“They fish,” Varaa explained, guessing his curiosity. “The fish on this world are as terrible as the creatures ashore, even more so, yet they’re a necessary part of the local food supply.” She pointed. “Fishermen go beyond the mouth of the bay for their morning catch, then bait the bay with their offal. You see the first boat of each pair throwing it over the side, while the second drags its net? Most efficient.”
“And terrifying!” Harkin exclaimed with wide eyes. “What happens if someone falls overboard?”
“Fishermen here are very careful,” Varaa said, then shrugged. “They understand, practically from birth, they can survive only seconds in the water.” She glared at Lewis. “No matter how stubborn they are.” She relented. “But I too am worried about your great ship. Some of my injured are aboard her as well.”
“I’m no sailor,” Anson said, “but Captain Holland’s a good one. He’ll take care of his cargo, an’ I reckon there’s a reason he’s not here. Maybe one of his jury-rigged masts carried away, or somethin’. He’ll fix it.”
They heard hoofbeats and turned to see Alferez Lara galloping toward them. He reined up and grinned.
Lewis couldn’t help grinning back, even as he again noted the tension sweep across Leonor’s face, and to a lesser degree, her father’s. Lewis believed Anson’s was on behalf of his daughter because the Ranger seemed to have accepted Lara and his handful of Mexicans easily enough. Not Leonor, even now, though she showed no discomfort around Ocelomeh or Uxmalos, who looked as much like most of Lara’s men as anybody could. He hoped he’d begun stamping out prejudice and factionalism in his army today, but knew it would be harder for some than for others. And Leonor’s bias was very personal and deep. He hoped it, like others lurking among his men, would fade with time.
“You seem pleased, Alferez Lara,” he observed.
“How many did we lose?” Harkin asked anxiously. “That’s what you came to tell us, is it not?”
Lara nodded and held up three fingers.
“Three, by God!” Harkin exclaimed. “That’s all?”
“Sí. And they were all older men. Very apologetic. They didn’t see themselves as drill sergeants—which many of us will essentially be for a time, I suppose—nor did they consider themselves fit enough to set an example. All, however, are willing to fight when called.” Lara looked at Lewis, holding out a crinkled page. “Colonel De Russy proposed a . . . reserve status for men currently unfit due to age or injuries, but who have other skills to teach our friends. That way they can remain in uniform, keep their weapons, and still be ‘one of us.’ He also reminds you there’ll be more of the same when our badly wounded arrive, so we should ‘sort this out’ now.” He hesitated, nodding at the page. “He also suggests we consider an expansion of that ‘reserve’ as more is learned about the background of each man. The unfit aren’t the only ones with essential skills we must preserve and share. He means to detail a Mr. Finlay, Captain Holland’s purser, the task of questioning every man and compiling a list of what they know and what they can do.”
Anson slapped his forehead. “Finlay! I saw him rejoin with the rest from Mary Riggs, but almost forgot about him! He was already startin’ a list like that back at the wreck, I think. Holland told him to.”
Lewis was nodding. “Very good.” He glanced apologetically around. “I should’ve thought of this.”
“You can’t think of everything,” Harkin objected.
“And you’ve had plenty of other stuff to worry about,” Anson agreed.
“More will be added tonight,” Varaa said, “but it is a good idea.” She laughed at Lewis’s expression. “Politicians have their place, you know. You and I think alike: we plan for battle, even plan how to plan for battle. Colonel De Russy put you in charge of such things because he can’t think like that. I can’t think like King Har-Kaaska or Alcalde Periz. De Russy can, and you should be glad.”
She clapped her hands. “Now the sun begins to fall. Did I not tell you Alcalde Periz’s reception will be a formal affair? We have just enough time to clean the battle and long march off of us at last, put on our finest things”—she grinned—“and arrive just a little late.”
