The Jaguar Knights (43 page)

Had a tearful farewell gotten out of hand? How far had she gone in trying to persuade Flicker not to leave? Wolf cursed himself for a jealous, suspicious fool. He must not try to imagine that scene. Any of it. The details did not matter. Nothing excused rape or attempted rape.

“Did he hurt you?”

Sniffle. “A few bruises. Oh, Wolf! Be all right…just shock.”

Seeing that she was barefoot, Wolf picked her up in his arms. “Come along.” He headed for the house. When a man had killed so many brother Blades, what would one more inquisitor matter? He wasn’t even an inquisitor, he was a rat. “He can’t have got far yet. Where’s Heron-jade?” It would be an execution.

“Went with him.”

Wolf let rip with a few obscenities. The big man would be a far greater loss to the team than Flicker would. What had made him change his mind? Wolf’s treachery in dealing with the Yazotlans, or just homesickness? Without the eagle’s far-seeing skills, Wolf had no hope of tracking Flicker down and administering justice.

“Well I hope our eagle gets home safely.” He hoped much more that the Tlixilians caught Flicker and roasted him alive. “I hope we do, too.
Sea Queen
’s a slaver.”

“You won’t wait for Flicker to come back?”

He laughed. “The next time I see Flicker, my love, I kill him.”

“Wolf! No!”

“Yes. Did you invite him into bed?”

“No, no, no! I swear!”

“And he did try to rape you?”

She nodded.

“Then it doesn’t matter if he comes back here before we leave or I run into him in Grandon ten years from now,” Wolf said. “I will kill him.”

L
ife was always going to happen and never did. Young Alf Attewell had expected his life to begin the moment he escaped from Sheese into the real world. At Ironhall, Candidate Lynx had looked forward to life beginning as soon as he was bound. But the Guard had been cheated of his services and, as chief Blade to the King’s doxy, Sir Lynx had enjoyed much less freedom than guardsmen did, and much less security, because in any kingdom the office of royal mistress usually had short tenure. It had seemed then that life would begin as soon as Celeste was dismissed; he had never foreseen anything as terrible as Quondam. At Quondam life had receded into the remote future, beyond the Baron’s death. Now he was Bobcat-by-the-spring and life looked likely to end before it ever got started.

Under the million stars of El Dorado, the Grand Admiral’s barge swept along the canal. Yes, it was only a dugout, but no horse-drawn carriage could compare with it for comfort. It moved as smoothly as a raindrop running down a windowpane, with no sound except the forced breath of the four naked paddlers as they stroked the silver water, speeding their lord through the night. Could this be life? He had expected it to feel more real.

Ruling the world had never appealed to Lynx. He would have always settled for a happy wife, well-fed children, and a few convivial friends—plus some useful and interesting way of getting from dawn to dusk, some task he could perform well enough to earn a little respect. Life could offer little more than that. Respect he had achieved, at least for now. He was a revered citizen of the floating city, with servants and
handmaidens (pawmaidens?) and rich landholdings. But the happiest time of his life had been the month he had spent as Prime, at Ironhall. Then his job had been to keep a hundred boys happy and motivated, which for him had been no problem at all, and his reward had been praise from Grand Master. Overseeing three thousand men shaping planks with stone adzes just did not compare.

In El Dorado he had proved his loyalty and developed many useful skills. As well as being commander of the new imperial shipyard, he was Jaguar advisor on anti-cavalry tactics. He had taught the Tlixilians that horses had a terror of fire, and how to fight them with caltrops of obsidian flakes set in earthenware balls. He had assisted at the interrogation of prisoners, even managing to save a few from the altar stone, although he was not sure for how long. The Tlixilians feared and hated the Distliards’ war dogs so much that he had suggested the Eagles drop poisoned meat in the pens; this had killed off two whole packs before the Distliards woke up to what was happening.

