Ironhelm - Douglas Niles [123]
Kardann started to sputter, but Cordell silenced him with a look. "By the time that happens, I intend to have the entire land under the banner of the Golden Legion!" He paused to make sure they understood the depth of his commitment.
"Make the most of your day here," he suggested breezily. "We toil again very soon, this time upon the building of Helmsport!"
Gultec's stomach growled again, and the lanky jaguar rose and stretched in feline bliss. He rested upon a massive bough, high above the jungle floor. Sitting up, he cleaned himself thoroughly. His hunger was present, but not yet urgent.
Eventually the spotted cat sauntered down the branch, springing easily to a lower limb, and down again into the crotch of a neighboring tree. His nostrils twitched, alert for the spoor of game.
Gultec made his way along the middle level of jungle branches, avoiding the tangle upon the ground but remaining well camouflaged among thick foliage. For perhaps an hour, he hunted, catching the scent of nothing edible.
Lengthening shadows stretched through the small open patches in the deep jungles of Far Payit. The jaguar's spotted form moved among the shadows, his orange and black pelt blending perfectly with the gathering darkness. His stomach started to growl uncomfortably.
By now the great cat skulked through forests far removed from Ulatos. He had worked his way southward, hunting and prowling and sleeping as occasion demanded. Now he was farther south than he had ever been before, in a region of Payit little known to the city dwellers of Ulatos.
Gultec began to move with unaccustomed urgency, for the hunting had been lean for several days now. Hunger prodded him along, sometimes through the trees and occasionally along the twisting trails below. He pounced on a small rodent and devoured it in one gulp, but the tiny meal did little to sate his appetite.
Perhaps it was the urgency of his hunger that made him careless. It had been many days since he had encountered any sign of humans, and thus his vigilance was relaxed. The great cat need worry about no other enemies, for even the powerful hakuna generally took no note of another feline predator.
In any event, Gultec slipped silently along a trail as night fall settled around him. His padded paws fell silently on the soft grass of the ground. Every few steps, the great cat paused to sniff the air and look around.
Impatient, he picked up his pace to a trot. Once an irritated growl even rumbled from his throat before he recalled the need for stealth. As he paced along the trail, he heard something rustling ahead. A current of breeze carried to him the delightful scent of a plump turkey-food enough to fill the great cat's belly.
Gultec crouched and crept forward, slinking soundlessly on his belly. There! He saw the turkey, standing oddly still at the base of a great tree. The bird fluttered and twisted, but it did not move from its location. Even Gultec's keen eyes did not see the narrow tether holding the bird in place.
With one lightning bound, Gultec sprang toward the bird. His attack was planned perfectly: He would land once, ten feet from the bird, and instantly spring again for the kill.
His paws settled to earth, already preparing to push him forward, but the earth proved yielding, crashing away beneath his weight. With a screech of feline rage and panic, Gultec fell through the network of branches concealing the deep pit and plummeted to the bottom with a heavy thud.
Instantly the jaguar sprang at the sides of the pit, his powerful muscles carrying him upward a prodigious distance before the steep, smooth walls sent him tumbling back down. Again and again the cat hurled himself toward the top of the pit, and again and again he fell back.
Finally, exhausted and ravenous, he settled into a crouch. His unblinking eyes stared upward at the night sky, beginning to sprout stars above his pit. For all his rage and all his strength, Gultec could not deny that he was trapped.
Several dozen men