The warriors didn't even slow them down. Takamal saw with grudging admiration how the beasts tore a swath of death through his beautiful feathered ranks. Later, he knew, he would suffer for the broken bodies left in the wake of the attack, but now his mind worked rapidly, searching for the proper counter stroke.
"There!" he said, pointing along the route of the charge. "They come as we had hoped."
"Your wisdom once again shows the blessings of Zaltec," marveled Naloc, with an awestruck look at his chief. It had been Takamal who had guessed that the monsters, if they appeared, would attack along the stretch of smooth ground.
And it was here that the Kultakan leader had laid his trap.
Alvarro grinned as his lance tore through the feathered shield of a Kultakan warrior. His horse thundered forward, eagerly trampling the panicking spearmen before them. Beside him, the ranks of the lancers spread apart. Now they advanced in a line that meant death for any native warrior unfortunate enough to stand in its path.
The captain rode at the fore, urging his charger to keep just a neck ahead of the rest of the line. His black armor distinguished him, but his helmet also trailed a black streamer, insuring that his men could see him anywhere on the field — his men, and the enemy, too, Alvarro thought with a look at the fleeing natives before him.
The savages were breaking! His heart pounded with excitement as he saw that his riders would carry the battle. He struck again, and this time the lance was torn from his hand, stuck in the body of its victim. The rider pulled his long-sword, as most of the horsemen around him had also done.
The charge carried the riders onto the lower slopes of the ridge. Soon they would reach the warriors surrounding Daggrande's company, relieving the encircled legionnaires.
The horseman didn't see the tall pole, with its banners of bright feathers, dip and wave atop the ridge. He wouldn't have understood the command that the gesture issued, in any event — But he saw its results.
The charge continued, though the smooth ground gave way to rougher terrain. Sheer momentum carried them onward, until suddenly Alvarro found himself among rocks and brush instead of the open field. From behind this cover swarmed a nightmare attack that stopped the cavalry charge cold.
Alvarro gaped in astonishment as a huge spotted cat, bigger than any leopard, leaped onto a rock. With a shrill cry of rage, the beast exposed long fangs and curved, wicked claws. Still snarling, the cat leaped.
Instinctively Alvarro brought his sword up, but it was the equally instinctive reaction of his horse that saved him. The steed reared backward in panic, and with its front hooves, it struck the feline to earth. The cat crouched, snarling, and Alvarro saw to his horror that more and more of the creatures were emerging from cover to spring on his unsuspecting riders.
"Back!" Captain Alvarro howled, his voice shrill. "Away from these devils!" He struck one of the creatures on its skull, killing it. At the same time, he saw a horse stumble and fall to the earth under the weight of several cats. The rider, screaming in terror, was torn from the saddle and quickly disappeared beneath a nightmarish tangle of claws and fangs.
The horsemen desperately pulled away, and in moments, the line thundered backward in full retreat. Not a steed escaped without raked, bleeding flanks and legs.
Once again Alvarro led his riders, this time in terrified flight. Flecks of spit drooled from his lips as he choked back the inarticulate fear. But he could not pull his reins.
"Helm curse him!" snarled Cordell, his stomach turning to a knot as Alvarro turned away from the jaguars. "The worthless dog!"
"Who could stand against those devils?" challenged Bishou Domincus. "They are clearly the work of their foul gods!"
"Did either of you see that?" asked Darien coldly. Her voice got the men's attention abruptly.
The trio stood on a small rise, below the slope where the battle raged. Cordell, knowing that the survival of Daggrande's company itself was at stake, turned to her in annoyance.
"See what? What are you talking about?"
"Up there," the wizard said, pointing coolly. Darien's shocking white skin showed as she raised her hand to point toward the ridgetop. Normally she disliked exposing any patch of her skin to the sun, but the heavy overcast of the day spared her discomfort.
"That feathered pole?" asked Cordell, his mind quickly grasping Darien's meaning, if not her intent. "That must be the war chief. The Payit did the same thing."
"A great chief," mused the wizard. "That was a clever trap, and it was his pole that signaled the attack."
