Ironhelm

FEATHERS AND STEEL

Emotion tightened Gultec's throat as he absorbed the spectacle. Never in memorable history had so many warriors of the Payit gathered in one place, for one campaign. The whistles and shouts, the crashing of weapons against shields, the pounding of feet against the ground, all created an aura so overpowering that the Jaguar Knight could do nothing but allow the sensations to wash over him.

The colors dazzled his eyes. The pennants and plumes and symbols and banners all floated magically. Many of the warriors danced as they passed him, and their tall feathered headdresses swayed like graceful birds. Jaguar Knights prowled among the companies, their spotted armor appearing clearly for a moment and then vanishing again in the whirl of color. Eagle Knights preened and strutted, proudly aloof from the activity around them.

The grandeur of the army overcame all of the chieftains standing on the housetop, and for several minutes, none of them spoke. There was little they could do, for the moment, in any event.

Gultec finally began to see the army, more than twenty thousand strong, in a more practical eye. He alone among the dozen or so chiefs here had fought the invaders already. Gultec felt that he alone possessed a satisfactory respect for their prowess.

But even he had trouble imagining the strangers, numbering perhaps half a thousand, standing against the array of force around him. Forty Payit would attack for every one of the strangers. Surely they would overwhelm and destroy the foe!

True, the attack would be made across the open plain by Caxal's order. Still, Gultec had managed to interject one measure of caution into the plan, if the men of Ulatos had the discipline to obey.

In the leading division of the army, marked clearly by banners of golden feathers, advanced three long columns, each a thousandmen of the city's own guard, men Gultec and Lok had trained for years. Now those men had been given a strange and difficult task.

Their Jaguar and Eagle chiefs had ordered these troops to advance toward the strangers, to make great noise and show, and then to swiftly withdraw when the strangers attacked. The command was exceptionally difficult because the warriors considered such a withdrawal insulting and unwarlike.

Gultec had done his best to insist upon the tactic, for he had placed thousands of slingers and bowmen behind this first rank. He had assuaged the insulted warriors' pride with the promise that, when the missiles had done their work, the men of Ulatos would be the first to meet the enemy in melee.

Now he could only wonder if they would have the discipline to obey.

"They come on quickly in the center, my general," announced the lookout. Cordell saw the advance plainly but did not admonish the man. Better to receive too much information during a battle than too little.

The captain-general had just joined the lookout atop the observation tower his men had constructed during the night. The sturdy square structure, thirty feet high, had been raised so that the general and his officers would have a good view of the flat battlefield.

Darien and the Bishou remained below, together with Cordell's signal officers and their clusters of flags. Now, as the haze lifted, he saw the surge of color opposite his center, like a wave of silk ribbons flickering across the ground.

Arrayed to meet them stood the sword-and- buckler men of Captain Garrant, protecting both flanks. Behind and between the swordsmen, Daggrande's crossbows stood in compact ranks. Other companies of swordsmen and longbows stood farther to each flank. But the five hundred men looked considerably overmatched by the mass of natives across the plain.

Hidden to the rear of the legion, near the base of the square tower, were Cordell's strongest weapons, or so he hoped. Gathered in four wings of ten or twelve riders each, the lancers remained hidden from the enemy in several ravines back from the shore. Each wing could charge into the fray within moments of receiving its order.

But the horses would stay hidden for now. Instead, Cordell would let the native warriors taste the cold death of the legion infantry.

The advance in the center became a charge, great blocks of spearmen and swordsmen each clearly marked by the colorful swath of its headdresses. The native army swept across the plain, thousands of men rushing Garrant's and Daggrande's companies amid a tremendous cacophony of sound.

"Signal the charge… for Garrant and Daggrande only. Now!" Cordell barked. In the next instant, two flagmen raised the pennants of these companies, selecting for each the banner with the bright yellow fringe.

"We'll see what these savages are made of," Cordell said, to no one in particular.

"It's the yellow flag, Captain!"

"Company, advance! On the double!" Daggrande bellowed the command without bothering to check the corporal's observation behind them. He had served with Cordell long enough to have expected the order.

He saw the swordsmen advancing to the right and left. He ordered a dozen men of his company to fall back to each side, providing missile protection for the outside flanks of Captain Garrant's company.

