Chapter 10 Chapter nine

"Be careful!" The cry stopped just above Jia Boye's head.Instinctively, he immediately shrank his head, picked up the shield, grasped the reins, and rushed into the rock wall quickly.Fragments of the rock fell into the valley like cannonballs, and after a gunshot, several boulders shook.The loud noise when the gravel fell to the ground and hit the iron plate of the shield was like a heavy punch, which made them too scared to make a sound.A few falling rocks fell on the horse's back, and the horse gasped with anger.After that, there was no more movement. With almost the same movement, Beido and Sai Batian raised their tall figures at the same time.Like Jia Boye, they put down their shields and looked up at the high slope.

The sound of falling rocks and collapsing should come from the headland directly above them blocking the pass.Jia Boye turned anxiously and looked at the porters behind him.All the people were scared and hid, only to see that a few bundles were shot through. "Damn cannonballs!" the Greek yelled. "I expected it!" Bedo's eyes sparkled.The three friends were thinking about the same thing: Are these falling rocks an accident, or were they deliberately created by Ji Zhizi and Gu Yapa's soldiers? To be honest, from where they are, there is no way of knowing. "It's the third time from early to now," Sai Batian made a grimace, and emphasized sarcastically, "If they didn't do it on purpose this time, then they have a God who specially does this kind of thing for them!"

Beddo muttered a dirty word, but no one heard him. "Go on the road!" Jia Boye ordered, and at the same time patted the back of his red-brown horse with the rein, "There is no reason to stay here." Behind them, the majestic troop trailed for a long time, sticking to the entire ridge like a smoke, like a great migration of ethnic groups.Four hundred Spaniards, led by the Governor, Suto, and Dick de Almagro, were hidden among thousands of Indians, including slaves, Canari's support troops, coastal defense fighters, and some Domestic servants of magistrates who voluntarily and involuntarily served these new overpowering foreign powers.

The climate was harsh, the sky was low, cold and wet.In the high mountains, there are only cliffs and passes that appear constantly before the eyes, like so many fatal trials.The mountains seemed to be higher than the other, drowned in mist and cold air.Coughing, moaning, shouting, and cursing sounded one after another, echoing the occasional sound of horseshoes. Almost in the middle of the procession, not far behind the small regiment of cavalry that had gathered around the Doge, Francisco Pizarro, was the litter of Chargucci's horse.From a distance, even in dim light, it can still be recognized by the colorful feathers decorated on the sedan chair.From the morning departure to the evening rest, a row of Spanish infantry closely surrounded it, with shifts every five hours.Although the torture destroyed the Inca general's health, rumors of his bravery grew among the Indian warriors.Every day, the viceroy and his men feared that someone would attack them in order to free Shaleguzima.

The royal road to the capital narrows between rugged and slippery cliffs.All the cavalry had switched to walking to relieve the pressure on their mounts, which were panting loudly in pain. As the invisible wind blows, the clouds and mists sometimes disperse and sometimes accumulate.Sometimes, just near the mountain pass, Jia Boye was excited because he saw the strong sunlight, and at the same time, the blue sky became as deep as the sea. He found that the world was very different from what it looked like from the ground.All the cliffs have been weathered and smoothed like long soft and naked waves.The frozen, short yellow grass was covered with dust from fallen stones, and there was not even a small shrub, let alone any ordinary plant or tree.On the ocher-red land, only occasionally some huge black stones can be seen, resembling tumors.This world does not belong to humans - one can only hope to get through with some luck.

Here, it is almost impossible to breathe.Every step became heavy, as if all the gold that had been melted away in Cajamar had stuck to the soles of the shoes! Last night, Jia Boye had nightmares again and again, and woke up no less than twenty times. His whole body was frozen, sweating, and his mouth was open, thinking that he had suffocated.Twenty times, he dreamed that he was walking in a place without air, standing upright on the quilt, whining in pain like a dead animal.Twenty times, all around him, he heard his companions groaning in fear, suffering from the same terror. When he woke up, he barely ate.In the afternoon, he strictly forbade himself to think that he had no strength to go any further, and he restrained himself from resting on the side of the road.He counted his steps in hundred steps, then every ten steps, and now he counted every step. He was surprised that he could still move forward step by step.

Even he was caught by the reins and lost his balance when his red-brown horse tripped over a stone block in the road.So he gripped hard on the front axle of the saddle, and finally managed to settle. Every time he exerted himself, he felt a little more tired.But exerting force at the same time can force him to wake up from the torpor, because the latter controls him like a drug at times. Although he covered his mouth with a blue scarf, his cheeks gradually felt cold, and his fingers wrapped under heavy leather gloves were completely numb.However, a burst of cold sweat drenched his waist.The temples on both sides were buzzing, and the vision became blurred.Throat seems to have been sprinkled with some hot pepper.

