The Jaguar Knights (45 page)

Four men were already weaving creepers and others had begun chopping down saplings with flint axes. In minutes they completed two hammocks, slung under poles for carrying. However humiliating the prospect of being treated as baggage, Wolf did not protest when he was ordered aboard. Lynx traveled under his own power on his grotesquely elongated legs, but this was not a noble moment in the history of the King’s Blades.

F
or several days thereafter, Wolf saw nothing but walls of jungle enclosing the tracks the Eldoradoans followed. He knew they never strayed far from cultivation, because they could always provide an evening meal. Lynx insisted the food was obtained by honest barter, because otherwise the locals would report marauders to the authorities, and even if “honest barter” meant a gift to the headman and nothing for anyone else, that
would ensure that mouths stayed shut. Their road zigzagged between Zolica and Yazotlan, in territory now loyal to the Distlish, in a steamy heat unbelievable by Chivian standards.

In the second week, the country changed from lowland jungle to foothills, with the great white peak of Sky-is-frowning looming ever closer. The weather grew more bearable and each day Wolf walked part of the way, managing better as his strength returned. At some point they began encountering patches of territory still loyal to the Empire and could spend nights in villages instead of huddled together in camps. Loyal and rebel villages formed an irregular patchwork, and even Lynx could not say how Salt-ax-otter knew in advance which was which. None of the settlements were large, usually just a dozen or so thatched adobe cottages, but the friendly natives were eager to serve. They provided shelter and bedding, plentiful beans, maize flour, and sometimes small amounts of dog meat.

Day by day Lynx told more of his story, but some questions he always parried. Obviously he was not the equal of Salt-ax-otter. Among the warriors, only Corn-fang and Night-fisher were his vassals and only Salt-ax-otter was wielding spiritual power. The Chivians rarely saw the knight, but the others spoke of him as if he were nearby, not present and invisible—jaguars were solitary hunters. That a lord of his stature should have come to fetch them in person was a huge honor, Lynx said.

In the villages the knight was never visible and even Lynx became strangely inconspicuous, so Wolf would jump when he spoke and realize he had been present all along. The locals either did not register his inhuman appearance or failed to notice him at all.

One night Dolores pointed out that a full moon was shining in through the doorway, so it must be exactly twelve months since the attack on Quondam. Lynx declared that this anniversary should be commemorated and demanded
pulque
from the villagers. The Chivians drank to the memory of the fallen and toasted Celeste’s release from imprisonment. Wolf was not at all sure that he would have wanted to celebrate, were he in his brother’s place, but Lynx had always looked at life on the bright side.

They had been assigned a hut of their own, surprisingly clean and
spacious because the owners owned no furniture. Outside, in the moon-bright street, the locals were singing and dancing to honor their visitors. After Night-fisher had wiped Lynx’s muzzle for him, Lynx dismissed him, telling him to go off and have some fun.

The youth said, “My lord is bountiful as the clouds,” and vanished out the door, leaving the Chivians alone.

“You don’t fancy striking up some friendships of your own?” Wolf asked. He felt much stronger now, and was anxious to demonstrate this for Dolores. It seemed a long time since he had been uxorious.

Lynx made a sound somewhere between a chortle and a cough. “I think one kiss would blow my cover.” He lifted a gourd between two paws and slurped
pulque,
spilling as much as he drank. He had drunk enough to become jovial and talkative, which was rare for a bound Blade, but his ward was too far away at the moment for temporary fuzziness to matter. Or perhaps his shape-change had weakened his binding.

Dolores had noticed an opportunity to ask questions. “Tell me, how eager is El Dorado to buy our aid?”

He set down the gourd with care. “Very. The Distlish are gaining. If they can pen the Eldoradoans up in the floating city, they can starve them. Starve them of food, but also deny them captives. No prisoners, no hearts; no hearts, no power; no power, no defense except brute muscle. Oh, I think you can make a deal!”

“What are your plans?” Wolf asked.

The big cat eyes fixed their menacing stare on him. “Can you see me back in Chivial? A cozy cage in the Bastion zoo?”

There was no answer to that.

