in any event.
But what was that? He heard another noise and pictured the approach of some horrid beast, certainly about to tear him limb from limb.
Then he sagged back, almost crying out with relief. It wasn’t a horrid beast, for he heard a voice, an unmistakably human voice. He couldn’t recognize words, or even a language, but the deep and resonant tones could be nothing other that a man engaging in deep and serious conversation.
“Here! Here! Help me,” he cried, scrambling to his feet. “I’m over here!”
He would not have been disappointed to see Cordell himself coming toward him; at least the captain-general might reasonably be expected to provide him with a decent meal before hanging him!
“Please, come here!” he shouted again, climbing to his feet and pushing through the brush toward the source of the sound.
Then he stopped, dull horror creeping over his senses and freezing him in his place. He came to the source of the voice, but it was not a man in earnest conversation. Instead, he looked into a bestial face, with a mouth full of long, curving fangs. It was a mouth that, even as Kardann watched, slowly spread into a wide, horrifying grin.
“Hello,” said the great cat, in its soft, well-modulated tones. “I am the Lord of the Jaguars, and you are mine.”
*****
From the chronicles of Colon:
In the certain approach of the Plumed Grandfather. We leave Ulatos knowing that, shortly behind us, the horde of the Viperhand will reach the city of the Payit. A city of long-lasting peace, it will see its second war within the year. The faithful warriors who have accompanied us here will try to buy us the time to work a miracle.
But if anyone can do so, I suspect it will be this black-haired woman who bears the child of two peoples. She is truly the Chosen One of Qotal, and her goodness is manifest. She may yet open the gate to the ‘s passage.
The menace looms behind us in the monsters of Zaltec. The unknown lurks ahead, an encloaking darkness that beckons and yet dissuades. 1 pray that we, that Erixitl, has the power to shed that darkness.
20
THE SECOND BATTLE OF ULATOS
The beasts of the Viperhand, guided by the battle-hungry Hoxitl, waited for nightfall to launch their attack, allowing time for the entire monstrous army to gather at the edge of the savannah. The great regiments pushed forward along the coastal trail, and the column gradually expanded into a vast front within the protective jungle.
Cordell, conversely, had been forced to prepare for an assault as soon as the horde reached the fringe of the savannah surrounding Ulatos at noon. His men stood under the blazing Maztican sun throughout the day, ready for battle. But as the hours of afternoon passed into twilight, the battle did not come.
At least, the captain-general realized, they were spared the damage that could have been inflicted by the monstrous image of Zaltec. The stone colossus stood there throughout the waning afternoon, staring above and beyond the savannah and the armies that gathered around its feet. It was as if the humans were too pathetic, too unworthy even of his notice for Zaltec to take the trouble of wiping them out.
Finally, before dusk, the giant stepped onto the savannah, scattering the desert dwarves of Luskag’s tribe, for those unfortunate warriors stood in the god’s direct path. Fortunately the nimble dwarves all raced out of the way of the monstrous footsteps, and Zaltec continued marching steadily to the east.
Cordell, along with the rest of the army, watched him go and felt an unmistakable sense of relief. Still, some of them, including the captain-general, knew that the battle to be fought at Twin Visages was at least as important to their future as the one about to occur here.
The latter, however, was Cordell’s only concern now His troops were in position, though they seemed a pathetically frail line to stem the tide that they knew lurked in the nearby jungle. Desert dwarves, carrying their sharpened weapons of plumastone; tough, veteran spearmen from Tulom-Itzi; halflings armed with shortbows, tipped with the paralytic poison, kurari; an assortment of mercenaries with crossbow, harquebus, sword and buckler, a hundred cavalry; it seemed an oddly diverse core to an army
lb these numerous formations, the city of Ulatos and the lands of the Payit had added seven thousand additional warriors, a total that had pleased and surprised the captain-general. A year ago, the bulk of the Payit army had accompanied Cordell on his disastrous march to Nexal. Though not so accomplished in war as other nations of the True World, the Payits were brave and loyal fighters. Thus, when the one who had conquered them had ordered them to join his ranks, they had done so willingly and without question.
The Payits had made the march with the Golden Legion, participating in Cordell’s successful battle to subdue the Kultakans. That conquered state had then become the captain-general’s ally as well, and a source of great reinforcements in his march on the great city of Nexal. The Pay-its, Kultakans, and legionnaires had all entered the city and taken up residence in its central plaza.
Unlike the Kultakans, however, the Payits hadn’t been fortunate enough to fight their way free of the dying city on the Night of Wailing. They had perished there almost to a man. Now the city of Ulatos and the surrounding countryside had precious few warriors with which to defend themselves.
The defenders’ position stood anchored on the sea, in the strong block of Helmsport. Here one of Don Vaez’s former officers, newly sworn to the service of Cordell, commanded legionnaires-a hundred crossbow and a hundred sword. The fort would provide a refuge for much of the force if the line broke. Here also the commander had posted many of the young magic-users who had come with Don Vaez’s force, the rest of the spell-casters being scattered along the length of the line.
Yet Cordell knew that simply holing up in the fortress and allowing the monsters to rampage freely outside the walls was a defeatist strategy; instead, he formed a long line of resistance stretched across the savannah, with the fort as only the far right end of that line.
The defenders’ position stretched inland from the fortress, nearly a mile to the small village of Nayap. Here Cordell had posted a large block of swordsmen and archers, for the little cluster of houses formed a disruptive obstacle to any attack from the jungle.
Beyond the village, the line curved back to the left for another half a mile until it reached another small village, Actas. Neither of these settlements numbered more than four dozen buildings, and most of these were structures of thatch or adobe. Each contained a small pyramid, however. Though these ceremonial centers were barely twenty-five feet high, Cordell used them as platforms to mount his archers, while men with swords, halberds, and pikes gathered around their bases to protect them in melee.
The entire position, unfortunately, stretched only a third of the way to the city of Ulatos. Interspersed companies of legionnaire crossbowmen and harquebusiers, plus the archers of the Little Men and the Itza, stood along the front. Alternating with them were companies of legionnaire swordsmen and axe-wielding desert dwarves, as well as the companies of Payit spearmen.
Behind the line, Daggrande commanded the reserves, a company of legionnaire veterans armed with axes or shortswords. Beside him, Grimes rode with a hundred-odd horsemen. The chief task of the cavalry would be to prevent the monsters from sweeping around the left flank of the defense.
Throughout the hot afternoon, the defenders had stood ready while the attackers gathered their forces. After the colossal figure of Zaltec marched on to Twin Visages, they expected the attack momentarily. But slowly afternoon faded to dusk, then twilight.
Finally, after full darkness settled across the fields, the men sensed movement in the night. A soft rustling swept through the grass, and then the tread of many heavy feet thudded through the earth.
Suddenly, with shocking abruptness and crushing volume, a great roar arose from the masses of ores and ogres. The beasts rushed from the fringe of the jungle, shaking the ground with the pounding cadence of their
