Feathered Dragon

9

The green parrot winged steadily across the desert lands above the vast wasteland of sand and rock and brush. N where along Gultec’s eastward course did he see water; seemed as though only the narrow strip of land followed the Nexalans had received the blessing of the gods. The of the House of Tezca remained very much the same bar-waste it had always been.

Finally the bird reached a long shore, where a smooth beach, outlined in foaming breakers, marked the end of the desert and the beginning of the coral blue Sea of Azul. This crystalline water filled the gap between the mainland of Maztica and the jungled peninsula of Far Payit.

Gultec felt the strain of the long flight in his wings, but the summons of his master, Zochimaloc, urged him onward.

Now, however, the parrot dove, breaking its descent to race just above the glittering surface of the sea.

Then, in the blink of an eye, the bird did a strange thing: if dipped and dove into the crest of wave, tucking its wings close against its body and disappearing into the water.

The parrot vanished in a shower of spray. Two dozen feet farther along the bird’s path of flight, a blue dolphin broke the surface, wriggling in the air for a second before diving back into the water. Sleek and powerful, the mammal dove and splashed its way steadily eastward, bursting from that sea in a rainbow of spray before nosing gracefully back into the cool, blue-green depths.

The dolphin that was Gultec dove after a school of small fish, feasting for several minutes before he again broke the surface to breathe. Gultec felt a wonderful sense of exhilaration, broken only by the knowledge that his master’s summons indicated serious trouble ahead.

After a night and a day of swimming, the great sea mammal drew close to another shore. Where the eastern boundary had been backed by countless miles of dry desert, however, this beach appeared as a tiny strip of sand bordered by a verdant growth of jungle foliage.

Here again Gultec took to wing, shifting in midleap from the dolphin’s body back to that of the bright parrot- Like a green missile, he shot into the sky, quickly gaining height. He soared over the tops of the highest trees, still climbing. He knew that Tulom-Itzi lay near.

Then an irregularity in the tropical growth caught the parrot’s keen eye. Concerned, Gultec veered to the north, diving slightly to gain speed and a closer view. An inexplicable sense of urgency-an urgency that approached terror-compelled him forward.

The stench of rot reached him first-not a sweet, lingering odor such as always characterizes the jungle, but a thick, cloying wave of nausea that signified a horrifying extent of destruction and decay.

Soon he soared along a wide swath of death, a wasteland as devastated as the barren reaches of the House of Tezca. This waste shocked him, however, for very recently it had been lush. Like the body of a repugnant serpent, the pathway twisted through the jungles of Far Payit. Brown, naked tree trunks lay on the ground in a twisted jumble. Pools of muddy water lay spattered across the dead earth, breeding grounds only for the flies that feasted upon death.

Shock, anger, and finally rage propelled the bird’s flight as Gultec tried to absorb the spectacle below him. He couldn’t guess as to its nature, but he knew that he saw below him the reason for Zochilmaloc’s summons.

The swath twisted inland, away from Tulom-Itzi, and so Gultec dove to the south. For the first time, he wondered if he might be too late. His heart lightened only slightly as he saw that the forests leading to that hidden city seemed unscathed. Finally he saw the great stone dome rising before him and

the bright, squared pyramids of the city’s heart. His relief choked him as he tucked his wings and entered a long dive, J feeling at last as though he had come back to his true home.

The great stone figure of Zaltec stood motionless in the center of the massive temple. The dust had settled in a film across the floor. Nothing moved within the cavernous chamber.

If emotions could have played across the vast, stony surface of the war god’s face, cruel triumph would have glare there, an ultimate explosion of hatefulness. But, instead, the; granite visage remained impassive, as cold as ever.

Now Zaltec turned to face each of the four directions. Toward each, he knew, lay his domains. He had vanquished the only one who could challenge him. Now let the ultimate reign of Zaltec begin!

But where should the center of his power be? This the] bloody god pondered long and hard while the sun passed] beneath the world and rose again into the morning sky.

Tewahca sprawled around him, and his immortal memory recalled the place in all its splendor, with water and food and humans who worshiped him. But now, in its barren vistas, it was an old place, fit to be abandoned by men. How, then, should a god expect to make a home here?

Instead, Zaltec gradually turned back to the north, where lay the moist valley of Nexal, surmounted by its looming volcanoes. Nexal, where the beasts of the Viperhand dwelled; the ruined city, still guardian of buried riches, the seat of an empire that may yet rise again.

