Viperhand

THE CRESTING FLOOD

Are you ready to go?" Cordell asked Sergeant-Major Grimes the question, knowing that there could be only one answer. Grimes, a bluff, profane veteran, had been his choice to replace Alvarro. The sergeant-major was no intellectual giant, but Cordell at least felt he could trust the hearty lancer to follow orders.

The blond horseman stood at the head of the lancers, who were formed in a column of twos in the great corridor of the palace. Never, thought Cordell, had he seen such a collection of wounded, tired men. But he knew they stood ready to march.

Before them, the wooden doors, reconstructed by the legionnaires after the day's battle — remained closed, concealing the escape attempt from the Nexalans. Lookouts on the roof reported that there were only a few dozen warriors pacing restlessly about in the vicinity of the doors.

"Give me the sign," grunted the horseman.

"Another hour. We want to let things settle down out there as much as possible. Remember, when you do go, charge all the way to the gate of the plaza. You have to hold that gate until the rest of the legion gets there." Grimes nodded, scowling in concentration.

"Captain-General?"

"Yes?" Cordell turned in irritation. "What is it, Kardann?"

"It's the gold. We've loaded what we can in saddlebags. But there's still a great pile of it. What do you think we should do?"

The captain-general sighed heavily, regretting the necessity that forced them to abandon much hard-earned treasure. "Let the men have as much as they want to carry. The rest we'll leave behind."

In moments, word spread through the ranks of the legionnaires. The soldiers clustered around the mound of gold, filling pockets, backpacks, pouches, even boots and gloves, with the precious metal, many taking so much they could barely walk. Others such as Daggrande, mindful of the hard fight and long flight ahead, took only a few items of purest gold.

At last darkness and quiet spread through the sacred plaza around the palace. The rain drummed heavily on the roof, splattering on the stone surface of the huge courtyard, deadening sound and restricting vision.

"All right," Cordell hissed to Grimes, after a last reconnaisance. "When the doors open, ride,"

Behind the three dozen riders, the other companies of the Golden Legion — swordsmen, crossbowmen, and spears — pressed toward the door. They all understood the necessity for speed if they were to have any chance of escaping this city that had suddenly become their deathtrap.

"Go!" barked Cordell. Two legionnaires immediately pushed the palace doors open, and the horsemen rumbled forth, trampling the few surprised Nexalans in their path. The chargers galloped across the plaza, making it halfway to the gate before any kind of alarm was raised.

But then a volley of whistles and shouts broke from the night. Grimes kicked his trotting lancers into a headlong rush, and they reached the gate to the sacred plaza in a lumbering stampede. Here a hundred warriors stood to bar their way, but the horsemen cut through them like a scythe through straw.

Hooves splashed through puddles of rainwater, and the steady drizzle ran into the riders' eyes, but they nevertheless found many targets for their steel-tipped lances. Through the darkness, their bodies slick with water, they slashed back and forth.

Warriors swarmed into the sacred plaza, scrambling over the walls from the surrounding city, but the column of legionnaires pressed onward to the gate, advancing at a fast march. The men at the front charged with raised shields and a deadly array of speartips before them. The rest of the column followed, maintaining tight formation.

Through the gate, Grimes swept his riders into the street beyond. He saw waves of warriors approaching from both directions, running toward the battle as quickly as possible. He recognized instantly that these were not the well-formed ranks they had faced before, so he gambled.

"Red and Blue wings — with me! Black and Gold, charge to the right!"

He wheeled his horse and lowered his lance. A dozen riders formed a line beside him, and they thundered up the street. Behind him, a similar line charged in the other direction. They met the Mazticans in seconds, lancing them or crushing them under the hooves of the steeds. In another moment, the remaining warriors turned and fled, disrupted and panicked by the sudden, brutal onslaught.

Quickly the sergeant-major wheeled his lancers, racing back to the plaza gate. He found the other wings had done the same, and in another minute, the leading rank of the footmen started into the street from the sacred plaza. The legion poured steadily through the gap in the wall.

"Take half your riders and start toward the causeway." Cordell barked the command to Grimes. "Have the other half bring up the rear. Now, go!"

