Demon of the Air
Yaotl's first adventure
"Hooked me in five pages. I lost an entire Wednesday reading DEMON OF THE AIR" - Conn Iggulden
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Mexico, 1517: The Emperor
Montezuma rules the known world. Daily canoes and trains of
sweating bearers carry tribute to his island capital, Mexico-Tenochtitlan,
while squadrons of ruthless warriors enforce his will.
Gold, silver, cotton, jewels and precious feathers change hands in his markets.
The temples run with the blood of human sacrifices.
All seems well, but Montezuma is troubled. Mysterious
strangers have appeared in the East. Are they men or gods? Visions and rumours
disturb his dreams. The soothsayers he turns to for guidance give him only
enigmatic answers and he knows he cannot trust his advisers - especially
his Chief Minister, the unscrupulous Lord Feathered In
Black.
Yaotl, the Chief Minister's slave, is troubled too. He was ordered to escort a
sacrificial victim up the steps of the Great Pyramid, but the victim ran amok,
uttering a bizarre and sinister prophecy and leaping to his death before the
War-God's priests could cut out his heart. Then he learns that the
Emperor's soothsayers have vanished.
The Emperor scents a connection between these two events
and orders Yaotl to find it - on pain of death if he fails. But it soon
becomes clear that whatever the connection is, Yaotl's own master will stop at
nothing, including murder, to keep it secret.
To get to the truth will take all Yaotl's wits and will to survive. It will lead
him into confrontations with the peril destined to overwhelm his whole world and
with a monster from his own past - and into the hands of a sadistic killer.
Winner of the Debut Dagger Award
Published by Simon & Schuster (UK) Ltd on 2 February 2004
Pocket Books edition published on 7 February 2005
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