In the remaining consciousness, Anna Maya's advice lingered in his mind: "Don't stop, don't stop, don't stop even if you can't hold on, don't relax, or you will get tired faster! When you feel tired," She rubbed his fingers and said, "Just chew some of what I'm going to give you now..." Yes, she gave it to him... How did he remember it now? With extremely slow movements, Jia Boye searched and searched his body with his long unconscious fingers, and then opened a cloth bag, which contained the coca leaf bag she had secretly stuffed into his shoulder belt.The belt was covered with frost.He grabbed a few green leaves and stuffed them into his mouth without hesitation.It was tasteless at first, and then it felt a little spicy, and he almost wanted to throw it up right away.So, he casually bit it a few times; a feeling of lightness invaded his body immediately, and the headache healed without treatment.

In some places, one side of the road was a thirty-foot-high mountain wall, and the stones were piled up in a way he had never seen before, which was amazing.His horse hesitated again, as if knowing how he felt.Because this cliff suddenly appeared dangerously in front of him, Jia Boye couldn't help cursing: "Why did the devil build such a wall in such a place?" However, he felt a burst of pleasure, almost ignoring the gusts of snowflakes Sweep your face and prepare to face such a force of nature. After passing the mountain wall, there is a winding path, and finally there is a mountain pass at the end.Jia Boye turned around and walked back to the team that was barely bumping forward.He saw the horses stumble and slip, the porters miserable, the icy rain seeping through their clothes, wet to the bone.Occasionally, the entire procession was suspended because someone fell ill, and people on the road often collapsed or felt sick.

"Did you see that?" Seeing Sai Batian, Jia Boye smiled cunningly.He glanced at the pass again.At the entrance are two huge black rocks that seem to have been forged by giants.He smiled and said he knew.Each uphill was always longer than the previous downhill, but even so, he couldn't help wishing that this was the last mountain pass. For weeks, even after they had left Cajamar, the rift between the Governor's henchmen and Almagro's men had grown.The governor insisted that the general was responsible for the illegal imprisonment that even the king would have excited; Victims of golden injustice... In the almost continuous climbing mountains, facing the cliffs, flying sand and rocks, frost and snow that makes no grass grow, and a series of vague worries, there is no distinction between friends and foes, rich or poor - only one is trying to seek people who survive.

