Because she was looking northward, Martha was the first to see what came around the bend in the river. A moment later everyone did, as the flotilla of canoes whipped their torches into flaring life and the drums began to beat again. For a long instant she stared slack-jawed at the spectacle approaching them.
Most of the canoes were simple dugouts, holding four to twelve men. But leading them were a pair of giants, double-hulled craft with the floats eighty feet long and linked by a broad platform. Burning torches on tall poles gave detail a ghastly clarity. Each held forty paddlers to a side, standing and digging their leaf-bladed oars into the water with a chant of hi-hi-ye-YI, hi-hi-ye-YI, repeated endlessly. Flamelight glistened on the sweat-slick skin of their muscular bodies. Water coiled back from the prows, which curled up in a ten-foot figurehead carved in the form of a snarling jaguar pug face. Great drums stood on the platforms, man-high, with two drummers each beating out BOOM-ba-da, BOOM-ba-da with yard-long wooden mallets. Behind the drummers the platforms were crowded with warriors in garish cloaks and trappings, carved helmet-masks fantastically colored and sweeping up to impossibly tall plumes of flamingo and quetzal feathers. They waved spears and weirdly carved wooden club-swords and rakes edged with the teeth of sharks or with obsidian chips. At the rear of the giant catamarans hulked platforms on which the commander squatted, and above that more jaguars-this time in frozen wooden leaps. Every inch of the big canoes that she could see was carved, painted, inlaid, in a riot of grotesque imagery.
Both catamarans held at least forty armed men. Scores of canoes followed after.
Martha grabbed the yachtsman who had served as Lisketter's captain. "Get us out of here!" she screamed in his ear, shaking him, tasting sour vomitus at the back of her throat. Features slack with bewilderment and fear firmed a little, and he turned and dashed for the wheel. "Shoot, you fools! Shoot!" she called to the others.
"No-we came to help-" Lisketter began.
For once her followers ignored her. The diesel coughed and roared into life. When it did the men sitting cross-legged on the platforms at the rear of the catamarans sprang erect. They held up masks overhead in both arms, making pushing motions toward the schooner. Magic of their own, Martha thought wildly. She aimed at one of the men, remembering what her husband had told her- breathe out, squeeze the trigger-and felt the light kick of the.22 against her shoulder. The man looked up as the ceremonial mask tugged in his hands, then returned to his gestures. Martha worked the bolt and shot, again and again until the magazine was empty. She wasn't sure if she had hit anything. The schooner lurched under her feet as the helmsman tried to take her downstream and ran up against the anchor. The Bentley swayed and dipped, throwing people off their feet. Someone with more presence of mind than most ran to the bows and leaned far overside, chopping at the mooring line with a machete.
Martha saw a warrior in the lead catamaran set an atlatl dart in his spear-thrower. The arm whipped forward and the American hung upside down, pinned to the side of the schooner like an insect in a collector's cabinet. More of the darts whistled by in flat fast arcs, and slingstones cracked. The schooner's engine gave a cough and died. Martha went down behind the meager protection of the low deckhouse; some impulse made her pull Lisketter down beside her. The catamarans swept in on either side, throwing grapnels pronged with wood and stone. They bound fast to the bows of the Bentley, and the rowers threw themselves flat. Over them, vaulting off their backs, came the warriors in their garb of feathers and skins and painted wood. What followed could hardly be called a fight. She saw one Olmec slam a three-pronged pick shaped like claws into an American's shoulder, haul him close like a gaffed fish, and stab into his belly with a knife of volcanic glass. Another crewman reeled back with his chest gashed open by a shark-toothed rake.
The noise died, except for a screaming that went on and on until a warrior stabbed downward to end the annoyance. A few of Lisketter's followers fled belowdecks. Olmecs followed them, poking ahead gingerly with their spears and holding torches high. Others scoured the deck. Martha came to her feet cautiously, holding up empty hands, trying not to shake. The onslaught had been so quick and brutal that it was hard to grasp; it seemed impossible that people who'd been whole just a few seconds before were now bleeding lumps of meat. Eyes turned toward her, and toward Lisketter where she crouched in shock-driven silence. Pride stiffened her spine; she crossed her arms on her chest, resisting the impulse to lay protective hands over her swelling belly. They can kill me, but I'm the only one who can make myself act like a disgrace, she told herself. And she didn't think that groveling would do much good with this bunch.
The warriors seized her, and hauled Lisketter to her feet. They were hustled forward to the clearer space near the bow; there was only one other living prisoner, dazed, bruised, and battered. The Indians were laying a gangway from one catamaran to the deck of the schooner. The man from the platform at the rear stepped up onto it, and it shuddered under his tread. He was big, tall and massively built, heavy muscle moving under a generous coat of fat. Cross-straps over his shoulders held an ornate pectoral of colored woods inlaid with rosettes of stone. Over it hung a concave mirror that she recognized as polished hematite, iron ore, polished until it reflected torchlight as brightly as glass might have done. On his head was a mask-helmet in the shape of a jaguar's head cunningly fashioned from wood, bone, and real fur, with his own thick-lipped, heavy-featured face staring out through the fanged muzzle. A cloak of jaguar skin half-hid his massive upper arms, and one hand bore a curious ceremonial weapon, four basalt claws fixed at the end of a yard-long shaft.
He walked with an odd swaying gait, each foot turned a little sideways as it went forward. Of course, Martha thought, dazed. He's trying to imitate a panther… no, a jaguar. Her glance darted aside. The warriors were much like the folk she'd seen on visits to the Yucatan over the years; darkish brown, of medium height, their faces almond-eyed and big-nosed; these men were tremendously lithe and muscular as well, many of them hideously scarred under their finery. She remembered how they'd advanced howling into gunfire, undaunted by death utterly mysterious and supernatural. Their commander looked different enough to be of a separate race, even discounting the obesity. Or maybe an inbred royal family? Priest-king, she decided. It was a label no more likely to mislead than any other.
There was no mistaking the look in his eyes, though. Power, raw and absolute. It showed too in how the warriors bowed low as he passed. Others held the prisoners forward for his inspection. A word, and they were stripped as well, and torches brought close to examine them. The big man seemed fascinated by the strangeness of their skin and hair, pinching and tugging. When he came to Martha his eyes lit and he touched her rounded belly, smacking his lips as he did so. His teeth were filed to points; they glittered in the torchlight. The pupils of his eyes were wide, wider than the dimness would have made them. Next he turned to Lisketter.
"We came to help-" she began.
There were shocked cries from the warriors, and raised weapons. Evidently you didn't speak until spoken to, with Big Chief Baby-Face. The back of his meaty hand smacked across her mouth, leaving blood trickling in its wake. Lisketter's eyes went even wider with shock; she looked around, as if the blow had brought her out of a stupor and made her realize that this was real. The priest-king's hand rose to strike again, and then froze. He gave back a step, pointing at Lisketter's face. He shouted something in his own language, a tongue that seemed to consist mostly of "u."