Instantly the blond rider spurred his mount down the wide avenue toward the southwest causeway, the shortest route to the shore of the lake, with half of his company trailing.

Meanwhile, Cordell wasted no time turning the column of legionnaires after Grimes, leaving the rear guard under Daggrande's steady command. "Double march-move!" he barked. With the captain-general at the head, the invaders trooped toward the hoped-for escape from this city of chaos.

The press of warriors soon spilled from the plaza, and more attackers rushed from side streets and buildings as they passed. The Golden Legion fought its most desperate fight, a running battle through the dark, rainy streets of Nexal. Many men fell, badly wounded, and had to be left behind. Often they begged for a final blow to spare them the horrors of the Nexalan altars. Many a veteran trooper broke down and wept as he delivered this stroke of mercy to an old companion.

Suddenly Cordell, at the front of the footmen, came upon Grimes. The horseman's dozen riders were eight now, halted by a press of Nexalan warriors. Water dripped from their helmets, and their beards and hair were matted from the rain. Grimes shook his head in exhaustion.

"Charge them!" Cordell demanded.

"I did. It cost me four men!" Grimes retorted. "They're packed too thick. It's at the crossing of two of those wide streets."

Cordell recognized the place. It agonized him to know that the causeway lay just beyond.

"Helm may strike us a blow!" said Domincus, coining up behind them through the tightly packed ranks of the legion.

He raised his hand, bearing the gauntlet marked with the all-seeing eye of Helm. Chanting a plea to his god, he raised his other hand and gestured at the mass of warriors in the intersection before them.

Immediately a droning buzz rose above them, and almost as quickly sharp cries of pain and dismay rose from the Nexalans. Visible even in the dim light, a shapeless darkness appeared over the crowd, a darkness that consisted of millions of tiny insects, each of them biting and stinging whatever lay in its path.

Quickly the warriors broke for the shelter of the side streets or nearby buildings as the insect plague gained control of the crucial street crossing. The Bishou raised his hands again, and the buzzing mass began to move out of their path.

Again Grimes's horsemen rushed for the causeway. Cordell led the footmen on a rapid push right behind him. The horses struck a rank of defending Nexalans before the bridge. These warriors, armed with very long spears, knocked several riders from their saddles. Grimes's own horse went down, its belly gashed in a deep, mortal wound.

But a final surge carried the legion forward, and at last they gained the narrow roadway, surrounded on both sides by the deep, black waters of the lake. Grimes and Cordell, heedless of the rain, rushed forward on foot as the men of the legion raised a cheer and followed. They charged headlong down the causeway, meeting no opposition, though gradually they became aware of warriors swimming in the water beside them, in Lake Zaltec to their left and Lake Qotal to their right. Soon they caught sight of canoes — many, many canoes — on the dark lake's surface.

And then the advance came to a sudden stop. They had reached the first of the two gaps in the causeway where the waters flowed back and forth between the lakes, beneath the heavy planks of a bridge.

Only now, the bridge had been removed. Rain continued to shower the city, and before the legion stood thirty feet of black, deep, silt-bottomed water.

Heavy clouds swirled around them, and chill winds drove stinging needles of rain into their faces. High on the slope of the mountain, in the dark of impenetrable night, Halloran fought despair, pressing on in the endless search for the Highcave.

He pulled himself up a steep slope, finding a narrow ledge. Reaching down, he helped Erixitl to climb up beside him. She gasped as the mountain rumbled beneath them, and they clung to each other for a panic-filled minute while it seemed that Zaltec tried to shake them loose from his towering volcano.

But then the tremors eased, and finally Shatil and Poshtli reached the ledge as well. Chitikas hovered in the air, swirling slowly while the exhausted humans rested.

"Zaltec's hunger grows," observed Shatil, touching the rock of the peak.

"Hunger!" Erix whirled on him, surprising the three men with her vehemence. "Must a god always feast? Must we always feed him?"

Shatil leaned back, chagrined. "I am sorry to upset you, my sister. But, yes, the gods I know require food. We can do little else but to feed them."