"Tighten up there!" he called as his ranks started to waver. Sergeants growled their way along the line, keeping the crossbowmen advancing in tightly packed straight lines, even at a steady jog. The dwarves, especially, huffed and panted to maintain the pace, but Daggrande knew they would not falter.

The swordsmen on their flanks also remained tightly packed as the natives howled closer and closer. Garrant's men suddenly broke into a run, hoarsely invoking the name of Helm as they charged.

And then, before the two groups could clash, the natives paused. We're breaking them already! Daggrande glimpsed a brief prospect of victory, but immediately discarded it in alarm.

The colorful horde slowed its rush, then stopped altogether, still a hundred paces or more away from the charging swordsmen. They continued to taunt and whistle and clash their weapons against their shields, even as they started to fall back. Then they quickly sprinted away from the armored swordsmen, but Daggrande sensed that these were not troops in terrified retreat.

Indeed, so did Captain Garrant.

"Halt!" Garrant bellowed to his companies as the spearmen drifted away. Most of the swordsmen finally ceased their charge, though a few still lumbered on.

"Stop, you idiots!" The captain finally collected his companies, forming again into tight ranks and falling slowly back around the crossbows.

Suddenly the plain around them swarmed with new troops, warriors who had been lying concealed in the tall grass while the legionnaires charged. These attackers quickly sent a shower of stone-tipped arrows soaring toward the companies. Other natives raced forward, swirling slings and sending heavy stones flying toward the invaders.

"Fire! Reload! Fire at will!" Daggrande bellowed his command and cracked off a bolt into the mass of archers before his troops. He bent to crank another shaft into the weapon as the enemy missiles began to fall.

"I'm hit!"

"Helm's curses, I'm down!"

Men cried out all around Daggrande. Arrows slashed into the legionnaires, but their armor stopped most of the stone heads from penetrating deeply. The stones from the slings were more painful, occasionally crushing a cheekbone or smashing an eye with a blow to the face.

Daggrande's men reloaded their weapons, ignoring the steady barrage of missiles showering around them, and fired another volley into the natives. While the arrows of the Payit inflicted painful wounds, the crossbows of the legionnaires cut a broad swath of death through the ranks of archers. The heavy steel bolts lanced through the quilted cotton armor as if it were not there. Sometimes a bolt passed clear through a victim to inflict further damage beyond.

Still the natives stood firm, firing again and again. The wounds became more severe, and Daggrande saw several of his men fall and lie still, or writhe in excruciating agony. Their own volleys of steel death slashed into the native archers, and hundreds of bodies soon bled their lives onto the field. But always more archers raced forward, more slingers advanced, to step across their fallen comrades and shoot.

"Company, advance! Charge!" Daggrande heard Garrant's command and immediately echoed it with his own. Only by driving these archers back could his own formation retire safely.

The swordsmen rushed forward. The crossbowmen raised their weapons and fired, laboriously reloading as they, too, broke into a run. The name of Helm resounded from every throat.

The archers stood bravely, launching missiles at point-blank range before they died from the swift strikes of Garrant's swordsmen. In scarce moments, the legionnaires had hacked their way through the bowmen and slingers. With still greater shouts to the glory of their god, the two companies of legionnaires rushed toward the bulk of the native army.

Gultec stood amazed at the carnage inflicted upon the archers, at first by the metal darts of the invaders and then by their long silver knives. But now these men had rushed far ahead of their companions. The men of Ulatos stood ready to meet them, javelins and macas poised for combat. The warriors who had performed Gultec's opening feint now closed to crash into the strangers' ranks.

The enemy warriors expanded their line to meet the natives. The men with the metal darts dropped their casters and took up metal daggers, long weapons but not as great as those carried by the men with the metal shields.

But all of those keen weapons cut easily through the armor and skin covering the men of Ulatos. Even Jaguar Knights, protected by hishna, talonmagic armored hides of the great cats, fell easily before the deadly silver blades.

Still, Gultec knew they had to exploit this opportunity, even as the men of Ulatos died to provide it. "Now!" he urged Lok beside him.

The Eagle Knight hesitated for just a moment before nodding. "Now!" he cried, raising his fist. Behind him, his standard-bearer twirled his great feathered symbol. "Send in the Eagles!"

