Ironhelm mt-1
Page 20
"My lord general?" asked a plaintive voice. Cordell turned, gritting his teeth, to regard the weasel-faced accountant, Kardann.
"Yes?"
"The treasure, my lord! I beg you to consider the treasures we have already gained. We carry a small fortune in gold nuggets and crude ornaments from the islanders!" Kardann bobbed his head as he spoke, with frequent glances toward the shore.
"Should we not see that treasure safely out to sea?" he blurted. "Not held here, close to shore, where the savages could swarm out in their canoes and take it?"
Cordell looked at the assessor in astonishment. "It's preposterous to think they could claim even one of our ships by force! I'll have no more such talk!" The assessor's words may already have caused a distraction, he feared — at a time when he needed the entire concentration of his men directed toward the upcoming conflict.
Cordell half-turned toward the afterdeck, then changed his mind. Normally he would ask the Bishou to bestow Helm's blessing upon this undertaking, but Domincus still muttered and paced, staring intently landward. Cordell feared his address could do more harm than good. Get hold of yourself, man! he silently willed. I need you. The legion needs you!
"It's the deserters themselves!" howled Domincus, suddenly pointing to a small craft approaching the anchored flagship. Cordell and the captains stepped to the gunwale and saw a native canoe emerging from the nearby stands of delta trees. Halloran and Daggrande were plainly visible, alone in the boat.
"Bishou Domincus, we must talk," said Cordell quietly.
Even hushed, his voice had the strength of a steel rod. The captains stirred behind him, and the general knew that he needed to tread carefully between the vengeful cleric and the pragmatic needs of his men.
The Bishou glared at Cordell suspiciously, but he knew enough not to bluster loudly before the legionnaires. "Surely you don't mean to welcome them back!" he hissed in disbelief. "The young man was guilty of criminal cowardice in allowing my daughter to be slain. And both of them deserted our men in the face of enemy attack!" The cleric's voice grew shrill with his anger.
I cannot antagonize him now. I need him tomorrow. Cordell sighed, a heavy and obvious gesture. "Your daughter's death is a great tragedy, my friend. And to be sure, she had been entrusted to young Halloran's care at the time. This, then, must mark against him.
"But he is a skilled lancer, a natural horseman, and a brave soldier. And Daggrande is my best captain! You cannot claim both of these warriors on the eve of battle!"
"But the guards told us! They disappeared during — "
"They were snatched by sorcery! Even through your anger, you should recognize that!" The Bishou turned away sullenly as Cordell continued. "I will give you Halloran, in chains. After the battle, you can punish him as you deem fit. But Daggrande goes free, with no sanction from you. And you will not refer to either of these men as cowards, in my presence or in the presence of any member of the legion. Do I make myself clear?"
Obey me! The captain-general focused his will and his command upon the cleric. We need you, Bishou. But we need Daggrande, too.
"Very well," Domincus grunted. "I want Halloran clapped in irons and locked below. I will say nothing to the men. I have no need to punish the dwarf."
"Good." Cordell nodded, still annoyed that his lieutenant's vengeance would cost him a good officer. "Now let us see to the landing."
The Bishou joined the captains, and Cordell summoned his cabin boy. The lad listened carefully while his commander outlined the preparations to be made in fashioning a cell belowdecks for Halloran.
The golden eagle banner fluttered proudly atop the Falcon's mainmast. Halloran felt a surge of emotion as he approached that flag and the ship below it. Tears clouded his eyes, and he saluted the pennant as the canoe drew alongside the Falcon. Shame, too, threatened to overwhelm him. The tragedy of Martine's loss weighed heavily on his mind. He did not know what to expect when he boarded the flagship.
The carrack rode quietly on the placid lagoon, and Daggrande and he had no difficulty ascending the rope ladders dropped to them from the deck above.
Halloran stopped in shock as he stepped aboard the Falcon's deck. Without a word, four brawny sergeants seized him and clapped metal cuffs about his wrists and ankles.
Hal bit his tongue. He saw the glowering figure of Bishou Domincus beyond his guards and suspected the explanation. Perhaps he deserved no better treatment, he told himself.
