Feathered Dragon - Douglas Niles [118]
Finally, the captain-general was pleased to discover that the merchants had sent a team of young magic-users to aid in Don Vaez’s expedition. Two dozen in number, they would prove very useful, he felt certain. Though none of them even began to approach the power of his own onetime ally and lover, the elf-mage Darien, the power of even minor spells could sometimes prove decisive.
The twenty-five carracks, of course, remained at sea on their mission. Privately, now, Cordell had come to doubt whether they could reach the Sea of Azul, pick up the remaining legionnaires and the Kultakan warriors, and return in time to make a difference.
He would have to stand with the forces that he had. Even with the addition of Don Vaez’s men and the archers of Far Payit, plus the desert dwarves and the halflings, he had fewer than four thousand men. He would gain perhaps an
equal number of spearmen from the Pay it city of Ulatos, but this still seemed like a small force whim facing an army of thirty thousand savage ores and their even more powerful masters.
Cordell looked back to the city, its pyramids standing out proudly above the savannah. He thought of the woman nearly bursting with her child, who slumbered comatose there.
“Wake up, Erix,” Cordell whispered softly. It was very close to a prayer.
The Lord of the Jaguars roamed restlessly his belly growling with the hunger that had been his constant companion for all the weeks since he had fled the village of the Little People. Curse that foul human and his sorcery! The cat snarled at the memory of that horrible night.
The growling predator remembered his life among the halflings with fondness. Food had not been plentiful, for it was only rarely that they caught one of the Big People, but they had thrown him wild game during times when there were no captives. Never had he had to work for his meals Instead, he could sleep for days on end, which was truly the way the Lord of the Jaguars preferred to spend his time.
Of course, never would the ancient, once-powerful beast admit that the man had been right, that the Lord of the Jaguars was indeed too old, too slow to kill in the wilds. Yet, unfortunately, that had proven to be the case. Despite his shrewd intellect, equal or superior to a human’s, and his great size and long, sharp teeth, the predator had been unable to kill anything for himself save an occasional rodent or snake.
Now he growled again, for never had be been so hungry. And he craved real food now, red meat, with the juices of the kill still flowing. Pacing the forest paths restlessly, he traveled far in search of a kill. Sometimes, seething with frustration, he spoke aloud in the human voice that had proven so hypnotically frightening to his victims.
The cat-lord’s travels had taken him far to the north of his home among the Little People. Food had been scarce there, and he had hoped that this country-the land of the Payits, he knew-would prove more fruitful. Thus far he had been disappointed.
Yet still he kept prowling and searching. Sometime soon, he knew, he would have to make a kill.
* * * * *
The quarry at the end of her quest now compelled Darien into a quivering eagerness. She sensed it even as the hunting cat senses the weakness of the crippled fawn, and it provoked a similar quickening in her hunger,
The driders followed her, now, in resigned deference to her commands. They dragged themselves through the forest, ignoring the demands of hunger and thirst. Several collapsed, perishing slowly and left by their stronger kin.
Still, fifteen of the monsters remained alive as, at last, their goal emerged from the