Ironhelm

RETRIBUTION

Halloran watched the spearmen descend from the pyramid, attracted by the chattering of the bird near the base of the structure. The creature suddenly flew off into the jungle, and the leading warrior, the one who wore the spotted hide, gestured toward his comrades above. Two of them roughly urged Halloran down the stairs. The legionnaire staggered desperately but managed to retain his footing.

Soon he reached the bottom, and here all of the warriors and most of the priests gathered together. Hal sensed confusion and indecision. He looked around and, when he could not spot the high priest, he assumed that savage cleric remained atop the pyramid.

An abrupt cry of pain exploded from a warrior who suddenly collapsed on the ground. Several more cried out or gasped in sharp agony. In moments, a half-dozen spearmen writhed or lay still on the ground beside the pyramid.

To the natives, it appeared that these men had suffered some sudden, invisible, and hence supernatural disaster. Halloran, however, saw the short silvery shafts of crossbow bolts jutting from the flesh of the wounded men.

Immediately the captain ducked, breaking the hold of his captors. Dropping to the ground, he twisted desperately away and rolled to the side.

Another volley of steel death flashed from the brush, claiming more victims among the panicky spearmen. The bolts were small, but not invisible, and by now some of the natives understood the nature of the attack. These few raised their javelins, casting blindly at the brush or holding their weapons at the ready while they sought targets.

"For Helm!" The ragged cry burst from the brush, the most beautiful noise Halloran had ever heard. He identified Daggrande's voice bellowing above the rest.

"In Helm's name!" Hal cried, twisting to a sitting position and then lurching to his knees. He cursed the supernatural bond confining his arms even as he stumbled to his feet. A wiry native sprang at him with upraised club, but Halloran felled him with a powerful kick.

A ragged line of legionnaires burst from the brush, charging the base of the pyramid. Hal saw that there weren't more than twenty-five men in the detachment. He desperately hoped that would be enough.

He heard a snarl behind him and whirled to see the leopardskin-clad warrior advancing toward him. The man's face contorted into a mask of hatred as he pulled Hal's sword from his spotted leather belt. The warrior raised it in both hands and lunged, with a battle cry more bestial than human.

Halloran whirled away, but his attacker followed his evasion. The point of the sword drove toward Hal's face, until suddenly the warrior staggered backward. His snarl turned to a look of dull confusion as he stared at the silver shaft protruding from his chest. Blood, slick and black in the early evening darkness, gurgled from his lips, and the sword fell from his lifeless fingers even as his body thudded to the ground.

The legionnaires advanced in a rush, maintaining their disciplined formation. "For Helm!" they shouted again, heavy boots pounding the earth. The crossbowmen carried their bows slung across their backs now, wielding their short swords, while the swordsmen brandished their long-swords and held their bucklers at the ready. The small shields protected both the left side of the man who carried it and the right side of the legionnaire to his left, so close was the troops' formation.

Halloran dropped to the ground and rolled toward his sword, forgotten by the other natives in the confusion of the attack. His heart swelled with pride at the intrepid advance of the legionnaires, outnumbered two or three to one. Unsteadily, several of the natives stood to meet the charge with their stone-tipped spears.

In moments, the line of swordsmen reached the base of the pyramid. Flint and obsidian macas shattered against steel shields and breastplates, while razor-edged swords sliced easily through cotton armor and shields of hishna-magic hide or pluma-magic fabric. Halloran saw a young warrior swing his wooden club, its flecked-tooth blade of obsidian flashing toward the face of a legionnaire. The swordsman raised his buckler, and the club cracked aside as the slim steel longsword plunged straight through the warrior's body.

The native collapsed across Hal in a shower of blood. The young cavalryman wriggled aside, and then the line of legionnaires swept past. The other warriors, to a man, turned and fled for the imagined safety of the surrounding forest.

Gultec trotted easily along the trail, once again leading the column of warriors. His keen eyes had no difficulty following the twistings and windings of the jungle path, even in the nearly total darkness. The Jaguar Knight knew that columns of warriors like this one were converging toward the coast along many such trails. By the middle of the night, there would be ten thousand spearmen and hundreds of Jaguar and Eagle Knights waiting atop the bluff.

Following the most direct route to the pyramid, this trail made for good time, unlike the early-morning course that had taken them along the circuitous coastal path. The knight sensed the nearness of the sea in the faint smell of the air and the moist coolness against his face. But more than this, he knew their location instinctively. In mere minutes, the column would reach the pyramid.

