The Jaguar Knights

by Dave Duncan

  Yes, she was dangerous. She was deadly. She had guessed that Wolf was lying and dared not face the Serpent’s Eye.

  “How long has she been like this?”

  Lynx said, “She has some lucid moments.”

  “Maybe we should call for the Serpent’s Eye for you, Amy Sprat, and get the truth about the baby.”

  “Yes, let’s!” she said, but her neck muscles were tense. She was lying, too, somehow, at least slightly.

  Maybe they all were.

  “Brother?” he said.

  “I didn’t kill it,” Lynx said. “The King had made it quite clear that he wanted no royal bastards running around. They endanger the realm. They get used by unscrupulous people. He promised me Celeste would be released if the child was born dead.”

  “You trusted Athelgar?” Wolf said. “How could you be so stupid? Oh, that was really stupid!”

  “But we had no choice, did we? I found a good home for it…him. I had a wet nurse waiting. She knew that.”

  “I know what you said!” Celeste snapped. “But then you told me he had died. When Athelgar went back on his word, you wouldn’t give me back my child!”

  “Of course not!” Lynx said. “That would have been admitting to conspiracy. In ten minutes the old Baron would have been high-tailing back to Grandon babbling about treason.”

  Watched by the healers and grandiose Raging-stone, four slaves were lifting Dolores on her mat, to lay her on a litter they had brought. Wolf should be providing comfort and support, not engaged in this absurd quarrel.

  “Oh, so now you tell me he’s alive?” Celeste said, baring her teeth. “He’s been dead for years and now he’s alive. I want my son! Where is he?”

  “You don’t need to know.”

  “Eater of stars Amaranth-talon is waiting, speaker for kings,” Raging-stone announced.

  “We’ll be ready very soon,” Wolf said, “Is the child still alive?”

  “A year and a half ago he was,” Lynx said.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Edwin.”

  “I’m flattered.”

  “Her idea.”

  “And there’s no doubt it’s the same boy and he’s Athelgar’s get?”

  “I’ve watched him grow. Every year I delivered money for his board. His hair’s as red as any I’ve seen.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “Brackyan. Remember it?”

  “Brackyan!” Celeste practically spat. “A king’s son there?” Brackyan was another mining hamlet, not far from Sheese and its equal in squalor.

  The slaves had raised the stretcher and were carrying Dolores toward the stair. One torch-bearer remained, fidgeting. It was time to go.

  “I know Brackyan,” Wolf said. “It is no fit abode for a king’s son. How can I know him? Who fosters him?”

  Lynx chuckled. “Cob Sprat, her brother. He doesn’t know Edwin’s his nephew, though. The boy limps, has a twisted foot. The right one.”

  Drums throbbed in the sultry night. Torchlight danced.

  “Should be able to find him,” Wolf said. He braced himself to take hold of Celeste’s arms, which was like embracing lightning. “Do you want him sent here to you, Amy?”

  She hesitated, then shook her head. She was a slave in an embattled city. What future for her son here? All these years she must have been at least half convinced that the baby was dead. She didn’t know what she wanted.

  Wolf said, “Will you take my word for it that I’ll find him a good home and see he is raised as a gentleman? I can, now. Two-swans-dancing made me a wealthy man tonight.”

  She studied him with those huge green eyes that he knew so well from so long ago. Every gold fleck in them he knew. “Will you tell him who his parents are?”

  “Of course not. But I’ll see he is educated and taught gentle manners.”

  “You will adopt him as your own son!”

  Now, there would be irony! “If you insist.” He had no time to bargain.

  “You swear?”

  Wolf nodded. “I swear. I swear I will do the best for him I possibly can. I will never hold his father against him.”

  Still she hesitated, but no man could tell when Amy Celeste Sprat was being real and when she was acting. “Kiss me, Ed.”

  “For Edwin,” he said, and kissed her. Even after all the years, he knew the taste of her and the warmth of her breast in his hand. It was an incredible kiss; he let it persist as long as she wanted. They were both burning when it ended; she buried her face in his shoulder.

