Ironhelm

LANDFALL

Fortieth day, aboard the Falcon

The fifteen ships stand away from shore, behind the protection of a small reef. A fair westerly wind comes from the tropical landmass, but any hard blow from the east will scatter the ships along the beach like matchsticks.

I will take that risk to plant my banner on this, the first western shore to greet us.

"In the name of Helm the Vigilant, Ever Watchful Sentinel and Protector of the Golden Legion, I claim these lands!" The golden pennant snapped straight in the steady breeze, its eagle emblem flapping its wings as the fabric fluttered. The eye emblazoned in the eagle's breast, the symbol of Helm, now seemed to stare perpetually, even as the pennant flapped in the wind.

The captain-general planted the staff of the pennant deep into the sandy shore, surrounded by threescore of his men, with the Bishou, Darien, and Kardann, the Grand Assessor, at his side. The Bishou's daughter stood near the shore, watching several men fill water barrels from the clear stream. Five longboats, transportation for the shore party, rested high on the beach.

Halloran and several other handpicked warriors stood watch over the periphery of the gathering as Kardann began to speak, enumerating the shares of ownership: profits from the venture to be divided among the merchant princes of Amn and the legion itself.

Hal peered curiously into the dense tropical growth pressing close to the beach. The big greyhound, Corporal, paced at his side, surprising him with his obedience.

Looking at the forest again, Halloran had the odd feeling that the jungle watched him in return. Behind him, Cordell went on to define the boundaries of his new domain, a region beginning here and extending an imprecise but extensive distance to the west.

"Hello." The voice behind Halloran fell like tinkling music on his ears; at the same time, his heart leaped into his throat and stayed there. Martine! She talked to him!

"Uh…" He turned to face her, feeling his face flush. "I'm Halloran! And you're Martine!"

She laughed, easing his nervousness a bit. "And this is a paradise, don't you think?" She gestured excitedly along the length of the verdant shore.

"Yes, that is, uh, yes… yes, it is!" He nodded foolishly, and again she laughed. Hal thought that perhaps he had never heard a lovelier sound.

"I've heard of you, you know," said the cleric's daughter, with a coy look. "The general thinks very highly of you, the way your charge broke Akbet-Khrul."

Hal stammered some kind of acknowledgment, too thrilled for articulate speech. He could scarcely believe his ears, and his luck! Here was the woman he had admired over the entire voyage, the one eligible woman on an expedition of hundreds of men — Darien, of course, didn't count — and she was talking to him!

"I'd like to walk down the beach. Will you come with me?"

Never had Hal felt so masculine, so romantic. Neither had he ever felt so shackled, nor so frustrated by the responsibilities of soldierhood.

"I'd — I'd like to," he groaned miserably. "But I have to stand guard here at the — What's that?" He squinted at the brush as he saw a large figure moving there. Martine, rebuffed, turned away and then froze as her eyes settled upon the jungle.

Corporal barked a gruff warning, and several other greyhounds joined in. All eyes turned toward the jungle as the hesitant figures came into view.

The creatures emerging from the jungle were humans, perhaps two dozen in number. They had thick black hair and skin of a deep, slightly coppery brown. They were naked but for tattered loincloths, and carried nothing resembling weapons. Several carried large gourds or bundles wrapped in leaves.

Halloran stepped in front of Martine, his sword in his hand. However, he saw no threat in the appearance of these people. He sensed that they came in peace, but he would remain vigilant.

"What pathetic savages!" said Martine softly. Halloran had to agree with her assessment.

Cordell had expected the spice lords of the Orient to greet them. Thus the captain-General, too, was sorely disappointed at seeing these primitive people. The first encounter with Kara-Tur was not proving auspicious.

One native, taller than the others but still a full head shorter than Cordell, advanced toward the party on the beach. The general watched him, not concealing the disappointment on his face. Finally he and Darien stepped forward to meet him. The jungle dweller bowed, and Cordell calmly acknowledged the gesture. The native suddenly jabbered something in an unintelligible tongue.

