Nine long outrigger canoes were approaching Blade across the lake, each sixty-odd feet long and filled with men. He counted more than thirty men in each canoe. All were thin-faced and brown-skinned, but otherwise they seemed divided into two groups.

One group was obviously warriors. They carried long swords that gleamed in the torchlight with the sheen of polished bronze, and daggers and short-handled axes that seemed to be made of polished green stone. They wore dark blue armor from neck to wrists and ankles, consisting of dyed leather patches sewn on a cloth backing, and on their heads they wore vividly dyed orange, red, yellow, and green helmets plumed with white feathers. About twenty of the men in each boat were warriors. Two stood at the bow, tending the torch that poured out yellow-orange light, one stood at the stern, tending the steering oar, and the others paddled.

The other men in each canoe were-what? They wore only simple flowing yellow-orange robes, with a bit of blue embroidery at the neck, and no weapons that Blade could see. Their heads were not only shaved bald but apparently oiled, from the way they glistened in the light. Their faces were also oiled, and cheeks, forehead, and neck were marked with cryptic signs in white. Each of them, Blade noticed, carried a large blue cloth bag also marked with white signs and slung from a blue leather belt at his waist. It was these men who were keeping up the chant about the flower of life and death.

That was all Blade was able to make out before the warriors suddenly drew in their paddles. The canoes floated in to shore and grounded on the gravel beach with gentle scraping sounds. The warriors in the bows of each one leaped down into the water, carrying a large stone with a rope tied around it, and dropped this improvised anchor on the beach. In each canoe a yellow-robe rose to his feet and went forward to the torch in the bow, pouring some liquid over it from a small bronze ewer he took from the bottom of the boat. Each torch blazed up still more brightly, spreading yellow-orange light still farther up the slope from the beach.