The young man looked at him, pleased with the compliment and somewhat smug in his acceptance of it. “And you told me I would grow tired of battles and war! Little did you know-each fight is grander than the last!”
“That’s because we’ve won them, for one thing,” the former legionnaire said wryly.
Jhatli grinned at his companion. “And we will win the next fight as well.” he boasted.
Erixitl sighed, and Jhatli looked at the woman with a trace of guilt on his dark brown features. “I’m sorry, sister. 1 know how you feel about such talk of war. It is a topic best left to men!”
The youth looked toward the dwarves, up at the front of the column. Daggrande and Luskag engaged in earnest discussion of tactics and weaponry, as they had done for the past months of the journey. “Like the dwarves, I shall be a fighter of legend, a crusader against the evils that threaten our land!”
“Do not be too hasty to wish for that chance,” said Lotil quietly. The plumaworker followed beside Storm, his hand on the horse’s flank, his feet plodding steadily beside the trail. The blanket of pluma, more than half done, was wrapped in a bundle tied to his back.
“Aye,” agreed Gultec, coming up to join them. “1 have spent my life preparing for war, and yet 1 would be happy never to have to see it again.” “How much farther is it to Ulatos?” the youth asked. “Word from the last village is that we might get there in three days,” replied Halloran. And beyond the city, a short distance along the coast, lay their true destination of Twin Visages.
Coton followed them all, and Halloran turned to look at the priest as they walked. As always, restricted by his vow, the cleric said nothing. Yet his face bore a dreamy expression, as if his thoughts were very far away.
Erixitl swayed in the saddle suddenly and Halloran looked at her in sudden alarm. Her face twitched, as if from the memory of a horrifying dream.
“What is it? Are you all right?” Hal reached up to take her hand.
In the next instant, her eyelids dropped shut. Suddenly limp, she collapsed from the saddle as if the life had been drained from her body
Heavy clouds swept in from the great Eastern Ocean, soon blocking out even the faint rays from the crescent of moon that rose over the Payit jungles. A night of inky darkness fell across the city of Ulatos and the earthen bulk of Helmsport.
Within the city, torches blossomed here and there, and hearthfires burned in the homes. The compound of the fort stood outlined in the white light of lanterns as the soldiers of Don Vaez went about their routine duties of maintenance, shoeing horses, cleaning and sharpening weapons, oiling leather boots and saddles.
Then gradually the lanterns winked out. One by one the torches and fires faded into coals, and then even the coals settled into gray ash. The city and the fort fell into the silent slumber of a long, dark jungle night.
A score of lonely sentries stood duty from midnight to dawn, marching listlessly around the top of the earthen ramparts. Each carried a crossbow and a short sword, but their attention to duty was not so rigorous as it had been. weeks earlier, when they had first landed in Maztica.
At that time, this had been a land of mystery filled with unknown dangers and rumors of great treasure. The unexplained disappearance of Cordell’s expedition was a fact known to all of them, adding to the potential terrors of the strange new continent.
Now they looked over a placid and unthreatening land, a place that had become the site of another boring campaign,
Don Veaz showed no inclination to move from this base of operations, and no threat to the force had materialized, or even been rumored, anywhere across this foreign world.
Those sentries who attended to their duties more diligently looked outward, down the sloping walls of the fort. Within the enclosure itself slept more than a thousand men-all of them Don Vaez’s troops, except for the few of Cordell’s original garrison who now languished in prison. Clearly there was no threat there.
It is doubtful that any of the guards even thought to look skyward.
Yet from the clouds came the attackers, two dozen in number, settling silently to the rampart on the wings of eagles. Chical led the way, his keen vision penetrating the night enough to locate the metal-shirted figures, dully pacing the walls.
The eagle floated to earth behind one of these men, shifting to his human body a moment before landing. The guard turned with a start, sensing the presence behind him, but Chical’s heavy club fell once, sharply across the man’s temple. In another second, the guard dropped, still without making a sound, to the hard surface of the rampart.
All around the circumference of the rampart, the eagles descended, attacking simultaneously in silent, sudden precision. Within moments, the entire sentry patrol had been immobilized without alerting the rest of the garrison.
Chical slipped to the edge of the earthwork, out of sight of the interior of the fort but exposed to the south, across the savannah. He touched a flint to the steel dagger Cordell had given him, quickly igniting a small straw torch. He fanned the glowing object before him three times before snuffing it beneath his heel. Then he turned back to the courtyard, peering from the wall top into the crowded space below.
A half-mile away, Cordell, Grimes, Kardann, and the other legionnaires saw the Eagle Knight’s signal. They trotted forward on foot, having tethered the horses within the shelter of the nearby forest. As soundlessly as possible, they approached Helmsport, scrambling up the sloping wall of the earthwork to join Chical.
“There,” the warrior said, pointing to the large wooden building in the center of the compound. “That is where this Don Vaez makes his headquarters.” “Let’s hope be sleeps there, too,” grunted Grimes softly “He will.” whispered Cordell confidently. “It’s the biggest and most comfortable place in there. The rest are storage sheds, armories, and barns.”
Momentary bitterness gripped him as he looked at the familiar surroundings. He had ordered this fortress built as his own base! Daggrande had supervised the actual construction and excavation, but the site and the layout had been Cordell’s. Even the spot in the walls where the gold of Ulatos was buried, he remembered. Now to have this interloping pretender claim it.
One by one the other eagles joined them. When the entire group had assembled, Cordell and Chical led them down the inner slope of the breastwork. Somewhere within the compound a dog, one of the shaggy warhounds of the legion, barked, but a gruff curse followed and the animal fell silent. The rest of the soldiers slumbered around them in tents or in the buildings Cordell had indicated earlier. Creeping carefully through the shadows, the intruders moved past a large’ frame building that smelled like a horse barn. Next they passed a long rack of weapons-spears and arrows- beneath an open-sided shed.
Finally they approached the large headquarters building, a wooden frame house with oilskin windows, where several candles glowed in still-lighted rooms. Before the front door stood a pair of spearmen, weapons upraised and backs placed squarely to the wall.
“I’d bet all the gold in Nexal that Don Vaez is in the bedroom upstairs,” whispered Cordell. Indeed, as they watched, a shadow passed before the oilskin, a profile wherein the long, curling locks of hair were plainly visible. Cordell turned to Chical, and the Eagle Knight nodded. Melting into the shadows with three of his men, he suddenly shifted and dropped. In another moment, his powerful wings carried him upward, followed by his comrades. The four eagles soared swiftly and silently to the peak of
the roof over Don Vaez’s building. The men on the ground saw them as alternating shades of black and pale gray as they shifted back to human form.
Creeping to the edge of the roof, they sprang suddenly to the earth. With swift, silent blows, they immobilized the two startled sentries.
“Let’s go!” whispered Cordell, starting toward the door.
A harsh clatter, like someone spilling a cartload of firewood, suddenly crashed through the compound. Cries of alarm arose from many of the tents, as sleepy men-at-arms struggled free of their bedrolls.
Furiously Cordell whirled to see Kardann, standing beside the heap of weapons that had moments earlier rested neatly in their racks. The assessor looked at the captain-general, a terrified expression upon his pudgy face. With a muffled curse, Cordell started toward him, but he instantly realized that recriminations would have to wait.
