Nebulae: One-Shots Compilation

The Green Man

Yucatán Peninsula, 1518.

Captain Alejandro Morales stumbled through a fog of biting flies. The trees in the cloud forest seemed to be closing in, their branches knotting into frightening silhouettes against the approaching dusk.

"¡Vivan Ferdinando y Isabella!" he groaned through gritted teeth in case a fly should jump into his mouth. The glory of the King and Queen had stopped being an inspiration four weeks earlier when he'd first landed on the peninsular gateway to the vast Maya nation. It occurred to him then that he'd given up on his monarchs weeks earlier than that, on the rolling, sickening journey to the New World itself.

The sun dipped behind the treeline, sending the gloomy canopy into further darkness. His shoulder aching from endless machete cuts through feotid cloud forest, Alejandro picked up the pace, ever-watchful for a cave or sheltered clearing in which to pass the night. Not that he'd survive the night with no food or water. He unbuckled his arquebus and tossed it into the jungle behind him, glad to be finally rid of a weighty impediment that would not even serve him in trade. The forest was welcome to it; Alejandro's band had run out of gunpowder days earlier anyway.

The fact that the mission had been a failure brought a modicum of relief in the sultry heat. Every Maya within a hundred miles had likely scattered to the hills, terrified of Alejandro and his disheveled band of debt-ridden encomenderos searching for a quick vellón. Well, not every Maya. With the dusk came the Maya warriors.

Bush and forest suddenly echoed with the sounds of spears and warning calls. The Maya fighters knew exactly where Alejandro was. They were surely watching him from vantage points high in the canopy. Doubtless the reputation of the brutal Governor of Cúba and his troops had preceded their ragtag band, now separated by spear and arrow in the forest, destined to die of insect-borne fevers before a search party could even be mustered by the Governor's camp. Vive el gobernador. Vivan Ferdinando y Isabella. Bastards.

Alejandro cursed himself above all. He had been so naïve. Yarns spun on his parents' farm of the New World as a treasure trove of new culture, new horizons, new food, had enchanted him. On arrival in Cúba the spell had broken to reveal that he had abandoned his own glorious Eden for a New World where the Governor's men were the dealers of death and disease. The promise of the golden apples, silver pears and bronze spices of the Maya had turned out to be a lie – since the first conquistadores had arrived, the peoples of the forest had been lost in a mire of blood.

As he trudged through swarms of marsh flies and fought against curtains of matted vines, Alejandro's mind fled to the dry summers of León, of acres of saffron crocuses as far as the eye could see, of winnowing grain for harvest, of watching fine farmhands plucking almonds and apples in the orchards. How the endless summer days would stretch on. Tiredness -- or his momentary reverie -- caught up with him, and he stumbled, catching himself on a knotted trunk choked with vines. His face almost pressed to the bark, he could make out a remarkable vine. It glistened with a metallic sheen. Before he could ascertain whether or not it was a mere trick of the dimming light, a sharp click echoed from the leaf-litter at his feet.

The moment he registered the trap, his ankle was swung up from beneath him. Caught in a noose by his foot, all he could do was flail at the tree trunk as a coil of silvery rope took him up into the canopy. The Maya had found him. At least, he had thought them Maya. As the blood rushed to his head in his final seconds of consciousness, he made out a green-clad man below him. No, the warrior's skin appeared to be painted green. And were those spines along his back? Blackness engulfed Captain Alejandro Morales.

****

He awoke in a cave lit by a small fire. Aside from a throbbing head he seemed unharmed. What overcame his senses more than aches and bruises was his gnawing hunger. The aroma of roasting maize, beans and squashes on hot coals set his mouth watering. Twilight reigned beyond the narrow mouth of the cave; inky silhouettes of trees melted into the wash of purple as night fell.