The trail widened considerable as the jaguar approached his first destination. Moments later the sounds of men drifted on the air. The jaguar moved off the trail and crept towards the large wooden stockade. As the barricade came into view, the jaguar turned to parallel it, his eyes scanning the ramparts and counting the number of sentries. Stealthily, the cat circumnavigated the compound until he reached the front gates. There he stood unmoving, peering into the stockade at the numerous soldiers within. Calitora tried to estimate the strength of the army within the wooden walls.
An hour later, the jaguar was on his way once again. The second stop was an open pit mine. A large section of the ground had been torn away through the efforts of a large number of slaves. Calitora halted at the edge of the forest and gazed into the massive pit. Near the bottom of the excavation were hundreds of chained people, some elven, some human. Only a handful of red-clad soldiers walked among the sleeping slaves. Calitora’s eyes followed the slope leading out of the pit and saw wooden structures at the top. The buildings appeared to be barracks for the overseers, and Calitora tried to estimate the number of troops before moving on.
The third stop of the night was along the eastern coast of the island. The jaguar moved quietly through a patch of jungle until the sound of the surf intruded on the sounds of the jungle. Following the coast southward, Calitora came to an open stretch of sand. Sitting in the middle of the open stretch was a three-story building. It was a lookout post similar to the ones he had seen on the western coast of the island. Calitora had to know if the post was manned, so he crept out of the jungle and crossed the open area to the side of the building. His nose sniffed the air as he listened intently to the voices coming from within the structure. He could detect three distinct voices, not the four he had expected to hear, but he would assume four sentries in his recordings as all of the other lookouts had held four.
Calitora moved away from the building and reentered the jungle as he continued southward. An hour later he halted outside the city of Eldamar. Clawing his way up a large tree, the jaguar perched on a branch and settled down to view the city. The almost-full moon illuminated Eldamar well, and Calitora was able to get a feel for the Motangan city, but that was not sufficient for the Chula shaman. He scampered out of the tree and transformed once again. Within seconds the jaguar was gone, and a kitten stood in its place.
The kitten darted towards the city and dashed between two widely separated sentries. For the next three hours, the kitten traveled the streets and alleys of Eldamar, ending up near the wharf. Calitora gazed out at the harbor and counted the ships. He knew from his vantage point on the mountain that more ships were anchored offshore, but he could use the number of those in the harbor to estimate the remaining fleet.
The kitten next moved towards the center of the city. When he reached the building that housed the premer, the kitten leaped onto the wall and dropped into the courtyard. He quickly darted into the bushes as two soldiers rounded the corner of the building. The men walked by, talking to one another. The kitten waited a few minutes before continuing onward. The kitten moved alongside the building until he reached the rear corner. Seeing no one in the rear of the property, the kitten jumped up on the rear porch and moved beneath the window.
Voices came out of the window, and Calitora dallied as he listened for anything that might be interesting, but the talk centered on women and stories of other soldiers. With the night steadily wasting away, the kitten moved onward towards the outskirts of the city. Once he reached the forest outside the city, Calitora transformed back into a jaguar for the trip back to the mountains.
Taking a different route back, Calitora was surprised to stumble upon a large army of soldiers marching through the night. The jaguar crouched under a bush as the Motangan soldiers marched by. He remained motionless for over an hour as the men streamed by. He listened to their conversations and learned that they were heading for Teramar, a city on the southwestern coast of the Island of Darkness. He also learned that they were part of the invasion force, and that their march was in preparation for leaving the island. What he did not learn was when they were leaving the island, and where they were going to invade.
When the long column of soldiers had finally passed by, Calitora raced along the trail. The delay caused by the column might cause him to still be on the slopes of the mountain when the sun rose, and that was one thing that he could not afford. The jaguar ran swiftly in a race against time, a race that almost cost the Chula shaman his life.
An hour after seeing the column of troops heading to Teramar, the jaguar stumbled into six soldiers in the forest. The forest that Calitora was traveling through was uninhabited, and he had not expected to find anyone there in the middle of the night, but the soldiers were there, and they saw the jaguar. They already had bows in hand and arrows nocked, and Calitora figured that they were a hunting party, the worst possible group to run into. Arrows flew towards the jaguar as the soldiers stopped, blocking the trail. There was no time for Calitora to alter his course. With a sudden burst of speed, the jaguar launched his body at the closest soldier. Claws raked at human flesh as the jaguar pounced on the man’s shoulders and bounded over him.
The wounded soldier screamed in pain as the others tried to turn around and get a shot off at the large black cat. Several arrows landed close to the jaguar, but luckily none scored a hit. The men chased after Calitora, but the jaguar ran with every ounce of strength that he could muster. A few minutes later their voices faded into the distance. Calitora altered his course in case the men tried to track him. A half hour later he stopped and transformed into a shaman. Remaining in human form for another half hour, Calitora changed his direction again to foil any attempts at tracking. When he reached the rocky slope of the mountains, he transformed back into a jaguar and raced towards the peaks.
By the time Calitora had regained the summit and transformed back into a human, the first lightening of dawn had already arrived. He opened his pack and proceeded to make notes of his findings from the previous night. When the sun peeked over the horizon, Calitora was already fast asleep in the shadows of the peaks.
* * *
“Why are we changing course?” asked Fisher.
“Meliban is just over the horizon,” answered Captain Mynor. “Unless you want us to be seen by the residents of that fine city, we need to head west a bit.”
“Residents?” chuckled Fisher. “The Jiadin infest Meliban now. The rest of the Fakarans have fled towards Angragar. Can we afford the time required to go west before landing?”
“Aye,” nodded the captain. “Those huge behemoths that Vand uses are not very fast across the water. We are hours ahead of Clarvoy. Besides, they will wait until dark to put Clarvoy ashore. They would not want reports of their large ships off the coast to made. You will be ashore and into the city before Clarvoy touches sand beneath his boots.”
“I can ask for no more than that,” Fisher nodded appreciatively as he pulled a red scarf out of his pack and tied it around his neck.
“So you plan to be one of the Jiadin?” questioned the captain as he gazed at the black-clad spy. “Think you can make it believable?”
“I sure hope so,” shrugged Fisher. “I don’t think the Jiadin would look kindly on me if they didn’t believe my disguise.”