She laughed again, and again he loved the sound. "Oh, I don't know. I don't really think about it. It's fun to see each new place. Don't be so serious!"
"All right." He nodded, wanting to please her.
They walked for a while down the beach, past groups of sailors and soldiers from the legion relaxing on the shore. All the men had gotten to debark at least once thus far, and more than half of them were ashore now.
Halloran looked at the forest that marked the boundary of the beach. From the sea, they had seen a steadily rising slope, leading to some moderate crests a few miles inland. Where he stood now, he could see only the trees before him, since their height concealed the rising ground beyond.
Martine exclaimed over this blossom or that brilliantly plumed bird, while the horseman wondered what lay beyond that jungle facade. What was this place really like?
"We'd better not go too far," he cautioned, realizing they had walked past the last group of men on the beach.
"Oh, stop worrying! I'd like to be someplace for once where there aren't hundreds of sweaty men around me!"
"But…" Halloran paused in total confusion. He would do anything to please her, and indeed her desires coincided deeply with his own. But the Bishou's dour and protective nature was well known, and Domincus could scarcely fail to observe their departure. Hal shuddered at the thought of his wrath.
A thunderous explosion of sound blasted from the jungle, striking them like a blast of air and driving Halloran to his knees. Like the roar of a great cat, amplified to an earth-shattering level, the bellow was strong enough, and startling enough, to knock Martine flat onto her back behind Hal. In an instant, he staggered to his feet, his sword drawn.
A creature of nightmarish appearance leaped from the jungle, pouncing to the sand ten paces before the man. Halloran saw a great black mane surrounding a feline face contorted by a hateful snarl. A pair of leathery wings flapped from the creature's shoulders, sending clouds of sand swirling into the air. A black-tufted tail lashed back and forth as the beast, larger than a horse, crouched, preparing to spring.
Martine's lips moved, but she lay immobile on the sand. She may have spoken, but Hal realized that he could hear nothing. The roar had deafened him.
Halloran stumbled unsteadily, lurching to Martine's side, crouching defensively to protect her from Ihe cruel jaws and raking talons. The monsler leaped, and Halloran brought his sword down in an overhand blow, striking the thing's brutish forehead.
He felt claws tear into his rib cage at the same time as his blade contacted hard bone. Hal fell backward, still in front of Martine, while the crealure uttered a short, surprised screech, stopping in its tracks and shaking its head.
Instantly Hal leaped to his feet, ignoring the burning pain and free flow of blood along his side. The snarling feline face was marred by a long cut, but once again the beast growled and crept forward. Halloran knew he could not stop it a second time.
Suddenly he saw one, then several heavy bolts appear in Ihe monster's flank. Crossbow quarrels! Some of Daggrande's men had seen them! The creature whirled and snapped at the missiles, so Halloran thrust at its other flank, driving his steel blade deep into its flesh. A band of swordsmen sprinted toward them, lumbering in the soft sand.
The monster uttered another horrible roar, directed up the beach. Halloran watched in astonishment as several of the running swordsmen stumbled and fell, apparently stunned by the roar. Before the others could close, the monster sprang back toward the shelter of the forest. Its short wings greatly speeded its flight, and in moments it had disappeared into the trees.
"Are — are you all right?" Hal asked, anxiously helping Martine to her feet. His voice sounded hollow in his skull, but it seemed that his hearing was gradually returning.
"Yes… but you're hurt." She looked at his chest with genuine concern. "You saved my life!"
Halloran felt a delayed reaction to the sudden deadly combat. His knees shook and his muscles felt drained. He did not resist as she lifted his arm over her shoulder and supported him, aided by several men who only now arrived on the scene.
"Get the Bishou!" she shouted, and one of the men turned to obey. Hal had visions of his last rites, his soul delivered to Helm on a silver platter.
They soon reached the main gathering, and the brown-robed Bishou Domincus came striding forward to greet them. From the glowering look on his features, Hal felt certain the cleric did indeed want to send his soul Helmward.
"Help him, Father! He saved my life! The creature… it was horrible! I don't know what it was!" Martine's words spilled forth in an excited jumble.