Then the Jaguar Knight heard a faint sound, unnatural in the jungle night. More sounds followed, and he halted, raising a taloned hand. The entire column stopped instantly and silently behind him.

The sounds grew, a thrashing that told him that men were forcing their way through the underbrush. He heard muffled curses, in Payit, and soon sensed the nearness of many sweating, frightened men.

A figure pounded toward them along the path, breathing heavily. The man did not know of Gultec's presence until the knight stepped from the shadows and seized him by the throat. He recognized the orange headdress of a nearby village. This warrior must have been one of the first on the scene.

"What is the meaning of this?" demanded Gultec, his voice a rumbling growl. "Why do you flee like a young girl?"

The man's eyes widened in even greater terror. He croaked something indistinguishable, and Gultec slightly relaxed his hold upon the man's windpipe.

"The strangers!" gurgled the fleeing warrior. "Sorcery! They attacked us! They killed many! It was death to remain!"

Gultec's body tensed with the news, but he was only mildly surprised. So these strangers were here for war! Well, the warriors of the Payit would see they got what they sought!

"Where are they now?"

"The pyramid — by the Twin Visages!" The man virtually squealed the answer.

Casting the terrified villager aside, Gultec started forward at a renewed trot. In a minute, he would deploy his men through the jungle surrounding the pyramid. But first he would see what these strangers were about.

"Halt!" barked Daggrande. The line of swordsmen stopped instantly as the last of the natives disappeared into the jungle. With a quick look, he saw that none of his men had suffered any serious wounds. At least a dozen natives had fallen to their crossbow bolts, perhaps an equal number to their swords, but Daggrande wasted no time on self-congratulations.

"Over here!" gasped Hal, squirming out from beneath the slain warrior's body. Several legionnaires helped him to his feet. "I never thought I'd be so glad to see your whiskers!" He grinned as the dwarf clumped over to him. Hal's hands and arms were still pinned to his side, or he would have embraced the old campaigner.

"Humph! I never thought you'd be fool enough to get caught in a simple ambush!" Daggrande's anger, Hal discerned, masked his relief at finding Halloran alive. Nevertheless, the rebuke struck home, especially as the dwarf continued. "I found the bodies of four good men back there!"

"They killed Martine, too." Hal looked up, all his rage and revulsion flooding back. He wondered if the high priest, the murderous fanatic, remained atop the pyramid. Unconsciously he strained at his bonds, eager for vengeance.

"We've got big trouble," grunted the dwarf. "Let's get back to the beach." The dwarf pulled out his dagger and started to saw at Halloran's binding. "What is this stuff, by Helm? My blade can't mark it!"

"It's magic," groaned Hal. "But I thought you'd be able to cut it. These people have priests or sorcerers… I'm not sure which. One of them, the same one who killed Martine, used this to wrap me up."

Halloran fixed his gaze on his companion's face, the horror of the scene on the pyramid choking his voice. "Daggrande, he — he tore her heart out! They murdered her in cold blood!"

The dwarf nodded seriously, his brow knitted with concern. Unknown to Hal, Daggrande fretted more about Hal's fate at the hands of the Bishou than over Martine's untimely death.

Halloran looked around, though it was fully dark now, as if he hoped to spy the priest who had bound him. Instead, he saw two crossbowmen moving toward them with a squirming, brown-skinned prisoner between them.

"What's this?" he asked.

"We found her in the jungle," explained Daggrande as the trio reached the rest of the legionnaires. "I couldn't let her go. I thought she'd warn the others about us. No sense in keeping her now, I guess."

The girl held her head high, her black hair tossing like a stormy sea around her slender, lovely face. Her eyes gleamed with anger — a burning fire that Hal found disturbing — but her rage seemed only to enhance her beauty.

Erix looked at the strangers with a mixture of fear and fascination. They were unquestionably savage and powerful warriors, for all around them were bodies of fallen Payit warriors and priests. She looked quickly but could not find Mixtal's corpse among them. The high priest, she assumed, had escaped with the rest of the warriors. The two soldiers who had held her while their comrades attacked now half-carried her to the company at the base of the pyramid.