"What of Qotal?" she challenged. "A god who grants food, not demands it? And our ancestors drove him from Maztica for it!"

"Perhaps, if you speak the truth, he will indeed return," Shatil said quietly.

She looked at him, half angry that he wouldn't argue, but surprised at his willing aquiescence. She opened her mouth, but then decided not to speak.

"Here," whispered Chitikas Couatl, speaking from the darkness above. "Here I see the mouth of a cave."

Black water stretching before them, Cordell and Grimes turned desperately to the sides, their arms weary from the strain of constant battle. Cordell wielded his sword, Grimes his lance. Rain still drummed the city and the lakes, but they could dimly see the fleets of canoes swarming around the causeway. Behind them, the screams of their comrades told them the battle raged there as well.

The surviving legionnaires couldn't advance along the causeway, since the bridge before them had been removed and the lake to either side swarmed with Nexalan warriors in canoes. At the tail of the column, the press of warriors drove forward savagely, pinching Daggrande's rear guard into a steadily shrinking stretch of the road.

"Below — look out!" Grimes cried, stabbing downward with his blood — and rain — slicked lance.

A warrior fell back into his canoe, toppling the craft. At the same time, Cordell felt strong fingers grab his feet, and he sliced viciously downward with his sword. He was rewarded by the sharp chop of the blade through flesh and bone, though to his horror, the severed hands continued to clutch his ankles until he kicked them free.

The darkness seemed to move, so thick was the press of Nexalan attackers. Cordell stabbed and hacked, unseeing and uncaring of his victims, knowing that everyone in the canoes below them was an enemy.

More of his legionnaires pushed their way to the gaping end of the causeway, hurling themselves into the water in a desperate attempt to swim to safety. Many of these — those who had loaded themselves down with gold — sank beneath the water and disappeared. Others were hauled, screaming and struggling, into canoes, bound, and spirited back to the city, destined for the fate that had become far more fearsome to the legionnaires than death on the battlefield.

Overturned canoes and other craft wrecked during the combat clogged the water before them. Rain alternately pounded them or misted lightly. Many bodies bobbed in the lake now as both Nexalan and legionnaire fighters fell into the water, drowning in the press of chaos.

"We've got to do something!" cried Grimes as more and more of their men jumped or were dragged into the lake. Indeed, before them, the water had virtually disappeared among the mass of wreckage.

"Any ideas?" grunted the captain-general. He heard a cry of pain and a splash behind him, turning to see one of his men struggling with six Mazticans in canoes. The swordsman struggled in the water, slipping on the bodies below him, howling with terror as the natives pulled him into the canoe. With swift strokes of their paddles, three of them steered their craft away while the others turned to the causeway, after more victims.

Cordell heard more screams and the triumphant whistles of the Mazticans, and he knew that, somewhere, still another legionnaire had been dragged to a short, grim captivity.

"Murdering savages!" Bishou Domincus's bellow carried above the din, and Cordell saw the cleric struggling along the edge of the causeway, laying about with a heavy staff.

"Almighty Helm!" cried the Bishou. "Strike the heathens with your vengeance! Deliver your faithful from the jaws of death!"

But the heavens only delivered more rain, in the dull, pounding cadence that had marked the brutal tempo of the night and now, as gray dawn filtered into the valley of Nexat, counted time for the steadily growing illumination.

"Bishou!" The cleric looked up and saw Cordell standing at the lip of the causeway. With a sinking heart, he saw the dark water blocking their path.

"Helm has forsaken us!" groaned Domincus, reaching the commander. "I fear we have angered him, and he turns away from us in our hour of need!"

"Never mind!" snapped the black-bearded commander. "Do you have any magic, anything at all that can help us across this?" Cordell gestured to the strip of water, bristling with enemy canoes. Even the continuation of the causeway across the thirty-foot gap was packed with Maztican warriors who fired arrows or slung stones at the embattled legionnaires.

"No," the cleric said. "My power is exhausted now. It will take many hours of quiet meditation to restore my spells."

Cordell turned away in disgust. He didn't see a hook dart forward from one of the canoes, suddenly sweeping the Bishou from the causeway. Domincus cried out, plunging into the water, and Cordell whirled back to see many natives eagerly pulling the cleric into a canoe.