He uttered a chilling growl. “I stay with my ward. As long as Celeste lives, I’m bound to El Dorado. Why do you think I’m racing around the countryside instead of following her? Because this is the best thing I can do to defend her. And I do help! I’m Lord High Admiral. We must have boats to keep the invaders from bypassing the drawbridges on the causeways. But, burn it, Wolfie, I need tools! Lathes, pulleys, ropes. You get me some of that. And some shipwrights.” He crouched to lap
pulque
directly from the bowl.

“You’re not visible to the locals, are you?” Dolores said. “Warriors
can see in the dark and move without making any sound, even see conjuration on things. How are these ‘blessings’ done? With ritual on the pyramids?”

Lynx sat up and wrapped his arms around his knees, his huge furry feet protruding in front of him. He favored her with his disconcerting silent stare for a while, as if he had to translate his thoughts into Chivian. “Depends. Some blessings are done that way.”

“All the major rituals are performed on the pyramids?”

“You’ll have to ask the acolytes. They’re the real conjurers.”

“Stow it!” Wolf had had enough. He knew what Dolores was after. She had already established from Lynx that the murders on the pyramids were committed by the acolytes under the eyes of the knights, but she suspected that the eating of human flesh was another part of the process. Granted that Lynx had been trapped into the change he called the Flowering without meaning to be, and had been driven to persist by self-preservation and loyalty to his ward, had he accepted more than the bare minimum needed to survive?

Wolf was not about to let his wife ask his brother if he was a cannibal. “I’m ready for bed!” he announced. “How about you, darling?”

Lynx took the hint instantly—his way of thinking might have changed, but he had not lost his wits. He purred his odd laugh. “Think I’ll go and hunt some mice.” He flowed out the door and was gone.

Wrapped in llama-wool ponchos, they made their way over a bleak pass where icy winds cut like a thousand machetes, under a shoulder of the great volcano, down into a wide and verdant valley that they traversed by moonlight over several nights. Beyond the next range lay the valley of El Dorado, but to cross that one they needed camping gear and villagers to carry it. By then Wolf’s strength had returned enough that he could keep up with the plodding porters and no longer needed his litter. They spent two nights in a frozen desert, so high that it was impossible to sleep properly and everyone huddled together for warmth.

The next day the scenery changed dramatically. At dawn they plodded through snow and thick fog, trusting to Salt-ax-otter to find the
trail. By noon they were shedding furs and descending grassy slopes, rocky and steep. A vast valley extended below them, speckled with white salt lakes and green farmland, and very far ahead—still days away, but visible as a brightness—lay the great lake of Tlixilia itself. Although weary from lack of sleep, everyone was jubilant. Even Blood-mirror-walks was cheerful. If they were not completely out of danger, he admitted, they were a lot safer now than they had been.

Soon heat was forcing them to strip down to bare necessities. They came to level meadowland dotted with clumps of strangely familiar trees—oaks, alders, and something Dolores said was cypress. One of the porters laughed and joked with Lynx, whom he must be seeing as fully human. Close behind those two, Wolf was walking with Blood-mirror-walks and having no more success at extracting information from him than he had back on
Glorious.
The warrior would neither admit that El Dorado had warships on the lake or deny that the Distliards did. He would talk about almost nothing except his forthcoming marriage and his bride’s exalted ancestry.

Wolf’s attention wandered, thinking of escorting his wife into the fabulous El Dorado a few days from now. Would they find a smug Flicker already there, negotiating the final details of a treaty? Or had Flicker and Heron-jade run into Distlish allies somewhere and ended up on an altar stone? The expedition was truly scattered now—Quin back in Chivial or at the bottom of the sea, Megan and the sailors perhaps hanging around Mondon trying to find passage back to Eurania.

As they were crossing a clearing he said, “My head hurts. That usually means—”

Blood-mirror-walks screamed a warning. An army sprang up out of nowhere. At least a hundred painted, feathered warriors came charging in on all sides, howling war cries and already hurling spears. They could not have been hidden by trees, for there were few trees close. Most of the porters dropped flat and played dead, but the one beside Lynx stopped a spear and there was nothing make-believe about his fall. Lynx himself seemed to blur, dodging two or three more spears and smacking a couple more right out of the air.