  “Spirits!” she muttered. “We should have stayed in Sheese, you and me.”

  “Maybe we should have.” He broke free. “I’ll look after Edwin, I promise. Goodbye, Amy. Good chance.” He set off toward the stair, the torchbearer at his side.

  “Lucky man,” Lynx said at his back. “I do miss kissing.”

  “So does she.” Wolf sighed. “Were you telling the truth about the brat?”

  Lynx chuckled. “Surprisingly, I was. Were you?”

  6

  Glimmering like mist in the starlight, the great masonry pyramid tapered upward into the night. Flames streamed from two great fires on the summit, where the drums now beat the double rhythm of a giant heart: Boom-BOOM! Boom—BOOM! Many people had gathered at the base of the pyramid steps, the low rumble of male voices like surf on distant reefs, wafted by flower-scented trade winds. There was a dreamlike quality to any big crowd in darkness, but Wolf had never felt that unreality as strongly as then. He saw a few Jaguar and Eagle heads towering above the others; he saw feather-decked warriors and slaves holding flaming torches, and a group of blackened acolytes went by him, trailing an unbearable stench.

  Boom—BOOM!

  He squeezed between guards and bearers standing around the litter and knelt to speak to Dolores. She opened her eyes and smiled briefly, but soon drifted off to sleep again. He hoped that was a good sign, meaning she was not in pain. Three of the healer women were in attendance, and nobody seemed to know what everybody was waiting for.

  Lynx said, “If you’re doing favors for Celeste and people, will you do one for me?”

  Wolf stood up. “Of course. What?”

  Night-fisher offered him a sheathed sword. Boom-BOOM!

  “I can’t wield her anymore,” Lynx said. “I can never come home. When the city falls, I will die with it.” Boom-BOOM!

  “I’ve told you! The city is not going to fall. I’m going to send weapons and horses to save it for you.”

  “Awoull! Really?”

  “Of course.” In that sticky-hot tropical night, Wolf’s body betrayed him and shivered as if he were cold.

  Lynx purred a sort of chuckle. “I know you will do your duty as you see it, Wolfie. You always have. Even if you do save Tlixilia, the other pussycats won’t tolerate me for long. Take Ratter, please.”

  Wolf said, “If you insist. I’ll see she goes to the sky of swords—but not until I’m sure it’s time.”

  “I’ll write you as soon as I’m dead.”

  Wolf tucked the sword in under the blankets and warm garments that had been piled on the litter at Dolores’s feet. She did not waken. As he straightened up he became aware of a new sound, a low moaning, a lament like wind in a forest. A long line of torches was emerging from the darkness. The leaders were armed men, men with torches, men with flutes, but behind them followed a line of prisoners, all naked, all tethered by the neck to a very long rope. Some staggered, some shuffled, and a few tried to march with their heads up. Some were moaning, while others sang softly or sobbed or just mumbled to themselves—the noise he had heard was the sound of the entire coffle, a weeping snake of doomed humanity. Guards walked alongside, carrying canes and torches. Any misbehavior earned a blow.

  They went by from left to right and joined a score or so other prisoners sitting on the ground. As they sat down, slaves moved among them, untying and coiling the tether. But the vague wind sound continued, and to leftward the lights were still coming, flickerin
g between the trees. How many?

  Horror, most horrible!

  “Lynx? These aren’t all for…they’re not just for us, are they?”

  Lynx stroked his whiskers with a giant paw. “Who else?”

  “How many sacrifices does an Eagle need to send four people to Chivial?”

  “Hundreds.”

  Boom-BOOM! Boom-BOOM!

  No! Wolf had not dreamed of massacre on that scale. A man might rationalize a few deaths because this was war and he was playing for great stakes and trying to save his wife’s life. But hundreds?

  “You never told me!”

  Dolores was dying…

  Lynx shrugged human shoulders. “Maybe thousands.”

  “All the times we talked about transporting weapons, you never once told us they sacrificed men on that scale!”