Then Darien stepped forward, quietly speaking a quick enchantment. She spoke to the chieftain in the same language, and the man immediately started talking to her, gesturing around them, often pointing to the vessels anchored offshore.

Several of the other natives, all of whom were male, moved closer to Halloran and Martine. The pair looked curiously at their flat faces and broad noses. Each of the men had a sharp stick driven crossways through his nose, extending several inches to the right and left of his face.

One stepped hesitantly toward Halloran, Martine, and several other legionnaires nearby. He bowed deeply and often before extending the gourd in his hand toward them.

Hal took it, feeling the liquid swish inside of it. Another tentatively extended a bundle of leaves, and they saw that it contained an assortment of lush fruits.

And then Hal's attention fell on the man's necklace, and his heart pounded with excitement. He felt Martine gasp beside him, thrilled to the touch of her hand as she took his arm.

"They look so poor, so miserable," Halloran whispered.

"But they're not, are they?" Martine's voice was also hushed as they both observed the band of natives. "I think the expedition is a success."

Suspended from the necklace of this native, and also several others nearby, swung a crude ornament of pure, heavy gold.

Erix awakened with a pounding headache, and for a long time, she could not remember where she was or how she had come to be there. She remembered that something was wrong, but what had happened?

Darkness surrounded her, and the air smelled of masonry. The stone floor had no reed mat nor straw pallet, accustomed amenities for even the lowliest of slaves. Erix couldn't tell whether it was day or night.

She remembered more, but her mind seemed to go backward. She pictured her family's cottage in Palul, she saw her father's face. With a gasp, she reached for her neck, then sighed with relief as she found her feather token still suspended there, her only remaining link to that distant era.

The picture of a Jaguar Knight snatching her from Palul came into her mind, and then she remembered Kultaka, where she had known Huakal's gentle mastership, Callatl's brutality. With a low moan, she sat up as the rest of the pieces fell into place: her purchase by Kachin, the journey to Payit.

Her head throbbed with agony as she remembered the eager grimaces of the Jaguar Knights who had intruded into her bath. Had they hurt Chicha? she wondered, desperately hoping the girl was all right. Why did they want Erix, anyway? And where was she?

Erixitl almost sobbed in despair. Her entire life had been spent following the dictates of authority. Since childhood, she had been subject to masters who had claimed her by force, or who had purchased her from her captors. Even the feather-lined comfort of her journey to Ulatos was in reality simply a softer form of bondage.

The dingy cell around her indicated that she had now been taken by harsher masters. In fact, the lack of comforts suggested strongly that she was not intended for slavery but for sacrifice. She knew that victims who might be expected to resist the Flowered Altar were often imprisoned in bleak cells until the moment of ceremony that would end the prisoner's life.

Strangely, the thought of dying on the altar did not particularly terrify her — at least, no more than had her sale to Kachin or her battle with Callatl. Instead, she began to grow angry, and as her anger grew, it turned into a fiery resentment against the fates that had swept her along for so much of her life.

"No!" She surprised herself with her vehemence.

Feeling groggy, ignoring the pain in her skull, she stumbled to her feet and leaned against the stone wall of her enclosure. She took a step and felt another wall before her, quickly ascertaining that her cell was a square about three paces on a side. She felt a low wooden door in one wall.

They will not have me! Her anger burned with steadily increasing fury, until her body began to tremble. She pushed away from the wall, growing stronger, and turned to face the door. Sooner or later, she knew, they would open that door for her.

And when they did, she would attack.

"I don't like it! I just don't like it, not one bit!" Mixtal, priest of Zaltec, wrung his hands and nervously bit his lip. He took handfuls of cold ashes and smeared them across his face and arms, habitually covering himself in a manner befitting a high priest of the war god.

"Be quiet!"

Gultec's voice came out a rumbling snarl. The Jaguar Knight reclined on a bench and glared contemptuously at the cleric through the jaws of his spotted armor. "Who are you to question the will of the Ancient Ones? Even I know that when your god and his counselors make a Sending, the likes of you and I had best obey!"

