Outskirts Press, INC.

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 of Saqusayhuaman high above Cuzco. Quispe was preparing himself to jump with hundreds of others from the cliff into the land of his ancestors.

200 Spaniards with 70 emaciated horses hold the central grand plaza and have taken the fortress. 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 the unstoppable power of the silver shelled riders on their horses swinging Toledo-steel swords. He has seen the power of the strangers’ bad spirits that have brought sickness to so many of his people.

This incredible and fascinating conclusion of the Spaniards’ conquest of the Incan Empire is detailed on a most compelling, personal scale. It is the story of two great friends and their two views of the historic events that, try as they might, they could not change – until the very last day.