"Lost not just to Amn, remember, but lost to the entire Realms! Hundreds of cities thirst for goods that are not to be had!
"Think, O Princes, what rewards await the one who opens trade with the East… and the ones who support him!" They listen well… they will be mine.
"Surely you don't suggest that your legion open a route through the steppeland?" the squeaky merchant asked incredulously. The horde reputedly numbered more than a million savage fighters.
"Certainly not. That is a fool's task — at least, a task for fools other than myself." The members chuckled politely. They come closer, Cordell chortled inwardly.
"I ask you, Council of Amn, to fund me on an ocean voyage to Kara-Tur! I intend to sail to the west to reach the East!"
Two council members snorted in amusement, one shook his head, and three others remained immobile. Cordell turned to these unmoving ones and pressed on.
"Astrologers and sages have long said such a voyage is possible. Provide me with a dozen sturdy ships, provisions, and trading goods. My ships will carry the pick of the legion. With the support of your offices, I could take to sea in six months, before the first snows."
"But where… how would you sail?" The deep-voiced merchant prince, the one who had greeted Cordell upon his entrance, seemed intrigued.
"West. Actually, slightly south by west. Our Bishou has consulted Helm, patron god of the legion. Also we have sought the advice of the greatest sages on the coast, have conferred with wizards from Waterdeep to Calimport!
"The auguries are splendid. One strident symbol rides above all, in every vision. With each word from our god, the Bishou sees this promise. It dominates the seeking spells of the wizards, provides the theme underlying the speculations of the sages.
"It is an image so strong that we cannot but believe it lies before us on this quest.
"That image, good council members, is gold."
I have them.
"It is settled, then." The old cleric looked approvingly past Huakal to the prize of the past few hours of haggling. Erixitl stood motionless before his gaze, frightened and mystified by the proceedings.
In the months since her struggle with Callatl, little had changed in Erix's life. The young man had slowly recovered, though his voice had been permanently garbled by the girl's blow to his throat. Even worse, Erix's blow to his groin had destroyed his ability to father children. But throughout his son's long and agonized recovery, Huakal had been curiously distant… until this morning.
Then he had summoned her to meet this man, this white-robed cleric of Qotal. Huakal and Kachin, the cleric, spoke at some length in the language of the Payit. She understood little of the conversation between the two men, but she had noticed the cleric paying close attention to her. Now they switched tongues to Kultakan.
"A chest of cocoa, ten mantles, and two quills of gold dust, then. The girl is yours." Huakal nodded with finality.
Erix's heart sank. She had been sold! Then she thought a moment about the fee that had just been detailed. A man could buy a dozen able-bodied workers for that price!
Huakal turned to Erix, his voice firm. "This is Kachin. He is your new owner. He will be taking you to Payit." She looked at him with her proud, wide eyes, disturbing him. She has never acted like a slave! Huakal thought. She doesn't know what it is to be a slave! But those eyes…
The Kultakan noble walked brusquely past the girl, and she wondered if she saw tears in his eyes.
For a moment, she felt a sincere impulse to embrace him, to thank him or comfort him or say farewell. But even more quickly a sense of panic and foreboding flooded her, and she silently cursed Huakal for sending her away.
True, many nobles would have had her sacrificed without a second thought after such a fight as she had won. Callatl's scars would never heal. She had, in fact, expected, and prepared, to die.
But Huakal had spared her, selling her now instead for some absurd price to a cleric from the far fringes of Maztica. She knew little of Payit, other than that it was a land of jungles, swamps, poisonous serpents, and near-savage people.
The strange cleric's odd speech patterns and unusual dress also puzzled and frightened her. He wore a simple white cotton mantle, unadorned. He wore no feathers nor gold nor stones. His skin was very dark, his hair gray and long and tied in a single knot. His face, while creased with many wrinkles, was round and quick to smile. He moved his short, somewhat rotund form easily for an obviously old man.
Unlike the other clerics she had known, worshipers of Zaltec or his hungry offspring, this priest was obviously well fed. The only recognizable thing about him was the pendant of the Plumed One hanging about his neck, marking him as a cleric of Qotal. Perhaps the Feathered God did not require his devotees to fast as frequently as did those who worshiped Zaltec and the younger gods.
