“What is it? Have we not waited too much already?” demanded Kilti, a young Eagle Warrior.
“Gultec counsels wisdom,” Halloran added. “We have already exhausted most of the food here. True, we could establish a strong defense with a four-day delay, but what will we eat before and after the battle?”
“We must move south,” Erix stated with finality.
“It is the will of Qotal,” added Caknol, one of the white-robed priests of the Plumed God.
Erixitl, still surrounded by the glowing cloak, surprised them all by whirling on the priest.
“The will of Qotal?” she spat. “Why should we take note of his will now, after his complete abandonment of us, his people? He sent his signs-the couatl, who died bravely in the battle with the Ancient Ones, and the Cloak- of-One-Plume, which covers my shoulders, but for what purpose? And even the Summer Ice, which enabled us to flee Nexal at the moment of the city’s destruction, has but prolonged our misery!”
“But his mercy-“ the cleric stammered, surprised by the woman’s anger.
“His mercy!” Erixitl practically sneered the words. “What kind of mercy is this?” She gestured to the ragged collection humanity around them, angrily turning her back on the
Then, with no warning, she collapsed onto the ground.
Lava seethed in great seas, surging against rocky shores with hellish force, crashing upward to coat scorched boulders with fresh layers of molten stone. Cavern roofs pressed overhead, rocked by convulsions, reflecting back the infernal heat. Massive chunks of rock broke from the ceilings of vast caverns, tumbling into the flaming, blood- red liquid and shattering convulsively from the pressure and the heat and the violence.
Everywhere this world lay wracked by flame and fire, yet overhung by leaden darkness as well, for it was a world beneath the earth, where the torturous wracking of the underdark emerged as mere tremors on the surface.
It was a world without life, without sun or water or sky. The only illumination came from the crackling, seething lava, hissing upward with crimson explosions of flame. Each burst of violence consumed precious oxygen, and the air in the huge caves hung heavy and thick with poisonous vapors and choking smoke.
It was through this world that a file of repulsive, spider like beasts made its way. Led by the one of purest white, these, the several dozen corrupted monsters of the spider goddess Lolth, passed slowly and carefully along the seething shores, in search of escape from the wrath of their angry god.
The driders were beasts of hideous aspect and foul, unnatural desires. Each walked upon eight spider legs, covered with coarse fur and bristling with venomous spines. Their bodies, bloated and distended like the abdomens of spiders, swung beneath the legs.
Only their torsos and heads showed signs of their former existence. Sleek black skin covered wretched faces that had once been proud and handsome. Long dexterous fingers held black-bladed swords or long, dark bows.
But these features, formerly noble if cruel, were now scarred by flame and distorted by corruption. Great patches of skin had burned from them, and their pale eyes
no longer held the gleam of power. Instead, they stared in terror at the hellfires around them, wildly, desperately seeking escape. Even the one who led them, the one that was pale white where all the others were dark, thought of nothing other than refuge.
Escape! For now, release from this nightmare mattered more than anything. The vengeance of Lolth had scarred and terrified them, and they scuttled, as mortal creatures will, in search of refuge against the further wrath of their god. They could not know that Lolth was finished with her vengeance and now looked toward further, evil employment of her servants.
Yet the nature of the driders was too hateful, too vile, to long remain content with an existence of flight. Here again the pale one showed her leadership, for she looked upward and shook a scarred, raw fist at the fires looming overhead. She cursed the name of her god, of all the gods, and hatred grew in her like a poisonous flame.
Ultimately her thoughts, and soon those of her kin as well, began to turn toward vengeance.
Small-mouthed caves ringed the base of the narrow box canyon. Above these dwellings, others-structures of adobe, with round doors and tiny, latticed windows-extended across the face of the yellow, wind-bitten cliff face itself. The latter perched precariously, reachable only by ladders and forming an easily defensible barrier against attack from below.
Yet never in its three centuries of existence had Sunhome known attackers. Indeed, the desert dwarf village suffered no threats other than the implacable sun and parched air that provided security even as they challenged its residents to survive.
But now Luskag wondered if it were indeed impregnable. He stood at the mouth of the canyon, greeting the headmen and chiefs of other desert dwarf communities as they arrived at Sunhome for the conference, and he no longer thought of his village as an island immune to the storms of war.
“It’s a long trek you call us to,” grunted one named Pullog, whose village lay far to the south, at the fringe of the House of Tezca. As Sunhome was the northernmost of the dwarven settlements, Pullog’s trek had indeed been arduous.
“But no less important for that,” answered Luskag. “I am glad your journey passed safely, my cousin. Come, sup with us, and then the council will begin.”
The other chiefs, a full score in all, had already arrived. They gathered in Luskag’s cave, served by his daughters and warmed by the light of a mesquite fire. They talked idly during a meal of snake meat, cactus, and water, but the conversation revealed that all of them had observed the changes that had come over the desert during the past summer and the current autumn. Finally they concluded the repast, and Pullog, always impatient, turned to Luskag.
“Now, cousin, tell us why your children come to our villages, out of breath and wild-eyed, to compel us to leave our wives and make the journey to Sunhome? Is it to tell us that there is water in the desert? Or food?”
Luskag chuckled wryly, but then his expression turned grim. In answer, he reached beneath a blanket and tossed forth a large white object. The skull of the ogre rolled forward to rest before Pullog, its eyeless sockets gaping upward at the southern chief.
“What in the name of the gods is that?” demanded Pullog, blanching beneath his sunburned skin.
“A sign,” Luskag answered, “lb show that there are more changes in Maztica than a newly fertile desert.” Briefly he told the tale of the ogre’s size and ferocity. “As 1 fought with it, a killing frenzy consumed me. The abominable creature awakened some deep and abiding hatred within me.” Luskag shuddered at the memory of that uncontrollable rage, and the other dwarves looked from the monstrous skull to the small, sturdy dwarf, with something resembling awe.
“Now I have sent my sons northward,” he explained. “They have learned that Nexal is full of such beasts-or, to
be more accurate, was full of such beasts. Now they have formed armies and marched into the desert.”
He told them of the humans, a hundred thousand or more of them, fleeing southward, making their way from one water hole to the next, fleeing the monstrous legions.
“It is clear that our world faces a serious challenge’ observed Traj, chief of the village nearest Sunhome. “Can we not fall back to our villages and wait for the threat to pass?”
“This is why I have called the council,” replied Luskag. “It is true that since the Rockfire sundered the underdark, separating us from the known world, we have dwelled in peaceful isolation. We have known no enemies, and the land has given us what we need to live.”
“Aye,” grunted several chiefs, for the history of their people was only a few centuries old, and most had heard the tale from older dwarves who had actually experienced the great war with the drow that had led to the Rockfire. Though that schism, terrifying in its magnitude and violence, had forever separated the desert dwarves from their kin in other parts of the Realms, it had also eliminated their most hated enemies, the drow. Through the centuries, the people of Luskag’s tribe had come to accept, if not praise, this exchange.
“And good years we have had, too,” observed Harl, the most venerable of the chiefs. Though his hair and beard were snow-white, the grizzled dwarf still marched proudly at the head of his tribesmen.
“So they should remain,” Pullog added, “lest we act foolishly and, in our rashness, ruin that which is our blessing. Rashness, such as the idea that we can make war on such monsters! Far better to remain in our villages, secure and hidden, until the scourge passes.”
