ROADS TO PAYIT
The rider left a dusty plume across the brown valley bottom, a floating cloud of dry silt that was visible for many miles. The captain-general remained atop the high breastwork, watching the growing dust cloud, hoping for good news.
As the horseman drew near to the fortified ridgetop, Cordell stepped down from the earthwork where he had been supervising additional entrenchments. He recognized Grimes and met him at the base of the redoubt.
“What did you find?” asked the commander, even before the horseman had dismounted.
“The eagles are right,” said the scout, sliding from (he saddle and stretching muscles stiff from a long ride. “They’re gone. Seems like they’ve pulled back to the north.”
“Excellent!” Cordell clapped the man on the back. “1 don’t know how we beat them, but we did!” He turned back toward the earthwork, only to hear Grimes clear his throat.
“Uh, General?”
“Yes?” Cordell turned back to his captain of horse.
“Some of the men… that is, uh, I’ve been wondering. Now that we don’t have a pack of ores on our trail, do you have any plans to head for home? It’s been more than a year, and some of the fellows have families back in Amn. And with the gold lost, it doesn’t seem like there’s much more for us to do here…”
Cordell thought for a moment, unsurprised by the question. “Pass the word,” he offered. “As soon as our work here is done, we’ll be moving on. I am not prepared to accept the Joss of all our profits, but we have to start thinking about a return. It won’t be long.”
Grimes nodded gruffly. “Thank you, sir,” he added before leading his horse toward the lake below. Turning to watch him, Cordell saw Chical approaching. The Eagle Knight wore his black-and-white-feathered mantle and the wooden. hooked helmet that shaded his face. He had a pensive expression on his smooth, coppery face.
“Captain-General, I have some information you will be interested in,” said Chical as he reached Cordell. The Eagle Knight seemed oddly guarded in his manner.
“Yes? What is it?” Cordell grew steadily more fluent in the Nexalan tongue, and now he used it to converse with his fellow warriors.
“As you know, eagles have been soaring across the True World, observing the horde of the Viperhand and also scouting other dominions to see how far the catastrophe has spread.”
“1 know. Have they found something important?” Cordell studied Chical, wondering about the Maztican warrior’s hesitancy.
“Yes. Carac, one of my strongest and most reliable warriors, has just returned from a very long flight. He journeyed to Payit, where he saw the city of Ulatos and the fort you built nearby.”
‘Helmsport? Does it still stand? Do my men live?” He had left a garrison of several dozen men behind in the fort, not nearly enough to hold it in the event of an attack. He had hoped that the crushing victory his legion had inflicted upon the Payits would prove enough of a deterrent to aggression.
Now, of course, all those assumptions had fallen by the wayside. That remnant of his legion represented little threat to the Payit people should they choose to revolt against their conquerors. The thought of danger to his garrison at Helmsport brought Cordell’s blood to a boil, but he forced himself to listen to Chical’s information.
“Your men? This 1 do not know. But Carac reports that many more of your countrymen have arrived-a fleet of those great canoes such as you sailed. They have landed at Helmsport.”
“More of my people? Soldiers?” The news fell upon Co dell like a bolt from the sky. He had almost forgotten that a world existed beyond Maztica, a world of” magic and steel and power that seemed like a distant dream to him now. “How many of them? What did Carac see?”
“He counted five and twenty great canoes. In the field before Helmsport, some one hundred horses stood. And many of the silver-shirted soldiers debarked from the vessels. There may be more, but that is what he saw.”
“A new force-here, in Maztica?” Cordell couldn’t keep the amazement out of his voice. An army larger- perhaps twice the size, or even more-than the legion I brought to Maztica a year ago!
“Have you summoned them here?” Chical’s voice was heavy with suspicion now.
“No!” Cordell didn’t even think to lie. At the same time, his mind reeled with questions and possibilities. Who could? these men be? How had they located Helmsport? Who was their commander? And perhaps most important, were, they his allies or his foes?
“I don’t know who they are. I have not summoned them, but perhaps they have been sent to aid me by those who funded my own expedition.” He turned decisively toward the growing site of Tukan, in the valley below. Chi stepped beside him.
“Whatever the case,” Cordell explained, thinking as walked, “I must go to them as quickly as possible.”
1 must insure that they aid me, that they do not take what spoils I have earned and still keep. His mind whirled with suspicions and halt-formed plans. And yet, with a new army, with fresh troops, perhaps my mission need not end in failure!
Chical remained with Cordell, still suspicious, as the commander summoned his legionnaires and the chief of the Kultakans, Tokol. They started to gather around him in a great meadow that would someday be the city square of Tukan.
Before the assemblage was complete, Chical pulled Cordell to the side and spoke to him seriously.
“We have fought together, you and I-and also we have fought against each other.” The Eagle Knight’s voice was steady, and his black eyes faced squarely into Cordell’s own.*Know this, my new ally: If this is a new army, brought here to make war on my land, we will fight it every step of the way. And this time, our warfare will not be held in check by the whims of Naltecona!”
“I speak the truth when I tell you that I do not know who these men are or why they come. But I will make you this promise: If I can reach them and bring them to follow me, I will use them as your allies.”
Chical still stared, with a concentration that disquieted the captain-general. “I pray that you speak the truth,” he said finally.
“Let us make a plan. I ask your help now.” Cordell’s tone remained level. “You and your eagles have flown over most of this country. Can you sketch me a rough map of the coastline near hear?”
Chical took the tip of his dagger and inscribed an outline in the dust on the ground. “This is the land of Payit, and below here the jungles of Far Payit, sticking like a thumb into the sea. Where the waters come around it, between the desert and the jungle, it is called the Sea of Azul.”
“Good!” Cordell exclaimed. He saw that the coastline curved inward, bordering the great desert for much of its extent.
“1 will take all the men 1 can mount, and we will ride to Helmsport,” he told the captain of eagles. “If you and your eagles will fly with us, we can reach these men quickly. Then we shall see what their purpose is and how we can make that purpose fit our own,”
Chical thought for several moments. “I cannot bring all the eagles from our valley. The danger is still too great. But some of us will accompany you, and we will see if it is as you say.”
“Very well. I cannot ask for more.” Cordell turned away, startled to see that the assessor of Amn, Kardann, had come up quietly behind him. The pudgy accountant’s face betrayed a look of passionate hope.
“Rescue!” he whispered loudly. “They have come for us! We’re saved!”
“They’ve come for something”, Cordell allowed. “But I’m not so certain it’s to save us.”
“What else could it be? Surely you will go to them, place us all under their protection?”
The captain-general looked at the little man with distaste. Kardann had been the one member of the original expedition assigned him by the merchant princes who had funded him. Cordell had never liked him, and nothing during the defeat stained retreat from Nexal had changed this opinion.
“We will go there, to be sure-but we go cautiously, a small number of us, to investigate. If they are here to help, that is very well, but if they are here to obstruct us, we shall learn this first.”
“But-“ Kardann’s objection died on his lips. He nodded quickly, hiding a crafty smile that played across his lips, before looking up at the captain-general. “That, of course, is only sensible. I ask you, please-allow me to accompany you when you return to Helmsport.”
Cordell frowned. Little did he relish the thought of the little man’s constant presence. But he realized that, as an official of Amn, Kardann could prove useful in negotiations with any relief expedition. And whatever other
