They stopped only after it was fully dark, and at one of these camps, Halloran made some decisions.
“I think we should take her to Ulatos instead of going directly to Twin Visages,” he announced as they finished a meal of venison and fruit around a low fire.
“Why?” asked Luskag. The desert dwarf had become convinced of Erixitl’s vision and knew that she believed Qotal would return at the faces on the cliffside.
“It seems more and more like some kind of spell that has her in its grasp. In the city, at least, we will find more clerics, perhaps an apothecary-a chance to help her.”
Coton, the priest of Qotal, nodded silently. Lotil voiced his own opinion. “We can take my daughter to the temple of Qotal in the city. Perhaps there we can find aid for her. This is a good plan.”
One by one the others agreed. They didn’t know how far ahead of them lay the coastline, and hence Ulatos and Twin Visages, though Gultec estimated that they were only a few days away. A native of Ulatos, he recognized that they had long since left the deep jungles of Far Payit behind.
After they had reached a decision, Halloran rose from the fire and went to see Erixitl. She lay motionless on the soft mattress they had made for her. Her chest rose and fell with the rhythm of her breathing, and the roundness of her belly seemed so unmistakably alive that Hal almost convinced himself that she merely slept. He placed his hand upon her abdomen, where so often he had felt the kicking and squirming of their child. Now he felt no movement at all.
“Summon your cleric, man! We need him now, or Katl will die!” Cordell stormed about the tiny makeshift cell, slamming his fist into the door repeatedly. Beside him, the Eagle Knight moaned in pain and delirium, his smashed right arm bound crudely by Cordell and Grimes.
The wounded eagle, Katl, had been placed in the cell with Cordell and his legionnaires. Slowly, in his unconsciousness and delirium, his body had shifted back to its human form. As they ministered to him, they had seen that his arm bone had been crushed by the force of the ball. It seemed unlikely that he would ever use it for anything useful again.
Outside the door, a trio of armed men stood, trying to ignore the prisoner’s outburst. They guarded the captain-general and the legionnaires who had accompanied him
into the fort in a boarded-up stall within a small wooden barn. Hired by-and loyal to-Don Vaez, the men-at- arms were nonetheless nervous about imprisoning a personage of Cordell’s high reputation.
Finally one of the guards left, but when he returned it was not with a man of healing. Instead, he came back with Don Vaez himself.
“I understand you’re creating a disturbance,” chided the blond-haired captain.
“I’ve tried to tell them this man needs a cleric. The fever has taken him, and without aid, he doesn’t stand a chance!”
“Why should you care?” inquired Don Vaez with a disdainful look at the Maztican warrior. Katl lay on the floor in the cell, surrounded by the fifteen legionnaires who had been captured with Cordell.
“He’s a good man and my friend,” replied Cordell, his voice cold steel. “Why should you want him dead?”
“1 don’t really care one way or the other!’ chuckled Don Vaez. “Perhaps if you were to cooperate, you would find that I can be… accommodating.”
“What do you mean?” The captain-general scowled, studying his rival.
“We have learned that you claimed much gold from your conquest of Ulatos. Yet we have not been able to find it- your man, Tranph, has insisted he does not know, even after we applied some vigorously, ah, persuasive techniques.”
You animal! thought Cordell, but he tried to keep his anger from his face. He took a deep breath.” He told the truth. Tranph didn’t know where the gold is buried. None of the men I left behind knew.”
Don Vaez nodded; it was a precaution that he could understand. “Nevertheless, the good assessor has told us that it’s buried somewhere within the walls of this fort. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know exactly where.”
“The little bastard!” Cordell blurted, though the tale merely confirmed his understanding of Kardann’s treachery.
“You, however, do know,” observed Don Vaez. He cast another look at Katl and clucked his tongue in false sympathy.
“Perhaps, before it is too late, you will decide to tell me.”
With a sly smile and a twirl of silver-blond curls, the adventurer turned on his heel and stepped lightly from (he building.
A massive block of stone fell among the trees, splintering the trunks and crushing the wood to pulp. Another, identical block fell beside it. Then the two massive bludgeons repeated the process.
Thus Zaltec entered the forested lands of Payit. The jungle trails vanished beneath the verdant canopy of the tree-tops, but the huge form had no use for such amenities as paths in any event. Instead, the monolith of stone made its own path, clearing a wide swath at the head of its army simply by the force of its passage.
Behind the huge, lumbering statue that was Zaltec trailed the beastlord Hoxitl, and then the teeming thousands of his army, the beasts of the Viperhand,
During the long month of their march, they had become more than the ragged horde that had left Nexal in search of blood and treasure. Now they marched in ranks, the ogres controlling the ores, and the trolls maintaining their own tight, fast-moving companies.
Hoxitl strutted at their head, full of devotion for his hungry god. He knew that soon they would meet an enemy. Which one, he did not know, caring only that it was composed of warm bodies, bodies with hearts that could given over to Zaltec’s greater glory.
“I’ve got to tell him where the gold is,” Cordell admitted to Grimes shortly after Don Vaez had left the prisoners. Katl groaned and tossed, his fever seemingly intensifying every minute. It was obvious that the Eagle Knight was very neat to death.
Beyond the cell, the trio of guards paid them no attention, instead focusing on some game of wagering that they played on the dirt floor of the barn. Cordell was about to tell the guards to summon their captain when the door to the barn opened and a man entered.
The newcomer passed the guards, who looked up from their game and obviously recognized him, for they made no objection to his presence. The man approached the door of
the cell.
“Rodolfo?” asked Cordell in surprise. “Can that be you?”
“It is, I’m ashamed to admit,” said the navigator, with a look to insure that the guards were out of earshot.
“I thought you gave up the sea when you married,” said the captain-general quietly. “Otherwise I surely would have had you at the helm of my flagship a year ago!”
The grizzled navigator shook his head sadly. “I was a landlubber for five years, but then the plague swept through my village. It claimed my wife and my two young sons.”
“I’m sorry, old friend,” Cordell reached out a hand to clap Rodolfo on the shoulder. He waited quietly, sensing this was not the reason Don Vaez’s navigator had come to see him.
“We’ve heard what you said about the army on its way here… led by a giant made of stone! A lot of the men, I don’t mind telling you, aren’t at all certain how Don Vaez will fare against such a threat.”
“He doesn’t even believe it exists,” said Cordell in disgust. “He assumes the tale is some sort of ruse I’m using to gain my freedom.”
“Your freedom…” Rodolfo cast another look at the three guards, who were still engaged in their vigorous game of knucklebones. None of the trio looked up from the scattered coins and bones on the ground. “There are those besides me who would like to see you gain that freedom. Don Vaez is feared, but not greatly admired, by these men.”
Cordell smiled grimly. “Your words give me great hope and encouragement. Now we need a plan.”
Katl groaned behind him, and the captain-general turned toward the wounded man. Then he looked back to Rodolfo. “I’ll still have to tell Don Vaez where the gold is hidden. That’s the only way he’ll send the cleric to help Katl. But perhaps, with your help, we’ll find a way to keep it out of his hands in the end.”
Tabub came rushing back to Halloran, gesturing wildly at the sky and the jungle before them.
“Eagle!” panted the chief of the Little People. “Him and Now he Big Person! Come quick!”
Hal’s first thought was Poshtli, but by the time he had laid Erix’s litter down and followed the halfling warrior