For that exploit Bobcat-by-the-spring had been formally honored in the Hall of Eagles. (Whatever would Grand Master have thought of that ceremony’s barbaric splendor?) Such recognition of a non-Eagle was almost unprecedented, so the intent had been more to insult the Jaguars than to honor Lynx, but the Jaguars had countered by hailing Lord Bobcat-by-the-spring as a full jaguar knight and presenting him to the Emperor, the Fountain-of-swords, who had promptly granted him great estates. His former delusion that he was the revenant Plumed-pillar had been quietly forgotten, at least for now.

It was all make-believe. His vast landholdings lay in country currently held by the Hairy Ones, so he would not be able to visit them until after the war. Besides, however useful he might be as a wartime advisor, socially he was still an embarrassment that the Jaguars would likely dispose of as soon as the war was won. If it was lost, he would die in the carnage.

So if this was life, it was going to be short.

The Admiral’s barge back-paddled to a stop alongside a quay where several other canoes were unloading important people. Lynx sprang nimbly ashore, without tipping his rowers into the water. Human attendants
dropped to touch the ground in salute. He was respectfully ushered through a gate, into the grounds of the palace of Salt-ax-otter, a very senior knight, the Jaguar representative on the Grand Council.

The Admiral had been summoned to attend a meeting of a select group known as the Progressives. Old scoundrel Basket-fox called them the Peyote Eaters, although he had been one of their founders. They had first come together a year or so ago, not long before Lynx arrived in the floating city—some Jaguars, a few highborn officials, and two or three Eagles, about a score in all. Their doctrine had been that the Hairy Ones were a new peril and must be fought in new ways. Their opponents, the Traditionalists, had considered anything new to be dishonorable. Now the Traditionalists were discredited, thanks largely to Lynx’s efforts. The Progressives had won the argument and the Emperor’s approval, so he wondered why they needed to meet at all.

Not that the war was going any better, of course. Two bad defeats had cut off the supply of captives. The dwindling flow of virtue from the altar stones was hoarded so jealously now that eagle knights were traveling by canoe or palanquin.

As always, the members had assembled out-of-doors, standing under trees in an irregularly shaped area, so that there could be no arguments about rank or precedence. Many conversations were under way, but no one offered to chat with the foreigner. Untroubled, Lynx spread his lower paws, rested his knuckles—well, they
felt
like knuckles—on his hips, and waited for the meeting to begin. He thought everyone must be present…no, the host was still missing.

After a few minutes heads turned in Lynx’s direction and Salt-ax-otter emerged from the outer darkness to stand near him. With him came a man who was certainly not a member of the group. He seemed short alongside a Jaguar, but was actually tall. Also young, highly respected, and a member of the Great Council. All conversation ceased instantly. Any other group would have dropped to its knees—and even these would if the guest were formally named, for he was the Emperor’s brother, designated heir, and deputy, Two-swans-dancing, the Conch-flute of El Dorado.

Salt-ax-otter did not name him. He merely said, “Friends, you are
welcome all. Honored Star-feather, we are curious to know how the Hairy Ones’ boats are progressing.” That opening was sufficiently unusual to convey that
we
meant
the Great Council
in this instance.

“They have four in the water,” the Eagle said. “But only one has ventured out from shore yet. I estimate they will have ten complete within twenty days, and they have another eleven started.”

Two-swans-dancing peered past his host. “And what can the skilled Bobcat-by-the-spring report on his progress?”

“We have four boats operational,” Lynx said. He calculated quickly. “In ten days we should have another six or seven. We cannot go as fast as the enemy.”

“Why not?”

“They have better tools.” What else to say? Basket-fox’s raid on Seven Reeds had destroyed the cache of equipment there, instead of capturing it as Lynx had urged, and the Distliards seemed to have replaced it all. They had steel saws and chisels, spikes and nails; they had hemp ropes and lathes to make pulley wheels. They had pitch for caulking, wedges to split logs. “And besides, er…” This group shunned all honorifics, but it felt wrong not to offer them to a prince. “And besides, we are about to run out of timber.”

