“Hah!” Cordell exclaimed his joy, throwing his hands skyward at the news. He restrained an impulse to embrace his ally, knowing such an approach would offend the proud, aloof warrior.
Bui even Chical’s face split into a grin then, as did Tokol’s when the chief of the Kultakans arrived and heard the] news.
“So we have turned them back?” he asked incredulously. “They will not attack again?”
“For now, anyway,” Cordell conceded.
“But why?” Tokol seemed reluctant to accept their good fortune.
“My former enemy is right to question,” added Chical, with a respectful look at the Kultakan. “What could have drawn the enemy away from us? We certainly did not rout them from the field!”
“True,” Cordell admitted. “The best guess is that they have some other pressing concern, perhaps another war to wage. They know we are no threat to them here. Perhaps they feel they can come back and deal with us later.”
“That is a great waste of marching, when they stood at the brink of our position but one day ago,” said Chical skeptically. “Still, we need not question our good fortune too heavily”.
“Indeed,” Cordell agreed, clapping both warriors on their shoulders. “And we have time now-time to make sure that when and if they do return, we will be more than ready to meet them!”
The three allies, feeling a sense of great relief, turned from the north and started toward the slowly growing community below.
The people of Tulom-Itzi left their city swiftly and silently, disappearing into the jungle from which, legend had it, they had once emerged. They took only those possessions they could carry, and the strong men aided the young and the old alike.
They could not help but weep, knowing that they were abandoning the city that had been theirs for more generations than any living person could hope to count. Now they gave it over to a horde of ravenous insects, and even then
they had no guarantee that their escape from the ants would be successful.
Many there were who muttered that they should stand and die in Tulom-Itzi rather than run like rabbits into the jungle. But the people worshiped Zochimaloc as the divine descendant of the gods themselves, and so they could only
obey his command.
The wizened master and teacher remained in his observatory as his people left. He watched Gultec commanding great companies of archers as they went forth to observe the approach of their enemy and try to harass the ants as much as possible. Such tactics were costly, for the ants moved swiftly through the brush, and many an archer fell to a horrible fate between grinding mandibles or to the black arrows of the half-men, half-insect creatures.
But they sent volleys of well-aimed missiles at the ants before melting back into the jungle. They had tried shooting at the human-torsoed beasts that commanded the ants but had found their black metal armor impervious to the sharks-tooth arrows. Through costly experimentation, they learned that an arrow that struck an ant in the eye confused and disoriented it. An ant struck in both eyes was quickly dispatched and devoured by its fellows.
The harassment claimed the lives of many brave archers, for always the ants rushed ahead to try to overtake the humans. One stumble in the dense underbrush was enough to cost a man his life, as the giant insects gave him no time to regain his feet. A side effect of the tactic, unnoticed at the time, was that the man-bugs accompanying the ants took to following toward the rear of their column. Though none had been slain by the missile fire, they valued their lives enough to take such precautionary measures.
Finally the archers fell back to Tulom-Itzi itself. They rapidly crossed the gardens and avenues, passing the pools and the fountains, the great pyramids and palaces, to melt into the jungle beyond.
Only when the last of his people, accompanied by Gultec himself, passed through the city did Zochimaloc leave his domed place of solitude. It was with a feeling of heartbreaking sorrow that he joined his pupil in flight, turning to the jungle as the ants claimed Tulom-Itzi.
“Where are the humans?” demanded Darien. spitting venomously in the height of her rage.
“Fled,” replied the faithful drider, Hittok. That creature had scuttled among the great edifices while the ants had ransacked the wooden houses and thatch huts. They had found much to eat, but nothing to kill.
“Filthy cowards! How can they leave us this treasure, offering it up without a fight?”
“Perhaps they fear us too much,” suggested the male.
“Indeed,” mused the white drider, her rage gradually matched by her curiosity.