Cordell looked skyward again, his black eyes flashing. "I see what you mean," he breathed softly.
"Of course!" Takamal, carefully watching the battle, saw the horseman fall and instantly understood the monsters. "They are only beasts that carry men into battle!"
His heart surged, full of pride at the noble attack of his Jaguar Knights. Dozens had been slain beneath the feet of the lumbering beasts, but still they pressed their attack. And now the riders had been pushed back!
"Magnificent!" whispered Naloc. "Zaltec has smiled upon us this day."
"Perhaps he will smile upon us," cautioned the chief. "But the attack isn't broken yet. Witness how the silver soldiers resist, even when surrounded." He gestured toward the field below, where the circle of swordsmen still stood amid the howling mass of Kultakan warriors. For many minutes, they had been cut off from the rest of the legion, yet no more than a dozen had fallen — and at the cost of many hundreds of Kultakan dead.
"Now! Signal the advance!" barked Takamal.
Two of his signalmen raised banners, each of which glowed bright crimson under the heavy gray sky. The pennants streamed in the slight wind, stretching weightlessly into the air. For a moment, the battle paused as the Mazticans took note of the command fluttering from the knoll atop the ridge.
But then they saw something else up there. Naloc, and Takamal himself, whirled in astonishment as a figure suddenly appeared on the ridgetop, barely thirty feet away.
The newcomer was a woman, Takamal saw — a woman with shockingly pale skin, and hair the color of snow. She wore a dark robe, but now the wind whipped that robe away from her body and he saw the bleached skin on her arms, her legs, her torso.
He saw, too, that she was very beautiful, in an icy sort of way. A golden circlet surrounded her brow, and her high cheekbones suggested nobility. Her eyes were wide, pale… and empty.
"By Zaltec!" gasped Naloc. The cleric seized his sacrificial dagger and held the stone blade over his head, lunging toward the woman. She seemed to be unarmed, though Takamal noticed a slender stick thrust through her belt.
She raised a hand and spat a word at Naloc — a word — and the cleric grasped his chest with a dull moan and collapsed to the ground. He kicked his feet reflexively, as does a sacrifice sometimes even when his heart has been torn away. Takamal knew that Naloc was dead.
The war chief of Kultaka stood tall, unbent even after his seventy years. He looked up at this slender female, who now turned those icy eyes on him. Takamal stood and watched. So, too, did the warriors of Kultaka, gathered on the field below.
A bolt of yellow energy, like a shot of lightning from the clouds, exploded from the woman's hand. She pointed her finger, and the power surged forth with a hiss and a crackle, faster than the eye could follow.
The magic drove into Takamal, for a moment outlining his body in sizzling blue flame. The smell of burned flesh wafted through the air. Still the great chief of the Kultakans made no sound, no movement. The energy of the lightning bolt exploded past, striking two of his flag-bearers dead behind him.
Then Takamal toppled, his life burned away by sorcery. Rigid and scarred in death, the war chiefs body fell forward, tumbling from the ridge to spill down the long slope, finally crashing to a halt among the still, stunned members of his army.
A few feathers from his singed headdress floated through the air, coming to rest on the ground atop the ridge, far above the Revered Counselor's shat
tered corpse. Those feathers, and two footprints outlined in black soot, were all that remained to show where Takamal had been.
From the chronicles of Colon:
The legend of the Plumed One's departure includes the promise of his return.
Qotal journeyed to Payit and climbed aboard a great feathered canoe, to sail onto the Eastern Ocean. He turned his back upon Maztica, for everywhere the people followed gods of lust and blood. Zaltec smiled, to see the Feathered Serpent sail away.
But Qotal promised that one day he would return. He told of three signs that would preface his arrival and bade the folk of Maztica to watch and to wait.
First would come the couatl, messenger of Qotal and harbinger of his return.
Second would be granted the Cloak of One Plume, to be worn by Qotal's chosen one, offering protection and beauty so that all may learn the glory of his name.
Third, and most mysterious, would come the Summer Ice.
