It took me a while... but here you go!!
Chapter 1: The start of the legend
Scene 1: Late June, 1742. Somewhere in the Jungle of Perú...
He tightened his coat around him as he walked, covering his face and seeking to lose himself amongst the mass of humans moving in droves outside the small town. Once sure his identity was hidden he looked around; taking a good look at the people he was following.
It was truly an exodus of biblical proportions, or at least he knew that’d be what the many frailes and padres would say. The priests, after all, always went around telling those stories to the many tribes in the area, seeking to find new souls to convert…
“To teach their hypocrisy and lies…” The man thought as a snarl formed on his face, the hatred boiling deep inside his chest. If there was anything in this unforgiving world that he could not stomach, was the way those who worshipped Cristo preached about the sinfulness and evil of the “carnal crimes”, all the while indulging themselves in the pleasures of the land, often at the expense of the people they were supposed to care for.
“They claim to give us hope and good news, yet all I see them do is steal. Anywhere and everywhere they come they bring their ailments with them. They take control of the trade of salt to put us entirely at their mercy. They bribe us with new artifacts and make us dependent on them. They preach about how marriage is only between one of a woman with one of a man, that any other union is forbidden, yet I see them indulging themselves with many of our own women at once, some going as far as to take our children for their twisted desires! Is it any wonder that the Apus and Huacas loathe them, giving us plagues and illness anytime they come?!”
He remembered his own village, the hard labor filled with a sense of belonging by working with his people side by side, he remembered how alongside the entire region it was swept with horrible diseases just five years prior, claiming the lives of several of his friends, all dear to him. He knew full well who were responsible for it: the viracochas who came to preach more lies and to make the Apus angry.
On that day he swore to the gods, the true gods, that he would make those cross-bearing bastards suffer for it.
And suffer they did. He spared none of those men, ambushing and killing them anywhere he saw them. Soon he gathered followers, and together they rose up in arms against the attempts of the white-skinned ones to penetrate into the region.
His uprising lasted several months, where he looted and burned down every temple dedicated to the so-called god of the viracochas he could find. By the time the Cristianos had prepared their forces for a counterattack he had been able to avoid them, successfully hiding deep into the depths of the jungle. Unfortunately, several of his followers and fellow rebels, relatives of his amongst them, failed to escape in time, and faced retaliation from the Spaniards, to be killed like pigs.
He had no choice but remain hidden. For the next few years he bid his time as he dwelled amongst the Amazonian tribes of the Cumabus, quietly gaining information, sent to from whatever few followers of his whom managed to remain hidden and avoided capture.
It had been five years since, however he had recently received news that shook him to his very core: a new uprising had begun in a nearby province. Some guy fancying himself “the Immortal Apu-Inca”.
Why was such a man in the area? What was he after? How did he attract such a huge number of people…?
“I do not know how or why he’s done it… But I will find out.”
As he continued his trek he found himself confused amidst the peoples, undetected for now…
“¡Paren! ¡Detengansé!” A voice demanded the natives on the distance, a tinge of fear and desperation resounding in it.
The hidden man was shocked as he stopped, nearly bumping into the nearby travellers. How had he been discovered? Who could have sold him out?!
As he searched for paths, and readied himself to make a break for it, the voice was heard once again.
“Why are you leaving!?”
The tension left his body, not that anyone noticed, as he identified the recipient of the message. As the voice grew stronger he turned his face towards it, and clearly saw its owner.
It belonged to one of the Franciscan priests, who apparently was trying to dissuade the masses of people from leaving the village.
“We are leaving to Quisopango!” One of the voices replied with such eager sincerity that it was nearly infectious. “We are going to meet our Apu-Inca!”
The reply left the priest speechless, as no more protests could be heard from him anymore.
The silence made him breathe in relief. His cover had not been blown yet…
“The Apu-Inca…” He murmured in interest.
He had heard of the Incas of old from his grandfather; legends about a powerful tribe that came barrelling through the mountains far to the west, possessors of great strength and wealth, and with diplomatic skills just as great. They had come supposedly to negotiate and expand their influence, and stayed for a while at the area, forging alliances with some tribes and battling others, until they eventually left. Apparently, the jungle was too much for them to handle.
The viracochas, however, seemed cut from a different cloth altogether. They came from the same general direction the Incas were said to have come so long ago, and so far had been relatively more successful in subjugating these untamed lands. Only one conclusion could be drawn from that: Even the Incans fell to them…
Still, he couldn’t understand. A single man, supposedly belonging to a tribe long extinct, shouldn’t be able to rile up the population like this
… yet he did.
In just a few months, hundreds, even thousands, of people of several tribes across the area had fled their ancestral homelands, going to meet up with a man they barely heard of, of a tribe gone long ago, that many may not have even heard of for their entire lives, yet it had somehow had captivated their hearts.
He’d be a fool to fall for such idea
“And yet…”
And yet here he was, forcing himself out of his self-imposed exile, confusing himself amidst the mass of men, women and children, some carrying their possessions with them, others having discarded all they had on their persons… all seeking to meet the same man.
“Very well, Apu-Inca, show me what you truly are after… so I may judge your worth”
The man carried on his trip, holding his cloak even closer to ward off any recognition from the people around him. The journey would be long. Perils would await at any moment of the day.
And he didn’t care.
He would look at this Apu-Inca, and he would make his choice then.
Liberty, or death.
For the man named Torote, there was no other path.
Important Note: This chapter is written mostly from the perspective of Torote, an Indian who lead a previous uprising to that of Juan Santos Atahualpa in the region on 1737. The terms employed here are evidence to point to the intense nativist ideology he had and do not necessarily refer to the actual opinions of the author.