Erix saw the tall one, Mixtal's prisoner with the sandy beard, and she was glad that he had not perished under the high priest's knife. She remembered the attention Chitikas had directed toward this stranger. She felt a strange sense of relief to see him among his fellows, as if she desired his rescue but had not wanted to perform it. He was, however, still bound with the hishna snakeskin.

Suddenly the two men who held her arms released her. The short one with the furry face gestured at her, indicating the jungle, and in that instant, she realized that they were releasing her.

She quickly stepped back from the two strangers while her mind whirled with possibilities and fears. She didn't trust these mysterious people. She had seen grim evidence of their fighting prowess. Yet she dared not flee here only to fall into the hands of Mixtal, who must still be near.

Gultec's rage almost compelled him to burst from the undergrowth and slay the invaders single — handed. Only the utmost exertion of self-discipline allowed the warnings of his brain to prevail, compelling caution.

His keen night vision showed him the bodies of a score or more Payits, presumably slain at the hands of the two dozen strangers now gathered at the pyramid. The invaders were clearly warriors of great prowess. Therefore, he would not attack until he gathered his warriors around them.

The men filed quickly and silently through the jungle. Ten ranks of hundredmen slipped along the periphery of the forest, led by stealthy Jaguar Knights on each flank. Gultec remained in the middle of the force, waiting only long enough to allow the spearmen and knights to gather behind him.

Soon a thousand warriors stood ready to attack.

"It's dulling the blade!" complained Daggrande after another attempt to saw through Hal's bonds. One of the legionnaires handed Hal his sword, but the snakeskin binding his arms to his sides prevented him from raising the weapon above his waist. The dwarf cast a glance at the jungle, and then to the trail leading down the bluff, to the beach and the rest of the legion.

"Let's get out of here. Maybe that elf-wizard — " he paused to spit, then continued — "can do something about this rope."

Halloran reluctantly had to agree, though he felt terribly vulnerable standing there with his hands and arms held tightly at his sides. He felt the eyes of the girl on him again. He tried not to stare, but he found himself looking back. Her wide brown eyes did not move away, as had those of the other native women he had encountered. He detected a hint of fear within them, but also a prideful challenge that seemed to mock him.

And then the night air exploded with a shriil chorus of screeches, whistles, and shouts. The sound crushed in from all sides, and the legionnaires saw movement in the darkness.

"Form square!" bellowed Daggrande. The captain was appalled at the volume of noise, but his movements were crisp and precise. He tucked his dagger in his belt, slung his battle-axe from his wrist, and raised his powerful crossbow.

The legionnaires stood shoulder to shoulder, longswords and crossbows alternating. Following Daggrande's command, they created a four-sided wall of steel, facing outward on all sides. Now they could see the attacking shapes closing in from the darkness.

"Fire!" At the instant of Daggrande's command, the ten bowmen released their missiles and seized their swords. There would be no second shot this night.

"Helm curse this thing!" Halloran roared his frustration, shaking his head like an angry lion. Despite his bonds, he tried to shoulder his way into the line.

He saw the girl move suddenly, stepping toward him, and he looked at her in astonishment. She stopped to look up at him with those wide eyes, which even in the darkness seemed to penetrate to the depths of his soul. Then she reached for him, and he saw that she held something in her hand, something that looked like a small cluster of feathers. Something gleamed like a shining stone in the midst of the plumage.

The shocking clash of steel against stone rocked the clearing. Hundreds of Payit warriors met Daggrande's two dozen and the legionnaires stood firm. The screams of the wounded joined the din, with some of the legionnaires falling as well as many natives.

The girl touched the feathered object to Halloran's side. His heart leaped as he felt the bonds give way, falling in a loose coil about his feet. He instinctively reached down and grabbed the ensorcelled thing that had restrained him. Hal was amazed to see that now it was a mere snakeskin, colorful and scaly but no more than six or eight feet long. He would have sworn that it was much longer when it held him. Nevertheless, he stuffed it into his belt.

In an instant, it seemed, the first attack fell away. Halloran stood at a corner of the square, watching the warriors waiting restlessly several paces before him. They were packed tightly to the limits of his vision, an uncountable number. He was vaguely aware of the girl standing behind him. For a moment, he thought of encouraging her to leave the square, to return to her own people.

Another volley of shrieks arose, this time to the side and above them. The bulk of the pyramid had vanished in the darkness, but he remembered the height and size of the object. He imagined the natives making use of that height.