But for now, these tales are mere legends. Even the couatl, who tantalizes me, I see only in my dreams.
DANCE OF THE JAGUARS
Tulom-Itzi sprawled across the jungle hills of Far Payit, a large city that looked like no city at all. Several stone pyramids jutted steeply above the treetops, and the great dome of the observatory squatted atop the highest hill. Wide grassy paths twisted among trunks and vines of forest, and several large green expanses of land had been cleared of trees altogether.
But the overwhelming presence of the forest ruled the land. The structures of men, such as they were, became a part of the jungle rather than its conqueror.
"Of course," Zochimaloc had explained to Gultec, "at one time the city housed tens of thousands of people." Now a mere fraction of that number dwelled there, the descendants of Tulom-Itzi's long-forgotten founders.
The people of Far Payit differed little from his own in appearance, Gultec realized. Short and well-muscled, deep brown of skin, they were an industrious, inventive folk. Their culture, however, seemed very foreign to the Jaguar Knight.
Never had he seen people of such gentleness. They knew nothing of war, save that it was a scourge known in their distant past. Yet their knowledge in other areas astounded him.
The surgeons of Tulom-Itzi knew cures for the poison-that-sickens-blood, for the disease of body rot, and for other horrors that would result in sure fatality for a Payit or other Maztican. Astronomers studied the skies, predicting even such things as the irregular passage of the Wandering Stars. Here musicians created lyrical ballads of legend and romance.
Gultec had come to know and love these folk, but none did he revere so much as his teacher. He thrilled to each minute with Zochimaloc, and each day seemed to open the door to new wonders of knowledge and understanding. Today, Zochimaloc walked with him to the cetay, the great well that lay to the north of the jungle city. It was, Zochi promised, to be an important lesson.
"Once the cetay was used for sacrifice," explained the wizened teacher as they reached the lip of the depression. "But now it serves best as a source of wisdom. Come, sit with me here."
The cetay was a circular hole several hundred paces across. Stone walls plummeted, with many jagged outcrops, to a clear surface of water hundreds of feet below them. Zochimaloc, who walked with a long wooden staff today, settled easily onto a benchlike boulder at the very lip of the well. Gultec sat beside him.
For a long time — more than an hour — the two sat in silence. Gultec studied the smooth, blue water so far below him. He saw slight swirls in its surface, as if a hidden current agitated its depths. Gradually, unconsciously, his mind emptied of its external concerns.
After his months of study, Gultec recognized the plants of the jungle for all their beneficent or dangerous qualities. He understood the arrangement of the stars in the heavens and their influence upon earthly concerns. He could now freeze any animal with tbe force of his gaze, and he suspected that this mastery extended to humans as well.
Zochimaloc did not allow him to test the latter ability, however, on the free peoples of Tulom-Itzi. And unlike any other land Gultec knew, these folk of Far Payit kept no slaves.
An overwhelming sense of peace flowed through Gultec. He felt a contentment he had not previously imagined, and his mind floated freely with the relaxing pace of his meditation. Slowly, then, the gentle tapping of Zochimaloc's staff penetrated his awareness, and he looked up at his teacher.
"What thoughts are in your mind, Gultec?" asked the old man in a kindly tone.
Gultec smiled softly. "I feel that this is a haven for me, a calm eye in the storms of the True World. Knowledge of Tulom-Itzi must be kept from the rest of the world, or I fear your fragile peace will vanish."
"Know this, Gultec," Zochimaloc replied with a deep sigh. "Our peace will indeed disappear. It will not be terribly long before it does, though perhaps we have a little more time than Nexal."
The Jaguar Knight looked around sadly, trying to imagine Tulom-Itzi suffering the ravages of war. It never occurred to him to question his teacher's knowledge. If Zochimaloc said this, it must be true.
"This is why you have been brought here, Gultec. Our people know nothing of war. You do."
Now he turned to the old man in shock. "What can I possibly teach you? The wisdom of your people shows me to be a mere jungle barbarian in contrast! And the only important war I ever fought, I lost!"
"Show more faith in yourself," Zochimaloc chided gently.
