There were bunches of flowers, already faded and dull, a large earthenware dish of fruits, mostly rotted, gnawed by predators, and the ragged carcass of what had probably been a large pig.
“Sacrifices?” he asked.
“The Aztecs were very fond of all manner of sacrifices,” Doc pronounced, gripping the lapels of his frock coat as though he were about to deliver a lecture. “Their religion was totally dependent on them. In fact, it was not just fruit or animals that their blood-eyed gods demanded as visible tokens of their devotion and love. They were a deal more famous for their barbaric”
“Hold it, Doc,” Ryan said, lifting a warning hand. “Think we might be close to company.”
His attention had first been drawn by the cessation of the background noises of the jungle, the cheeping of insects and the fluid songs of the brilliantly hued birds. The forest had become unaccountably quiet, and even the fluorescent clouds of butterflies had vanished.
Then his acute hearing had detected other noises, faint and distant but coming closer a sound like the cracking of a whip, someone crying out in pain or anger, laughter, coarse and brutish, and a strange metallic tinkling.
“Take cover,” he said.
“Here or on the main trail?” the Armorer asked. “Be good to see what’s coming. Wouldn’t see nothing from back here.”
“Wouldn’t see anything ,” Mildred corrected, but J.B. took no notice.
“Yeah. Undergrowth’s thick enough to keep us well hidden.” Ryan glanced around. “Everyone stay still.”
He ran back onto the main trail, pausing to check that nobody was in sight. But the trail curved in the direction of the noises, making it impossible to see more than about eighty yards ahead. Ryan eased himself quickly into the bushes, picking one that was covered in bright orange trumpet-shaped flowers that had a bittersweet perfume.
The others rapidly followed his lead, hiding on both sides of the trodden path, vanishing instantly into the banks of green vegetation.
The only sound was a muffled oath from Doc as he found himself uncomfortably close to a colony of red ants. He moved sideways a few yards, rustling the bushes until he found somewhere more amendable.
Now it was easier to identify the approaching sounds.
It was undoubtedly a whipseveral whipssnapping against naked flesh. And the voices reflected pain, not anger. The bursts of laughter were brutish, and the metallic tinkling was almost certainly the noise of steel chains.
All of which combined to point in only one direction.
“Slavers,” Ryan breathed.
THERE WERE A DOZEN or so of them, sallow faced, with a look that was partly Mex and partly something else.
They were a ragged bunch, dressed mainly in cotton shirts and pants, stained with sweat. All had either rifles slung over shoulders or handblasters tucked into belts. The common factor in their faces was coarseness. Most had drooping mustaches, and a few had straggling beards. Their eyes were hard and dark, puffed around the rims like those of habitual drinkers.
The leader rode astride a lame burro, smoking a thin cigar. He wore a battered panama hat with a ribbon of red and yellow knotted around it.
By the time he had ridden slowly past Ryan, it was possible to make out the victimsthe slaves, for Ryan’s guess was obviously correct.
They looked identical to the natives that Ryan and the others had already seen. He counted twenty-four nine men, eleven women and four children. All of the children were female, looking to be prepubescent.
The entire group was completely naked, and all of them showed bleeding welts from the short, viciously plaited whips of their captors.
Ryan noticed that most of the prisoners had long arms and broad feet. None of the men had any facial hair at all, though their torn and bleeding ears showed where the ornamental rings had been torn out.
The other thing that caught Ryan’s eye was the amount of tattooing that was visible on the natives, mostly on the men, clusters of raised blue-and-purple patterns across legs and body and face.
The chains were fastened around the left ankle of each prisoner, meaning that they were forced to shuffle in a clumsy march to avoid tripping one another.