"Here, now!" growled Daggrande, turning to defend his friend. But captain-general Cordell stepped up to him and raised a placating hand. The dwarf glowered suspiciously at his commander. Cordell's words struck Halloran with greater force than any physical blow could possibly deliver.
"Captain Halloran, you are charged with desertion in the face of the enemy. You will have a chance to speak in your own defense after the matters of tomorrow are resolved. Until then you are confined to a brig belowdecks of the Falcon"
Cordell looked Halloran squarely in the eyes as he spoke. The young man sought some hidden message there, some gleam of communication that would tell him that Cordell knew he was not a coward, would not have fled a battle. This man's high regard meant more to Halloran than anything in the world.
But instead he saw inky-black depths that showed him only the strength of the commander's murky soul.
"Your sword, sir!" Cordell's voice strained as he barked at Halloran.
Numbly the young captain ungirded Helmstooth. Slowly, looking at the weapon in disbelief, he handed it to his commander. Cordell turned away from him, setting the weapon aside before turning back to the assembled legionnaires.
"Command of the Pennant Lancers is conferred to Captain Alvarro, effective immediately."
Halloran heard his unit transferred to the oily hands of the unscrupulous horseman, a final outrage as he stepped through the hatchway toward his dark and musty cell.
IMPRISONED
The desert stretched in all directions, bleak, dry, and hot. Where once Poshtli had seen a myriad of wondrous colors, hues of gold and red and brown in a million varieties of shadow and light, now he saw only emptiness, wasteland, and death.
His waterskin had been empty for days. No stranger to the desert, the Eagle Knight had survived by hacking the plump cactus known as the Sand Mother wherever he could find it. The sweet moisture within the plant had sustained him until the desert became so dry that even the Sand Mother could not live.
Poshtli's eagle-feather mantle spread around him as he slumped to the ground. He squeezed a handful of powdery rock, crushing it into sand as if he would force water from the stones. He began to wonder, for the first time, if the desert had defeated him.
The eagle feathers, black and white… now covered with dust, they could spread into wings and carry him from this place of death and despair. He shook his head weakly.
No! he thought determinedly. I have set out on foot, and on foot I will complete this journey. The god, the Plumed Father himself, had spoken to Poshtli in a dream, commending him to this quest. Somehow he would find the silver wheel, the artifact that might explain the meaning of the strangers' coming. If they did not herald the return of Qotal, their arrival still was a thing of great significance to the True World.
It was Poshtli's mission to find that truth, to learn the nature of that significance. How he would learn it, and if he would even survive his quest, were just now points of some doubt. Then the rocks began to talk.
The longboat slipped through the darkness to nestle against the seaward side of the Falcon. A dark figure grabbed a line and quickly pulled himself onto the deck. He nodded curtly at the legionnaires guarding the ship and went to the door of the forward cabin.
Bishou Domincus opened the door in a wash of candlelight. He admitted the visitor and then quickly closed the portal, darkening the deck.
"So good of you to come, Captain" greeted the Bishou, pouring two glasses of brandy.
"I got your message. What do you want?" grunted Alvarro.
Alvarro's gapped teeth split into a sly grin of understanding. "Go on," he urged.
"You are in a position to benefit from swift justice in the case in question, and I desire such justice to be done. Believe me when I tell you that you owe command of the lancers to my intervention and strong recommendation."
Now Alvarro's red beard twisted into a frown. He did not like this turn in the conversation, and the Bishou immediately changed his tactics.
"If Halloran were to meet his end aboard ship, before his trial — while I am safely ashore, with Cordell — I can ensure that the investigation into the… execution would be minimal."
Alvarro turned and paced two steps in the small cabin, then turned back. "I want more than revenge. I want gold," he hissed.
"I'm certain that we can agree upon a price," replied the Bishou.