Trees had to come from the hills, borne on the shoulders of men until they reached the lake. Enemy forces were rapidly encircling the floating city—not so much by marching troops across the landscape as by perverting towns from their loyalty. Soon the whole valley would be hostile territory.

“We should attack Seven Reeds again?”

That was a major decision involving far too many factors for an upstart Chivian Blade to evaluate. The city rulers knew the boats’ capability as well as he did, and they should decide whether to gamble their fleet now or save it to defend the causeway drawbridges in the assault to come. “Such choices belong to the Great Council,” Lynx said stubbornly.

After a moment’s ominous pause, Two-swans-dancing said, “True.” He passed the meeting back to Salt-ax-otter with a nod.

“Friends,” said the host, “today I had joyous news. My son and first
warrior, whom we mourned for lost, has returned to us. He brings news you should hear. Have I your leave, friends?”

Who would argue when he had the Emperor’s brother at his side? Out of the darkness strolled a solid young man wearing the grandiose trappings of a very senior jaguar warrior, a youngster Lynx vaguely remembered having seen somewhere—mostly because he had shoulders that would have impressed an ox. Quiet welcomes and congratulations murmured through the trees.

“Tell my friends your tale, Taker of Nine Captives.”

“My lords do me honor…” Blood-mirror-walks related how he had been captured on the field of battle. He considered that he had been doubly unfortunate in having been taken by Distliards, who had sold him into slavery, instead of by the local Tephuamotziners, who would have had the decency to rip his heart out. Instead he had been transported across the stinking water in a floating house and offered for sale like cloth or pottery, but a strange Hairy One had ransomed him, blessed him to cure his injuries, and brought him back to the true country. So he had returned from the halls of the dead, trotting in along a causeway to report to his lord and father. The message he had brought explained the presence of Two-swans-dancing—this dissident foreigner on the coast was willing to aid El Dorado in its righteous struggle against the invaders, and would sell it all the war materiel it needed.

“His city is not that of the Hairy Ones we know,” Blood-mirror-walks explained. “He is a knight among his people. His regalia is a sword bearing a jewel like a jaguar’s eye, like unto one I saw once in the Hall of Jaguars.”

All eyes had turned to Lynx.

A
Blade
! Here? Death and fire! But a Chivian should not want to aid El Dorado. Would he not rather seek to bring the Quondam killers to justice?

“And his name?” inquired the Conch-flute.

“It is Wild-dog-by-the-spring, mover of mountains.”

Wolfie!
Lynx bellowed out a laugh that must be a grievous breach of protocol. “A very ugly man, who looks as if his face had been stamped to mush in childhood and then chopped up by many obsidian blades?”

“It is he.”

“This is my brother, lord, my own parents’ son! And if he says he has brought the things we need to fight this war, then it is so.”

“You vouch for him?” asked Two-swans-dancing, beaming.

“With my life!” Lynx cried.

A
ll his life, Wolf had detested failure. Dolores made fun of his compulsive boot polishing, but that was a small part of a much greater struggle, his determination to succeed at anything he tried. Some Blades did only what their bindings demanded, nothing more. Not he. He had served a master he despised to the limits of his ability, even killing men when that had been the right thing to do in the circumstances. Nothing he had done in all his years in the Guard troubled his conscience.

But the Sigisa mission had turned out to be far beyond his abilities. The fact that no one could have achieved what he had set out to do was no comfort, because he should not have taken on an impossible task. The knowledge that the inquisitors had tricked him into it only made him feel worse. He had not even managed to end it cleanly and run away. Sigisa had piled disaster on disaster.