"'Hakuna', the chief called it." Hal blinked and saw Cordell standing beside the Bishou. The captain-general's face was slightly amused, not displeased. "That was well done. Captain!" Despite Hal's pain, the commander's words sent a thrill of pride to the core of his being. He smiled weakly as Martine helped him to lie upon the beach. The Bishou, still glaring, knell beside him.
"Helm deliver this warrior from his wounds." Domincus closed his eyes and chanted. "He fought bravely and truly in your name. Grant me the power to close his flesh, that he may strive further in your valorous cause!"
Halloran felt his pain flow from his body as if the dam restraining it had been breached. His arm, hanging limply before, suddenly became strong, and he struggled to rise.
"Rest here," said Martine quietly. "Don't get up yet." Her voice was so soothing, the sand and the sun so pleasant, that Hal had no difficulty obeying. She rested her hand upon his forehead, and it seemed as though cool water washed over him. In moments, he slept.
It was late afternoon before he was awakened by Daggrande. "Last boat to the Osprey. Unless you want to wait here and dance with that hakuna again tonight, that is."
Hal sprang to his feet, feeling remarkably spry. "Are we moving on?"
"Aye. The scout ships returned. This is an island, like I said. But now we hear tales of real mountains and a huge land that these folks get to by canoe. I think our next landfall will be the mainland."
"Splendid!"
"That's not all. We hear they have a real city there… and a pile of gold big enough to blind you in bright sunlight!"
Halloran saw several of the native girls being lifted into longboats, most of which had already been taken back to the ships. Some distance away, Martine and the Bishou were locked in a heated conversation, but he could not hear what they said. The daughter gestured angrily, and the father turned sourly away.
As Hal and Daggrande reached the Ospreys boat, Martine called to the cavalryman. He paused on the beach as Daggrande impatiently waited in the boat.
"I'm coming with you," said the woman. He saw a look of unfamiliar determination on her face.
"Of course." Halloran was delighted by the news, mostly. "But what about your father? Doesn't he want you aboard the Falcon?"
"Hmph!" She flounced past him and turned to look at the Bishou. He was aiding several native girls into another longboat. "Father seems to have been given a 'gift.'" Martine gestured at a dusky maiden. "A slave!"
Halloran looked in surprise, guessing that all twelve of the girls had been distributed among the other captains and influential officers of the fleet, as Martine continued. "I told him that he should set her free! Helm does not sanction slavery! But he made all sorts of stuttering noises — 'It would be an insult to her people,' and such!"
She cast an angry look back toward the cleric, and Halloran felt very glad that he was not the target of such scalding rage. Yet he didn't know what to say to her as she looked back at him, her eyes still flashing.
"I think he likes having a pretty young slave! And so I toid him I would not ride on the same ship with her," she snapped. "And here I am!"
"Won't you join us, then?" said Halloran weakly.
"Send for my luggage — tonight, please," Martine continued, scarcely missing a beat.
Halloran nodded, stunned by this abrupt assault and uneasy about its possible consequenc
es.
SPIRALI
A black cape rustled softly in the darkness. The sound was intentional; the Ancient One announced his arrival to his fellows. But even more than this, the silken whisper told the others that this one had made a decision, a decision for action.
"Kizzwryll!"
The whispered word, spoken by the Ancestor, called to life the Darkfyre. The black liquid roiled in its caldron, shedding a darkness across the gathering that washed the faces of each of those present with an inky illumination.
The Darkfyre settled within its kettle, and the Ancient Ones turned to regard Spirali, the one of their number who had just arrived.
"The cleric is incredibly weak, even for a human. We cannot trust him to fulfill the task." Spirali's voice, a low whisper, echoed hollowly in the vast cavern.
"tou speak the truth." The wizened Ancestor, concealed by his robes where all the others gathered with bared heads, nodded.
"There is now a thing I must do."
Several cloaks rustled, a mute agreement with Spirali's remark and a comment about its drastic nature.
