"For Helm!" The ragged cry burst from the brush, the most beautiful noise Halloran had ever heard. He identified Daggrande's voice bellowing above the rest.

"In Helm's name!" Hal cried, twisting to a sitting position and then lurching to his knees. He cursed the supernatural bond confining his arms even as he stumbled to his feet. A wiry native sprang at him with upraised club, but Halloran felled him with a powerful kick.

A ragged line of legionnaires burst from the brush, charging the base of the pyramid. Hal saw that there weren't more than twenty-five men in the detachment. He desperately hoped that would be enough.

He heard a snarl behind him and whirled to see the leopardskin-clad warrior advancing toward him. The man's face contorted into a mask of hatred as he pulled Hal's sword from his spotted leather belt. The warrior raised it in both hands and lunged, with a battle cry more bestial than human.

Halloran whirled away, but his attacker followed his evasion. The point of the sword drove toward Hal's face, until suddenly the warrior staggered backward. His snarl turned to a look of dull confusion as he stared at the silver shaft protruding from his chest. Blood, slick and black in the early evening darkness, gurgled from his lips, and the sword fell from his lifeless fingers even as his body thudded to the ground.

The legionnaires advanced in a rush, maintaining their disciplined formation. "For Helm!" they shouted again, heavy boots pounding the earth. The crossbowmen carried their bows slung across their backs now, wielding their short swords, while the swordsmen brandished their long-swords and held their bucklers at the ready. The small shields protected both the left side of the man who carried it and the right side of the legionnaire to his left, so close was the troops' formation.

Halloran dropped to the ground and rolled toward his sword, forgotten by the other natives in the confusion of the attack. His heart swelled with pride at the intrepid advance of the legionnaires, outnumbered two or three to one. Unsteadily, several of the natives stood to meet the charge with their stone-tipped spears.

In moments, the line of swordsmen reached the base of the pyramid. Flint and obsidian macas shattered against steel shields and breastplates, while razor-edged swords sliced easily through cotton armor and shields of hishna-magic hide or pluma-magic fabric. Halloran saw a young warrior swing his wooden club, its flecked-tooth blade of obsidian flashing toward the face of a legionnaire. The swordsman raised his buckler, and the club cracked aside as the slim steel longsword plunged straight through the warrior's body.

The native collapsed across Hal in a shower of blood. The young cavalryman wriggled aside, and then the line of legionnaires swept past. The other warriors, to a man, turned and fled for the imagined safety of the surrounding forest.

Gultec trotted easily along the trail, once again leading the column of warriors. His keen eyes had no difficulty following the twistings and windings of the jungle path, even in the nearly total darkness. The Jaguar Knight knew that columns of warriors like this one were converging toward the coast along many such trails. By the middle of the night, there would be ten thousand spearmen and hundreds of Jaguar and Eagle Knights waiting atop the bluff.

Following the most direct route to the pyramid, this trail made for good time, unlike the early-morning course that had taken them along the circuitous coastal path. The knight sensed the nearness of the sea in the faint smell of the air and the moist coolness against his face. But more than this, he knew their location instinctively. In mere minutes, the column would reach the pyramid.

Then the Jaguar Knight heard a faint sound, unnatural in the jungle night. More sounds followed, and he halted, raising a taloned hand. The entire column stopped instantly and silently behind him.

The sounds grew, a thrashing that told him that men were forcing their way through the underbrush. He heard muffled curses, in Payit, and soon sensed the nearness of many sweating, frightened men.

A figure pounded toward them along the path, breathing heavily. The man did not know of Gultec's presence until the knight stepped from the shadows and seized him by the throat. He recognized the orange headdress of a nearby village. This warrior must have been one of the first on the scene.

"What is the meaning of this?" demanded Gultec, his voice a rumbling growl. "Why do you flee like a young girl?"

The man's eyes widened in even greater terror. He croaked something indistinguishable, and Gultec slightly relaxed his hold upon the man's windpipe.

"The strangers!" gurgled the fleeing warrior. "Sorcery! They attacked us! They killed many! It was death to remain!"

Gultec's body tensed with the news, but he was only mildly surprised. So these strangers were here for war! Well, the warriors of the Payit would see they got what they sought!

"Where are they now?"

"The pyramid – by the Twin Visages!" The man virtually squealed the answer.

Casting the terrified villager aside, Gultec started forward at a renewed trot. In a minute, he would deploy his men through the jungle surrounding the pyramid. But first he would see what these strangers were about.

"Halt!" barked Daggrande. The line of swordsmen stopped instantly as the last of the natives disappeared into the jungle. With a quick look, he saw that none of his men had suffered any serious wounds. At least a dozen natives had fallen to their crossbow bolts, perhaps an equal number to their swords, but Daggrande wasted no time on self-congratulations.

"Over here!" gasped Hal, squirming out from beneath the slain warrior's body. Several legionnaires helped him to his feet. "I never thought I'd be so glad to see your whiskers!" He grinned as the dwarf clumped over to him. Hal's hands and arms were still pinned to his side, or he would have embraced the old campaigner.

"Humph! I never thought you'd be fool enough to get caught in a simple ambush!" Daggrande's anger, Hal discerned, masked his relief at finding Halloran alive. Nevertheless, the rebuke struck home, especially as the dwarf continued. "I found the bodies of four good men back there!"

"They killed Martine, too." Hal looked up, all his rage and revulsion flooding back. He wondered if the high priest, the murderous fanatic, remained atop the pyramid. Unconsciously he strained at his bonds, eager for vengeance.

"We've got big trouble," grunted the dwarf. "Let's get back to the beach." The dwarf pulled out his dagger and started to saw at Halloran's binding. "What is this stuff, by Helm? My blade can't mark it!"

"It's magic," groaned Hal. "But I thought you'd be able to cut it. These people have priests or sorcerers… I'm not sure which. One of them, the same one who killed Martine, used this to wrap me up."

Halloran fixed his gaze on his companion's face, the horror of the scene on the pyramid choking his voice. "Daggrande, he – he tore her heart out! They murdered her in cold blood!"

The dwarf nodded seriously, his brow knitted with concern. Unknown to Hal, Daggrande fretted more about Hal's fate at the hands of the Bishou than over Martine's untimely death.

Halloran looked around, though it was fully dark now, as if he hoped to spy the priest who had bound him. Instead, he saw two crossbowmen moving toward them with a squirming, brown-skinned prisoner between them.

"What's this?" he asked.

"We found her in the jungle," explained Daggrande as the trio reached the rest of the legionnaires. "I couldn't let her go. I thought she'd warn the others about us. No sense in keeping her now, I guess."

The girl held her head high, her black hair tossing like a stormy sea around her slender, lovely face. Her eyes gleamed with anger – a burning fire that Hal found disturbing – but her rage seemed only to enhance her beauty.