Within hours after Shining-cloud nullified their spiritual protection,
both Wolf and Dolores succumbed to dysentery. She recovered in a few days. He took much longer and was barely back on his feet, still as shaky as an autumn leaf, when he contracted tertian fever, another Sigisian specialty. He had never known a serious illness before, and was appalled at what it did to him. He burned. He thrashed and raved in delirium, ranting mostly about his brother. Every second day the fever would return, each bout leaving him weaker than before, but nothing in the medicine chest helped. He needed an octogram and eight competent conjurers, and those did not exist in all Tlixilia. He almost died.

The start of Secondmoon found him reclining on a portable bed on the patio, sipping fruit juice and watching unfamiliar stars play peekaboo between the romping palm fronds. Phosphoric breakers spilled up the beach. His fever had stayed away for several days, so he might be going to live after all.

Dolores settled at his side. He moved the beaker to his other hand and wound an arm around her.

“Peterkin’s found a ship,” she said.

That was good news, although Wolf doubted he could walk as far as the harbor. “Not a slaver?”

“No. Isilondian trader, outbound for Mondon the day after tomorrow.”

The new
Caudillo
had been enforcing the laws against foreigners more strictly, and almost no non-Distlish vessels had dropped anchor in Sigisa in the last month. A Distlish captain would be within his rights in accepting the Chivians’ money and then impressing the men into his crew. What might happen to the two women then did not bear thinking about.

Wolf studied his wife’s face by starlight. “You will be coming with us, won’t you?”

She nodded wistfully. “Of course. I was wrong and you were right.” She lay down to snuggle against him. “Darling, I was so frightened we were going to lose you!”

He offered lips to be kissed. “Then it must be time I declared myself recovered. Tomorrow I shall strap on my sword and resume my old
domineering ways. I think I can walk with it on if I lean sideways. Don’t ask me to use it.”

“Good. I feel in need of being domineered.”

“Has Peterkin fixed a fare yet?”

“They’re still bargaining.”

Something about her tone alerted him. “How much have we got left?”

“Less than ten thousand pesos.”

“What!?”
That might not be enough to see all of them home to Chivial. “What has Rojas been up to, curse his smelly socks?”

“Well, first he tripled the rent on the villa. Now he wants to triple it again. When the sailors go out they get arrested on trumped-up charges and we have to ransom them from jail. You ought to see that jail! We must get out of here, love. Soon! Take over, please! We need you.”

“I love you when you’re humble like this!”

“Enjoy it while it lasts.”

Their humor was a shroud to bury black thoughts. Even if the Isilondian captain was willing to take passengers, would Rojas let the Chivians escape with the clothes on their backs? Not until he had taken every last maravedí out of the pockets. They would arrive in Mondon penniless. Wolf wasn’t ready to take up the battle again. He needed time to recover his strength.

“No word from Blood-mirror-walks and the boys?”

Dolores shook her head. “I don’t think we’re ever going to hear from them.”

“Or from Flicker?” Wolf would certainly have heard if there had been word from Flicker. He had been gone a month. He might be dead or almost at El Dorado by now.

“No. And no sign of Lynx. We have been watching every ship, love.”

Yes, it was time to go. “But we’ll need to find some way of sneaking on board without Rojas knowing,” he said glumly. “Let me sleep on it.” Expecting his milk cows to make a break for it, Rojas would keep close watch on the foreign ship. He might even preempt their flight and send in his bully boys this very night.

She cuddled closer and said softly, “Wolf?”

“Mm?”

“ ‘Put it in writing?’ ” She was smiling, but he heard shadows behind the words. “I did lie to you that day, love, but not very much. And we weren’t even betrothed then!”

“It doesn’t matter now.” What was done was done.

“It matters to me. So listen. It was the jaguar plaque I was after. You’d told me at Ivywalls that it was an active conjuration, remember? When Lynx refused to part with it, I guessed it was important. In the morning you and I delivered Lynx to the Pine Tree and went on to the palace. The plaque was the first thing I mentioned. Flicker and a couple of others were sent to the inn to keep an eye on Lynx. He’d skipped by the time they got there. Flicker dropped by when you and I were eating to tell me that they’d lost him.”