The two men conversed in the courtyard before their apartments, where they had been observing the night sky over Ulatos. Behind them rose a small pyramid, not far from the looming bulk that was the Pyramid of Qotal.

"But our Temple of Zaltec here in Payit is not the esteemed institution that it is in Nexal! Hoxitl must know that, but he fears to tell the Ancient Ones! I don't like it!" Mixtal raised his hands to his scalp, tearing at the blood-caked spikes of his hair.

"The sign of the Viperhand is the ultimate command," Gultec reminded the priest. "And it is granted to the patriarch of Zaltec in Nexal, not Payit. The order is Hoxitl's to give and yours to obey.

"Just be thankful we shall accomplish our task with little further difficulty," growled the warrior. In truth, the priest's anxieties made him nervous.

"And we had to take her from the temple apartments!" Mixtal wailed. "It's not like Nexal, where Qotal is a silent, forgotten god! Oh, no, not here! They worship the Plumed Father here in Payit! And they will not overlook a transgression such as this!" The priest whirled anxiously, then continued.

"Caxal will not protect us. Even he, ruler of all the Payit, fears to challenge the power of Kachin's temple!" Indeed, Caxal, Revered Counselor of the city of Ulatos, never interfered in the workings of the temples. The Jaguar Knights, headed by Gultec, formed the largest and most influential group in the city, and their might was all that kept the temples of Zaltec from banishment.

"What would you have us do?" Gultec sprang to his feet in one fluid motion, towering over the trembling cleric. "Send her back? Ignore the ones who are your masters… and mine?"

"How many days?" The cleric looked at the stars once again, groaning.

"One Tenday, as I told you! We hide the girl till then — the night of the new moon. Your knife will do the rest." The Jaguar Knight took a silent step away from the cleric, his spotted cloak blending into the darkness.

"I just don't like it!" the cleric hissed behind him, but Gultec had already vanished.

Seventh day following landfall, aboard the Falcon.

Each day brings new islands, more information, greater boundaries to these undiscovered realms. Darien speaks to these natives, and always we learn of still greater lands to the west.

I begin to suspect we have come not to Shou Lung, nor even its peripheries. Instead, we have discovered new lands, entirely unknown to East or West — lands claimed in the name of the Golden Legion!

And they are lands of richness! Our casks brim with fresh water, our holds bulge with salted game and many fruits and vegetables. Chief among these is a grain the natives call mayz, which seems to grow in great abundance.

But more than food and water, these are lands of gold. We have stopped at four islands, and each time were met by bands of native humans. Each gave us presents of food and gold, and we saw that the farther we traveled west, the greater the abundance of gold.

The villages of these island peoples are poor, but all of them tell us, through Darien, of great lands to the west, a "world that climbs into the sky." That can only mean mountains, and a mainland.

And the source of the gold.

Halloran stood at the base of the waterfall, letting the spray cool him. He faced away from the deep lagoon where the fleet had at last gained a sheltered anchorage, looking up at the staircase progression of cataracts emerging from inland heights. Impenetrable tropical plant life surrounded the stream before him, but a stretch of lush grasses backed the beach to either side.

"Nice scenery. Still, just an island," muttered Daggrande, joining Hal at the sandy streambank. The dwarf pulled his dagger from its sheath and clucked in alarm, flicking several grains of sand from the blade. "I won't be happy till we set foot on the mainland!"

"You won't ever be happy. Still, how do you know it's just an island? The scouting ships have only been out for one day."

"I can feel it in these old feet of mine."

The dwarves, in their ancient, deliberate manner, had a way of understanding things about the earth that superseded the senses of humans. Halloran believed the veteran campaigner.

They looked up the beach to the center of its arc around the cove, where Cordell, Darien, and the Bishou engaged in negotiations with a contingent of the local natives.

Here, for the first time, the delegation had included women. Now a dozen maidens stood quietly to the side as their chieftains spoke to the visitors.

"Here comes the Bishou's daughter," humphed the dwarf. "Be careful. I think she's got her eye on you."