Through a ray of light from a slit in the clouds, Jia Boye saw the bright sky, from which the milky white clouds split, releasing a strong and peaceful blue light.Then, in the center of this ray of light, a black bird appeared, with the ends of huge wings resembling human fingers.The vulture hovers smoothly in the air, giving an impression of supremacy and absolute freedom.It was really beautiful, but Jia Boye still couldn't help recalling the scene where several porters were attacked on the suspension bridge in Wailas and fell to the ground, as well as the one-on-one fight between himself and Anando. For a moment, he completely forgot about being tired and cold. Afterwards, just like the sudden clearing just now, the clouds closed again, and a gust of cold wind blew, and the snowflakes mixed in became thicker and thicker.He could only open his eyes quickly, and barely caught a glimpse of a figure in front of him bent over by the wind. At this moment when all the strength in his body was gone and his loneliness seemed endless, he felt an indescribable confidence invade his heart, warming his numb limbs and driving away his fear. He was sure that Ana Maya was there, that she was coming, beside him. Beside the mountain pass, the storm stopped abruptly, like the wind, the sky slowly cleared up.Jia Boye squinted his eyes and exhaled lightly, his cheeks were hot. As for the other Spaniards who arrived earlier than him, they drank the water in their water bottles. All the Indians unloaded their weights and squatted as usual, looking indifferent.One of them raised his eyes to Jia Boye, who smiled back; noticing that Jia Boye's teeth were green, he pointed his fingertips at him and began to giggle foolishly. "Coca leaves," he said triumphantly, "coca leaves!" A few steps away from them, one of Almagro's men, whose name Jaberye did not even know, was sitting by a stone.His face was pale and swollen, and after a loud dry cough, he had difficulty breathing and made a murmur.From time to time, he turned his head and spit out a mouthful of light red foam, like a few red flowers falling on the white snow. "What's the matter with you, friend?" "I saw... I saw..." he repeated, a hoarse gasp in his throat. "What did you see?" The man didn't answer. He held his head with both hands and held it tightly, as if his head suddenly felt a sharp pain, and he was about to crush his skull. "Gold," said the young man, "a lot of gold, guarded by the knight with arms..." His words were interrupted by fits of coughing, and Jia Boye suddenly felt very sympathetic to this strange young man. He must have dreams of adventure and wealth, but, perhaps, he is about to be buried in this sinister and mysterious mountain pass. He knelt down beside him, took the other's hand in his own, and tried to give him a little warmth.His hands were as cold as corpses. So Jia Boye wrapped his arms around him, and put his ear close to his chest under the wet coat.He seemed to hear a roaring lake boiling in his body.There were several times when the sound of breathing stopped suddenly, but the turbulent sound in the body never stopped. He moved his face away from him but continued to rub his body. "Where are you from?" He tried to ask in a firm tone, "What's your mother's name?" The young man closed his eyes, his whole body shaking involuntarily.Whenever he spits, his whole body trembles uncontrollably. All the people who arrived at the mountain pass stayed away from him, except Jia Boye who stayed by his side. He looked as if he had fallen asleep suddenly, as if he had suddenly fallen into a coma and was unconscious.However, Jia Boye felt that the pulse in his wrist was still beating. "Estemadura," the young man murmured at last, so softly that Jaber had to bend over to hear him, "Maria..." "I am from the same country as you, and my mother's name is the same as yours. Don't be afraid, I will be by your side." The young man clenched his fists, convulsed, his expression twisted, and there was pain everywhere in his body.He arched his body, as if trying to uproot himself from the ground. "It's hot," he said, "I'm suffocating! Open the windows!" "You'll see our country burn again before I do, my friend, and you'll see your mother's face before your eyes as you did when you were a child." He gave a last shake and died.There has been no peace or war since.Before he died, did he see the face of his mother or the knight who guarded the gold?Anyway he passed away. Jia Boye stood up.Life was so cold, so hot, and so sympathetic to him.Life is like a boundary that anger, fear, greed... cannot cross. He staggered toward the ignoring crowd. After the storm was gone, when the sky was suddenly filled with sunset light, he saw first a black spot, and then a second.Again the vultures hovered over the pass, sinister and majestic. On the way leading to the mountain pass, there is a huge black rock, and a cave shaped like a church apse is hewn on the back, which is clearly visible against the blue-black sky. The snow-capped mountains on the top of each mountain are exactly the same, covered with the golden afterglow of the setting sun.Jia Boye walked back to the Spaniards surrounding the rock; they all lowered their heads and arched their shoulders, chanting after the priest.Under a sky full of stars, in a freezing wind, before the dead body they had hastily bundled up in blankets to keep out of the sight of the Indians, they found their way again to the God to whom they had so seldom asked God of prayer. Jia Boye couldn't concentrate on praying.The mysterious eyes of that young man kept appearing in his mind, and he felt a hand pulling him at the other end of the night.He kept staring at the rock standing in front of the mountain range; after looking over the neat lines of the surrounding stones one by one, he returned to the picture made of two huge stones, parked in the center, and the priest standing behind it. table.An altar placed among mountains and ridges... He turned back, stepped on the crunching snow, and took a few steps back.After stepping out of this natural rock barrier, the biting breeze came oncoming again.There was no light but a thousand dazzling stars in the firmament; whether in Estemadura or Castile, in Galicia or even in Greece, all the explorers All from under the same sky.But this one is different, as if some joking God had sprinkled random stars on it on purpose.Yes, this is another world. Behind him, he heard the prayers and vague answers of his companions.But just below, from the big Indian tents camped on the natural platform below the pass, came a monotonous and mournful cacophony.There were no drums or horns—only the crooning voices of the Indians, grouped into groups, telling each other stories and praising their gods. In this way, although they did not know each other, and faced each other because of the war, the Spaniards and