Feathered Dragon - Douglas Niles [61]
“You saw its path, swinging to the east,” he concluded. Hut now our people hear that the army has turned back. No I longer does its path wind like a snake across the land. Now the ants march true, cutting a straight swath toward their target.”
“They come here, do they not?” Gultec already knew the’ answer, though Zochimaloc nodded his assent. “How far away are they now? And how fast do they march?”
“It seems that they will reach Tulom-Itzi in four or five days, unless we stop them first. Gultec, can we stop them?”
The warrior growled, oddly discomfited at being asked a question by one he had always assumed knew everything. “We can only try,” he admitted.
For the next three days, he gathered together the men of Tulom-Itzi. Though the people had no tradition of warriorhood, they were skilled hunters, and during his studies under Zochimaloc, Gultec had trained them to put these skills to battle use. Now the women made arrows while he sent parties of men into the jungle to observe the approaching army and to learn how to harass its seemingly inexorable approach.
These parties came back with tales, not only of the monstrous ants that seemed almost impervious to arrows and spears, but also of the horrible creatures that led the insects toward war. These dark, bloated figures, scuttling upon insect bodies with the heads and torsos of men, seemed to Gultec an even greater and more unnatural menace than the ants themselves.
He listened to a tale of a large village, well prepared for the attack and even surrounded by a thorny wall of wood, that had lain in the path of destruction. The ants had swarmed over the wall, tearing it down in the process, then scurried through the huts and buildings, even crawling over the village pyramid. Wherever warriors had tried to stand against them, they had perished to the last man. Only a few ants had died in the entire battle.
He tried to plan a firetrap to ensnare the insects in a forest blaze before they reached Tulom-Itzi. But here the rain god, Azul, schemed against them, for daily showers drenched
the jungle, and the foliage remained constantly wet and steaming. Despite their most vigorous efforts with oil and tinder, it could not be made to burn.
Finally he went to his teacher again, knowing that the ants would reach the city on the following day. His heart broke as he looked into Zochilmaloc’s eyes, so wise and now so sad in the twilight of his life.
“My teacher,” Gultec said haltingly, “it grieves me to speak thus to you, to give you this message that tears the heart from my body. But I fear I have no other choice.”
“Speak, my son, and fear not,” counseled Zochimaloc.
“We cannot stand against these ants,” Gultec said finally. “As a Jaguar Knight, I am not afraid of a hopeless fight. Indeed, a year ago I should have rejoiced at the thought of giving my life in such a worthy battle, though the outcome be preordained.”
Gultec paused, and Zochimaloc waited, sensing the warrior’s deep resistance to his own conclusion. “Yet in the time I have studied with you, I have learned some things-things which have made me question the basic principles I have held throughout my adult life.” Gultec spoke more quickly now, growing sure of himself.
“You have made me question the glory of war, and even to see the hurt it can cause. You have shown me a people of courage and grace and learning-people who do not practice war and have not known it during their lives.
“If people such as this can be happy and prosperous, I must doubt that war is a necessity-at least, war for the sake of warfare. Warfare has its place, for there are threats that must be countered. This too, you have taught me, and you have shown me as much by bringing me here to teach your people how to fight.
“But a battle here, before Tulom-Itzi, would merely be a fight for the sake of pride and courage. It would not