Halloran flushed. "Don't be ridiculous!" But he wondered, hoping that Daggrande could be right. Though he had only spoken to her briefly at their various landings, she always appeared happy to see him.

Daggrande clumped away to save himself the embarrassment of speaking to the woman.

"Hello!" Martine greeted Hal cheerfully, casting an amused glance after the departing dwarf. "Perhaps we can go for that walk now."

"Of course." Halloran offered his arm, delighting in the touch of her hand. He picked his way across the shallow stream, helping her maintain her balance, though she seemed in no danger of falling.

"It's so beautiful!" She gestured at the waterfall and the lush highlands beyond. "Each shore seems more wonderful than the last!"

"I wonder at the people," mused Hal. "Such barbarians!"

"Oh, Papa thinks they're wonderful. They listen to everything he tells them about Helm. Of course, they've never heard of him before. They don't seem to know about any gods, these people, but the Bishou thinks he's converting them all!"

"Still, don't you wonder if there's more to them than what we've seen?"

She laughed again, and again he loved the sound. "Oh, I don't know. I don't really think about it. It's fun to see each new place. Don't be so serious!"

"All right." He nodded, wanting to please her.

They walked for a while down the beach, past groups of sailors and soldiers from the legion relaxing on the shore. All the men had gotten to debark at least once thus far, and more than half of them were ashore now.

Halloran looked at the forest that marked the boundary of the beach. From the sea, they had seen a steadily rising slope, leading to some moderate crests a few miles inland. Where he stood now, he could see only the trees before him, since their height concealed the rising ground beyond.

Martine exclaimed over this blossom or that brilliantly plumed bird, while the horseman wondered what lay beyond that jungle facade. What was this place really like?

"We'd better not go too far," he cautioned, realizing they had walked past the last group of men on the beach.

"Oh, stop worrying! I'd like to be someplace for once where there aren't hundreds of sweaty men around me!"

"But…" Halloran paused in total confusion. He would do anything to please her, and indeed her desires coincided deeply with his own. But the Bishou's dour and protective nature was well known, and Domincus could scarcely fail to observe their departure. Hal shuddered at the thought of his wrath.

A thunderous explosion of sound blasted from the jungle, striking them like a blast of air and driving Halloran to his knees. Like the roar of a great cat, amplified to an earth-shattering level, the bellow was strong enough, and startling enough, to knock Martine flat onto her back behind Hal. In an instant, he staggered to his feet, his sword drawn.

A creature of nightmarish appearance leaped from the jungle, pouncing to the sand ten paces before the man. Halloran saw a great black mane surrounding a feline face contorted by a hateful snarl. A pair of leathery wings flapped from the creature's shoulders, sending clouds of sand swirling into the air. A black-tufted tail lashed back and forth as the beast, larger than a horse, crouched, preparing to spring.

Martine's lips moved, but she lay immobile on the sand. She may have spoken, but Hal realized that he could hear nothing. The roar had deafened him.

Halloran stumbled unsteadily, lurching to Martine's side, crouching defensively to protect her from Ihe cruel jaws and raking talons. The monsler leaped, and Halloran brought his sword down in an overhand blow, striking the thing's brutish forehead.

He felt claws tear into his rib cage at the same time as his blade contacted hard bone. Hal fell backward, still in front of Martine, while the crealure uttered a short, surprised screech, stopping in its tracks and shaking its head.

Instantly Hal leaped to his feet, ignoring the burning pain and free flow of blood along his side. The snarling feline face was marred by a long cut, but once again the beast growled and crept forward. Halloran knew he could not stop it a second time.

Suddenly he saw one, then several heavy bolts appear in Ihe monster's flank. Crossbow quarrels! Some of Daggrande's men had seen them! The creature whirled and snapped at the missiles, so Halloran thrust at its other flank, driving his steel blade deep into its flesh. A band of swordsmen sprinted toward them, lumbering in the soft sand.

The monster uttered another horrible roar, directed up the beach. Halloran watched in astonishment as several of the running swordsmen stumbled and fell, apparently stunned by the roar. Before the others could close, the monster sprang back toward the shelter of the forest. Its short wings greatly speeded its flight, and in moments it had disappeared into the trees.