CHAPTER 18
Father Tranquilo was still smoldering with rage when he reached the well-guarded camp a few miles southeast of Uxmal. One of his huge assistants—a reaper monk named Brother Arana—planted his ceremonial spear and crouched so a groaning Tranquilo could stand from the light wicker silla seat he’d been riding, strapped to the big man’s back. “Wine!” he demanded as Brother Escorpion bawled at ordinary-size servants scampering from within the airy marquee standing among smaller tents in the trees. Two naked girls, filthy beyond recognition, brought a crystal decanter and three glasses, quickly pouring for Tranquilo and the two larger men.
“You’re angry with us, Father?” asked Brother Arana.
Tranquilo swished wine in his mouth and spat, clearing the dust. “Not at you, dear Arana. I know you did your best to soften the tedious trek.” His ferret eyes flared. “I’m angry at the heretics, of course . . . and my own lack of control. Only that thrice-damned Orno can enrage me so, and instead of the days I’d hoped to use observing this new army of heretics, gently persuading, sowing dissension, perhaps arranging a shocking accident or two . . . my passion for God got the better of me and I utterly destroyed our position here. Don Discipo’s also, no doubt, due to our association. He’s leaving the city as well.” He gulped the rest of his wine and held the glass out for a refill. “All the same,” he mulled, “I doubt our continued presence would’ve answered for long, and I already learned a great deal about the . . . ‘Americanos’ from Don Discipo. Periz couldn’t very well exclude him from their peninsular scheming sessions.” He barked a bitter laugh. “They would now, I’m sure, and likely in confinement. I expect Discipo and his escort here before long, hoping to travel in company down the Cipactli River road back to Puebla Arboras. Discipo is a great coward,” Tranquilo lamented. “But even if he could’ve lingered, I doubt it would’ve helped. The Americanos are already much attached to those barbarous Ocelomeh, and Alcalde Periz is besotted with them and their meager power.” He paused to reflect. “They’re ridiculously few in number and could barely defeat the Holcanos and their demon pets, but they do have modern weapons. Their puny victory poses a threat to the Dominion by its example, and the influence it has given them over the local heretics.”
Gulping his wine again, he fished a sheaf of folded parchments from his pouch. They were a report of all he and his spies had gathered about the strangers and their battle, confidently carried on his very person. Father Orno might’ve tried to have them stolen from the rooms he’d taken in the city, but no one would dare take anything directly from him—before today, of course. “That influence might prove tedious in time,” he continued, “and must be cleansed away. Since it will be difficult to assemble sufficient forces to do so in this remote wasteland, we must begin at once. A dispatch case!” he called loudly, and a novice in a plain red tunic raced to the marquee and returned with a leather tube. Tranquilo handed him the parchments to roll and stuff inside. “Come, Brother Arana, Brother Escorpion, the very first thing we must do is send these off. I suspect His Supreme Holiness will already know more than I by the time they arrive, but the means of communicating them is as important as the information—and we must utterly erase this camp before the Ocelomeh find it.”
“We won’t wait for Don Discipo?” Escorpion asked.
“No. He must make his own way to Puebla Arboras. You and I, and a sufficient guard, will strike out due south through the terrible forest directly for Nautla. Where’s that loathsome Holcano guide? Eating worms? Painting himself with feces?”
“As always, he lurks out of sight as instructed, Father,” the young novice with the leather tube spoke shrilly. He’d been gelded just as his voice was beginning to break, and Tranquilo wondered if he’d always sound that
way.
“Just so,” Tranquilo acceded. “Ocelomeh scouts would know him at once and feel justified in slaughtering everyone in sight whether I was here or not. It’s of no consequence now. Call him in and instruct him to prepare.”
Half a dozen guards with muskets, Dom soldiers dressed like Don Discipo’s Arboranos, converged on them as they strode a short distance into the dense forest. More guards were there, surrounding a small clearing where a colorful creature vaguely resembling one of the Holcanos’ reptilian allies was secured to a tree by a heavy chain attached to a harness on its back. It looked at them as they approached, tongue darting between jagged teeth in anticipation, doubtless hoping they’d feed it. All around were the shattered bones of previous meals, the most recent being Uxmalo captives taken while cutting wood in the forest. Such men were usually already captives, so their disappearance would inspire small concern and no search.
