Now the numbness of the long march began to fade, and Erix sensed the cold proximity of her death.
Here Erixitl saw a small pyramid, a barren block of stone atop the bluff, overlooking the sea. She twisted and struggled as they approached it, but the group of apprentices simply lifted her to their shoulders and marched her up the steep steps, fifty-two in number, to the top.
The young priests formed a ring around the top platform of the pyramid while the Jaguar Knight and high priest went to the stone altar. That bloodstained block stood at one side of the platform atop the pyramid. Beside the altar squatted a bestial image of Zaltec, carved from stone. The war god's mouth gaped open, awaiting its gory feast.
Erix saw the black stains across the altar, streaking the sides and smeared across much of the platform. She twisted and scratched, but the apprentices finally held her immobile.
The rosy light became orange, then red. Erix watched, horrified and spellbound, as the sky grew ever brighter. All of the priests, too, kept their eyes upon the eastern horizon. Vaguely she felt the knight untie her bonds and remove her gag. She knew that four priests would stretch her across the altar while Mixtal wielded his obsidian knife. She saw the weapon now, tucked into his waistband, a sinister, shining black blade with a turquoise and jadestone hilt.
Then the intent concentration of the priests wavered. One whispered an exclamation, another an urgent prayer. Their attention turned toward the ocean. Erix at first took no note of the change, until even Mixtal, the high priest, looked toward the sea, an expression like fear creeping over his features.
"What is that?" muttered the cleric nervously.
The other priests muttered, too, and even Gultec peered through the darkness of the clearing to stare out over the sea.
"By Zaltec, they are great winged creatures!" gasped one of the young priests.
Erix stood spellbound as the dawn light spilled across the pyramid and the sea below. She saw creatures, elegant monsters, wondrous billowing white things, bigger than houses. They seemed to fly, just touching the water, and their course took them toward the shore. Their wings were huge, but they did not flap, instead seeming to stand upright, as if to slow the creatures' awesome momentum. The young priests crowded to the east side of the pyramid, all straining to get a better view.
"It is a sign from Zaltec!" groaned Mixtal.
"Nonsense!" Gultec snarled and stepped forward to push his way through the priests. Nonetheless, he said nothing for a time.
Erix stood alone with Mixtal in the center of the pyramid. The cleric wrung his hands nervously, staring to the east. The woman saw one glorious opportunity.
Her hand flashed out and pulled the dagger from Mixtal's belt. In the same instant, she drove the hilt against his scalp, just above the ear. Mixtal uttered no sound as his knees collapsed.
Before the cleric's body had fallen, Erix had leaped from the west side of the pyramid to race down the stairs and into the tenuous protection of the jungie beyond.
From the Chronicle of the Waning:
May the light of the Plumed One illuminate my miserable ignorance!
My hand trembles such that I can barely paint this tale. I can only relate what I have seen and hope that time and perhaps sleep will allow me to plumb its depths. The time is today, the setting of the sun…
Naltecona attends the sacrifices upon the great pyramid, performing two of them himself — hearts offered to Crimson Zaltec and Black Tezca. The throng crowded in the plaza, even the priests on the pyramid, seemed held in some kind of thrall. Movement slowed, perception heightened.
A great noise drew our eyes to the sky, and there appeared a beast, a huge creature the like of which Maztica has never known. Shaped like a bird, it had no feathers but was covered with leathery skin like a crocodile. A long beak, sharp and fagged, extended from its maw. The monster settled slowly to the top of the pyramid as the priests recoiled in panic. I myself fell to the stones in awe.
Naltecona stood firm in its presence. His nephew Poshtli, wearing his full armor as an Eagle Knight, stepped before the counselor and raised his maca to defend his uncle. The black and white feathers of Poshtli's cloak spread from his shoulders in challenge to the monster.
The beast spread and flapped its wings, sending a hurricane of wind across the pyramid, driving the priests still farther away. Finally Poshtli, too, tumbled to the side. And then we saw the will of the gods.
