The next morning they explored the empty
dwellings. They found people, none of them alive. The furnishing were smashed or burned. The
granaries smelled like urine. The travellers maintained their camp on the shelf
outside the dwelling houses. In the hazy sky there was prospect of neither sun
nor rain.
They rested for several days on the cliff. There
was a stream of almost-clear water that that spilled from higher on the cliff
into a shallow pool. It was a comfortable place for Divemoye to recover from
the scorpion sting. And they had plenty of food for the time being. The porters
joked that when the time came to return to the road there would be much less
food to carry.
One day, Atl noted a trail that led higher
up the cliff. From his new vantage point, he spied a green valley and, beyond
that a city. He watched for hours and saw no movement, but thought that maybe
he detected a shimmer in the haze that could be the smoke of a cooking fire.
When Divemoye was strong enough, four of
the traveller went out to explore the city—these were Atl, Zolin, Young Savage,
and Davimoye. Huasteco remained with the porters.
Many of the plants in the green valley were
different from those they knew at home. The leaves had a gray tint and the wood
was brittle, small branches snapping easily. They explained to each other that
this place needed rain even more than they did, but even with this explanation,
they couldn’t imagine ever living in such a place. They came to a wide stream,
murky green with sediment. They walked upstream, reasoning that the water
coursed through the city.
In time, they began to catch glimpses of
the city through the leaves on the other side of the stream—the long lines of a
palace, the jagged teeth of a pyramid. These
glimpses suggested a settlement larger than they had ever seen. They
hurried—and then stopped every time a gap in the forest gave them another
view. What was that sound? I didn’t hear anything. Do you see
something? Yes, but it was nothing.
Should they cross the stream? Yes, they should cross it here.
When Divemoye and Paal entered the water,
they were attacked by ravenous fish. Their companions pulled them out and
knocked off the several fish still clinging by their teeth. They walked further
until they came to a ruined bridge. They needed another way to cross the
stream. Zolin had noticed that the trees
growing next to the stream looked healthier than those higher in the
valley. Their branches stretched over
the stream meeting branches from trees on the other side. Thick vines seemed to complete the natural
bridge. To prove the virtue of his idea, Zolin climbed up one tree and found
his way to the other side. The others followed. Paal came last. A branch
snapped and he fell into the stream. Young Savage threw a rope and pulled him
to safety before any fish could attack him.
They walked into the city. There were more
stone buildings than they had seen before, and at the far end, a pyramid twice
as tall. In front of the pyramid, set
below street level, was a stone-paved ball court. Back in Otoch, they had
played Ulama on a hard-packed dirt court. They were the best, that’s how they’d
been chosen to take all the food they could carry and leave.
Without a word spoken, they climbed down
the steep sides to the court. As their feet slapped the pavement, a ball rolled
out, shiny and smooth. And a voice, challenging them, “Who will face death
today?” The speaker was a powerful man wearing ragged jaguar armor. His four
companions wore jaguar fur on the wrists and ankles.
The travellers accepted jaguar knight’s
challenge, and listened to his terms— a feast at the conclusion of the match.
“We have some beans at our camp.”
“No. Meat.” The jaguar knight pointed at
one of his men. “Him. Or, one of yours.”
The travellers expressed their disgust. Zolin
started to walk away. But for Divemoye, the risk of his life seemed a
worthwhile price for a chance to remember happier days. Atl, Paal, and Yung
Savage were easily convinced, and Zolin was at last persuaded, though he
insisted to his companions that he wouldn’t join any feast as either diner or
meal. The others brushed off Zolin’s fears and set aside their weapons and
shields.
Two things became obvious. The Otoch travellers
were much more skilled. And their opponents were deadly earnest. The Otochs
passed the ball among themselves. After
failing to intercept the ball, the Jaguars directed their attacks at any Otoch
who neared the goal. When the Otoch dodged these attacks, the lead Jaguar
attacked Paal with his fist. Zolin
intervened and tripped the big man, and Atl scored a goal.*
The Jaguars showed one skill that was new
to the Otochs, who were used to playing on a stone court with slanted sidewalls.
The Jaguars took the ball and, and bouncing it up the sidewall, chased after it
toward the hoop. An impressive feat, but without profit. The Jaguar lost
control of the ball, Atl passed it to Divemoye and Divemoye scored another
goal.
The Otochs took the ball again almost immediately,
and the Jaguar players dropped all pretence of playing for the ball, instead
slamming their bodies into the Otochs, or seizing hold of them and trying to
throw them down on the pavement. While bruised
and battered, the Otochs evaded the worst attacks and Yung Savage scored
another goal.
As the Otochs celebrated, the Jaguars
stormed off the court, cursing them as cheaters. They returned, fully armed
with large shields and macas. Yung Savage ran to retrieve the Otoch weapons
while his friends did their best to defend themselves with their fists and, in
Divemoye’s case, the Ulama ball. When Yung Savage returned, the Jaguars
surrounded him and before his friends even knew what was happening, killed him.
“Sacrifice!” The Jaguars cheered. “The gods
are appeased.”
The Otochs watched as the Jaguar’s carried
away their friend’s body. They collected their weapons and returned to the
place on the cliff.
*This game was played according to rules
written by John Hild and Hoover Dam. Although written for 5e, I found it easy
to use in my 1e/2e game. http://www.dmsguild.com/product/229460/TWR2-The-Maztican-Ball-Game My previous understanding was that the Aztecs
and Mayas played with the near-impossible winner-take-all goal of putting the
ball through a stone hoop. The rules I
used, like the rules in the 2e Maztice, and like the modern version of the game
allow for endline goals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjLUDMTJnAI
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