"No! Leave him, you devils!" cried Cordell, lashing toward them with his sword. The canoes paddled back, out of range, but the captain-general lunged dangerously far in his fury. Only Grimes, reaching out with a brawny hand and pulling him to safety, kept him from following the cleric into captivity.

"Praises to Zaltec!" crowed Hoxitl from his vantage atop the Great Pyramid. The high priest didn't try to suppress his burst of exultation. Though he could see nothing beyond the veil of darkness and rain that shrouded him, he knew of the great victory his warriors won on this black night. "Long live his almighty name!"

Scouts and priests brought him regular reports, and he heard of the many thousands of warriors who fearlessly hurled themselves at the strangers trapped on the causeway. He no longer feared that they would escape him. Already nearly half of the legionnaires had been delivered into his hands.

Still, he hoped to have them all by morning — to march the entire lot of them up the pyramid, offering their hearts to Zaltec in unworthy penance for the wrongs they had inflicted upon Maztica.

Though all Nexal had united and arisen to throw off the yoke of the invaders' presence, it was those men who wore the crimson brand upon their breasts who had ignited the fires of resistance. Warriors of the Viperhand, the most fanatical of attackers, displayed the greatest courage in the battle, and now led the way for their countrymen's greatest victory.

And these were his warriors, his to command and control and lead!

"They remain trapped before the bridge," reported Kallicl, who had just climbed the long, rain-slicked stairs to the top of the temple. "They shall pass no farther."

"Splendid!" crowed Hoxitl, waving his fist at the sky. "We shall have them all! And Zaltec will feast until he can eat no more!"

Chitikas hovered outside the Highcave as the companions came up to him. The feathered snake floated between the bodies of two jaguars — unmarked by visible wounds, but undeniably dead. Halloran didn't even want to know how the snake had killed them.

"Let's go," he said. He and Chitikas started into the cave, while Erix came right behind them, followed by Shatil. Poshtli brought up the rear.

The entrance led to a smooth, wide passageway, obviously excavated from the soft volcanic rock. Still, no evidence of hammer or pick stroke could be seen in the walls or floor.

A stench of noxious gas burst around them. Hal clapped his hand to his face, squinting. Fortunately a blast of fresher air cleared the hot vapor away.

Chitikas floated out in front as they entered a larger cavern, with a high, domed ceiling. A deep crater filled the center of the room, emitting a dull crimson glow that seemed to pulse in varying intensity. They couldn't see inside the pit, but the surging light frightened them, alternately hot and cold. The feathered snake drew himself into a coil.

They're in here. Halloran sensed the snake's message, though Chitikas had not spoken. The Ancient Ones. They are invisible.

The information sent a chill through Halloran's body. He unconsciously tightened his grip on his blade. From the tension in Erixitl's hand, resting on his shoulder, he knew that his wife had received the same news.

Chitikas hovered before them, his tail touching the ground but his twisting neck and head a full ten feet in the air. His great wings beat slowly, supporting him, as the snake turned his head this way and that, looking about the large chamber.

Suddenly a pale white light flashed in the cave. "Ice-tongue!" shouted Hal, involuntarily flinching backward. At the same time, he noticed that he and Erix weren't even the targets of the attack. Instead, the cone-shaped blast of the wand had struck only one of them.

"Chitikas!" Erix cried. They stared in horror at the feathered snake. Chitikas crashed to the floor before them, his brittle, suddenly frozen wings snapping into many shards of different colors. The wingless couatl writhed there silently.

At the same time, Hal saw Darien appear on the other side of the glowing fire crater. The wizard, her invisibility spell broken by her attack with Icetongue, regarded the intruders with a faint smile that Halloran found more disturbing than a grimace of hate and rage.

She didn't wear her customary robe. Instead, her white skin showed plainly through the tiny, gold-rimmed garments that barely preserved her modesty.

"My spellbook!" she demanded.

"I brought it," Hal answered, sensing that it was foolish to lie. Yet his mind worked desperately, seeking any kind of plan.