Wolf said, “He said, ‘Mother’s looking for you.’ ”

She chuckled. “Well done! I’ll make a snoop out of you yet. The code words are only hints, though. They can’t be more than that or they couldn’t be hidden in ordinary conversation. ‘Mother’ means bad news and ‘Father’ is good. If the team had been tailing Lynx he would have said something like ‘Father’s still on the road.’ I told him we didn’t know where Lynx was either.”

“And ‘Put it in writing?’ ”

“Meant I was working on it and didn’t need any more help. I hoped we’d find Lynx with the tracker. If we couldn’t, then there was nothing more to be done.” She kissed him again. “And I honestly don’t know if the King knew that Grand Inquisitor were trying to recruit you. I’m just very happy that they did and you married me.”

“No regrets here,” he said. He wished he believed more of what she had said.

Dolores punched him awake. “Wolf! Wolf! Burglars!”

He sat up, bewildered. One of the tangle mats was shrieking. Then another sounded off, even shriller, and now he heard thumps and human screams as well. He fell out of bed and dropped to his knees, not entirely by choice. It was his custom to lay
Diligence
under the bed at night,
unsheathed, but during his sickness she had been pushed so far in, beyond easy reach, that he had to scrabble on his belly to find her.

Appalled at how heavy she was now, he reeled across the room to the door. Dolores was wrapping herself in a gown, but he did not worry about such niceties. He tumbled out in the corridor, bounced off the opposite wall, and headed for the din. The house was dark.

A tangle mat reacted to being stepped on by uttering an unbearable screech and closing around the trespasser’s feet so he could not walk. If he fell over, as he usually did, the mat slithered up his body and enveloped his head. The man in the entrance hall had reached that stage. He was a naked, dark-skinned
naturale,
heavily built. Surrounded by the ruins of a bench, his loincloth, and a once-sturdy table, he was thrashing wildly in his efforts to tear off the suffocating bandage. Knowing the rug would choke him unconscious and then relax enough to keep him alive, Wolf ignored him. He headed for sounds of battle coming from the dining room.

Before he reached the door, a man staggered out backwards, contesting possession of a sword with another invader. The first was recognizable as Hick by his clothes and lurid sailor language. His opponent was another
naturale,
albeit a somewhat skinny one, who should not be giving Hick so much trouble. When Wolf scooped up a table leg and cracked it over his skull, he dropped, taking Hick with him. The other intruder had now lost his contest with the tangle mat, making two of them out of action and available for later questioning. So far so good.

Peterkin lay groaning and half stunned on the dining room floor. Another intruder was doing a mad one-legged sword dance against the starlit windows, trying to kill a tangle mat before it broke his ankle, but without cutting off his own foot in the process. The mutilated mat howled as if it were alive and in agony. The window it had been guarding stood open.

Whatever Ironhall tradition might say, there were times when the table leg was mightier than the sword. Wolf slammed his cudgel against the back of the dancer’s knee, sending him toppling to the floor, screaming as the tattered mat scrambled for his face like a giant spider.

Something hurtled in through the window without touching the
sill. It hit the floor with its front paws, spun over in an airborne somersault to strike the far wall with its back paws, twisting in midair so it was the right way up, and without ever pausing, launched itself at Wolf’s throat. He glimpsed fangs and claws, but he already knew that if this was not an actual jaguar, it must be a jaguar knight.

Off-balance for an attack from that direction, he had no time to turn and bring
Diligence
into play, but his left hand still held the table leg and he instinctively parried at the open jaws. Turning its head aside to save its teeth, the monster slammed into him. They hit the floor in a tangled heap. Had he been his usual nimble self, Wolf might have made a better showing, but in his fever-weakened state the double impact almost stunned him. His throat was exposed; he expected to feel it ripped open.

The cat thing rolled clear and went to the aid of the man being smothered by the vengeful tangle mat. Back in Grandon the inquisitors had insisted a mat could not be forcibly removed without pulling the victim’s head off, but they had never met a jaguar knight armed with eight finger knives. The remains of the mat fell silent. The gasping victim stopped thrashing.

