“How many were there? Did you have a chance to count?” asked Halloran.
The youth, Jhatli, looked at him suspiciously. Intelligence gleamed in the lad’s eyes, but so too did anger and hatred. I can’t blame him for that, Hal thought.
Along with Daggrande and Gultec, Hal tried to coax description from the youth. Erixitl slept nearby, exhausted finally by the day’s march. Somewhere overhead, Hal knew, the eagle waited for them. In the morning, they would need to face a difficult decision: head for water, or follow the path of this great bird of prey.
For now, they sat around a small campfire, using some of their precious firewood to light this council. Some of the Maztican scouts had told them Jhatli’s tale, and his heart broke for the pain the young man had suffered. At the same time, anything he could tell them about the nature and tactics of the pursuing horde could prove very useful.
Not as many as my band… less than a thousand. They burst from the rocks as we passed, attacking by surprise. I don’t know of anyone else who escaped,” Jhatli said after a brief pause. “I got away only because I was just returning from my hunt. I was separated from the main group, but I could see them.”
His dark eyes flashed. “We could return and kill them. with your warriors and their silver weapons! They can all be killed!”
“No,” Hal sighed, with a shake of his head. “By now they’ve certainly grown in number. You saw just a small portion of the mob that pursues us.”
The youth’s eyes darkened and his body tensed. Then he settled back, though his voice carried a hint of a sneer. “Very well, but I will kill many of them when 1 get the chance!”
“A warrior, eh?” said Daggrande, the dwarf’s voice uncharacteristically gentle.
“Yes… one who is not afraid to seek a battle!”
“Careful, young man,” Gultec growled, his face grim between the fanged jaws of his jaguar-skull helmet. Jhatli’s eyes widened, then fell to the ground.
“I-I’m sorry,” the young man sighed, his breath ragged.
“I know the fury that compels you to battle,” Halloran told Jhatli, “but that rage must be tempered by wisdom, or it will only destroy you.”
The youth looked at him, anger still flashing in his black eyes. But then he lowered his gaze back to the fire, a weakness suddenly collapsing his posture.
“Come on, lad.” The dwarf, speaking his awkward Nexalan, clapped Jhatli on the shoulder. “Let’s go find something for you to eat.”
Gultec and Halloran sat in silence for a time, the desert growing dark around them. Finally the Jaguar Knight spoke. “It galls me, this constant flight from an enemy we cannot see.”
“And me,” Halloran agreed. “Yet what choice do we have- to stand and die, along with all these people, before a horde of unnatural beasthood?”
“How long must we fly?” Gultec persisted. “Is it right to move farther into the desert? Could not the gods have laid for us a cruel trap, and we will reach the end of this chain of food and water only to starve and perish of thirst?”
“This new valley you found… it sounds as though there is food there, enough to last a long time,” Halloran observed.
“ Indeed there is, and enough land to cultivate. If the water remains, a city could be built there that would rival Nexal.”
“Provided we’re not driven away like a herd of goats,” Hal said bitterly.
“I do not know what goats’ are,” Gultec said, “but I share
your feeling.” The warrior paused a moment before raising a question that had obviously occupied his mind for some time.
“You and your people have used powers in the battles against us-sorcery, you call this. Is there not some sorcery that could defend us against the Viperhand?”
Halloran shook his head in resignation. “Sorcery is a skill known only to a few. Among the legion, there was the wizard Darien, the albino elf. She had great powers of wizardry, but she used them in the service of the drow. She died-she must have-when the top of the volcano exploded.”
“She was the only one?” asked the Eagle Knight.
“The cleric, Domincus, had powers of clerical sorcery. He perished on the altar of Zaltec. Otherwise, there are a few men among the legion who practiced low levels of magic- not many, and their skills are not very great.” Halloran chuckled.
“I am one of them, as a matter of fact. I once studied as an apprentice to a great sorcerer, and I still know a few spells. An enchantment of light, for example, or a magic arrow. I can increase the size of an object with an enlargement spell.”
Gultec looked at him in amazement, but could see that Halloran spoke the truth. They both remembered the great fireballs or the blasts of killing frost or the poisonous smoke with which Darien had made her presence known. “As you can see,” Hal concluded, “there is little I could do to change the course of a battle.”
For a while longer the men lapsed into silence. Then Halloran looked back toward the sky
“There’s the matter of Poshtli,” he ventured. “He flew east late today, over land we know is dry desert. How can we take all these people on such a path, simply because of a bird, despite what he used to be?” Halloran understood that the folk of the Realms he came from would never have made such a choice; about Mazticans, he was not so sure.
“Perhaps he does not mean for all of the people to follow him.” mused Gultec. “Just those who can make a difference.”
Halloran looked at the Jaguar Knight in surprise. He had never considered that possibility, but the notion seemed to make a lot of sense. Before he could reply, a shape materialized from the darkness, and they saw the priest, Xatli, approach.
“May 1 join you?” asked the cleric of Qotal.
“Please sit with us,” Hal replied as Gultec nodded.
Xatli looked toward Erix, her cloak dimly visible even in the darkness. “It is good she sleeps. Her burdens weigh heavily upon her, and slumber is the greatest healer of all.”
“It seems that she only knows peace when she is asleep now,” Hal agreed softly.
“1 have heard that a lush valley awaits us,” ventured the cleric after a short while.
“Gultec has seen it. There’s food and water aplenty.”
“Yes,” the Jaguar Knight said, nodding. “The first of our people will reach it late tomorrow; by the morning after, everyone should be there.”
“A good place to camp,” Xatli said, squatting on the ground, “A thing to look forward to.”
“A good place to camp, perhaps,” agreed the warrior. “But a bad place for war.”
“You know,” the cleric announced, sitting upright again and fixing his two companions with his gaze, “there is a place in this desert that was made for war.”
“What do you mean?” asked Hal.
“It is called Tewahca, the City of the Gods. I have never seen it, but the tale of its making is known to all priests. It was the scene of Qotal’s last victory over his brother Zaltec.”
“Zaltec, Qotal… brothers?” Hal was genuinely surprised. “I didn’t know this.”
“Brothers indeed, though very different from each other. The one desired only killing and blood; the other could not bear to hurt a living soul.”
“That must have been a liability if he had to fight a war,” Hal observed dryly, and Xatli chuckled.
“lb the point,” the priest continued. “The gods commanded the humans of the world to build them a great edifice for this war, a pyramid greater than any in the True
World. They made the desert fertile so that the people could build this place.
“Of course, the details are as old as legend, but all the tales point to a place somewhere here, in the House of Tezca. No man has seen it, certainly not in a dozen lifetimes or more. Perhaps the desert has swallowed it.
“But I am certain Tewahca is out there somewhere, long abandoned by man. Could not the gods again desire a confrontation there? And the tales of the desert made fertile… is this not what sustains us, what sustains all