When full day blazed around him, Zaltec stepped from the temple and the pyramid, dropping easily to the dusty ground. When his footsteps again shook the earth, they re-1 sounded in the north, along the path to Nexal.

Halloran and Jhatli emerged from the mouth of the cave first, while the others waited for their report. The youth

veered to the right, readying an arrow and watching his companion while Halloran moved carefully forward.

After taking a few steps, Jhatli turned to look back at Halloran, a scowl on the youth’s face. “Why is it we always run away?” he asked, his voice challenging. “Why do we never stop to fight?”

“You’ll get your chance to fight, I’m sure,” Hal retorted, looking around them at steeply sloping rock walls that rose on either side. The floor of a ravine created a narrow, twisting pathway immediately below them. “Believe it or not, there’ll be a time when you won’t look forward so eagerly to your next fight”

“Never!” boasted Jhatli, but Halloran ignored him.

“It’s a dry ravine,” the man called into the eave after completing his inspection. “It must be in the base of one of the ridges that surround Tewahca.”

Slowly the others came forth, while Jhatli climbed the slope to see if he could get their bearings. The underground passage had led them to a stone archway in the side of a steep slope. Directly across from their exit, another slope climbed upward, lb the left and right, the narrow bottom of a ravine snaked away, slowly climbing to the right and descending to the left.

Coton and Lotil sat upon a rock and breathed the sweet air of the desert dawn, while Daggrande led the black mare to some nearby fiat ground at the base of the ravine. The blind featherworker breathed the fresh air with obvious relish. From somewhere beneath his cloak, he pulled out a sheet of fine cotton mesh and a small bag. Removing a bright blue tuft of plumage from the sack, he began to work it into the mesh.

Erixitl emerged last, with a lingering look into the darkened passage. She went to her husband, and he took her in his arms. For long minutes, they all remained still, resting quietly and remembering the sights of the long and terrifying night.

“Your quiver!” exclaimed Halloran suddenly, looking at Daggrande. “By Helm! Where did these come from?” The dwarf

looked in amazement at several dozen straight quarrels sturdy missiles lipped with heads of dark black stone. All of them remembered their despair when, the previous day he had expended his last boll at the pursuing trolls.

“During our walk through the paths of the dead,” said Erixitl, softly, “the spirits have bestowed gifts upon us.” “In exchange for your token,” said Halloran quietly “And the trolls didn’t come after us.” Daggrande added this important point.

They heard a clatter of stones, and Halloran instinctively reached for his sword, but soon Jhatli slid into view, rapidly descending the steep slope of the gully

“I saw Tewahca!” he cried. “That way, to the south! And look! I’ve got a fresh supply of arrows!” Jhatli pulled forth a slender shaft, narrower than Daggrande’s, with a thin sliver of a head. His own quiver held several dozen of the weapons. The keen tips, like the dwarf’s, were formed from shiny black stone, thinner and sharper than obsidian.

For several moments, they absorbed the news, none of them venturing a suggestion to move. Finally Halloran felt the need to lake some action, at least to plan.

“Where do we go from here?” he asked. “Back to the Nexalans?”

Erixitl gently pulled away from him and walked a few feet along the floor of the ravine. She turned to face the group and sighed slowly before speaking.

“Zaltec has barred Qotal’s entry here. My cloak, which opened the path, is lost. There is no hope of Qotal returning to the True World through this portal.”

“Indeed,” agreed Lotil as Coton nodded silently.

“We cannot give up!” Jhatli barked. He brandished his bow, one of the new arrows nocked. “If not here, then somewhere else!”

“Precisely!” Erix agreed. “When the god spoke to us, he said that this was one of but two places in the world where he could seek to return.”

“Great. He didn’t tell us where the other one is, as I recall,” interjected Daggrande.

“He didn’t have to. I know where it is,” Erixitl replied Only

Colon’s face brightened at her words, though none of the others noticed the cleric’s delight. “Where would he come, if not to the city of the gods?” asked Jhatli.

“To the place that was built in anticipation of his return, the place from which he left Maztica so many lifetimes ago!” “Twin Visages!” exclaimed Halloran, suddenly understanding. He well remembered the two huge faces carved in the coastal cliffs of Payit. It had been the first landfall of the Golden Legion along the shores of Maztica, and even at the time, it had seemed a place of great sacred tradition.