The featherbanners streamed in the air, lifted by pluma into a weightless colorful cloud over the army of Payit. The whole plain of Ulatos became a sea of shades and hues. Great fans swirled over the most important leaders, the chiefs of a thousand men. From all the lands of the Payit, from the depths of the jungles and the breadth of the wide coastal savannah, the warriors gathered on the field beside Ulatos Lagoon.
Gultec stood at the heart of the gathering with several other Jaguar Knights, on the flat roof of the large house they had claimed as their meeting place. The whistles and shell trumpets of different bands shrilled and honked in the growing twilight, and new arrivals often marched in under torchlight, advancing like slow, flaming serpents from the surrounding jungles.
It made the knight uneasy, this gathering of the entire army in the open, a mile from the camp of the strangers. Dense jungle and the mangaroo swamp of the delta surrounded them, and Gultec knew they could conceal ten thousand men or more close to the enemy route of advance. But Caxal, the Revered Counselor, flushed with his insulted pride, had ordered otherwise.
The enemy forces had quickly come ashore in their longboats, deploying into companies and advancing a hundred yards from shore. For some moments, it had seemed that they intended to attack at nightfall, a tactic unthinkable to Gultec and the other warriors of Maztica. But now it seemed as if the strangers, like normal men, would wait until sunrise to fight.
Fires marked the scope of his army's camp, and Gultec indeed felt a surge of pride as he saw the vast mass of warriors across the plain. Twenty-five thousandmen, each composed of ten companies of a hundred, had answered the alarm of invasion. They were all independent formations, each commanded by a highly ranked Jaguar or Eagle. Each hundredmen included an auxiliary force of perhaps a half-dozen Eagles or Jaguars, knights who had proven exceptional valor in many campaigns.
Some bands were armed with bows and arrows, others with slings. These they would position carefully to bombard the enemy. Then the many thousands with javelins or macas would close to complete the capture.
At least, that was the plan.
Erix walked quickly among the fields, passing the houses of farmers. She did not want to go to Ulatos, but neither did she want to sleep on the shore of some canal.
A plump woman patted mayzcakes before one of the residences she passed. It was a small house, adjacent to a narrow canal. But it was freshly whitewashed, and the green fronds of the roof shone with bright freshness. The woman waved cheerily, and Erix waved back and smiled. She hesitated, and the gray-haired matron called her over.
"I am Tzilla," she explained, nodding politely as Erix introduced herself. "Why is a pretty girl like you walking alone at such an hour?" Tzilla asked. Her tone was teasing, but Erix sensed real concern in her voice.
"I am alone here, and I seek a place to sleep."
"My house is your house, my daughter," said Tzilla formally. "Will you share my table?"
"I would be honored, mother" Erix replied gladly. In moments, Tzilla put her to work stirring the beans bubbling in a clay pot among the coals of a fire. The woman sliced peppers and tomatoes, and soon the pair sat comfortably on reed mats and ate a delicious meal.
Erix was surprised that they were joined by neither Tzilla's husband nor anyone else. "Forgive my impertinence, but you have a very large house. Are you here alone?"
Tzilla looked surprised. "My husband and sons gather with their hundredmen on the plain before Ulatos. Have you not heard?"
"Of the strangers? To be sure. I have seen them."
"But you do not know," said Tzilla with a sly look, "that the warriors of Payit have gathered on the plain, very near the strangers. Our army will destroy them tomorrow!"
Erix's face betrayed her shock even before she stammered a reply. "So… soon? There will be battle tomorrow?" The thought of the battle at Twin Visages, multiplied a hundredfold, chilled her.
Tzilla nodded sagely, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "These strangers are great savages! They attacked a group of priests on the shore. They kidnap our women! They fight like demons, but they are men and can be killed."
Erix sat stunned at the swift outburst of rumor. "All of the men of Ulatos, and those within a day's march in all directions, have gathered here! Never has the Payit nation put together such a force!" Tzilla talked on, detailing the pageantry and colors.
But Erixitl had trouble listening. She remembered the metal armor that shattered spears, the silver weapons that cleaved shield and bone like grass. She saw the savage faces of the legionnaires, their tight discipline. She remembered a bare two dozen slaying hundreds of Payit.
