The Jaguar Knights (46 page)

“If Salt-ax-otter and his whelp had kept proper military order,” the monster croaked, “this would not have happened.”

“You swore you’d keep watch over us, you oversized bag of feathers—”

“Eat dirt!” the Eagle shrieked. “But you did well, imposter. You were stunning them!”

“Of course I was stunning them!” Lynx raged. He flashed eight claws. “These are only good for skinning. I just thumped them.” He paused and looked around. “How many did I get, anyway?”

The Eagle assessed the bodies. “Seven. Perhaps five will live to reach the altar stone. That is no mean feat, warrior.”

“Right!” Lynx said, and calmed down. “Five
is
good, isn’t it? In one skirmish? This is my father’s son, Wild-dog-by-the-spring. Wolfie, meet terror of the skies Star-feather.”

Not convinced that his wits were back to normal, Wolf bowed and said something polite.

The towering Eagle nodded, setting his feathered headdress to waving. “Your father bred notable warriors, Hairy One.”

“Lord! Lord! You’re safe!” Young Night-fisher came racing across the field with arms outstretched. He skidded to a halt on his knees beside Lynx, looking ecstatically pleased with himself. “I took a captive for you, lord!”

Wolf said,
“My wife! Where is my wife?”

“Here.” Star-feather stalked over the bloody sward, lifting and placing his feet like a giant rooster. Ashen pale, Dolores lay curled up very small within a terrifying puddle of blood. Her sword lay beside her, and there was blood on that, too.

“Flesh wound in the belly,” the Eagle said. “Is the woman important?”

Wolf fell to his knees beside her. She was conscious, but overwhelmed by pain. Something inside him was shouting,
No! No! No!
in endless, mindless denial. Why had he ever let her come on this crazy, hopeless mission?

“Wolf?” she muttered through clenched teeth, her hand grasping for his. Her fingers were icy.

He forced his voice to remain calm. “Just a minute, love.” He cut away the cloth and was both relieved to see how small the wound was—she had not been run through or disemboweled. It was a clean, obsidian-sharp stab, but blood was still flowing from it and she might well be bleeding internally as well; the blade might have broken off inside her. Abdominal wounds were excruciatingly painful and invariably fatal unless promptly conjured. Tlixilia had no healing conjury.

“We’ll get you some help, love,” Wolf whispered, then looked up at the monster. “She is very important. She is vital, if you wish to make a treaty.”

She was vital to him, too. This must not have happened. It was impossible. He could not accept it.

“She is the emissary spoken of,” growled a new voice. Another Jaguar had arrived, recognizable from Lynx’s description—scars, slack body tone, ragged ears. He wore a flowing feathered cloak and a king’s ransom in gems and gold.

“The dread lord Basket-fox, I presume?” Wolf did not rise.

The old knight snarled, showing his fangs. “This was unfortunate. We were not prepared for the foe to use such force against you. You should be proud that the Yazotlans sent four knights. Discretion requires that we quit the field. Cloud harrier, take us to the floating city.”

S
unlight jumped, shadows shifted. The inevitable jab of pain made Wolf cry out and very nearly draw
Diligence,
in the fighting instincts of a swordsman. The air was hotter, damper, flower-scented, with macaws screeching nearby and drums rumbling in the far distance. He was kneeling on a rooftop, obviously in the center of El Dorado as Lynx had described it—white, flat buildings and a multitude of tapering towers.
Dolores lay bleeding on a mat, instead of grass, but she did not seem aware of the change. Only Star-feather and Basket-fox had traveled with them.

“I will find healers for your woman,” the Eagle croaked, and vanished in another momentary headache. Having eagle knights dance attendance on a commoner, and a woman at that, was probably equivalent to a marquis delivering groceries.

Lynx flashed into view and yowled with fury, claws out. Evidently he had not expected the move. He was balanced on one paw and leaning on Night-fisher’s shoulder. Another Eagle towered over them both.

“Where do you want me to deliver your captives, terror of the dark?” the monster inquired.

“Yawrg!”
Lynx said. “Um…”

“I shall be happy to install them in my own pens until you are ready to take them.”

“That is gracious of you, storm tamer.”

The Eagle vanished.

Lynx bared his fangs, somehow implying that if he had a tail he would lash it.
“ ‘Terror of the dark!’
Did you hear that, Wolfie? That’s like—”

“Congratulations. And just what are you planning to do with your captives?”