  “It isn’t exactly a pleasant topic of conversation,” the cat-man said wryly. “I’m sorry if you bit off more than your conscience can chew, but it’s too late to back out now, Wolfie-my-lad. Much too late. You shook hands with the Conch-flute.”

  Were two murders worse than one? Were nine hundred worse than nine? Why should the King’s Killer—after offing an inquisitor, eight brother Blades, and possibly a stepfather, not to mention many traitors he had helped send to the scaffold—why should he trouble his soul over anonymous prisoners of war in what would shortly be a very distant country? Why did he feel a need to vomit?

  Jorge had arrived, hobbling on his crutch, and now his harsh voice broke into the conversation. “You think we Distliards are driven by nothing but greed, Chivian? You think only love of gold makes King Diego squander his army’s blood? We fight to end this atrocity!”

  “Do you?” Wolf snapped. “But you use it. Your allies have eagle and jaguar knights. Your hands are bloody too.”

  “We use it so we can stop it!”

  “Oh, isn’t that a sweet rationalization!” But Wolf was doing exactly the same thing himself. And how could he not? Dolores was about to die. The torches in the night, the drums, wailing horns, the stench of men and fear…none of those mattered when Dolores was dying. He just did not know how to put that into words, though. Her life against how many?

  All right! He was not doing it for Dolores. He was doing it for duty. Was that better?

  Boom-BOOM! Boom-BOOM!

  “It’s not quite as bad as it seems,” Lynx said. “They don’t know what’s going on. They’re drugged stupid with peyote and other stuff. And they’re all doomed anyway. If they don’t die tonight for you, then they will soon, for some other purpose. And it’s funny—if you threw open the gates a lot of them would refuse to leave. The Distlish would, of course, but not the naturales. It’s an honor.”

  “Oh, thanks!” Wolf found little comfort in that. To learn that there might be Euranians among the prisoners should not make things worse, and yet it did. It was one more horror to deny. He jumped at the inhuman screech behind him.

  “We are ready!”

  He looked around and then up, up to the great cruel beak and ruthless eyes of an Eagle.

  “So are we, lord.”

  “This is the sun-grazing Amaranth-talon,” Lynx said.

  The Eagle ignored him. “You would go to the beach, or the tower?”

  “The tower, please.”

  “You will not interrupt the ritual.”

  Wolf said, “No, lord.”

  “It would be dangerous and give offense.”

  “We shall do as my lord bids.” To interrupt an incantation could be disastrous even in Chivial, where the spirits were confined in an octogram.

  The Eagle vanished like a bubble.

  Boom-BOOM! Boom-BOOM! Boom-BOOM! The great heart beat faster.

  Raging-stone, taker of seven captives, started barking commands. The bearers raised the litter. It was time to go. Wolf turned to say farewell to Lynx, who dropped his heels to make himself human height, and gave him a rib-bending embrace. He smelled of tomcat.

  “Try not to watch,” he said quietly, furry cheek against Wolf’s ear. “It is horrible, but remember the victims don’t know what’s happening.”

  That was an admission of guilt.

  “Thank you for that,” Wolf said. “Good chance, little brother. If you ever get the opportunity, do give Celeste my love as well as your own.”

  Lynx purred a laugh. “That will be the day.”

  Wolf had never imagined so terrible a parting, in so terrible a place. He turned away with a pain in his throat, to find that he could not leave yet, his way was blocked. Raging-stone’s men were trying to clear a passage through the endless line of victims shuffling past between them and the staircase. The soldiers cut the tether. The dazed and drugged prisoners ahead continued on their way without noticing, but those behind had to be halted forcibly, so the line bunched up in sheeplike confusion. There was much shouting and cursing, and the guards spread their spears like rails to make a barricade.

  Then Dolores’s litter could go through. Wolf and the warriors followed, and began to mount the great staircase.