"But I have so much more to learn!"
Smiling, the teacher climbed to his feet, without the aid of his staff. "You know more than you think. The forms and shapes of your body, for instance. Which do you know?"
"I am a man and a jaguar" said Gultec, surprised at the readily answerable question. He rose to stand beside his teacher at the lip of the deep cetay.
"A bird?" asked Zochi ironically. "A parrot, perhaps?"
"No, of course not!"
"But think of the parrot, Gultec. Think of the bright feathers, the strong wings, the sharp, hooked beak, the powerful claws. Think of these things!"
Surprised by the sudden sharpness in his teacher's tone, the warrior's mind pictured the jungle bird. He didn't see the sudden, quick lash of Zochimaloc's staff. His teacher pushed him sharply, his frail frame striking with surprising power.
Gultec tumbled from the rock, dropping into the rocky pit of the cetay. Shocked, his arms reached out reflexively, but the attack had been too sudden, too unexpected. He grabbed nothing but air.
But he grabbed the air, and it held him. With a soaring dive, his bright green tailfeathers instinctively steering his flight, he flashed across the surface of the water. And then he spread his wings and he flew.
Erix rose and paced the garden again, confused and nervous. Where was Hal? This was his longest absence since their arrival in Nexal a week earlier. The long shadows in the courtyard told her that sunset approached, and Hal's audiences with Naltecona had never before lasted much beyond noon.
Then the shadows darkened. She turned away, suddenly frightened, until she realized that it was only a cloud passing over the sun. Still, those black images continued to dance around the corners of her vision, filling the spaces around her with shadows.
A vague shudder passed through her body. She recalled the dream that had come to her in the desert, of Naltecona slain among the men of Cordell's legion. The shadows around her darkened the palace, darkened it even more than had the moonlight in her dream.
She thought again, wistfully, of Poshtli's visit earlier in the day. He had been so noble! His proposal had fallen on her like a shock, and she knew it offered a life such as, weeks earlier, she could never have imagined. A life of luxury and comfort, with slaves for every need, among the society of the grandest folk in all Nexal.
Why then had she rebuffed him? She was still not sure. She only knew that, after moments in his arms, her lips pressed to his, she sensed that he did not love her. Erix also knew that, though she was dazzled by his prowess and presence, her affection
s did not extend to love.
So, gently and quietly, she had told him so. He had accepted her decision with surprise, but not anger. Poshtli had bowed formally and left. The Eagle Knight had no sooner departed than she found herself anxiously awaiting Halloran's return.
But that had been hours ago. Her eagerness had turned to anxiousness, unease, and now it threatened to become fear. Surely the Revered Counselor wouldn't harm a visitor under his own roof, would he?
She looked out in the courtyard, where the gay splashing of the fountain seemed to mock her. Storm raised his head, as if the horse sensed her eyes upon it. Then the mare ambled to the fresh pile of clover and grass that the slaves had brought that morning.
Suddenly the horse, the whole scene, fell into darkness, as if something huge blotted out the sun. Again that terrible sense of a doom-filled destiny seized her. Involuntarily she clapped her hands to her eyes and moaned, willing the shadow away.
"What is it? Erix, what's the matter?" She felt the touch of strong hands on her shoulders and spun to grasp Halloran in a fearful embrace. He held her, soothing her gently, until finally she risked another look at the courtyard. Once again the slanting rays of the low sun cast bright illumination on the dancing fountain and its framework of blossoms.
She saw Hal looking around in alarm. "It was… nothing," she explained quickly. "Just a sudden chill."
He sensed that she wasn't telling him everything, but he didn't press the issue. He had noticed her sudden, brief distractions before, on their journey to Nexal, but she had never offered him any explanation.
Let Poshtli worry about it, he thought, almost savagely. Abruptly he dropped his arms to his sides and turned away.
Erix, surprised by his sudden shift, spoke tentatively. "What happened? I–I was worried about you."
He turned to her and she drew back, frightened by the look of anger on his face. "I went for a walk. Through the market, to the floating gardens. I wanted to see the city."
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