"Are — are you all right?" Hal asked, anxiously helping Martine to her feet. His voice sounded hollow in his skull, but it seemed that his hearing was gradually returning.

"Yes… but you're hurt." She looked at his chest with genuine concern. "You saved my life!"

Halloran felt a delayed reaction to the sudden deadly combat. His knees shook and his muscles felt drained. He did not resist as she lifted his arm over her shoulder and supported him, aided by several men who only now arrived on the scene.

"Get the Bishou!" she shouted, and one of the men turned to obey. Hal had visions of his last rites, his soul delivered to Helm on a silver platter.

They soon reached the main gathering, and the brown-robed Bishou Domincus came striding forward to greet them. From the glowering look on his features, Hal felt certain the cleric did indeed want to send his soul Helmward.

"Help him, Father! He saved my life! The creature… it was horrible! I don't know what it was!" Martine's words spilled forth in an excited jumble.

"'Hakuna', the chief called it." Hal blinked and saw Cordell standing beside the Bishou. The captain-general's face was slightly amused, not displeased. "That was well done. Captain!" Despite Hal's pain, the commander's words sent a thrill of pride to the core of his being. He smiled weakly as Martine helped him to lie upon the beach. The Bishou, still glaring, knell beside him.

"Helm deliver this warrior from his wounds." Domincus closed his eyes and chanted. "He fought bravely and truly in your name. Grant me the power to close his flesh, that he may strive further in your valorous cause!"

Halloran felt his pain flow from his body as if the dam restraining it had been breached. His arm, hanging limply before, suddenly became strong, and he struggled to rise.

"Rest here," said Martine quietly. "Don't get up yet." Her voice was so soothing, the sand and the sun so pleasant, that Hal had no difficulty obeying. She rested her hand upon his forehead, and it seemed as though cool water washed over him. In moments, he slept.

It was late afternoon before he was awakened by Daggrande. "Last boat to the Osprey. Unless you want to wait here and dance with that hakuna again tonight, that is."

Hal sprang to his feet, feeling remarkably spry. "Are we moving on?"

"Aye. The scout ships returned. This is an island, like I said. But now we hear tales of real mountains and a huge land that these folks get to by canoe. I think our next landfall will be the mainland."

"Splendid!"

"That's not all. We hear they have a real city there… and a pile of gold big enough to blind you in bright sunlight!"

Halloran saw several of the native girls being lifted into longboats, most of which had already been taken back to the ships. Some distance away, Martine and the Bishou were locked in a heated conversation, but he could not hear what they said. The daughter gestured angrily, and the father turned sourly away.

As Hal and Daggrande reached the Ospreys boat, Martine called to the cavalryman. He paused on the beach as Daggrande impatiently waited in the boat.

"I'm coming with you," said the woman. He saw a look of unfamiliar determination on her face.

"Of course." Halloran was delighted by the news, mostly. "But what about your father? Doesn't he want you aboard the Falcon?"

"Hmph!" She flounced past him and turned to look at the Bishou. He was aiding several native girls into another longboat. "Father seems to have been given a 'gift.'" Martine gestured at a dusky maiden. "A slave!"

Halloran looked in surprise, guessing that all twelve of the girls had been distributed among the other captains and influential officers of the fleet, as Martine continued. "I told him that he should set her free! Helm does not sanction slavery! But he made all sorts of stuttering noises — 'It would be an insult to her people,' and such!"

She cast an angry look back toward the cleric, and Halloran felt very glad that he was not the target of such scalding rage. Yet he didn't know what to say to her as she looked back at him, her eyes still flashing.

"I think he likes having a pretty young slave! And so I toid him I would not ride on the same ship with her," she snapped. "And here I am!"

"Won't you join us, then?" said Halloran weakly.

"Send for my luggage — tonight, please," Martine continued, scarcely missing a beat.

Halloran nodded, stunned by this abrupt assault and uneasy about its possible consequences.