He said,
“Yawrg!”
again and glanced up at the nearest pyramid, which overlooked them, its long shadow stretched by the westerly sun. “I’ll think of something.”

Let it go!
This was no time to start a family quarrel with a big-brotherly lecture on ethics. “Whose house is this?”

“Basket-fox’s.” Still supported on Night-fisher’s shoulder, Lynx came hobbling over. “Sorry about this, Dolly.”

Eyes closed, she did not reply, and her hand did not respond to Wolf’s touch. She was unconscious, or narcotizing. Or dying.
Hurry, hurry, hurry!

“Someone should…” Lynx said, “Ah, I hear them coming.”

Wolf heard nothing. Four middle-aged women came scurrying up the steps, carrying bags, and still he did not hear them, because they were
barefoot. They wore the same white skirts of maguey fiber he had seen on almost every
naturale
woman, plus loose white tunics. He had expected men, but women to treat women was reasonable.

“Are male healers better at treating wounds?” he asked in Chivian.

Lynx shrugged. “About the same.” He meant
neither much good.

The women clustered around the patient. Wolf moved out of the way.

“There is no octogram on the mainland, is there?” Condridad would be the closest.

Lynx said, “No. Don’t know why.”

Rojas had claimed that skilled conjurers refused to live in Sigisa, but there was probably some political reason. Dolores was going to die for want of a few minutes’ conjuration. In the haste of their departure, they had left all their conjured bandages back in Sigisa.

One of the women rose and turned to Wolf, keeping her eyes lowered. She held a blood-stained probe.

“Speak!”

“Lord, the wound has penetrated the bowel. We could cauterize with red-hot silver, but she might die of shock. She would almost certainly lose the child.”

“The child is of no importance.” He had not known of it and doubted that Dolores had. “The woman must be saved.” His mouth was so dry he could hardly speak. “Can you stop the bleeding? How long can she live?”

“The visible bleeding has almost stopped. We can sew the wound, but it may still bleed inside. We cannot answer the lord’s other question.”

She might die of loss of blood in minutes or hours, or of wound fever in days. No one survived an untreated stab in the intestines; pregnancy must make her even more vulnerable.

“Do not cauterize. Just keep her alive as long as you can.”

Of course it was Flicker’s child she carried. She could not have conceived before Shining-cloud stripped away her Cumberwell conjuration, and Wolf had succumbed to dysentery and fever right after that. For the next month he had been in no state to sire children. So Dolores had not told him the whole truth about Flicker’s farewell visit to the bedroom. Now that the truth was out, Wolf saw how very improbable
her story had been. Flicker was a martial arts genius; he would not fail in something as physical as rape. Or had she cooperated? Wolf shuddered away from the thought. No, she had been bruised. People could not deliberately bruise their own faces. That was impossible. And she had been genuinely distraught.

He turned to Lynx. “We must get her home!”

Basket-fox came padding across the roof on his big cat feet. “Your acolytes in Chivial could make her live?”

Hope surged. “They could. Can your Eagles take her there?”

“They can. We are told you come as spokesman for your King, noble lord, and he sent you to make a treaty with our Emperor.”

“This is correct,” Wolf said.

The Jaguar touched the floor in salute. “Emissaries should be lodged in comfort and treated with honor and ceremony, brother of my friend, but clearly the matter is urgent. If you would waive all such ceremony without feeling that you have been slighted, then we can discuss a treaty right away.”

“This courtesy honors me beyond words.”

“Spirit stalker, you will keep watch over your brother’s woman for him?”

Lynx flashed fangs in delight at another compliment. “I will, terror of the forest. I’ll stay with Dolly, Wolfie.”

Wolf said, “I will be back very soon, love,” but she did not answer. He bowed to Basket-fox. “At your service, mighty lord.”

Lynx snarled, “Er…Wolfie, ambassadors do not go around armed. His sword is his regalia, dread slayer.”

“He may retain the sword,” the Jaguar said. “If you will be so kind, honored ambassador?” He beckoned with a paw.