All this had taken only a few seconds, and Wolf had barely managed to stagger to his knees. He was ages too slow to fight such a monster. Eyes glowing in the starlight, the Jaguar sprang, batting his weapons aside. They hit the floor together again, and this time he cracked his head so hard that flames danced before his eyes. Paws pinned his wrists, great fangs opened over his face. He heard a snarling cat sound. After a moment he realized it was human speech distorted into a yowl.

Not only that, the Jaguar spoke Chivian. What it said was “And whose turn is it to rub whose nose in the dirt now, brother?”

B
efore Wolf could collect his wits, light flooded the room. Help had arrived at last—Dolores, Megan, Hick, and Will, all armed with swords
and carrying lanterns. Dolores was out in front and reasonably so, because she was the best fencer. She came within half a second of running her sword into a jaguar knight.

That was at least four-tenths of second too late, though. Lynx launched himself upward again, almost crushing Wolf’s wrists in the process. He slapped Dolores’s sword aside with his claws, spun her around, and pinned her against him. Then he waved four black talons in front of her face and the rescuer party froze.

“Stop!” Wolf croaked. “It’s all right. He’s on our side.”

My brother the monster! Spirits save us!

“Oh, I wouldn’t hurt my dear sister-in-law,” Lynx yowled, releasing her. “You are legally married, I trust? Give me a kiss, dearie?” He bared his fangs and waggled a grotesquely long tongue at her.

Dolores screamed and reeled backwards.

Yes, it was Lynx. Wolf knew the scars, although they had faded from red on pink to white on brown. He stood tall on his stilt feet; his head, hands, and feet had been transformed, and he wore a Tlixilian-style loincloth, but his chest was hairier than any
naturale
’s. He carried something strapped on his back. Seeing Wolf struggle to rise, he offered a paw. Wolf gripped his wrist where spotted fur gave way to human skin and was effortlessly flipped upright.

“What’s the matter with you? You fight like a grandmother.”

“Fever. More important, what happened to you?”

Lynx chuckled—a sound not far off a purr. “Obvious, isn’t it? Where’s my guide? Where’s Blood-mirror-walks?”

Wolf recalled the husky invader out in the hall. He should have recognized those shoulders. “He’ll be all right, as long as he doesn’t struggle.” He wrapped an arm around Dolores, who had been working her way closer to him without going too near Lynx. “Megan, release him, will you? And see to the other one?” Megan swept from the room.

“The other one’s Night-fisher.” Lynx seemed to be enjoying himself, but he was mistaken if he thought that exposing those frightful teeth counted as a grin. He turned to the intruder he had rescued from the mat. “And this is taker of one captive Corn-fang. Dread warrior, greet my father’s son, Lord Wild-dog-by-the-
spring.” Lynx spoke Tlixilian
haltingly, and with what must be a Chivian accent. He had learned the language the hard way.

“I kiss the feet of my lord’s brother,” Corn-fang said, making no move to do so and looking as if he would prefer to cut them off. “His glory dims the sun.” The tangle mat had totally ruined his elaborate feather headdress and there was blood around his jade labret.

“I weep with shame that a valorous taker of captives should have been so maltreated in my house,” Wolf said. “May we evermore fight in each other’s shadow.” He presented his wife and the sailors, whom he promoted to warrior rank.

“I want to know how Lynx got here!” Dolores whispered. She was trembling, almost in shock.

“Yes. Explain, Lynx.”

“We can sing old songs later!” the cat-man said in Tlixilian.

Wolf was about to go and find some clothes, when in strode Blood-mirror-walks, clearly furious and wearing no more than he was. If a relative of the Emperor did not care, why should anyone? Behind him came the adolescent Night-fisher, limping and rubbing his neck. Then Peterkin and Don, and the room was crowded.