Publisher's Synopsis
200 Spaniards with 70 emaciated horses hold the central grand plaza of Cuzco and have taken the Saqusayhuaman fortress high above. 200,000 natives surround them in the hills and mountains and look to Manco Inca to show them the path to their revenge. Manco Inca is just seventeen, the youngest and the fourth Sapa Inca in four years. He has seen the devastation of a civil war and then the unstoppable power of the silver-shelled strangers with their horses, guns and steel. After more than a year apart, Pedro Pizarro and his native friend Quispe come together again on the third night of the battle to take the great fortress. Quispe was preparing himself to jump with hundreds of others from the cliff into the land of his ancestors. This incredible and fascinating conclusion to the Spaniard's conquest of the Incan Empire is detailed on a most compelling and personal scale. It is the story of two great friends and their two views of the Historic events that, try as the might, they could not change - until the very last day. In the footsteps of his characters, the author walked 500 miles across Spain, explored Francisco Pizarro's hometown of Trujillo, attended Mass and interviewed priests in Pedro Pizarro's church of San Martin. He has climbed through mangrove swamps in Ecuador, walked hundreds of miles of original Incan roads and across every battlefield. He has shared spirit-soaring nights in the homes of the Andean, Quechua People whose reverence for the Natural World has changed very little in 500 years. He has brought the spirit of these people and those nights to his writing.