  7

  The stair was very long, perilously steep, caked with old blood. Up ahead, the bearers carrying Dolores mounted sideways, two at each end of the stretcher, with the rear two having to hold their side head-high. Wolf hurried as much as he dared, trying not to imagine what would happen if they dropped the litter, or even if he stumbled. The drums grew louder. The steps reeked like an abattoir. Pale smoke from the braziers drifted overhead, sparkling with its own red stars. His head began to ache as he approached the center of spirituality.

  When he drew his breath of relief on reaching the summit safely, he was facing the blackened altar stone, the heart of evil, flanked by two great braziers. His forehead ached, but not as badly as it had in the Forge at Ironhall—so far. Many black acolytes, busy as ants, were loading wood into the fires, and two were playing drums. He saw other drums and conches not yet in use, and dozens of flint knives set out on a stone table. How many other pyramids would he see from here if he came in daylight? How many tens of thousands died here every year? The city was dark and mysterious, seeming very far below, hardly a light showing. The slaves carried the litter around one of the braziers and set it down some way back from the altar; then they were herded away by a couple of acolytes.

  Wolf knelt beside the litter. “We’re on our way home, love.”

  Dolores was just conscious enough to ask, “How many…sacrifices?”

  “I don’t know. Lynx says they’d all die anyway, very soon.” He must rationalize this atrocity somehow or he would go mad.

  She pulled a face. The eagle knight appeared, plumage shining metallic green in the firelight. He took up position between them and the altar, fortunately blocking all Dolores’s view of it and most of Wolf’s also. More drums and a conch were joining in the music, if that was what it was. The four slaves who had carried the litter were drinking something, with acolytes fussing around them.

  She smiled with bloodless lips. “So that was the famous Celeste?”

  “You see why Athelgar was smitten?”

  “What happens about her child?” Her voice was so soft he could barely hear it.

  “I promised we’ll adopt him. You don’t mind, do you?”

  “It won’t matter what I…” She screwed up her face for a moment. When the spasm passed, she said, “I don’t mind.” Later she said, “I’ll make this one a girl, then, all right?”

  He laughed and kissed her. “Anything except kittens! Did you know before the healer told you?”

  She shook her head, then murmured, “I wondered.” She was drifting into sleep or coma, and the next few things she tried to say were inaudible under the thundering drums, the scream of conches, acolytes wailing incantations. Wolf remained kneeling by the stretcher and kept his face turned away from the altar stone, watching Dolores, or the lake, or anywhere. He must not think about the clean-picked bones of Cam Obmouth and Rolf Twidale on the rocks at Quondam. Where is your outrage now, s
inner?

  One of the ragged, revolting acolytes came to kneel at the end of the litter. His face was shadowed from the fires, a blank darkness with two eyes visible. Then he smiled, showing white teeth also. He reeked worse than a midden. Wolf looked away and found another at the other end. These two were to be his traveling companions, and no doubt they had their orders. Their hair hung in matted strings, never cut, their fingernails were long and jagged.

  Drums boomed. Conches wailed.

  The four bearers, now naked and thoroughly drugged, were escorted back from the far side of the platform. Three were stopped close to the litter, but the fourth was led on, around to the altar stone. Wolf guessed what was about to happen and quickly looked away. Perhaps the ache in his forehead grew a little worse, but he heard nothing sinister over the racket of drumming and wailing. The second slave was taken.

  He would not watch. He could imagine.

  Except that he couldn’t. They really did not resist? Against his will, his eyes followed the fourth slave all the way around to the altar. The man went willingly until the last few steps. Then he tried to draw back, but four acolytes seized him and stretched him across the great stone, face up. Wolf’s view was obstructed by Amaranth-talon’s outspread wings, but he closed his eyes anyway. He thought he heard the hiss of the beating heart landing in the brazier.

  The corpses were rolled down one side of the great staircase. The procession of captives came up the other side, the side Wolf could see. All were naked, all doomed, all drugged almost senseless. And they just stood there, a line of four men waiting like sheep between the uppermost step and the murder site. Then another body would be dragged away, another young man grabbed and thrown down. The rest would take two steps forward and a replacement victim appear at their backs.