Halloran instantly pictured the javelins arcing through the sky, and he stepped backward to seize the girl and hold her underneath the protection of his armored arm and shoulder. The missiles scattered around them, and then the spearmen surged once more to the attack.

Hal raised Helmstooth and stepped into a vacant space in the square. The captain faced a kaleidescope of attacking spearmen and club-wielders. His sword quickly grew slick with blood, his arm weary of battle, and yet he knew that the attack had just begun.

Kachin joined the rush toward the strangers, more out of curiosity than aggression. Indeed, he carried no weapon, but the priest of Qotal wanted to see these invaders up close. Like the warriors, he had been disturbed by the reports that the soldiers attacked a group of Payit at the pyramid. One panicked warrior had gasped a tale of a sacrifice interrupted by surprise attack.

This intrigued Kachin. A sunset sacrifice in this remote location was mysterious. He hoped against a cold, forbidding fear that the ceremony did not explain the disappearance of Erixitl. Yet he felt almost certain that it did.

Kachin saw the strangers standing in their tight line as the mass of warriors struck them from all sides. He saw flashing silver and waving feather banners. The air resounded with shrieks and crashes and whistles and shouts, and then a momentary still settled in as the Payit fell back, just far enough to avoid the deadly steel. The priest saw many bodies scattered around the invaders, but a few gaps had opened in their previously tight formation.

Through one of these gaps, Kachin saw a flash of black hair, and then he gasped. Erixitl! She was being held by the strangers!

More and more of Gultec's column emerged from the jungle, massing around the little square. Many spearmen climbed along the sides of the pyramid, not as far as the top but gaining positions high above the legionnaires.

"Hieeeiiii!" A volley of screeches burst from the warriors on the pyramid, and a hundred spears took to the air. The missiles, launched from the height of the pyramid, dropped among the tightly packed soldiers below. Several found their marks in the shoulders or backs of the legionnaires.

The warriors on the ground surged forward, striking the square with savage force. This time the little formation began to give way. Several legionnaires fell, and each fallen trooper left a hole in the line.

Kachin got a glimpse of Erix again. She had been grabbed by one of the strangers, a very tall man, before the javelin volley fell. It had almost looked to the priest as if the man had shielded her body with his own, but Kachin could not be sure. Now he saw her struggling in the man's overbearing grasp.

The priest pushed his way to the forefront of the battle, ducking low among the swinging, surging warriors. He saw a gap in the legionnaires' line — indeed, it was now more gap than line — and dove through.

Kachin rolled across the earth, springing to his feet before the startled Erix. Her eyes flashed with recognition as he pulled her from the grip of the tall stranger.

Daggrande sensed the square collapsing and knew he was going to die, that his entire detachment would perish here in the shadow of this Helm-cursed monument. The dwarf's battle-axe chopped the arm from a spearman. He spun on his foot, swinging the weapon at arm's length to disembowel another even as his shield deflected the spear thrust of a third.

He saw another legionnaire fall, blood spurting from his torn throat. Several of his men were borne to the earth under the sheer weight of the attacking numbers.

"Look out!" he shouted, seeing a native lunging toward Halloran. The attacker didn't look like a warrior, he wore a white robe and carried no visible weapon. The dwarf saw him hurl himself at Halloran with abandon.

Daggrande sprang to the side of his old friend as Hal cut down one of the fearsome spotted warriors who were visible among the attackers.

And then things changed, quite suddenly.

Chitikas hovered in an easy circle above the battlefield, invisible to all the participants. The serpent greatly enjoyed the savagery of the fight, but his attention concerned primarily the man and woman in the center of the legionnaires' square.

He saw the woman step to the man's side, and a reptilian smirk twisted the feathered snake's still invisible features. Then Chitikas arched his scaly eyebrows as he saw a man — a priest, it seemed — rush toward the girl. At the same time, a dwarf joined the man.

But the press of attacking Payit grew overwhelming. It was obvious that soon the man would be dead. Shaking his head, annoyed at the need for unseemly haste, Chitikas acted.

Hal saw the pudgy white-robed man emerge from the mass and spring toward him. He turned to meet him before realizing that the man was coming after the girl, not him. He saw Daggrande's stocky form at his side. The dwarf's axe cut a deep gouge in the leg of an attacking warrior, and the native went down like a felled tree.

