her easing came the breaking of hishna. Through the air, over the short distance between Twin Visages and Ulatos, Darien sent the sundering of her spell.
Now she was prepared to meet her enemy.
*****
“What happened? Where am I?” Erixitl asked weakly as her eyes fluttered open and she saw Halloran seated beside her bed.
For a moment, he could not speak, so great was his joy and relief. “This is Ulatos,” he said finally. “The temple of Qotal. By the gods, Erix, 1 was so afraid…” His voice faded, choking.
“Shhh,” she urged, sitting up slowly. “No harm could come to me as long as you were here to watch over me.” She squinted in concentration, trying to think. “I remember a horrible darkness settling around me, dragging me down and holding me there. It’s gone, now-finally.”
Suddenly her eyes widened. “Finally! How long has it been?”
“It has been ten days since I have seen your eyes,” he replied, his voice tight. He blinked several times and took her hand in his.
Fear flamed in Erix’s eyes. “We’ve got to go-to get to Twin Visages!” She struggled to get up as he tried gently to ease her back onto her pillow.
“You need to rest!” he said. “The baby-“
She pushed him back with surprising vitality and sat facing him. “The baby will come with me. We must go now! Who knows how much time we have!”
“The army of the Viperhand will be here soon-probably today, according to Chical,” Halloran went on. “The eagles have been observing it all along.”
“And what will happen then?” Erix gasped. “There will be battle, and the Little Men, the desert dwarves, Gultec’s warriors, they’ll all be killed!”
“There are fifteen hundred men-at-arms from Amn here, too,” Hal pointed out. “And Cordell has sent the ships to collect the rest of his men and the Kultakans.” Hal admitted privately that the latter forces had little chance of debarking before the issue would be resolved.
“But Zaltec is with them. And he’s the one who can stop Qotal. We have to get to Twin Visages-now, today!”
Jhatli, summoned from a nearby room within the temple, quickly agreed. The youth went to get his proudest possession, a steel short sword given him by Cordell from the arsenal of weapons brought by Don Vaez’s expedition.
Coton stepped forward, and there was no question but that the priest of Qotal should accompany them. Daggrande was with the legionnaires in the fortress, commanding a company of crossbow and harquebus and helping Cordell to integrate the Maztican troops into the tactics of the Sword Coast-Then Lotil, his feather blanket nearing completion, emerged from his room. His blunt fingers, as always, worked traces of plumage into the fine mesh of cotton.
“1 will come, too,” he said.
Halloran started to open his mouth in objection, to plea with the blind man that such a gesture merely endangered Lotil’s own life. But he stopped, feeling Erix’s touch on his arm.
“Of course. Father,” she said. “You shall accompany us.”
For more than a week after leaving Kultaka, Hoxitl had pushed his monstrous horde with maniacal frenzy. They marched along the coast, following the wide track laid down by the lumbering, monstrous form of Zaltec. The giant stone image appeared to take no note of the thousands of creatures following in its wake, but this, to Hoxitl, was as it should be.
Finally they pressed along the shore toward Ulatos, knowing that just beyond lay the culmination of the Payit lands, the point of Twin Visages.
The army of the Viperhand marched grimly now, a hardened edge marking troops that had pursued the Nexalans a ragged, bloodthirsty mob.
The ogres had assumed complete control over the ores, and the entire force was organized into companies comprising five to ten ogres commanding a hundred ores. Hundreds of these companies formed the thirty great regiments, each regiment consisting of one thousand ores and their ogre officers and two companies of ten bloodthirsty, regenerating trolls.
Hoxitl, towering over even the tallest of his trolls, ruled this army with an iron hand. The most savage of his troops cringed when the cleric-beast raised his hand. The most veteran and trail-worn of his companies puffed with pride when he praised their appearance or their acts.
And before them marched the great, imposing form of their god. Zaltec was capable of crushing a row of houses in one monstrous footstep. In a few hours, he could reduce a city to rubble. If any doubts assailed the cleric-beast, they concerned what use such a mighty deity would have for any army, however toughened and well organized.
The great force moved through the Payit country, driving the inhabitants in panic before them. Thus, when they approached the Payit city of Ulatos, word of their approach was sure to precede them.
Still, when they reached the savannah before that city, it gave Zaltec joy to see the enemy arrayed to meet him. The sun had long since risen and climbed high into the morning sky. The humans and their allies had advanced into the wide savannah, anchoring their position on a pair of small villages.
The beasts of the Viperhand saw them and prepared to a tack.
“By Helm, look at the size of that thing!” Cordell gasped astonishment and dismay. He stood, with Daggrande an.
Grimes, atop the rampart of Helmsport, looking over the forest to the west and watching the steady, unhurried approach of the monstrous statue“We’ll never be able to stand against it,” Grimes said matter-of- factly.
“Erixitl must get to that pyramid,” Daggrande added. “It’s the only hope we have. We might be able to hold out against the monsters, but you’re right, Grimes-there’s nothing we can do about the big fellow.”
“When did they leave?” Cordell asked.
“An hour ago, no more,” admitted the dwarf. “It’ll take them most of the afternoon to get there.” The giant form of the god, they knew, could cover the distance in a fraction of that time.
The great monolith marched to the edge of the forest, but then it paused. The trees of the jungle came only to its waist, and its gray, impassive eyes stared to the east, in apparent unconcern for the army that gathered on the savannah before it. The watchers could not see, but they sensed, the monstrous army gathering around the statue’s feet, spreading along the edge of the forest, staying within the concealment of the verdant canopy.
The giant remained impassive, still staring. If It suffered any impatience, no clue was visible across the craggy, granite features of its face. It no doubt knew that the true goal of its quest lay just a short distance beyond the bothersome humans arrayed before it, humans who were beneath the notice of one so magnificent, so unstoppable.
But still it waited.
Kardann collapsed into a sobbing, miserable heap. He had fled for days through this miserable forest, surviving on the few pieces of fruit he could find, cringing and fleeing at every sound. Finally he knew he had reached the end of his endurance.
For a full day, he lay still, certain at any moment that he was about to die. And, in fact, he began to wish for death as
the only conceivable release from the death by starvation that now seemed his inescapable destiny
Suddenly he heard a sound and sat instantly upright. Perhaps, he decided, he didn’t really want to die-not yet,