"tou must not reveal yourself if it can be avoided. But if the humans fail, you must slay the girl." The Ancestor rasped the command gently, knowing that Spirali had implicitly understood the situation long before any of the rest of them had acknowledged the truth. Sometime our deliberateness hampers us, reflected the Ancestor. The humans move so much faster.
"I will enact the will of the council," said Spirali. With another rustle of his cape, he bowed deeply and then turned back to the darkness.
Erix could not see the cycles of the sun, so she had no accurate means of measuring the length of her imprisonment. She had received ten meals — each a miserable portion of cold mayz and water — and her best guess was that ten days had passed.
Other than the silent servers who brought her food, slipping it to her through a small hatch in the cell door, she had no contact with other humans. Around her yawned a seemingly vast realm of silence. A perennial chill made her suspect that she was held somewhere underground.
Not long after her tenth meal, Erix again heard sandaled footsteps outside her cell door. She sensed that only a few hours had passed since her daily sustenance, so she knew this was an unusual visit. Crouching against the wall opposite the door, she waited. The latch lifted, and a sudden wash of torchlight filled the room as the portal opened, revealing a pair of men in loincloths.
With a shriek that contained all the pent-up anger and frustration of her life, Erixitl sprang at the first man. He stumbled backward in shock as her fingers raked across his face. Instantly her victim screamed and collapsed, moaning and clutching his bleeding face.
The second man stopped in shock, and the force of her charge bowled him over. She leaped on his belly, doubling him over, and then she sprang past. She was free!
Then she slammed into something hard, something that pushed back. She fell to the floor, stunned, and felt her arms gripped by talonlike fingers. In the fading light of the torch, she recognized the horrid visage of a Jaguar Knight. His dark eyes glowered at her through the gaping jaws of his helm. The jaguar teeth, long and ivory white, seemed to reach menacingly for her face.
"That was foolish, little one!" he hissed, lifting her easily off the floor and holding her upright. "You may have blinded one of my slaves."
He shook her like a rag doll, and she felt as if her teeth would bounce from her jaw. "Now, behave!" he warned, setting her on her feet. Instantly her fist flew at his chest, scraping her knuckJes on his hishna armor of jaguar hide. She spit in his face and he cuffed her, she kicked his knee and he knocked her down.
Finally he grabbed her unceremoniously and tossed her over his shoulder, neutralizing her struggles. "You are a spirited one, hey? Zaltec will relish the feast of your heart!"
For a moment, the confirmation of her suspicions drained her, and she slumped limply across his shoulder. She felt the knight, too, relax. And she realized that his remark had told her nothing at all, for she had never doubted that her captors intended her for the sacrificial altar.
She twisted to the side and brought her knee into the knight's throat in a crushing blow. He gasped and stumbled as she savagely struck his shoulders with her elbows. Like a wild beast, Erix twisted free as the man dropped to his knees. She saw him reach for her, and somehow she eluded his grasp, feeling his fingers slip from her arm.
Erix sprinted down the corridor, bursting through a reed curtain into a small courtyard. A wall obstructed her view of everything but the starry sky. She raced across the dark courtyard, pounding into a large gate and finding it barred.
Mixtal waited nervously in the courtyard while Gultec went to get the girl. He paced back and forth in agitation. The past ten days had been, for the cleric, a miserable period of suspense and anxiety. The girl had been hidden well, but her very presence had caused him constant, soulwrenching fear.
What if Kachin gained proof of Mixtal's involvement? The thought sent shudders through Mixtal's scrawny frame. The cleric of Qotal had been persistent in his questioning, outraged in his accusations against the Jaguars.
That house of warriors had defended itself well, claiming no knowledge of the capture. The blame, it was hinted, rested upon some young warriors who had partaken of too much octal. Their identities were unknown, but if they were discovered, Kachin would of course be informed.
Anxiously Mixtal looked back toward the dark entrance to the cellar. What was keeping Gultec?
A group of apprentice priests awaited them outside, ready to witness the sacrifice. The ritual would be secret, performed away from the city. They all knew that the priests of Qotal, peaceable though they claimed to be, would exact a terrible vengeance should the abduction of the princess be traced to the temple of Zaltec.