Darien strode among the pyramids and great stone palaces, looking in wonder at this city in the jungle. Her eight legs carried her smoothly up the steep stairways, until at last she stood upon the platform of a high pyramid. She saw that the forest pressed close around this great open plaza of stone buildings. The wooden structures stood within the forest, and these were currently and systematically destroyed by her army.
The ants spread like a scourge from the city center, tearing the leaves from trees, trampling and devouring the mayz in the fields, and tearing the lush gardens into rubbish and rot. The stone buildings the ants plundered for food, but they left the structures intact.
“That domed place-what is it?” Darien wondered, pointing to the observatory on the low hill in the center of the city
“It was empty,” replied Hittok. “It has gaps in the roof-holes to let light in, 1 think, though they are oddly placed.”
“And the humans? You say that they have fled into the jungle?”
“Yes, mistress.”
For the first time since entering Tulom-Itzi, Darien smiled. She nodded her slender, milky-white head. “Very well.
When we have finished with their city, we shall pursue them. They cannot hope to long avoid my army.” “Indeed. We shall quickly overtake them.” And then-“ Darien concluded, her thin smile growing light and menacing, “then we shall kill them all.”
“The faces, Captain! The faces on the cliff!”
Don Vaez emerged from his cabin, trying to conceal his excitement from the crewmen who clamored for his attention. The leader of the expedition, always conscious of appearances, was determined to display no untoward sign of agitation.
Yet internally his heart pounded with the news. They had almost reached their goal! Pryat Devane had given him a good account of Cordell’s route, and he knew that this massive edifice had been his rival’s first landfall on the shores of Maztica itself.
Despite these preliminary reports, however, Don Vaez was not prepared for the awesome impact of the scene before him.
The cliff at the headlands of the Payit country loomed some five hundred feet in the air. The clear blue waters of a sheltered lagoon lay placid, protected by a coral reef encircling the shore. Beyond the water, a slim belt of white sand fringed the base of the cliff, backed by a strip of jungled greenery.
But over all, the two faces-Twin Visages, he had heard them called-stared ominously eastward. A male and a female, the faces were similar in aspect: oval-shaped, with thick lips, broad noses, and keen eyes that belied their sculpted origins as they seemed to stare into Don Vaez’s soul itself.
He shook his head, trying to break the thrall. “Pilot! Fetch me the charts!”
“Here they are, Captain.” Rodolfo, the grizzled navigator who had plotted their course across the Trackless Sea, offered several rolled sheets of parchment to Don Vaez.
The captain took them without a word but looked up as he unrolled them. He would need the navigator’s help in de-ciphering the rough charts, since map-reading had never been one of his strengths- And besides, these crude guides had only been prepared through distant and brief communication with the late Bishou Domincus. They were altogether lacking in crucial detail.
“Cordell sailed along this coastline,” offered Rodolfo, indicating the course with a blunt finger. “Until he discovered this city-the natives called it Ulatos.’”
“And that’s where he erec
ted his fort?”
“Yes… at the anchorage near the city. It’s likely just an earthen redoubt, but the harbor there is supposed to be well protected. He called it Helmsport.’”
“Helmsport.” Don Vaez let the name roll off his tongue. “I like that. The name will stay. The fort, however,” he added with a grim chuckle, “is about to gain a new master.”
Barely pausing before the huge carvings in the cliff, the. twenty-five carracks of Don Vaez’s fleet set a new course due westward along the coast. All lookouts kept their eyes peeled for the first sign of Helmsport.
Erixitl grows in the fullness of her motherhood, as if her vitality increases in challenge to the bleakness that surrounds her. Halloran and Daggrande march like the soldiers that they are, while Jhatli struggles to emulate them. Lotil rides, and as he rides, his fingers work their pluma, his mesh showing a steadily growing splash of color.
And then one glorious morning we crest a low, rocky ridge and see the strip of blue beckoning us on the horizon. The Sea of Azul!