The faith of Qotal was not so widely spread as that of the warlike Zaltec, or the essential Calor and Tezca with their life-giving rain and sun. Still, Erix knew her father had revered Qotal, though this had been a private matter with him. Huakal, too, had maintained a shrine to the Plumed One. Huakal's son, like her own brother, had chosen to worship Zaltec instead of the gentle god of their fathers.
But Erix had learned to fear clerics, for they too often had but one use for a slave. And now she had been sold to a cleric who would take her to the distant shores of the True World, who for some mysterious purpose had paid an exorbitant sum for her.
She saw Huakal standing before her. Vaguely she noticed his eyes lingering on her token before he raised them to look at her face. As a woman of Maztica, she should have lowered her gaze then, but she did not, instead meeting her former master's gaze with her own penetrating dark eyes.
"You are a rare treasure, Erixitl." Huakal's voice came to her, seemingly from a great distance. The noble had indeed succumbed to emotion, and he made no effort to hide his tears as he spoke. "You are a child of grim destiny. My line has ended with Callatl, and now you are swept away. You shall go to Payit, and the land will not be the same for your being there.
"May the gods be kind to you."
From the Chronicle of the Waning.
May the wisdom of the Feathered One shine across the True World!
Now, just as swans take to the air, I see the strangers spread their wings and put to sea. But these creatures that glide ever closer to Maztica are more hawks than swans.
They come with powers beyond my understanding, devices and tools the likes of which I have never seen. I cannot imagine the uses of many of the things I am given the vision to observe. But most frightening of all my auguries is not the tools, nor the powers of these strangers.
It is the men themselves.
I sense — even across worlds of distance — that these men are somehow different. Their god is a fierce lord, perhaps more than the equal of the younger gods of Maztica. They are drawn by things, compelled by forces that I cannot comprehend. Visions of metal and stones move them with a power that leaves me mystified and awed.
I only know that they terrify me!
JOURNEY
Everywhere the city of Murann, the main seaport of Amn, smelled of fish. From its plastered villas and elegant gardens to its teeming slums and bustling mercantile districts, the penetrating, oily odor intruded throughout each building, penetrating walls and floors and every fiber of clothing.
But nowhere was the smell so strong as at the shore of the harbor itself, where Halloran now found himself laboring under the blaze of a hot afternoon sun. The waterfront bustled with activity — the cries of animals, the creaking of cranes and timbers, and the shouts of men. A pounding din arose behind him, where one of the greatest shipyards of the Sword Coast churned out vessel after vessel — heavy galleys for war or trade; stocky, seaworthy caravels; or large carracks, with their towering rear decks.
It was one of the latter, a short, blunt-bowed vessel with three tall masts and the characteristic raised deck at her stern, that stood at the dockside by the young cavalryman.
Like the other carracks and caravels, Osprey carried no oars, depending upon the rigging of her sails to maneuver with or against the wind. Stores of salt pork and bacon had been stored belowdecks, and Hal now watched a group of stevedores roll huge kegs of water over the ship's aft gangplank.
Suddenly an anxious whinny pulled his attention to the bow.
"Easy now! She's not to be struck!" Halloran barked the rebuke at the swarthy stevedores who struggled to lead his mare onto a narrow gangplank.
The trio of men set back to their task with more patience, and soon had coaxed Storm onto the sheltered deck of the Osprey. Two other horses already stood there, under the partial shelter of a taut tarpaulin.
"And what will be the shore she next trods?" mused a gruff voice.
Halloran heard familiar clumping footsteps and turned to greet Captain Daggrande.
The spice fields of Kara-Tur, I should think."
Daggrande snorted. "Not in the Realms I know! Sailing west to go east… it's preposterous!"
Halloran himself still wondered at the audacity of Cordell's mission. Nonetheless, his utter confidence in the captain-general dispelled any doubts he may have held regarding the eventual success of the voyage.