“Secure the dispatch and show the dragon where it must go,” Tranquilo commanded. A soldier went to a line of cages, each confining a few of the vicious little flying reptiles. Most such creatures wore a variety of colors, but these were all either predominantly green, red, blue, yellow, or even black, and separated accordingly. The soldier seized a specimen with bright yellow plumage, and it squawked piteously, snapping at his gloved hands and pathetically flapping short wing stumps as he stepped as close to the larger beast as he dared and tossed the squealing snack. The “dragon” caught it in the air. A cloud of downy feathers erupted as it chewed voraciously, and the novice sprang forward to secure the tube to the harness on its back (where it couldn’t chew it off) and strike off the chain that held it. Backing quickly away, since the “route morsel” didn’t always fully distract imperfectly trained or inexperienced beasts, the novice sighed with relief when it paid him no mind. The tidbit gone, it quickly sniffed around for any fragments, leveled its gaze on Tranquilo for an instant, then unfolded its arms—actually disproportionately long, light, and incredibly strong wings—and leaped directly into the sky.
The powerful leap only took it so high, and the clearing was barely large enough for it to beat its way above the trees, but once it was clear it disappeared at once, already aiming west-southwest.
“Interesting creatures,” Tranquilo observed, “and quite difficult and time consuming to train.”
“How do they do it?” Brother Arana respectfully asked.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Tranquilo admitted a little uncomfortably. “They’re a ‘new thing,’ and God doesn’t encourage such, as you know. As I understand it, their ability to associate colors with places and then go there on command was only recently discovered—quite accidentally—in one of His Supreme Holiness’s mountain menageries. I’m told their handlers must begin with the very egg, and there are still so few of them that I was surprised to have one sent to us. No doubt it was so we could report on the outcome of the Holcano effort to crush the Uxmalos and others at last,” he added bitterly.
Arana hesitated. “It seemed . . . The look it gave you almost seemed . . . aware.”
Tranquilo snorted. “Nonsense! I confess to being astonished such a malevolent creature can be trained to do anything, as a horse or armabuey might, but its only ‘awareness’ is of punishment and reward. Like any animal.” He frowned deeply. “True awareness in animals doesn’t exist. They can’t talk or think or feel—unless a demon does it for them. Through them. Take that vile ‘Warmaster Varaa-Choon,’ for example! No, grotesque and unnerving as dragons are, they’re stupid, innocent beasts.” He actually smiled. “And doing God’s holy work, as they surely do, how could a demon reside within them?”
“But what of the Blood Lizard tribes, allied to the Holcanos? They’re aware to a degree, and don’t they do God’s work, aiding us?”
“You think so?” Tranquilo asked blithely. “You’ve seen them fight. Do you perceive any reason behind their mindless ferocity? Granted, their determination might serve as an inspiration to men, but it comes only through obsession for their reward and they’re too stupid to comprehend punishment.”
“They talk,” Arana pressed.
“Do they? Or do only a very few, owned by demons, stir the rest to their ends? Not ours, not even the Holcanos’.” He pondered that. “The Blood Cardinal Don Frutos, a deeply devout servant of God and champion of our reformed doctrine”—he meant that of the Blood Priests over the traditional, slightly more restrained servants of His Supreme Holiness—“has wondered aloud whether they’re actually people, descended from pagan serpent worshippers whom God changed to a kind of serpent themselves when they came to this world. The Ocelomeh fashion themselves after a pagan deity from another world as well, after all, though they remain ‘human’ enough to be heretics.” He shrugged. “I think they’re only animals. Either way, they’ll be destroyed when their usefulness ends.”
Tranquilo’s tone abruptly changed as he began barking commands to those around him. “Strike the camp. Wipe away any sign it was ever here.” He gestured at the cages. “Slaughter those for the table, but bury their skins, their cages, and all the bones scattered about. We’ll have to travel hard through the night and the next few days to gain as much distance from Uxmal as possible.” Brother Arana started to help with that, but Tranquilo stopped him. “A moment. You recall that I said the ‘first’ thing we must do?”