Suddenly Tzilla's description faltered as she described the pluma banner depicting a green parrot, the symbol of a nearby village.
"I'm sorry," Erix said, noticing the woman looking absently at the dough before her. Tzilla shook her head, and Erix saw tears in the woman's eyes.
"I babble like an old woman, and I'm far from an old woman yet!" Tzilla forced herself to laugh, but the sound was hollow and she quickly gave up. "I am so terribly frightened!"
"I am, too," Erix said. "I was hoping there could be peace. I wanted to make peace!"
"It is too late," sighed Tzilla. She looked at Erixitl with surprise as the younger woman climbed to her feet. "Where are you going?"
"I must go to the army!" Erix cried, suddenly infused with an idea. Perhaps it was not too late! Perhaps tomorrow does not have to be a day of war!
"Don't be a madwoman!" Tzilla seemed truly alarmed. "Caxal is determined to avenge the insult to his priests! And Gultec, who commands the men of Ulatos, is said to be eager for a fight. The armies will be in a frenzy of dancing tonight. The gods themselves couldn't stop that battle."
"I know of Gultec," admitted Erixitl, suddenly feeling foolish. "He is certainly the most fearsome warrior I have ever seen…"
She trailed off, guilty with the lie, remembering Halloran and his legion. Yet there was no need to terrify this woman with tales of the deadly enemy who faced her husband and sons. At the same time, she sensed the futility of her mission. Gultec would merely turn her over to the priests of Zaltec, and the battle would proceed.
"No matter, for tonight," soothed Tzilla. "We can only pray to our gods, and what the gods will, shall be."
The heavy door slammed. Halloran collapsed glumly against the wooden bulkhead in the bilge of the Falcon, his shoulders slumped to keep his head from knocking against the low ceiling beams. The chains around his wrists and ankles chafed, holding him upright, his arms shackled to the wall.
But he took no notice of his physical pain. Far more grievous was the spiritual hurt, the sense of betrayal that had numbed all other sensations and left his soul teetering beside a yawning black chasm of despair. The legion was his home, his family… even his life! And now it had turned upon him, condemned him for a falsehood that Cordell could not help but recognize.
My general! How could you do this to me? Th
en his emotions surged through his body, tearing tears from his eyes and sobs from his throat. Hanging limply from his chains, he wept until he could find no more tears.
The soft swaying of the carrack at anchor slowly soothed him. The stink of bilgewater thickened the air around him, and finally he began to take note of his surroundings.
It must be dark now, he guessed. Thin beams of light filtered into his cell through cracks in the floorboards above him, but it seemed more like lamplight than daylight. His tiny compartment offered no amenities, not even a wooden bench. The manacles had been screwed directly into the timber behind him.
The feeling of hopelessness left him exhausted. What good were his struggles when the capriciousness of fate could place him in circumstances like these?
"A curse upon Helm!" he hissed. The gods, he saw, were nothing more than man's excuses, his reasons for doing things terrible and inhuman. Vain, unpredictable and ever-changing, the gods were no source of comfort to him.
A man needed something more real, Hailoran saw. Something tangible, like the strength of his arm or the keen edge of his steel. Even the arcane power of magic was something real, something that could be counted on, even when things were blackest. A god might as soon turn his back upon a follower as listen to his troubles.
Hal thought again of his magic studies under Arquiuius, which seemed like a lifetime ago. What were those strange words he had drilled on so hard to learn, the words of the magic missile spell? He shook his head ruefully. Spells and weapons were as useless as the gods to him now. He was left with his wits, and his wits didn't seem to be functioning at the highest level.
Hesitantly he jerked his arm, wincing against the pain in his raw wrist. But the chain moved! Again and again he tugged, ignoring the blood that now spattered across his skin from the chafing. The bolt had been sunk into the wood between two beams, a very insecure arrangement! Now he finally pulled it free.
He looked at the metal cuff and saw that it closed with a simple latch, impossible to open with the cuffed hand but no obstacle to a man with one hand free. In seconds he unlocked both of his wrist irons, and his ankles followed shortly thereafter.