They saw other forms blink into sight, then, one by one, until more than a dozen black-skinned elves appeared. They wore tight-fitting armor of fine black chain, and each was armed with a dark longbow. The bows were stretched taut, with arrows nocked and aimed at the small party of intruders.

Another one, a wrinkled, ancient drow, appeared beyond the caldron, seated in a great stone throne. Skeletal of visage, this one sat back, cool and aloof, obviously the leader.

"You will give it to me now," Darien commanded, starting to walk around the caldron toward Halloran.

Desperately seeking a delay, Hal reached into his pack and slowly withdrew the bound, heavy tome. "Wait," he said slowly. He knew that they had been caught in a trap of powerful, deadly cunning. He also understood that once Darien had her spellbook, they would all be killed.

Surprising even Erixitl, who had a hand on his shoulder, Halloran suddenly dove forward, lunging into a headlong slide along the floor. In a split second, he stopped before any of the archers could fire.

Halloran lay still on the floor, the book in his hands extended before him, just over the lip of the smoking crater. Below it flickered and flamed the depths of the Darkfyre. If his grip relaxed even slightly, the book would plunge into the inferno, gone forever.

"Now," Halloran continued, still speaking very slowly, "let's talk."

"Kill him!" urged the Ancestor, rising from his throne and gesturing toward Halloran.

"Wait!" hissed Darien. The pale wizard turned back to Hal. "Speak, then."

Think! Think of something, anything! his mind raced. "The betrayal of the legion — you must have prepared that for years."

Darien smiled again smugly. "For more than ten years, I have been seeking a way back to my people — a way that would bring us closer to our ancient goal. In the legion, I found the perfect vehicle — in Cordell, the perfect tool."

Hal stared at her in growing horror. "This whole expedition, the crossing of the Trackless Sea, conquering the Payit, marching on Nexal? This was all your plan?"

"Yes! For generations of human lives, we have strived to gain mastery of this land. With the league of the Viperhand, our numbers grew organized and controlled — humans, branded with the sign of Zaltec, and the priests of Zaltec controlled by us, the Ancient Ones!" She laughed aloud, but her laughter was a dry and empty sound, devoid of humor.

Halloran couldn't see his companions. He was unaware of Shatil, gaping in horror at the woman who had just explained away his life's order as a tool of these manipulative elves. The young priest swayed on his feet, woozy, as it seemed that the world came to pieces around him.

"But we needed an enemy," Darien continued," a force to give focus to that hatred, to bring Maztica together under the hands of the cult. The Golden Legion filled that role very well indeed."

Chitikas lay still, his shattered wings in pieces around him. The snake's feathered flanks rose and fell slowly, the only indication that he still lived.

"I am going to my husband" Erixitl announced, stepping forward to kneel at Halloran's side. The bowmen tensed with her movement, but Hal glared at Darien, who raised a hand to restrain them.

None of those before him saw Shatil slowly, carefully unwind the strap of hishna from around his wrist. The priest's eyes were locked upon the white-skinned wizard. Only Poshtli, bringing up the rear, saw the movement. The warrior started easing to the side, clenching his sword.

With a sudden gesture, Shatil flung the snakeskin at Darien. "By Zaltec, take her!" he shouted, springing after it.

The scaled strap stretched and twisted in the air, growing into a netlike web. Darien darted to the side, but the growing hishna form followed. It struck her arm and instantly, like the lash of enchanted tenctacles, wrapped itself around her, dragging her to the ground and holding her tight.

At the same time, Poshtli charged out of the shadows. The drow archers let fly their missiles, and many of the black-tipped arrows struck the priest of Zaltec, propelling him backward and driving him to the floor. One struck Poshtli's shoulder, while others clattered against the stone walls of the cave.

Then the Ancestor rose from his chair. He raised his hand and started toward Halloran and Erix.

Desperately Hal dropped the spellbook at the edge of the pit and leaped to his feet. He turned toward the archers and saw them swiftly draw additional black arrows from their quivers, nocking them into the bows.

"Kirisha!" he cried, suddenly inspired. He cast his light spell directly in the faces of the nocturnal Ancient Ones. The white glow blossomed, illuminating the cavern brightly.