A bright light suddenly washed over the clearing, and the combatants all froze in momentary indecision. Hal blinked against the brightness and saw a whirling circle, the source of the light, descending from the sky toward the battle — toward him! He knew instantly that powerful magic threatened them. Grimly he raised his blade, facing the potent and supernatural attack.

He dimly noticed the natives backing away, bowing their heads in fear or reverence, bending toward the earth in supplication. He saw the girl beside him looking upward also, her face washed in the cool light.

The whirling circle dropped quickly as the legionnaires stood transfixed. Vaguely Halloran saw that the ring was made from the body of a huge flying snake. Its vast, brilliantly colored wings blurred from the speed of their motion, but were nonetheless visible. The glow emanated from the snake's body itself. Though not equal in brightness to daylight, it flared brighter than any source of nighttime illumination known to Maztica.

The broad ring, several paces across, settled around Halloran and Erix. The snake shifted and swirled its coils, embracing the pair. It could not avoid entangling Daggrande and Kachin at the same time.

Then the light disappeared, and with it, the four vanished within its grasp.

Mixtal gaped at the surreal scene below. He peered over the edge of the pyramid's top, from where he had watched the events below as night had fallen. The priest's mind seemed to settle into a damp puddle somewhere in the pit of his stomach, overwhelmed by the events of this still-early evening.

First the Jaquar Knight's objections thwarted the sacrifice of the enemy soldier. Then the girl had returned from the dead, still held by the strangers. He knew he had sacrificed her once, for the cold body still lay beside the altar. Battles of increasing size and ferocity had whirled around him. Then the couatl had appeared! The mystical creature of ancient history and legend, here, now!

And finally the sudden disappearance of the serpent and the four caught in its coils stunned Mixtal's brain into complete surrender. Collapsing on the stone surface, he wept.

Mixtal did not see the dark figure on the pyramid with him. He did not see the slender form, swathed completely in a black robe, bend over the body beside the altar, the body of the young woman, Martine.

But the priest heard the soft rustle of silk. He lifted his head to behold the Ancient One striding toward him, feet moving silently over the paving stones. Dimly Mixtal saw a pair of wide, pale eyes gleaming at him from the depths of a black cowl.

"So, cleric, you have made your sacrifice?" The voice came softly to Mixtal's ears.

"I did," he said, nodding. "You saw."

Spirali looked back at the pale corpse before turning scornfully back to the priest. "You have failed!" he spat. "Failed Zaltec!"

Spirali reached a black hand forward, seizing the cleric by the throat, squeezing. But the attack ran deeper than a mere physical clasp.

Mixtal's eyes widened in a gape of unparalleled horror. His tongue protruded, his cheeks sucked futilely for air. And as he suffocated, he felt his soul drawn from him by the unspeakable might of the Ancient One. Mixtal knew as he died that his death would bring annihilation, a complete consumption by a vengeful force of unspeakable evil.

Spirali threw the husk of the man, a dried, stiff remnant, to the stones. The Ancient One looked at the now-mummified face, sneered at its terror-stricken features.

"Failed Zaltec, perhaps," he whispered. "But more importantly — far more importantly — you have failed the Ancient Ones."

From the chronicle of Colon:

May these tales be preserved to shine in the light of the Plumed Serpent's glory.

Naltecona, greatest and most omnipotent ruler of the True World, mighty Naltecona, Revered Counselor of the Nexala and holder of the Seat of Flowers, who governs the lives and deaths of men with a wave of his hand, supreme Naltecona, blessed with the wisdom of his ancestors…

Naltecona has decided.

After months of fasting, after long consultations with his wisest clerics and magicians, he has decided. After the dozens of sacrifices consecrated to the younger gods, captive warriors slain, that the Revered Counselor may gain the insight he needs, Naltecona has decided.

He has heard the counsel of his war chiefs, who have urged him to muster his army and meet these invaders on the shore with a full display of the might of Nexal.

He has listened to gibbering sorcerers and soothsayers, who tell him the strangers are the incarnate forms of the Feathered Father, Qotal, returned to Maztica at last.

He has heard the fears, conveyed through Eagle flight, of the Payit warriors, who even now stand and face these strangers, perhaps in battle, perhaps in counsel.

All this has Naltecona heard, that his decision can be made with the wisest counsel, the greatest knowledge possible. All this he has heard, and he has decided.

He has decided to do nothing. The mighty Nexala, masters of Maztica, will sit and wait.