“Speak, my son, and fear not,” counseled Zochimaloc.
“We cannot stand against these ants,” Gultec said finally. “As a Jaguar Knight, I am not afraid of a hopeless fight. Indeed, a year ago I should have rejoiced at the thought of giving my life in such a worthy battle, though the outcome be preordained.”
Gultec paused, and Zochimaloc waited, sensing the warrior’s deep resistance to his own conclusion. “Yet in the time I have studied with you, I have learned some things-things which have made me question the basic principles I have held throughout my adult life.” Gultec spoke more quickly now, growing sure of himself.
“You have made me question the glory of war, and even to see the hurt it can cause. You have shown me a people of courage and grace and learning-people who do not practice war and have not known it during their lives.
“If people such as this can be happy and prosperous, I must doubt that war is a necessity-at least, war for the sake of warfare. Warfare has its place, for there are threats that must be countered. This too, you have taught me, and you have shown me as much by bringing me here to teach your people how to fight.
“But a battle here, before Tulom-Itzi, would merely be a fight for the sake of pride and courage. It would not be war for victory. We cannot hope to win a victory over this army, at least not now. I know, teacher, that you will not question my courage when I offer you this counsel:
“Our only hope of survival is to abandon Tulom-Itzi and seek shelter in the jungle.”
“It shall be as you command,” said the master, with a deep bow.
Poshtli clung to the feathered mane with both hands, desperately trying to retain his hold. He didn’t know where he was or what he was doing, but he sensed that to let go was to die. So he held tight to the plumage and ignored the pitching and bucking that threatened to tear him free.
It was not until later-much later-that he understood the transformation that had come over him. Finally, though, he realized that he was holding on with hands-human hands, with fingers and thumbs! Making a sensory inspection of his body, he realized that the eagle’s shape no longer cloaked him. Once again he was human, But where was he? All around him, he sensed movement, though no wind whipped at him. Bright, soft feathers cushioned and surrounded him, and he realized that he held on to a huge living form.
Qotal! The carried him in flight, away from the scene of the terrible fight. But why, then, was! there no wind?
Hesitantly Poshtli turned his head away from the great’ neck. He saw only gray nothingness, a thick, swirling vapor, that surrounded them both and masked any sense of up or down. He stared away from the dragon, in die direction he guessed must be up. but he could see no sign of the sun through the mist.
Slowly, carefully, the Maztican changed his grip on the flowing plumage of the huge serpent’s mane. He crept up ward, until his head emerged from the plumage. Now he looked over Qotal’s head and saw that more of the gray emptiness yawned before them.
He could see that the serpent’s massive wings beat J strongly to either side of its great body. The bright plumage on those wings seemed even more colorful now, in contrast to… well, to nothing. Try as he might, he could discern no
color or shape, no irregular feature within the encloaking
Qotal’s wings still beat steadily as the carried him swiftly toward an unknown destination. Poshtli could only thank the mercy of the god for saving his life and be grateful that he now rode in relative security, wherever it was that they went.
But still, he wondered, why was there no wind?
The great eagle soared slowly to earth, settling to the ridgetop where the line of warriors still stood watch against the threat offered by the horde of the Viperhand. The earthworks, abandoned for the most part, still stood like proud, steep sentinels along the heights overlooking the dusty wasteland to the north.
In the valley to the south, around the lake the Nexalans had named Tukan, a small community slowly grew. Many grass huts lined the shores, while a few dugout canoes probed the deeper waters, where great schools of fish swam. Already stones had been gathered and a low pyramid built-a pyramid dedicated to Qotal, sanctified with offerings of flowers and a multitude of butterflies.
The eagle dropped to the ridge, and then his form shifted, shimmering briefly in the bright sun. The shimmer faded and revealed Chical, Lord of the Eagle Knights. He approached Cordell, and as he did, the Maztican warrior’s face broke into a faint, reluctant smile.
“Good news, man?” asked the captain-general. He spoke a rough mixture of Nexalan and common-speech, understood by the Eagle Knight.
“It would seem so,” Chical responded in the same bastardized tongue. “The beasts march northward, back toward Nexal!”
“Hah!” Cordell exclaimed his joy, throwing his hands skyward at the news. He restrained an impulse to embrace his ally, knowing such an approach would offend the proud, aloof warrior.
Bui even Chical’s face split into a grin then, as did Tokol’s when the chief of the Kultakans arrived and heard the] news.
“So we have turned them back?” he asked incredulously. “They will not attack again?”
“For now, anyway,” Cordell conceded.
“But why?” Tokol seemed reluctant to accept their good fortune.
“My former enemy is right to question,” added Chical, with a respectful look at the Kultakan. “What could have drawn the enemy away from us? We certainly did not rout them from the field!”
“True,” Cordell admitted. “The best guess is that they have some other pressing concern, perhaps another war to wage. They know we are no threat to them here. Perhaps they feel they can come back and deal with us later.”
“That is a great waste of marching, when they stood at the brink of our position but one day ago,” said Chical skeptically. “Still, we need not question our good fortune too heavily”.
“Indeed,” Cordell agreed, clapping both warriors on their shoulders. “And we have time now-time to make sure that when and if they do return, we will be more than ready to meet them!”
The three allies, feeling a sense of great relief, turned from the north and started toward the slowly growing community below.
The people of Tulom-Itzi left their city swiftly and silently, disappearing into the jungle from which, legend had it, they had once emerged. They took only those possessions they could carry, and the strong men aided the young and the old alike.
They could not help but weep, knowing that they were abandoning the city that had been theirs for more generations than any living person could hope to count. Now they gave it over to a horde of ravenous insects, and even then
they had no guarantee that their escape from the ants would be successful.
Many there were who muttered that they should stand and die in Tulom-Itzi rather than run like rabbits into the jungle. But the people worshiped Zochimaloc as the divine descendant of the gods themselves, and so they could only
obey his command.
The wizened master and teacher remained in his observatory as his people left. He watched Gultec commanding great companies of archers as they went forth to observe the approach of their enemy and try to harass the ants as much as possible. Such tactics were costly, for the ants moved swiftly through the brush, and many an archer fell to a horrible fate between grinding mandibles or to the black arrows of the half-men, half-insect creatures.
But they sent volleys of well-aimed missiles at the ants before melting back into the jungle. They had tried shooting at the human-torsoed beasts that commanded the ants but had found their black metal armor impervious to the sharks-tooth arrows. Through costly experimentation, they learned that an arrow that struck an ant in the