Since the mission had been announced six months earlier, a whirlwind of activity had preceded this day as the legion prepared for its most daring expedition ever. A small fleet of six car-racks and nine caravels had assembled in Murann. The men of the legion had been informed of the mission and told that it was voluntary. Only a few dozen had declined the opportunity for adventure, and those had quickly been replaced.
Cordell had trained his five hundred legionnaires for shipboard transport, and the men practiced loading and unloading the horses for landings where ports and quays might not be available. Two hundred sailors were recruited, brave men or simply foolhardy. Even with the uncertain destination of the voyage, a festive sense of adventure accompanied all of the preparations.
Now the horses whinnied in agitation. Hounds barked and scrambled underfoot. They were taking several dozen of the large, shaggy greyhounds that served as camp sentries and war dogs.
Ample supplies of food and water, extra weapons and armor, and all the provisions for march and battle had been collected in warehouses along the wharf, and were now being moved by laboring dockworkers into the holds of the ships.
"Why are you coming if you think it's madness?" Halloran asked Daggrande.
The dwarf cast Hal a sly look. "Because the Cordell I know would not embark on a quest like this unless he knew there was something out there. My guess is it'll yield enough treasure for the lot of us to live out our lives in luxury!"
"How can he know? What makes you so sure?"
"It's that Bishou — him and the lady wizard." Daggrande spat. His feelings toward elves were well known, and the elven mage Darien seemed to arouse an even stronger distaste than usual in the dwarf's already cantankerous nature. He shook his head ruefully as he continued.
"I got to admit, their powers can be handy. I'll wager a year's coin that both of them have seen enough of what's out there to tell Cordell this is a gamble worth taking.
"Besides, dwarven lore is full of tales of distant lands of riches. It's said that you could once travel under the Trackless Sea and come up in a land to the west. One of the greatest wars between dwarves and the drow was supposedly fought miles under the sea floor."
Halloran nodded, impressed. The drow, or dark elves, were fabled as a race of great evil and vast power. Their skills included powerful magic, skilled weaponcraft, and deadly combat abilities. Nowadays they were not very common, having been driven from the territories of all civilized nations.
"They say it was the drow that ended that war," continued Daggrande, "by starting a fire so great, so enormous, that the rocks themselves melted away and the sea poured in to destroy that whole section of the underdark.
"Destroyed forever, but with lands of richness rumored to exist on the other side. And that's enough for me! After all, Cordell's luck ain't run out yet!" The dwarf's eyes twinkled. "Say, it sounds like congratulations are in order."
Hal nodded, smiling in spite of himself. "Captain of horse. The rank is permanent now! I'll have command over all four wings."
"Well, don't let it go to your head. But I'm proud of you anyways, and you should be pleased."
"One other thing, though. Beware Alvarro. He's a jealous, hotheaded type, and he was hoping to get the command himself."
"I've already noticed him scowling at me," the young man replied, nodding. "But I can handle him."
Halloran looked across the placid harbor to the rolling sea beyond. Now, before him, the enclosed port looked like a forest of denuded trees, so numerous were the masts of the vessels crowding the sheltered waters. The usual trading vessels now stood at anchor offshore, for all available quays had been given over to the loading of Cordell's expedition.
The fifteen ships lined the wharves, the largest of them no more than one hundred feet long. Each would carry a few horses and some forty men, the pick of the legion, together with a dozen or more sailors. The last of the horses had now boarded, and individual captains glared and cursed along the waterfront, tending to final details of the loading.
"Where's Cordell?" asked the young captain, realizing that the captain-general had not been paying his usual meticulous attention to every personal detail.
"He and that elf — " again a pause for a noisy spit — "spent the day bartering in the alchemists' market. Laying in a few potions for the voyage… or the lands beyond the voyage."
Halloran suppressed a shudder. "I think I'll trust to my own steel." He laid a hand upon the reassuring leather hilt of his longsword.
"Wise words. For me, I'll depend on the edge of my axe, the strength of my arm, and little else!" Absently the dwarf removed his small, double-bitted axe from his belt. He began stroking the edge with a whetstone while watching the activity throughout Murann harbor.