And now something was wrong!
The priest saw a lithe figure emerge from the house, dashing across the courtyard toward the gate. The girl had escaped! With a low groan, Mixtal turned toward the swinging reed curtain, hoping to see Gultec in pursuit.
He heard the girl bang on the gate, and his heart sank. He had no illusions as to his own fate should she escape. The summoning from the Ancient Ones had made that clear. Mixtal ran across the courtvard and saw her moving along the base of the wall.
The cleric grasped his necklace of snake fangs, calling forth the hishna sorcery of Zaltec. He pulled a wriggling snakeskin from his pouch. The object writhed with a life of its own. Holding the twisting thing before him, he concentrated on the girl, seeing her turn at the sound of his voice.
"Zaltec Tlaz-atl qoo!"
Mixtal pointed at the girl and released the skin. The object flew through the air, darting like an airborne eel into a tight circle around Erix.
"Tziliit!" Mixtal finished the spell by commanding the strands to contract around his victim.
He saw the girl shrink away from the encircling magic. Her own hand seized something at her throat, a gesture that looked instinctive. Mixtal heard a sound like a burst of air, and suddenly he shouted in pain. The skin fell motionless to the ground, and the cleric blew frantically upon his blistered palms. Somehow the girl had resisted the hishna, and with strength enough to send shock waves of pain crackling back to the magic-wielding priest.
Groaning, Mixtal looked up again. He saw, or imagined, an aura around the feathered necklace the girt wore. His hishna had been defeated by something, and he suddenly felt the coolness of pluma, the magic of feathers, emanating from the young woman before him.
Erix released her feather token as if it was a scalding stone. Stunned, she watched the sorcerous attack fall away. But in the next instant, she realized that her father's gift had only offered her salvation if she could seize it instantly.
She saw a nearby tree with branches extending over the wall, and she raced toward it like a gust of wind, leaping a bench that she barely saw in her path. In moments, she would reach the safety of the tree.
Then a shadowy form crossed her path, disa
ppearing into the predawn darkness below the tree. Erix stopped, but she could see nothing in the inky blackness.
A low growl — a deep, horrible, animal growl — emerged from the darkness, and Erixitl moaned in all-encompassing terror. She took a step backward, but her body finally sagged with exhaustion, horror, even defeat.
A jaguar burst from the shadow, its paws striking her in the chest and knocking her heavily to the ground. She gasped for air, staring upward at bright yellow eyes, the slitted pupils burning with hatred. She felt its warm drool spattering to her chin and neck.
And then the jaguar was gone, and the knight she had attacked knelt upon her.
Roughly he pulled her to her feet, jerking her sharply around and binding her hands until the cords cut into her flesh. He stuffed a filthy rag into her mouth and bound that behind her head. Then he pushed her through the gate, where she was forced into the center of a procession of several dozen young priests. She did not need to inhale the scent of caked blood to know that these were priests of Zaltec, for the scalp of each bristled with the characteristic spikes of hair.
They would perform their sacrifice outside the city, she saw, as they led her down a street and then past the fields of mayz. Soon the trail entered the jungle, but just as quickly it emerged along the coast. For perhaps an hour, they marched along the beach. Erix felt numb, barely aware of the fading light of the stars as dawn approached.
Finally the procession of priests and victim reached a steep bluff. Erix saw two massive stone faces carved into the cliff face of the bluff, a man's and a woman's image staring out across the great sea. She recognized the place as the one she had heard about from the girl in Pezelac, the place called Twin Visages. The faces, she remembered ironically, had been sculpted by worshipers of Qotal, a sign of hope and reverence in awaiting that god's return. Now they would be the site of a sacrifice to bloody Zaltec.
The priests climbed a trail up the bluff, winding between the two faces. The steep ascent took a long time, as the immensity of the escarpment only gradually became apparent. Behind, and soon below them, the rolling breakers of the sea crashed into shore, still invisible in the gloom. The approaching dawn had become a rosy glow in the east. The stars had almost all disappeared.
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