Across the broad breast of the beast spread a shiny surface, like obsidian or smooth, perfect ice. I stared, awestruck, at my own dumbfounded reflection in this mirror from heaven. Others, I learned later, saw the same thing as I: a reflection of the pyramid and the assembled priesthood.
Except Naltecona.
The Revered Counselor recoiled two steps, staring into the mirror. The beast stepped toward him, and Naltecona made noises of fear. He stared for a full minute, and though none other could see the vision granted his eyes, he groaned and he wept. He pounded his chest in disbelieving fear. He spoke of two-headed monsters, of silver spears, of houses that floated upon the ocean.
Then did the beast spread its wings and soar aloft, nearly driving us from the pyramid with the wind of its ascension. Then, too, did Naltecona fall to his knees and kiss the stones before the creature's footsteps.
CHITIKAS
The eagle soared easily on the coastal updrafts. Far below, heavy breakers pounded a stretch of beach that vanished into the distance to the north and south.
The bird suddenly thrust its wings once and again, gaining speed and swooping into a dive. The air became moist with drifting spray, but the eagle's keen eyes penetrated the haze, studying the strange shapes on the water.
The eyes were those of an animal, but the mind that absorbed those sights was human. The Eagle Knight in avian form was Lord Poshtli, nephew of the great Naltecona himself, now flying a mission of observation for the Revered Counselor.
The eagle passed once above the cloudlike forms, carefully examining them. Still hundreds of feet in the air, the bird flew silently, unnoticed from below.
Then it dove toward the sea, a long, swooping descent that quickly propelled the powerful animal at blinding speed. The massive wings beat again, a steady cadence of power. Now the eagle climbed slowly, never wavering from a straight course, gaining only the elevation needed to cross the mountains that lay invisible beyond the horizon ahead.
It flew northwest, toward distant, iridescent Nexal.
Erix scrambled through the brush, ignoring the sharp thorns tearing at her limbs, mindful only of the desperate need to flee the deadly altar of Zaltec. She used the sacrificial knife to hack some of the encroaching vegetation away, but the stone blade proved an inefficient means of clearing a path. Mostly she just pushed her way between branches, occasionally diving headfirst through a tangle of vines.
After two desperate minutes of flight, she paused, stifling her own gasps in an effort to listen for pursuit. A bird cackled somewhere nearby, hidden by foliage. Fat insects buzzed around her head.
But there was no sound of even vaguely human origin. For long moments, Erix stood still, listening to the sounds of the jungle. Vaguely, in the distance, she could hear the dull roar of the surf.
The sound of the ocean reminded her of the great, winged things she had seen. For some reason she had already begun to doubt that they were creatures. Whatever they were, she knew their appearance had saved her life.
For a full minute, Erix stood still, wondering at the lack of pursuit. Surely they had noticed her escape! The strange objects offshore, she finally concluded, must be holding the priests and the Jaguar Knight in some kind of thrall.
Again she wondered at the spectacle, her curiosity beginning to overcome her fear. She gained her bearings, remembering that the ocean lay generally behind her. Moving slower, with more stealth than during the initial rush of her flight, she turned to the left and began to move parallel to the shore.
The pyramid of Zaltec gradually fell away behind h
er, and she became immersed in the heavy, wet jungle. Soaked with her own sweat, ignoring the flies and mosquitoes that buzzed around her, she laboriously worked her way to the south. Finally she emerged upon a narrow trail, and here she turned again, striking eastward for the coast.
Erixitl's arms bled from dozens of scrapes, and the thorns had torn her cotton gown into a tattered rag. But now she pushed quickly forward, forgetting all of her present difficulties in her desire to look again upon the great wings over the ocean.
At last she pushed through the dripping fronds of a thick fern and found herself near the edge of the coastal bluff. A strip of brushy ground lined the edge of the precipice, but her curiosity overcame caution. Carefully she crawled through the brush to the edge of the cliff. Worming forward, secure in the shelter of a dense tangle, she looked out toward the ocean.
The white wings of the sea — things now hung limp, smaller than when she had first seen them. Though the objects were well to her left, a mile or more away, she could see more details.
