare of the torchlight.
He shouted orders at the Mayas just as a group of unkempt, dirty, leering men burst into the courtyard, spears and daggers bristling from their arms.
Another scream, a scream that could be nothing but a battle cry, wrenched through the night.
The scream seemed to hang in the court like the tattered fragment of a shredded banner. And then, instantly, the Mayas were on their feet, tables overturned, lush, ripe fruit spilling to the ground like colored beads ripped from a necklace. Torches were ripped from the wall, flashing through the night air with the brilliancy of screaming rockets. There was the thud of heavy wood against solid stone, the voices of the women raised in frightened cries, the hoarse cries of the men as they reached for weapons, swords slithering from belts, spears rattling, slings unfurled.
Shields were raised, and sweating torsos gleamed in the light of the torches now smoldering on the stone floor of the court.
The invaders were small, dark, squat men with the bodily appearance and coarse black hair of the Mayas. They bore crude weapons, and they screamed lustily as they charged forward across the court. And yet, in spite of the resemblance to the Mayas, there was something different about them. Their hair was longer, matted and twisted, and their bodies were covered with filth. They were almost naked except for tattered, dirty loin-cloths slung haphazardly about their waists. They were barefoot, too, and they ran with the swiftness of a people hardened to a life of wilderness.
It was almost as if Neil were looking at two sides of the same race: one civilized and the other barbaric.
The word
“I don’t get it,” Dave said.
“I imagine they’re trying to protect us,” Neil suggested. “We’re their guests, you know.”
“Those other guys don’t strike me as being nice playmates,” Dave said wryly.
The Mayas and the barbarians seemed to pause momentarily, like players in a tennis match, surveying their opponents for a brief, respectful moment.
Their weapons gleamed dully in the flickering torchlight, and their faces appeared drawn and tired, the way the faces of men in war always look.
Suddenly the battle burst like a balloon filled with blood. There was an insane rush by the barbarians, their feet padding across the court, their voices raised in wild threat. Onward they charged, screaming all the way, their weapons waving over their heads, their bodies sweating freely. They were horsemen without horses, wild in the fanaticism of their reckless charge.
The Mayas held their ground like a solid stone wall, spears extended, swords ready, faces impassive. The barbarians crashed into that wall with the strength of a runaway bull. The wall bent in the middle, swayed backward, and then surged forward again.
The barbarians retreated a little way, then turned and charged again, pitting their frenzy against the stolidity of the Mayas,
Neil watched as the great battle began in earnest. Man pitted himself against man in a sweating, bleeding, furious struggle.
The Mayas fought in little groups, their arms swinging swords, spears jabbing out, spilling barbarian blood. The barbarians, on the other hand, were like a flooding stream that rushed over everything without direction, without purpose.