The startling blare of a brass horn brought all activity on the waterfront to an abrupt halt. "The general must be back," grumbled Daggrande, pushing the axe back into his belt. "Best hear what he's got to say."
Remaining tasks were postponed as all the members of the expedition filed between the waterfront buildings to gather in the great plaza of Murann. There indeed stood Captain-General Cordell, resplendent in a purple velvet tunic draped over his steel breastplate. He carried his brimmed helmet at his side, standing bareheaded on the podium in the sunny square.
"Who else is up there?" grumbled the dwarf, unable to see as the human members of the legion pressed around.
"His lady Darien… the Bishou Domincus… I can see some official and a young lady beside the Bishou. She's beautiful!" Halloran caught his breath at the sight of the red-haired woman standing beside the tall cleric.
"Probably Bishou Domincus's daughter." Daggrande couldn't see, but he still had plenty of opinions. "I heard she was coming along with the expedition."
"Soldiers of the Golden Legion!" Cordell's voice rang through the square, and the low hum of conversation died instantly. "We embark in a few short hours upon a mission of grave peril. The dangers we face are unknown to us, but I know that every one of you will hold true to his courage and his faith. With the aid of our almighty protector, Helm, we shall triumph over all!
"As you know, our mission is funded by the good Council of Amn," continued the leader. "We have here the council's Grand Assessor, Kardann. He will accompany us on our mission and record the treasures we gain!" A throaty roar erupted from the men.
"In the name of Helm!" The Bishou's voice now rang over the hundreds of soldiers and sailors gathered in the plaza. "May our benefactor bless our swords, making sharp our steel. May he strengthen our arms, such that our blows will fall swift and deadly as we strike in his immortal name!
"May the vigilance of his eternal gaze warn us of treachery, making swift our vengeance against those who would betray us. And may the holy light of his
ironclad brilliance guide us to lands of wealth and promise, opening the fabled riches of the East to our bold exploration!" Bishou Domincus lowered his voice, mumbling a silent prayer to Helm, the legion's patron god, before he again fixed the throng with his passionate blue eyes.
"Now let us join our voices in the anthem. Martine, please lead us…"
Halloran saw the woman whose beauty had so struck him step to the fore of the group on the platform. She raised her face to the heavens, and her clear, melodious voice led the men of the Golden Legion in their Anthem of War.
The song combined celebration of victory with grief for fallen companions. Its words spoke to the heart of every warrior present, and Halloran was not alone as he wept through the final chorus. He gripped his sword until his knuckles whitened, the glory of many conquests beckoning him. He stood enraptured as Martine at last ceased singing, then watched her turn with her father to stand at Cordell's side.
The Bishou and his daughter would sail with the general, he was certain, in the fleet's flagship, the Falcon. He wondered when he would see her again, certain that time would be too long in coming.
"Now to your ships!" Cordell cried, not loudly, but his voice rang through the square with the sheer force of command. The very sound of his voice filled Hal with energy and excitement.
"The tide falls away past midnight, and we ride to sea before the dawn, to the west, and into history!"
Erixitl's journey from Kultaka to Payit began strangely. Upon learning that her destination was distant Payit, she brooded about the prospects of a long, difficult march. Like everyone else, she knew little of the Payitlan people save that they were a race of rude barbarians with no culture. Of course, the cleric Kachin had seemed well-spoken and dignified enough, but anyone would expect a religious patriarch to display some education and manners. The people themselves, she suspected, were far more savage.
Thus she was astounded to find an elegant gown of softest cotton awaiting her on the morning of their departure. Sandals of snakeskin and a bright feather mantle for her shoulders completed the outfit, finer clothes than she had ever seen. Her astonishment was compounded when she emerged from the house of Huakal to find a pluma Utter, a luxurious bed of floating feathermagic, awaiting her. The pad was large enough to hold a reclining adult and hovered several feet above the ground. It was perhaps a handspan thick, and its surface consisted of a border of emerald quetzal feathers surrounding a mosaic pattern of wonderful, multicolored detail.
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