“Yes, of course,” Lotil agreed. “Many of the stories predicted that Qotal would one day return there. But how can he, since he lacks the power to overcome Zaltec?”

“We can help him!” Erix said firmly “We can hold Zaltec at bay long enough for Qotal to enter Maztica and reach his full strength. Then he can defeat the god of war and regain his former station.”

“Let us go!” Jhatli cried. “We will fight our way there if we have to! I will fight at your side, sister!”

She smiled gently “1 know you will, my friend, and I am grateful to you. I know that all of you will, but it will not be easy”

“How far is it to Twin Visages?” asked Daggrande. He had seen the place-all the legionnaires had-when they had made landfall there. But he had marched and fought and fled very far since then.

“I don’t know,” Erixitl replied bluntly “It will take us a month, perhaps more, just to cross the desert. Then we will reach the lands of Far Payit. Only when we have crossed those thick jungles will we reach the Payit country and finally Twin Visages.”

Erixitl looked at her father, at all of her companions, frankly. “J was too hasty to condemn Qotal for a thing he could not control. I didn’t understand that a god, like a mortal. can be constrained by factors beyond his power.” She lowered her eyes, then looked up again before continuing, “And perhaps 1 have been forced to admit that we need gods-or a god, in any event. We have all seen the threat

presented by Zaltec. Qotal, it seems, is the best hope we have.”

Colon rose stiffly from the boulder. He crossed to the woman and took her hands in his, looking steadily into her eyes. Erixitl met the silent cleric’s gaze for a moment, them collapsed, sobbing, into his arms.

At the same time, Storm raised her head, ears cocked for ward, alert. Daggrande and Halloran followed the mare’s gaze down the ravine toward the open valley beyond. “I think we’ve got company,” grunted the dwarf. Instantly the others turned to look, their hearts chilling at the apprehension in Daggrande’s voice. The narrow ravine floor twisted slowly downward, the first bend some hundred yards away.

The first creature to come into sight was a hulking troll its arms nearly dragging on the ground. Its black, expressionless eyes fastened upon the companions, and it threw back its head to utter a sharp, harsh bark.

Hal saw others, then-vacant-faced trolls with out stretched, clawlike hands, emerging from around the bend in the gully. The first troll leaped forward, covering the distance between them with prodigious bounds.

“Come on! Up the ravine… go!” barked Halloran, He took [.mill’s arm and bodily lifted her onto the back of the prancing Storm.

“Take her and her father! We’ll try to hold them back!” he barked at Colon. With surprising quickness, the cleric took the horse’s reins and started up the narrow draw. Lotil touched the mare’s shoulder and started to follow, stumbling, but then Erix and the priest quickly boosted the blind! man into the saddle.

Daggrande fired a bolt and Jhatli launched a steady stream of arrows into the approaching horde. The missiles cut deep wounds in their flesh, forcing howls of pain from the beasts. But even the trolls that fell continued to advance slowly squirming forward in the wake of their charging! comrades.

Halloran, with Helmstooth ready for blood, stood between and slightly ahead of the two archers, The trio

blocked the narrow ravine floor. Several dozen of the beasts rushed toward them now, with more coming into sight every moment. Their snarls and barks filled the. air, prelude

to a slaughter. The only victory he and his companions could hope to gain, Halloran knew, was time for the others to escape.

The tribe from Sunhome linked up with Traj’s warriors after only two days’ march. Luskag saw with pleasure that those doughty fighters had progressed well with the plumastone weaponry. Nearly all of Traj’s dwarves carried blades of the shiny black stone.

Other bands of desert dwarves joined them steadily as they moved toward the City of the Gods, until nearly a thousand stocky fighters-called, by Mazticans, the “Hairy Men of the Desert”-marched across the House of Tezca in a long, apparently tireless column. More than half carried weapons of enchanted stone that seemed every bit the

equal of steel.

The last of the tribes to reach them was Pullog’s, since they had had the longest march. But finally the entire nation had massed, and with Pullog and Luskag in the lead, they began to march toward the dry valley near the center of the desert.

The night before their arrival, they camped in a low, dusty bowl a dozen miles from the City of the Gods. But even from this far away they could hear the thunderous conflict raging through the desert night.

“We are too late,” muttered Traj dejectedly. “We hear the world torn to pieces before us!”