More than two hundred warriors, resplendent in their black-and-white-feathered costumes, capped with the colorful beaked helmets, waited behind the house where the chiefs stood. Now these warriors suddenly wavered and crouched. Their costumes blossomed into true wings and the forceful beat of their power sent miniature whirlwinds through the grass.

The eagles rose into the air, shrieking, their voices harsh and powerful enough to penetrate the din of the battlefield below. Black and white feathers shone gloriously on each of the magnificent birds. Their claws extended, they slowly climbed into the sky. Soaring forward, they passed over the melee raging on the ground. Legionnaire and Payit alike fell back, gasping for breath and watching the graceful formation.

Then the eagles tucked their wings and plummeted earthward, diving toward the bare ground behind Daggrande's and Garrant's companies.

"Time for you to go, my dear," Cordell said quietly. He and Darien stood at the front of the observation tower, watching the approach of the eagles for a moment, seeing them settle toward the earth behind the two companies. The rest of the legion's infantry advanced steadily on each flank, but Daggrande's and Garrant's companies were still far ahead.

The elf woman was completely swathed in her hood and robe to protect her albino skin from the hot sun. Nevertheless, she heard Cordell and nodded.

In the next second, she disappeared from sight, vanishing with a sorcerous suddenness that unnerved the signal officers with Cordell on his battle tower.

Her teleportation spell took her instantly to the ground below the descending eagles. She swiftly looked skyward, squinting against the bright haze that nearly blinded her. Holding up a finger, she pointed at the lowest eagle and barked a harsh command.

A sizzling missile of light bolted from her finger to explode in the breast of the bird. It screeched and tried to arrest its descent, but another blast, and another, sizzled into its bare flesh. With a pathetic flutter, the bird's wings collapsed and it crashed to earth, a shapeless pile of feathers.

Darien turned her attention immediately to another bird, shearing off its wing with several more magic missiles. At the same time, she sensed more of the birds circling behind her.

Wheeling like a swordsman, Darien snatched Icetongue from its sling at her belt. Raising the wand, she uttered the command word, once, twice, and again, moving the wand slightly each time.

At each command, the wand winked its soft, silent attack. A wash of bright, cool light surged outward in a cone from the end of the wand. The frosty blast enshrouded the eagles and killed them with cold, shocking the knights with its supernatural, deadly power.

A half dozen birds fell from the first blast, frozen stiff in the air, with their wings spread and beaks gaping, and then smashed to pieces when they crashed to earth. More died with the second blast. The rest of the eagles shrilled in rage and closed in. More and more of them fell to Icetongue, but now they soared into an enclosing circle, talons extended. They would destroy this alien sorcerer with their god-given bodies, then become humans to strike the enemy soldiers from behind.

Darien abruptly dropped Icetongue, letting the wand swing freely from its thong. She stood straight and still as the ring of eagles soared inward, shrieking.

Then she raised her hands to the sky, and as her hands came up, an orange ring of fire erupted from the ground around her, sheltering Darien inside a circle of deadly heat.

Many of the eagles were too close to avoid the fiery wall. Eager fingers of fire tore feathers from their wings, ripped down from their proud feathered breasts. The eagles fell by the score, scarred and singed and blistered. Many of these were not killed by their wounds, but Darien ignored them, knowing they would be no further threat.

The surviving eagles, less than half the original force, settled somberly to the ground, well away from Darien. She watched them as they blurred and expanded into their human forms, quickly moving to surround her.

Darien took the opportunity to cast a fireball spell, incinerating several more of the warriors. Then, knowing that she had done her job, she teleported back to Cordell's side, leaving the Eagle Knights to close their empty ring.

"Every man must attack! We can hold nothing back!" Gultec was the first to recover his voice after the chiefs had seen the devastation of their proud eagles. Now he leaped from the rooftop to the yard below, brandishing his maca above his head and howling the deep and resonant challenge of the Jaguar Knight.

The other chieftains instantly followed. Standards hastily passed from the rooftops to eager hands. All across the field, the great army of Payit surged forward, following their feathered banners to war.