By nightfall of that day, we reach the shore. The desert dwarves shun the water, staying well back from the soft breakers. We humans, however, and the horse, and even the dwarf Daggrande enter the brine, soaking and splashing and playing like children. We relish the cool wash of the waves, though we take care not to drink.
But this is a splendid landmark. We have our bearings, and we know that the desert will soon fall behind us. Now our path will turn north, to follow the shore, and soon we will enter the lush realm of Far Pay it. Payit, and our goal of Twin Visages, lies beyond.
From the chronicles of Coton:
Emerging from the grasp of the desert, we finally reach the sea.
For weeks, the desert dwarves lead us eastward across the House of Tezca. The perils of the passage are many, bun the numbers of our escort hold the creatures of the deed desert-even the fire lizards-at bay. All of us become inured to the sun, browned by his rays and toughened by his heat.
Our only water comes from the sand mother, the plump cactus that these desert dwarves use so well. As to food. Qotal sustains us through the limited power* he has granted me, his faithful priest. We grow thin and lean, for the sustenance must feed many mouths.
11
ROADS TO PAYIT
The rider left a dusty plume across the brown valley bottom, a floating cloud of dry silt that was visible for many miles. The captain-general remained atop the high breastwork, watching the growing dust cloud, hoping for good news.
As the horseman drew near to the fortified ridgetop, Cordell stepped down from the earthwork where he had been supervising additional entrenchments. He recognized Grimes and met him at the base of the redoubt.
“What did you find?” asked the commander, even before the horseman had dismounted.
“The eagles are right,” said the scout, sliding from (he saddle and stretching muscles stiff from a long ride. “They’re gone. Seems like they’ve pulled back to the north.”
“Excellent!” Cordell clapped the man on the back. “1 don’t know how we beat them, but we did!” He turned back toward the earthwork, only to hear Grimes clear his throat.
“Uh, General?”
“Yes?” Cordell turned back to his captain of horse.
“Some of the men… that is, uh, I’ve been wondering. Now that we don’t have a pack of ores on our trail, do you have any plans to head for home? It’s been more than a year, and some of the fellows have families back in Amn. And with the gold lost, it doesn’t seem like there’s much more for us to do here…”
Cordell thought for a moment, unsurprised by the question. “Pass the word,” he offered. “As soon as our work here is done, we’ll be moving on. I am not prepared to accept the Joss of all our profits, but we have to start thinking about a return. It won’t be long.”
Grimes nodded gruffly. “Thank you, sir,” he added before leading his horse toward the lake below. Turning to watch him, Cordell saw Chical approaching. The Eagle Knight wore his black-and-white-feathered mantle and the wooden. hooked helmet that shaded his face. He had a pensive expression on his smooth, coppery face.
“Captain-General, I have some information you will be interested in,” said Chical as he reached Cordell. The Eagle Knight seemed oddly guarded in his manner.
“Yes? What is it?” Cordell grew steadily more fluent in the Nexalan tongue, and now he used it to converse with his fellow warriors.
“As you know, eagles have been soaring across the True World, observing the horde of the Viperhand and also scouting other dominions to see how far the catastrophe has spread.”
“1 know. Have they found something important?” Cordell studied Chical, wondering about the Maztican warrior’s hesitancy.
“Yes. Carac, one of my strongest and most reliable warriors, has just returned from a very long flight. He journeyed to Payit, where he saw the city of Ulatos and the fort you built nearby.”
‘Helmsport? Does it still stand? Do my men live?” He had left a garrison of several dozen men behind in the fort, not nearly enough to hold it in the event of an attack. He had hoped that the crushing victory his legion had inflicted upon the Payits would prove enough of a deterrent to aggression.
Now, of course, all those assumptions had fallen by the wayside. That remnant of his legion represented little threat to the Payit people should they choose to revolt against their conquerors. The thought of danger to his garrison at Helmsport brought Cordell’s blood to a boil, but he forced himself to listen to Chical’s information.
