‘More or less. They have to get the skull, er … ball through the hoop.’

‘Correct. They can use their sticks, knees, and feet, but they cannot touch it with their hands. In combat style, two players per team compete at a time. As you’ll see, anything goes.’

The king stops chanting. Gripping the gushing head by the hair, he swings his arm in great circles, then heaves the skull toward the center of the playing field.

The four combatants charge forward, the soldier in white first to the ‘ball.’ As he feints a strike, one of the masked goons bullrushes him, attempting to club him with his stick. White pirouettes gracefully to his right—and lets loose a vicious backhand fist, which catches the larger assailant square in the throat, sending him to his knees—

—as a second warrior raises his club, intent on stabbing the soldier in the back with its sharpened end.

But the man in white is too skilled and far too quick. With out so much as a glance over his shoulder he launches a thrusting rear kick that shatters the warrior’s mask, snapping his neck in two.

The would-be killer collapses, dead before he hits the ground.

Immanuel feels nauseous as he watches the man in white step over his dead assailants, kicking the skull-ball back to his ebony-clad teammate.

Dr. Mohr points as two more warriors step out of line to greet their opponents, now quickly advancing the skull-ball toward the eastern goal. ‘This is not quite how the Mayans played, but it’s how the Under Lords of Xibalba challenged the Hero Twins.’

The blood rushes from Manny’s face.

White clubs the object to Black. The skull-ball takes a wild hop over the soldier’s foot. Turning to retrieve it, Black is barreled over by one of the replacement players, a 260-pound brute masked in a crimson demon’s mask. Leaping over the man in black, the brown-skinned warrior kicks the skull-ball to his teammate, who races barefoot across the field toward the western ring … and the goal mounted below the observation window.

White, by far the most skilled athlete on the field, overtakes the Mayan and trips him from behind—just as the warrior strikes the ball.

Manny and Dr. Mohr instinctively duck as the airborne head smashes against the glass with a dull thud, the battered face leaving a bloodied imprint on the partition.

White rebounds the wild bank shot and heads back the other way, controlling the wobbling skull with his feet and stick. Evading another assailant’s knife, he angles for the eastern wall and its stone hoop.

Two more linebacker-sized warriors abandon the line to cut him off, each man’s club brandishing a two-foot-long obsidian spike.

Manny squeezes his fists, measuring speed and distance. This is it … there’s no way he can escape this double-team.