“Yes, Father. There’s more?”
“Oh yes. More for you, my son, and a number of others. You know the man Tukli, in the city?”
Brother Arana frowned. “A prominent man of business—and a heretic.”
“Of course, but also a greedy and fearful man. Knowing my time in Uxmal may be short, I tossed together a little scheme of my own,” he said modestly, but shook his head. “It may accomplish nothing”—he looked intently at Arana—“or a very great deal indeed, depending on how it’s executed. And by whom.” He smiled as benevolently as his gnarled visage allowed and produced another parchment from his pouch. “Here are your instructions. Commit them to memory on your way back to the city, then destroy them. Once there, go to Tukli. He knows nothing of what you’ll do, but will provide the means and make certain arrangements.” His smile turned almost sad. “I doubt we’ll meet in this life again, Brother Arana.”
Arana dropped to his knees, face glowing with joy.
“Yes,” Tranquilo said softly. “Rejoice! You’ll very likely be in paradise this very night, and I’m anxious to have you serve me again when I join you there at last!”
CHAPTER 19
The Uxmalos and Ocelomeh salvaging Xenophon hadn’t yet arrived, but Lewis had collected another uniform and his few personal things when the rest of his people, the other two 6pdrs, and everything recovered from Mary Riggs joined them on the march. Unfortunately, even before it got soaked and mildewed, his extra uniform was no better than the one he wore. Colonel De Russy had several new frock coats of the best lightweight blue broadcloth, however, and insisted Lewis and Anson each accept one. He then immediately set Barca to work taking them in, transferring Lewis’s shoulder boards, and stitching a spare set from his dead quartermaster’s stores to the coat Anson would wear. De Russy himself was carefully brushing and putting on his magnificent full-dress uniform, complete with tails and gold braid on black velvet collar, cuffs, and tail pockets. He took particular care with his feather-plumed cocked hat. But Barca was hard-pressed to make the alterations in time, and Private Willis only stared in horror when Lieutenant Olayne asked if he could sew. He was sent to help De Russy instead. Several fellows volunteered—nearly anyone could sew on a button—but Samantha swept in with Mistress Angelique and set to work with professional confidence. Angelique actually seemed pleasantly excited for the very first time. And astonishingly, by the time they took over, both ladies had already bathed in their tent with lightly heated water from the well and bedecked themselves in ball gowns of the highest quality and fashion. Now, as the sun began to set and their operatio
n neared its conclusion, they took turns working on each other’s hair.
After sponging off, Lewis and Anson had stood dutifully and somewhat abashedly in their cleanest shirtsleeves and brushed wool trousers while the coats, tailored to fit the somewhat wider Colonel De Russy, were fitted. Leonor was watching, and Lewis could see she’d also bathed, but then put on the same rugged mix of civilian clothing and uniform parts she’d always worn. And the way she stared at the other women merrily chattering in French with a vague frown on her pink-scrubbed face wasn’t lost on him. He thought she disapproved of their frivolous conversation, but Samantha occasionally shot him strange looks and cocked her head at Leonor. That’s when he realized the tough female Ranger might be a bit envious, at least in a subconscious, lost-girlhood sort of way. And Anson saw it too: lips set in a thin, hard line, eyes reflecting an inner sadness.
Varaa, Koaar, and Ixtla rejoined them in fresh bright tunics and highly polished silver scale armor, riding beautifully groomed and appointed local horses provided by Alcalde Periz. A caisson would carry the ladies, Dr. Newlin, and Reverend Harkin like a carriage. To Private Meder’s and Private Hudgens’s complete surprise, particularly after the fracas that day, Sergeant McNabb had told them to “clean yer filthy selves,” and ride the lead horses on the left side of the four-up team. Lewis and Anson, self-consciously resplendent in new coats and crimson sashes under freshly whitened saber belts, mounted their own horses. So did Alferez Lara, who’d made his own uniform as presentable as possible. The pool provided animals for De Russy, Leonor, and Hernandez, along with half a dozen dragoons led by Lieutenants Olayne and Burton.
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