Gultec raced forward toward the enemy. A red haze fell across his eyes as he pictured the slaughtering done, the slaughtering still to do. His war cries came as inarticulate howls, but they touched a deep and warlike nerve among the warriors. Fresh thousands surged toward the forward companies of the invaders. Many more Payits advanced to engage the white warriors on each flank,

Gultec surged into battle with a sense of euphoric joy. The moment of decision had come, and it was his decision. All around him, the noise and color of his countrymen gave him strength and delight.

The Payits surged around the forward companies now, surrounding them. Gultec felt a warm rush of admiration for the fighting of these soldiers, their tight formations, their weapons of unbelievable might. He would go to them now as a warrior.

His destiny propelled him, told him that this fight would be the climax of his life.

Halloran reached the shelter of the mangaroo swamp just as dawn's light filtered through the overhanging verdure. Still resting on the inflated bladder, he drifted easily along the winding stretches of water, searching.

Soon he found that which he sought: a lone canoe. The vessel floated motionless and empty, tied to a rickety wooden landing, with no one in sight. Hal slipped over the gunwale of the craft and unlashed the twine rope before paddling quickly away.

He saw enough of the sunlight to gauge his directions, working his way to the western fringe of the delta. There his ears confirmed his sense of direction.

The chaos of battle noise in the distance was an unnatural din, beautiful and frightening at the same time. Familiar sounds like the blare of trumpets mingled with the shrill noises of the natives.

The mangaroo passage grew too narrow for the canoe and Halloran climbed out, worming his way toward the battle. Soon the entwining trees parted to reveal the grassy plain. Halloran stayed well back among the trees, for he saw several natives before him, apparently gathered to watch the battle.

He found an unusually stout mangaroo. It was not tall, but he was able to climb to perhaps twice his height.

It was enough to give him a clear view of the carnage.

Daggrande stabbed and slashed, carefully coordinating his movements with the legionnaires on either side. The company fought bravely, but was forced to slowly give ground, forced backward by the tremendous press of bodies. Even should each man slay ten of the enemy, it seemed twenty more would step into the gap.

Now the veteran captain sensed the threat to the flanks of his company as the tremendous numbers of the attackers swept around him to the right and left. He tried to hasten the withdrawal, but dared not move too quickly. He knew, as did all the officers, that it was only their disciplined formation that gave them hope of survival against the mass of enemy warriors.

The prospects of that survival grew more bleak with each passing minute. Brave legionnaires fell to the ground, their bodies dragged down among the ranks of the natives. The withdrawal came to an abrupt halt as the natives swept around the rear to surround Daggrande's and Garrant's companies.

Daggrande thought of his commander in his distant tower. He knew Cordell could see the situation.

Now, my general! thought the dwarf. Now, or it will be too late!

"Now, by Helm!"

Cordell's shout anticipated the dipping banners, the pennants of his lancers, by a split second. The signal flashed as the flags swirled down and up. Trumpets blasted from each of his four wings of horsemen.

The hooves of the chargers pounded the turf as they quickly darted from the ravines. Each wing spread in a line abreast of each other. The general saw Captain Alvarro leading the first wing. Black streamers tied to his helmet clearly marked his position for the rest of the riders. Several lanky greyhounds ran at the heels of the horses, barking excitedly.

Cordell unconsciously held his breath. The extent of the native attack, the organized tactics and huge formations, stunned and awed him. He had grievously underestimated them.

Now he had one attack left. If the lancers failed, the Golden Legion faced imminent destruction.

Gultec found Lok standing quietly in the midst of the melee. The Eagle Knight's feathered armor was singed and bedraggled-looking. He did not seem to be wounded, but he swayed quietly, ignoring the chaos that swirled all around him.

"Are you hurt, my brother?" Gultec asked quietly. The euphoria of his battle joy still wrapped him warmly. He felt it as a tiny bubble of peace around Lok and Gultec. The comradeship warmed Gultec's heart, causing him to confer the respectful title upon Lok.

"I ache for Maztica, brother," whispered the Eagle Warrior softly. "Even as we live, she dies."

"How can you say this?" chided Gultec. "The battle is undecided. Can you not feel the surge of our strength around us?"

The bubble of peace threatened to burst, but Gultec willed it to remain. He tried to focus on the Eagle Warrior and saw that Lok regarded him with something akin to pity.

