The Sweat Of The Sun - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

It is 1532. The Inca, Atahuallpa, has been captured and executed by the Spanish. A puppet Inca has been given the crown by the steel-clad conquerors. In a village far to the north, flames crackle and screams ring out as a renegade band of conquistadors bring rape and destruction to a remote mountain village and the Chosen Ones cloistered nearby. When the Spaniards ride away they leave few survivors and those few know that they are still in danger – this time from Inca law and tradition. For when the Chosen Ones are violated, they are tainted. They must die. And, upon the whim of the Inca, so must their families. But this region was conquered by the Incas less than fifty years before. The people are not steeped in the traditions and subservience of the Inca regime. They are determined to live. So a youth is chosen, a trainee runner named Uxmal, to take their case to the new Inca. While Uxmal is caught up in the politics and violence of the Spanish take-over of the Land of the Four Directions, the villagers head out in the one direction that offers a chance of escape. Now the Inca becomes the least of their problems. For they must head into the unknown, to build a life for themselves somewhere new - somewhere outside of the Inca realm, deep in the Amazon jungle. Mostly cloistered priestesses, they have to survive against all the jungle and its mighty rivers can throw at them, including the poisoned darts of the inhabitants, whose land they are invading. This is the story that Alison d’Ardenne began to write at the end of the previous novel, They Wait in Silence: the story of how the ruined Inca settlement that she and Jack Gorman found on the banks of the Amazon came to be. The Inca empire has rarely been described so vividly. From the high society of the capital, Cusco, to the village life of the common people, this book brings the last ancient civilization to thrilling life. A magnificent epic, crammed with incident, adventure and excitement and filled with unforgettable characters whose lives are inextricably bound up in the death throes of a nation.

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