Instantly she understood; These were great vessels, like unthinkably massive canoes, and they were filled with men. Even as she watched, she saw smaller craft — more like true canoes, though still larger than the slender boats plying the waters of Maztica — drift away from the great vessels. Like great whales giving birth, each of the large craft disgorged one of the smaller boats, and these began moving slowly toward the shore.
Erixitl's sense of wonder grew. Was this a miracle in progress before her? Where did these visitors come from? Certainly they did not originate in the True World. She could see tiny manlike figures among the strangers, but she could not believe that these were actually human beings like herself. Could they be the messengers of the gods? Or even the gods themselves?
"Pretty girl!"
A voice, speaking crude Payit, jerked her attention back to reality. Erix swung around and raised the knife, but she could see nothing. Her back to the steep bluff, she scrutinized the surrounding vegetation.
"Oh, she's got a knife, too! Look out, look out!" The voice sounded amused.
"Who's there?" she hissed, crouching.
"We're all here, eh, pretty one?" A sudden burst of color startled her. She gasped, almost dropping the knife, as a brightly feathered bird exploded from the bush before her, squawking upward to rest among the fronds of a palm. "She's scared now!" Her jaw dropped as she realized that the mysterious voice belonged to a macaw.
"I'm not scared! You startled me, featherbrain!" She tossed her head at the bird, feeling sheepish. She had heard of macaws and parrots that could mimic the sound of human voices. Then she realized with a chill that the bird had not mimicked any sound. It had remarked about things it had observed, such as her knife!
"Smart bird, that he is," lisped another voice, a low, sibilant sound emerging from a leafy bush.
Erix turned with a gasp as she saw a long, brightly colored head emerge from the greenery. It was followed by a snake's neck and a portion of a serpentine body coiling smoothly forward, slender but supple and wiry. Yet the snake eyes gleamed at her with intelligence, even perhaps a little amusement.
"A lucky girl you are today, Erixitl." The creature spoke again, its snake lips pursing softly as a black, forked tongue slipped in and out of its mouth. "Lucky girl because I am here.
"And I am Chitikas."
Tenth day following landfall, aboard the Falcon
Helm has granted us a splendid anchorage, a deep lagoon surrounded by encircling headlands. A rugged coast greets us, distinguished in particular by two monstrous images carved into the rocky bluff.
Each of these presents a human visage, apparently a male and female, many times the height of a man. At the top of the bluff stands a squat structure, pyramidal in shape.
We move quickly to put the legion ashore, leaving bare crews to tend the ships. The footmen claim the ground even now; in some hours, we will debark the horses.
"Who could have made them?" wondered Halloran, awestruck. The growing light of day revealed a pair of huge faces carved into the cliff before them.
"Look at them!" murmured an unusually subdued Martine, taking Hal's arm in unconscious excitement.
He thought uncomfortably how that touch would have thrilled him a few days before. Now Martine's hand felt like a cold iron shackle, closing around his flesh. Her attentions, which once had exhilarated him, now confined and enclosed him more securely with each bubbling phrase, each coy look.
She had stayed at his side constantly during the three days she had been aboard the Osprey — except, of course, when they slept. Hal had willingly offered his cabin, the only private lodging on the ship, and she had accepted it as her due. He had spent the last three nights with the horses and dogs under the crude deck shelter, and he had come to appreciate those hours as his only free time.
Daggrande had avoided them as much as possible — no mean trick on the ninety-foot carrack — and Martine's incessant talking had begun to ring in his ears even in his dreams. Perhaps this landing would give him an opportunity to be a soldier again, but he doubted it.
The fleet stood offshore, resting easily at anchor. Halloran and Martine stood at Ospreys rail as the longboat was lowered toward the crystalline azure waters. Bright flashes of color, schools of exotic fish, darted among the coral.
But their attention remained fixed upon the gargantuan faces. They showed a male and a female, each with a broad mouth and wide nose. The faces were flat and rounded, and even the male was unbearded. The eyes, though mere carvings in granite, seemed to stare at the ships with keen scrutiny.