"Can you not feel the end approaching, my brother?" asked Lok. "Can you not see it coming?" Lok's eyes wandered slowly away. The Eagle Warrior slowly slumped to the ground.

And then Gultec saw the substance of Lok's vision.

The monsters came rushing through the dust of the battlefield. They were huge beasts, big and brown, with snorting nostrils. Their feet crushed the ground to dust below them, and the sound of their approach was like thunder.

The monsters advanced in a line, as if the creatures had the minds of soldiers. Indeed, as they closed, Gultec saw that the beasts had the upper torsos of men, complete with arms and heads and weapons. But their lower bodies were grotesque, bearing a resemblance to deer, only much more massive, a thousand times more terrifying. Deer were passive and timid creatures, but these beasts bellowed and snorted and chomped. Flecks of foam covered their mouths, and lather spattered from their flanks.

Behind these giant things came smaller monsters, with wide, drooling jaws and long pointed teeth. Their tongues dangled, spattering foam. Heavy collars, bristling with spikes, protected their necks. They looked like huge coyotes, impossibly savage and fierce.

The monsters crashed into the Payit, into those warriors who had not turned and fled at their first appearance. Gultec saw the head sail from a spearmen. He saw one of the monsters drive a long spear through the body of another Payit. Still a third went down screaming and kicking beneath the plunging feet of one of the creatures.

Gultec stood and watched, his euphoria a distant memory. The sight of the beasts was so horrid, so shocking, that he could not raise a weapon to defend himself, nor turn away to run. He could only watch as his destiny, the triumph of his life, fell to shambles around him.

Somehow the monsters did not destroy him, passing instead around him and killing most of the warriors in their path. The Jaguar Knight watched the monsters wheel, even at considerable speed maneuvering like disciplined warriors. He saw one who seemed to be their leader, lumbering forward with black streamers trailing from his helmet. The face of this monster, a humanlike face, was contorted into a grimace of truly hellish cruelty.

The beasts rode forward and cut down a fresh band of warriors, plowing into a full thousand with crushing force. The warriors swarmed around, some of them attacking bravely, but the monsters kicked and leaped and whirled, soon breaking free to continue their rampage.

Gultec saw other bands of the monsters. The beasts roamed the battlefield at will, the thunder of their feet beating the death knell of the Payit. Back and forth they charged, and none could stand before them. The entire army began to melt away, warriors fleeing toward their homes or kneeling to tend wounded comrades, their weapons forgotten.

But the monstrous attackers did not forget. Gultec saw them riding to the far fringes of the field, still slaying, even though there was no semblance of resistance anymore. The members of the Payit army simply wanted to escape.

Gultec did not think that any of them would succeed.

Erix stood with the old people near the fringe of the delta. All morning the battle had been a scene of immense confusion, noise, and color in various patterns of chaos. The bystanders had been unable to tell how matters progressed.

Erix sensed the approach of disaster before most of the others. She felt a vague premonition, like a primeval warning, and moved back several hundred feet until she was close to the mangaroo tangle of the delta.

Then the monsters had come.

Erix moaned with horror and fell to the ground, paralyzed by fear, as were many of the other observers. This paralysis meant death in most cases, as the beasts with their humanlike cunning and cruelty, their supernatural speed and power, raced among the Payit and butchered the warriors and the helpless watchers alike.

The sight of the massacre sickened and numbed her. She saw a small child torn from its mother's arms, killed on lance point before the woman was trampled under, the flashing hooves of the monster. She watched an old man standing valiantly before his gray-headed wife, and saw the creatures thunder past, clubbing the husband to earth and laughing as the old woman knelt to hold her dying mate.

She watched spellbound from her knees as the monsters swept closer. Their leader, a great, red-bearded manlike form with wild, flaming eyes and black streamers trailing from his helmet, saw her crouching. The light flared in his eyes, and his lance tip lowered. The monster lumbered toward her, and she saw her death approaching. At its heels raced a smaller, shaggier creature, slavering and yowling.

Erixitl faced the charging rider, wishing she could slay him with her eyes. She could not, so instead she calmly climbed to her feet before his charge. Around her lay the battered and bleeding wreckage of Maztica. She sensed her world ending, saw it writhing in torment everywhere.

It seemed a good day to die.