Wolf had to run to keep up with the old cat as he hastened down the stair, and obviously everything had been foreseen. The first stop was a room where half a dozen boys waited with water and sponges and fresh garments. Wolf stood and endured while they stripped off the Distlish clothes he had worn since Sigisa—filthy, ragged, and now blood-soaked—then washed and dried and oiled him. He barely noticed. He could as well have been in a whirlwind or the bottom of the ocean, for
he could not stop worrying about Dolores, and whether she would be alive when he returned. They garbed him in a loincloth and a larger, triangular cloth tied at his hip, then a feather cloak, a diadem of feathers, jeweled sandals, rings, bracelets, and flowers. All the time Basket-fox stood in the doorway urging them to go faster.

When they had done Wolf managed to curb his impatience for the moment it took him to thank the slaves, and the jaguar knight also. “Such finery overwhelms me!”

Basket-fox waved a paw dismissively. “Mere trinkets. Keep them to remind you of the day your footprint honored my house. If my lord is ready…”

Off they went across his private park, between trees, ponds, flowers. The sun had set but the sky was still blue and the air silky smooth. Dolores was dying. Lynx had said that the Tlixilians were anxious to make a deal, but the first rule of trading was never to seem too eager. Dolores was dying. Wolf must agree to any terms, like the commander of a starving city pleading with its besiegers. Dolores was dying. Dolores was dying. Cats play with mice. Dolores was dying.

“His name,” his host announced, “is Two-swans-
dancing. He is a member of the Great Council.”

“I have heard the great lord’s name and am honored beyond speech.” Two-swans was the Conch-flute, so the Tlixilians must be greatly expediting negotiations, cutting through the protocol. An eagle knight on guard at the door of a gazebo of white stone stepped to one side as the newcomers approached. Basket-fox went to the other, and Wolf walked through between them.

The man he had come to meet was standing within, arms folded, smiling welcome. He was young and virile, sumptuously dressed in a full-length feather cloak over a beaded and embroidered kilt and golden sandals; the plumes of his headdress reached higher than an Eagle’s. He wore gold and jade earplugs, gold plugs in his nose and lower lip, and he was wreathed in flowers. Wolf gave him the ground-touching salute. As he rose, the Conch-flute took his hand and led him to a pair of mats, the only furnishings in the pergola.

“Your troubles pierce us to the heart, Lord Ambassador,” he said, as
soon as they were seated. He had a magnificently resonant voice, too. “We sorrow that we failed to guard you well on your journey and that your senior wife has been injured. Let our agreement now make recompense for these sufferings.” He turned to a tray beside him and poured
pulque
into beakers.

The Chivian ambassador mumbled some suitable retort, keeping careful watch for hints of headache.

“Let us negotiate like warriors,” his host said, “cutting fast to the quick, not maundering for hours like gossipy old women. Already the sky-soaring Amaranth-talon prepares to transport you to the place he went a year ago, you and your wife. That is what you wish?” Two-swans-dancing had a personality to melt limestone. If Athelgar were in the least like him, there would have been no Thencaster Conspiracy.

“Indeed it is, lord. Or can he find a similar place a day’s walk to the northeast if I described it?”

“No. He can go only to a place he knows or can see.”

“It will suffice.” Wolf hoped that the Great Bog had frozen again this year, bringing the Ironhall elementary within reach, but at least Quondam would have conjured bandages on hand.

Two-swans-dancing smiled an invitation:
Your turn.

Wolf said, “The floating city is truly the wonder of all the world. What can it possibly lack that humble Chivial could offer to increase the happiness of your mighty Emperor?”

The Conch-flute had his answer ready. “Stags for riding and war dogs, also slaves who can teach ours to care for both. Swords and pikes and crossbows. Armor. The tools your brother seeks. Will you trade all these things?”

“We keep no slaves, lord.” That was stretching a legal nicety, for many Chivian peasants were little better than serfs. “We could loan you skilled teachers, but would it not be better if you sent your men to our land to see how the animals are cared for? Then they can return with the first livestock. We can provide the things you ask if you can transport them across the great water.”

“We can do that. We have many Eagles and Amaranth-talon can show them the way. What do you seek in return?”

So here it came.

“We would know your ways of conjury.” Still no headache.

Two-swans sipped his
pulque,
cellar-dark eyes fixed on the stranger. “It would be easy for me to send some acolytes with you tonight, who can instruct your acolytes at leisure. But the other Hairy Ones abhor the use of sacrifice and seek to prevent their allies, the traitor cities, from putting prisoners to death. They think it kinder to sell them like fish in a market.”