"Your father says these people do not know of the gods," said Halloran. "I look at these faces and I cannot help but disagree."
Martine shrugged. "Well, let's go!" she said, nodding at the longboat, which now floated beside the Osprey.
Halloran groaned inwardly. "We've talked about this! You'll have to wait here until we've scouted the shoreline!"
"Don't be ridiculous!" Martine turned toward the longboat.
"You can't go ashore with the first swords!" Halloran began to panic. She stepped to the short rope ladder dangling from the gunwale, and he followed helplessly. She smiled up at him as she descended with natural grace.
"Well, at least stay close to the boats!" he grunted, swinging onto the ladder as she sat in the stern of the little craft.
Halloran felt the same mixture of emotions that had belabored him for the three days since Martine had boarded the Osprey. Her beauty taunted him as she dazzled him with a smile, but he felt absolutely powerless in her presence, and this frightened him. The combination of emotions made him miserable.
Not to mention the matter of her father. The Bishou was a central pillar of the legion's morale, a spiritual authority to match Cordell's unerring generalship. And he served, faithfully as far as Halloran knew, a stern and unforgiving deity. True, the power of Helm had healed Hal's wounds when Domincus had prayed to the Vigilant One. But Halloran felt it a grave risk to incur the wrath of the Bishou.
Hal accepted Helm as much as he accepted the idea of any god. In truth, the god of eternal vigilance offered a useful comfort to a man-at-arms such as himself. But was he now inviting the god's disfavor by… what was he doing, anyway? He simply allowed Martine to have her way about things, and he knew there was nothing he could do to change that.
With a sigh, he turned to the bow and looked at those monstrous faces, now leering down at them as the boals glided into the shadow of the bluff.
"Wake up, you miserable dolt!" Gultec kicked the cleric none too gently.
Mixtal squinted and groaned, barely seeing the snarling jaguar face leering into his own. "What… what happened?… Where's the girl?"
"Gone. Her fighting prowess apparently overwhelmed you."
"How did — "Mixtal suddenly sat up, ignoring the stabbing pain in his skull. "The signs from Zaltec! Where are they?"
"Not signs from Zaltec, idiot." Gultec gestured to the east as Mixtal realized that he
had been carried to the base of the pyramid. "They are men, warriors, even now gathering on our shore in great numbers."
Mixtal blinked and stared. Cold terror vied with incoherent awe in his breast. He feared the retribution of the Ancient Ones, for he had let the girl escape. At the same time, he now witnessed a miracle, or thought he did.
"What makes you so sure they're warriors?" he demanded. "They look like messengers from the gods to me!"
Gultec cast a contemptuous look at the cleric. "They sent their scouts ashore first. These investigated the forest around the beach. Now see how their numbers unfold on the sand, and they gather in organized companies."
"But they have no feathers! No clubs! And look, some of them are silver!"
Gultec growled inaudibly at the vista far below. "It troubles me, this silver. I do not see why a warrior would burden himself with such a weight. It makes me suspect they are very strong."
The Jaguar Knight turned to the priest. "Stay here and watch them, but do not let yourselves be seen. I will speed to Ulatos and warn the counselor."
Mixtal nodded dumbly as Gultec turned and trotted toward the edge of the forest on the inland side of the pyramid. In seconds, the Jaguar Knight passed from sight among the tangled branches. He placed his hands upon a horizontal trunk, vaulting easily over it to land on four soft paws. His spotted hide blended with the jungle as he sprang forward with feline grace and speed.
Soon Gultec took to the trees. He leaped from branch to branch across dizzying gaps, sinking his claws into hardwood at each sturdy bough.
Quickly the jaguar retraced the trail that had taken the human party two hours to traverse, then shifted back to his human body before emerging from the jungle. Even as he stepped onto the trail among the mayz fields, he saw that word of the strange visitors must have preceded him: No one worked in the fields, but ahead the streets of Ulatos bustled with uncharacteristic activity.
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