“Nonsense!” barked Pullog, surprising and pleasing Luskag with his encouragement. “We hear the sounds of battle joined, but we will arrive before a decision is reached.” The southern chief patted the hefty stone axe at his side, a plumastone blade given to him by Luskag.

“Aye,” grunted Luskag, who had emerged as their overall leader, since it had been his initiative that had gotten the

tribes together in the first place. “Though I sense that must make haste.”

SO urgent was this sense that the dwarves broke camp without sleeping and trudged through the long night. At dawn, they arrived on the ridgeline surrounding the city of the gods.

And they saw their enemy below.

“Watch your back!”

Daggrande’s shout pulled Halloran’s attention around. The bloody tip of Helmstooth followed a split second later, plunging into the heart of the troll that had somehow slipped around him. Fortunately-and it was the only good fortune they had right now-the steep sides of the ravine kept most of their hulking attackers in front of them.

Hal turned back to the pressing numbers there. Daggrande, his crossbow slung over his back, now hacked with the keen blade of his battle-axe. Jhatli, following the orders of the two soldiers, had fallen back, and now sent his arrows arcing over their heads into the monsters that crowded the bottom of the narrow ravine.

Halloran didn’t have time to see if Erixitl and the two old men had disappeared from view. A heavy club descended toward his skull and he skipped to the side, striking off the arm that bore it. A green — taloned troll lunged for him, and he sent the beast crawling, legless, back to its compatriots.

Daggrande hacked into the leg of another troll, crippling it. The stocky dwarf ducked nimbly away from yet another of the creatures, springing up beside Halloran to drive a third monster back with sharp chops of his own dripping blade.

“Can’t… hold out… much longer,” he gasped.

The bands of pluma around Hal’s wrists sustained him, driving his blows with tremendous force. The magic couldn’t overcome his own rapidly growing fatigue, however, but he roughly forced it away from his awareness. Hammering his weapon with brutal, mindless strength, he

bashed and hacked and crushed the attackers in the apparently endless horde.

“Go,” he panted. “Take the kid… see that others get to safety! I’ll hold them off… as long as I can!”

With the fury of desperation, Halloran suddenly attacked, driving the whole pack of beasts away from him with a whirlwind series of blows. One troll, too slow to retreat, howled in agony as Helmstooth sliced open his gut. Daggrande, following, silenced the brute with one chop of his

axe. “Can’t leave you now,” growled Daggrande. “Not when we

just got back together again!”

“We’ve had some good fights, eh?” Halloran fell back slightly, catching his breath while the monsters recouped their courage. His throat tightened at the evidence of the dwarf’s loyalty.

“ None better than this one.” The dwarf, too, gasped for air, then raised his axe in the face of renewed attack.

A trio of massive trolls forced their way to the front of the monsters packing the ravine floor. Each held an obsidian-studded maca, and they loomed high over Halloran even as they crouched and advanced.

A sudden shower filled the air over the ravine as shapes darted through the air like locusts, or driving rain… or arrows! Soundlessly, a volley of sharp missiles dropped from the high ground into the close-packed ranks of the trolls. The unseen archers launched another volley, and the attention of the monsters immediately shifted to this new threat.

“Where are those corning from?” demanded Daggrande,

astonished. “From our friends, whoever they are,” Hal answered,

equally dumbfounded.

The beasts howled in pain and chaos, turning their faces skyward in time to receive another volley of dark, stonetipped missiles. As the trolls plucked the arrows free and the bleeding wounds slowly closed, yet another shower sent stone tips digging painfully into monstrous flesh. The arrows came from the shoulder above the ravine floor, but still the archers remained unseen.

Then the narrow gulley resounded with fresh, hearty whoops of combat. Growling and cowering, the trolls raised their weapons and gaped upward, confused and frightened.

“Look! Here they come!” Halloran pointed upward as the

fringe of the ravine suddenly shifted into movement. Their

rescuers, they saw, had lain in plain sight on the slope above

but were so effectively camouflaged that they had been

virtually invisible.

They saw a swarm of small figures pouring into the ravine from the rim of the gulley to their left. Howling with instinctive fury, the new attackers descended upon (he creatures before Hal and Daggrande, striking them with sharp, brutal strokes of their stone axes.

“I can’t believe it,” Daggrande declared, lowering his axe and watching the light, too astonished and too exhausted attack.

“They’re dwarves.’”