Indians naturally became the same kind under the threat of death and the admiration and fear of the sky. On the side, from a tent standing on a pile of rocks and behind the white snow, Jia Boye heard a few words of speech.He stepped forward.Under the tent, three men, panting and yelling at each other, tried to dig a hole in the snow with a hoe that was apparently made of bronze rather than tin, the icy ground distorting the hoe. "What the hell!" Sai Batian yelled. He glanced at his friend's sweaty face, and at Diego Mander, one of Almagro's henchmen, with a slick face, puffy cheeks, and bulging eyes, One of the eyes was even completely squinted.The strange and evil Alpine indiscriminately chooses the humans he wants, puts them to the test, and leaves them to fend for themselves. "Come and sweat with us!" Sai Batian called him. Jia Boye walked into the night without saying a word. The tents of the Incas are gathered around the tents of Chaleguzima, which are easily recognizable by the geometric lines and figures on the pure white cotton. As he approached, the singing either subsided or stopped, and both men and women were wrapped in blankets, and whenever he looked at them, the latter quickly looked away. "They're not afraid of you." Jia Boye turned around.Ana Maya slipped beside him in a gray and black wool shawl.Jia Boye secretly smiled in the dark. "I've been looking for you everywhere...", "I'm really worried about you." In the absence of lighting, Jia Boye couldn't recognize the expression on Anna Maya's face, but he could hear the tenderness and uneasiness in her voice.He felt a desire to put his body close to hers, and a chill ran through his whole body.He had to grit his teeth so that he wouldn't get lost in the desire for her, rushing forward to kiss her or hug her... "Jizhijizi's army is hiding in the mountains," she said, "Guyappa is also inside." "Guyappa?" As soon as he heard the name of the Inca prince, a haughty figure with forehead and nose bridge and eyes full of hatred appeared in front of his eyes... "Now they know you," Annamaya said, "and know that you will kill... They are not as naive as they were during the massacre... Now you are in their territory and your horses are slipping It will be difficult for your swords to be used, and their stones will fly from all sides to hit you hard..." Jia Boye remained silent.For several days, he had had this sense of powerlessness and restlessness, and so had other Spaniards. All around them, the Indians slowly resumed talking.He felt that being in it, all hostility had subsided.At this moment, behind a tent, he seemed to see some sparks and figures moving.He turned to face Ana Maya. "Have they found firewood?" She didn't answer, and he didn't press anymore.Her silence sometimes made him flinch shyly.After that, they walked together towards the rock where the priest had just said Mass. They passed a small group of Spaniards joking around a square fortress of trunks and bags.They hung small bells on the bridles of the horses so that they would be alerted immediately if there was any suspicious movement at night. "Gold!" Jia Boye sighed. "They guard their gold more than they guard themselves..." Jia Boye waved his hand helplessly.The governor forfeited all his rewards because he had left the team to meet Anna Maya privately; this humiliation brought him another benefit, and he was glad that he had nothing and wanted nothing. As they approached the black rock, its shadow was completely lost in the night. "Do you know this place?" Anna Maya asked. "have no idea." "Mountains are gods to us, like the sun and moon, springs and breezes, even these rocks, whose form speaks of the gods...these places were made by the hands of our ancestors to remind us of the place Since then, we have held rituals here to thank them for their generosity, and we call this place Huaca.” A voice came from the dark... The speaker's tone was very gentle, and it didn't sound like the cynical voice of Friar Wesend Vallevide.Instinctively, Jia Boye immediately stood up to protect Anna Maya. "Don't be afraid," the man said softly, "I know you..." A figure came out from behind the dark rock, walking soundlessly on the flattened snow, gradually approaching them.The man raised his right hand and said to Jia Boye with a smile on his face: "Now, do you know where I come from?" Jia Boye was unmoved, staring at the gray-blue eyes on this man's smooth face. He looked both young and old, with one hand raised above his head, but there was no threat, but rather a blessing. The fingers—the middle finger and the ring finger—are joined together in parallel.Vague memories repeated in his mind until he cried out: "My goodness!" "You see you know to turn to him when necessary, my Erasmus friend." "Brother Bartholomew!" "When I think about it," said Bartolomeo to Anna Maya, "we were together for two months and this person can't remember anything at all, except for one tragic incident that happened unintentionally..." Jia Boye was moved bit by bit.He has not thought of that prison for a long time, he has never thought of the years of worrying about being tortured, and the anger and humiliation when facing his father, and he no longer thinks of that——almost made him humiliated—Fan Si Mrs. Jia. "That's another life." Jia Boye said. "However, the same is life." Two men stand in the night looking at each other until they reach out to hug each other at the same time. "How long have you been on the expedition?" "I arrived in Cajamar a few days after she left." "But how come I didn't meet you until tonight?" "Why, shouldn't it be?" "Stop preaching to me, Brother Bartholomew, and answer the questions truthfully." "If you can't get an answer to a question, you might as well ask another question. Or just keep silent..." "Silence...that's what you suggested to me many years ago, but I really don't know if I can do it." "I think you are capable of many things." Bartolomeo said cheerfully, and glanced at Annamaya. The two men and Anna Maya walked back to the tent where Sai Batian and his companions were digging the grave. "I'll have to say a prayer for that poor wretch." "What are you doing here, Brother Bartholomew?" The monk didn't blink or even move his eyes.He just doesn't answer. "Perform the mission God appointed." He finally said with a smile. "Don't answer anything." "Didn't I already answer?" Bartolomeo went into the tent. Jia Boye looked at the night sky for a while.After that, Anna Maya pulled him and said, "This person is different from other people, not like you, nor like other people." "I think he's weird too, you know..." "Will he kill us?" Jia Boye looked at the shining stars in the sky and tried to find the answer, tried to see through the night when the birds had already returned to their nests, tried to block the cold... "I don't think so," he said at last. "It's a pity I don't know."