Drawing
Diligence
and his dagger, Wolf looked around wildly for
Dolores. Then the horde was on him and he had no time for anything but staying alive. Blood-mirror-walks yelled, “Guard my back, Wild-dog!”

“Guard mine!”

The warrior had only his shield and a spear, because the glass-edged swords were impossible to sheath and had to be carried to battle by squires. Salt-ax-otter’s expedition was not equipped for full warfare and had been caught in sad disarray, as if some Eagle had been using the Serpent’s Eye on them.

Wolf faced his first painted, shrieking, be-feathered monster, blocked a downward sword slash with his dagger and ran
Diligence
through the man’s gaudy feathered shield into his chest. Before he even flattened grass Wolf parried a cut from another warrior with his dagger, surprising him, for that was not the
naturales’
way of fighting. Obsidian shattered. Wolf swung his sword and the shield went with it, so Wolf hit him with that. Then Wolf jerked
Diligence
free and, as he tried again, cut his opponent’s knee almost through. Two more men came at him. There was no quarter in Tlixilian warfare; you died on the field or the altar stone.

He had been taught melee fighting at Ironhall, but had never expected to use it. He needed all his expertise just to stay alive, and did so only because he had Blood-mirror-walks at his back. With a glass sword taken from a corpse, the Eldoradoan made blood fly like rain. Footwork became tricky on ground littered with men—dead, dying, or pretending. Wolf just hoped that Dolores had had the sense to lie down, out of the way, but he knew in his heart that she would have drawn her sword and become fair game. He could hear wild animals snarling nearby and vaguely registered that Lynx was in an even wilder battle than he was, because the enemy would see him as a knight who must be neutralized before he could bring his powers to bear.

Two men rushed him with spears, holding them like lances to impale him at long range. He prepared to parry the first with
Diligence
and swing his dagger at the second, fearing it lacked the weight to deflect a pole properly. A renewed stab of pain in his head threw off his aim, but Blood-mirror-walks howled and crashed backward, knocking him flying,
so both spears missed. One of them hit Blood-mirror-walks, but he was already as good as dead, pinning Wolf under him and fountaining blood over his legs. Helpless, Wolf looked up at a multicolored monster wearing a smile of triumph as he changed his grip to club his victim with the haft of his spear. Wolf had faced death often enough before and known terror, but now he felt only regret, a sense of waste that there was so much living to be done and he would not share it. He really did not want to be eaten.

Diligence
slid from his fingers. The warriors dropped their spears. The world faded behind a sugary pink mist.

Somewhere a bird chirped in the mountain stillness.

After a little while Wolf struggled free, sat up, and peered around at the trampled, bloodstained turf. His temples throbbed. He could see more men on the ground than upright, but nobody was fighting anymore. They just stood there, most of them disarmed. This had to be spiritualism, he decided vaguely; men did not take time out in the middle of carnage.

A new force had appeared. Two or three score of men were striding over the battlefield in line abreast, methodically wielding the toothed clubs he had seen at Quondam, stunning the ambushers with brutal efficiency, knocking them flat without even breaking stride. The victims did not raise a hand to defend themselves. Survivors of Salt-ax-otter’s party were just ignored, but as soon as the line had passed, they began to recover their wits. It took a few minutes for the sugar to dissolve and the sun to break through.

“Dolores!” Wolf cried, scrambling to his feet. He lurched two paces, then came back to retrieve his sword. “Lynx?”

Lynx was sprawled within a circle of ripped and bleeding corpses and turning the air scarlet with a profane medley of Chivian, Tlixilian, and infuriated jaguar noises. He was well spattered with blood, but if much of it were his own he would not be capable of such a tirade.

“You all right?” Wolf demanded.

“Twisted my pastern. Where’s Night-fisher? Where’s Corn-fang? Why did they take so long? What kept them?
You!
” he roared. “Why didn’t you prevent this?”

Wolf swung around and found himself looking up at the bizarre and cryptic shape of an eagle knight, dark against the sky. Golden eyes glared down at him. The great beak opened, revealing a black tongue.