“Your men? This 1 do not know. But Carac reports that many more of your countrymen have arrived-a fleet of those great canoes such as you sailed. They have landed at Helmsport.”
“More of my people? Soldiers?” The news fell upon Co dell like a bolt from the sky. He had almost forgotten that a world existed beyond Maztica, a world of” magic and steel and power that seemed like a distant dream to him now. “How many of them? What did Carac see?”
“He counted five and twenty great canoes. In the field before Helmsport, some one hundred horses stood. And many of the silver-shirted soldiers debarked from the vessels. There may be more, but that is what he saw.”
“A new force-here, in Maztica?” Cordell couldn’t keep the amazement out of his voice. An army larger-perhaps twice the size, or even more-than the legion I brought to Maztica a year ago!
“Have you summoned them here?” Chical’s voice was heavy with suspicion now.
“No!” Cordell didn’t even think to lie. At the same time, his mind reeled with questions and possibilities. Who could? these men be? How had they located Helmsport? Who was their commander? And perhaps most important, were, they his allies or his foes?
“I don’t know who they are. I have not summoned them, but perhaps they have been sent to aid me by those who funded my own expedition.” He turned decisively toward the growing site of Tukan, in the valley below. Chi stepped beside him.
“Whatever the case,” Cordell explained, thinking as walked, “I must go to them as quickly as possible.”
1 must insure that they aid me, that they do not take what spoils I have earned and still keep. His mind whirled with suspicions and halt-formed plans. And yet, with a new army, with fresh troops, perhaps my mission need not end in failure!
Chical remained with Cordell, still suspicious, as the commander summoned his legionnaires and the chief of the Kultakans, Tokol. They started to gather around him in a great meadow that would someday be the city square of Tukan.
Before the assemblage was complete, Chical pulled Cordell to the side and spoke to him seriously.
“We have fought together, you and I-and also we have fought against each other.” The Eagle Knight’s voice was steady, and his black eyes faced squarely into Cordell’s own.*Know this, my new ally: If this is a new army, brought here to make war on my land, we will fight it every step of the way. And this time, our warfare will not be held in check by the whims of Naltecona!”
“I spe
ak the truth when I tell you that I do not know who these men are or why they come. But I will make you this promise: If I can reach them and bring them to follow me, I will use them as your allies.”
Chical still stared, with a concentration that disquieted the captain-general. “I pray that you speak the truth,” he said finally.
“Let us make a plan. I ask your help now.” Cordell’s tone remained level. “You and your eagles have flown over most of this country. Can you sketch me a rough map of the coastline near hear?”
Chical took the tip of his dagger and inscribed an outline in the dust on the ground. “This is the land of Payit, and below here the jungles of Far Payit, sticking like a thumb into the sea. Where the waters come around it, between the desert and the jungle, it is called the Sea of Azul.”
“Good!” Cordell exclaimed. He saw that the coastline curved inward, bordering the great desert for much of its extent.
“1 will take all the men 1 can mount, and we will ride to Helmsport,” he told the captain of eagles. “If you and your eagles will fly with us, we can reach these men quickly. Then we shall see what their purpose is and how we can make that purpose fit our own,”
Chical thought for several moments. “I cannot bring all the eagles from our valley. The danger is still too great. But some of us will accompany you, and we will see if it is as you say.”
“Very well. I cannot ask for more.” Cordell turned away, startled to see that the assessor of Amn, Kardann, had come up quietly behind him. The pudgy accountant’s face betrayed a look of passionate hope.
“Rescue!” he whispered loudly. “They have come for us! We’re saved!”
“They’ve come for something”, Cordell allowed. “But I’m not so certain it’s to save us.”
“What else could it be? Surely you will go to them, place us all under their protection?”
The captain-general looked at the little man with distaste. Kardann had been the one member of the original expedition assigned him by the merchant princes who had funded him. Cordell had never liked him, and nothing during the defeat stained retreat from Nexal had changed this opinion.
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