With cries of pain and anguish, many of the drow archers dropped their weapons or turned away from the painful blast of light. In another second, Halloran charged among them, and Helmstooth found the bodies of many of the blinded, stumbling drow.

Poshtli followed, striking a drow with his steel sword, knocking the blow of another aside. The warrior staggered, weakened from the arrow wounds he had suffered just moments before and atop the palace, and one of the dark elves saw his weakness. With a sudden lunge, the drow drove his blade toward the Nexalan.

Twisting away, Poshtli tried to stop the blow, but the black blade knocked his own sword aside. Continuing the lunge, the drow stabbed the warrior in the chest. With a dull moan, Poshtli sprawled onto his back, bleeding.

Erixitl faced the Ancestor as the wizened, decrepit drow hobbled forward, coming around the deep pit of fire. The elf held a wand or some kind of weapon in his hand, a short staff with an evil-looking tip like the outspread claws of a small dragon.

Erix stood, strangely unmoving, before him as he raised the clawlike staff. He was perhaps halfway around the crater when a sudden, searing hiss filled the cave, and red light exploded in tiny beams from the claws on the Ancestor's wand. Each of these rays of light merged with the others into a heavy bolt of solid crimson energy that smashed into Erixitl with crushing force.

Her pluma token puffed upward, and the gust of wind that had sheltered her from Darien's magic swiftly swirled around Erix. But the power of the attack blew this protection aside, bashing Erix backward and flattening her to the floor. The Cloak of One Plume billowed behind her.

She lay there, moaning, as the Ancestor took another step and raised the weapon again. He had come nearly all the way around the caldron and soon would loom directly over her. Halloran started for Erixitl, not knowing what he could do. He heard the Ancestor laugh, a harsh, cruel sound.

But neither he nor the aged drow anticipated another reaction. Chitikas — coiled, motionless, and apparently unconscious throughout the battle — suddenly exploded from his coil. The wingless couatl drove like a spear toward the Ancestor.

Chitikas's fangs sought the throat of his victim, but the Ancestor barely managed to knock the snake's bead to the side. For a moment, the two of them teetered on the brink of the bubbling caldron. The snake's tail lashed around, striking the spellbook where Hal had left it. Darien, still imprisoned by hishna, screamed as the tome toppled into the Darkfyre.

Hal reached Erixitl's side, kneeling to sweep her into his arms. She sobbed against him, helplessly watching the struggle. "Chitikas!" she cried.

Then, locked in their desperate fight, the couatl and the Ancestor fell slowly, following the spellbook into the flaring caldron.

Hoxitl paused for a long, splendid moment, basking in the full scope of his triumph. Below him, the cleric of the strangers' god stared bug-eyed at his poised dagger. The Bishou's lips were flecked with spit, his tongue protruded, and the veins in his face seemed ready to burst.

The priest of Zaltec leered at him, and then began to lower the dagger. With a quick, sharp slash, the stone tip met the skin of the cleric of Helm.

And it pierced that skin, slicing a deep wound into Domincus, though the cleric still lived. Hoxitl thrust his bloody hand into the wound, grasping the Bishou's heart as he had taken thousands of hearts before, ready to pull it forth and offer it to the gaping maw of the statue Zaltec.

But this time, when his hand met the Bishou's flesh, the two gods came together with a force that overwhelmed the cleric's mortal powers.

Behind and far, far above Hoxitl, unseen in the rain but heard by them all, the top of Mount Zatal exploded.

From the chronicles of Colon:

At last the gods converge, and in their meeting, they tear the world asunder.

In the temple of Qotal, I feel the powers come together. Zaltec and Helm clash as the cleric of one tears the heart from the cleric of the other. Such a sacrifice must forever change the face of the land.

And even Qotal through the harbinger of his couatl, meets Zaltec, as Chitikas gives his life to the Darkfyre. The feathered snake is a meal even hungry Zaltec cannot digest.

Below them all, but rising fast, Lolth seethes now with the passion of her vengeance. She explodes into this world through the Darkfyre, laying her punishment upon her children, the drow.

And the gaming board is swept of its pieces.