Feathered Dragon

3

The tortuous trail twisted across the sun-baked face of the mountain, climbing ever higher, forcing the monsters of the Viperhand to narrow their column to a single file for the ascent. The barren ridge above them marked the far southern extremity of the Valley of Nexal. Behind the beasts, to the north, the ruins of Nexal lay like a dark stain among the murky pools of the valley’s four lakes.

Thousands of snarling, misshapen humanoids formed Hoxitl’s army, now a column several miles long confined to the trail over the steep pass.

Other bands of monsters, smaller but just as fierce, had followed Hoxitl’s orders to spread through the lands and villages around the city, scouring it for human prisoners and destroying any remaining evidence of its original inhabitants.

But this trail held the greatest number, the beasts that marched with Hoxitl at their head. Along the valley floor, they had marched in a shapeless mass, flowing across smooth ground like water sweeps across a beach. Here, however, the narrow path forced them to alter the form of their advance.

Hoxitl, the will of Zaltec burning in his breast, lumbered forward at the head of the column. He lunged up the ridge, pausing only for a few seconds at the jagged, windy crest. The trail behind him, crowded now with the troops of his army, clung precariously to the steep slide of the ridge. Any misstep could tumble one helplessly toward the sharp rocks below. Nevertheless, the monsters hastened to follow their master toward the desert.

Inevitably conflict arose among the chaotic mass. Near the top of the ridge, two brute-faced ogres jostled and pushed, eager to be first through the narrow pass. The file came to a stop behind them as they pounded each other with ham-like fists. Finally they closed in savage, snapping combat, each tearing chunks from the other’s skin with sharp rips of their savage tusks.

For several seconds, the beasts teetered on the brink of the sheer drop, growling and snarling. Ores, in a long column behind the huge ogres, cringed backward, away from the larger brutes’ crushing blows.

Then a rumble of panic spread through the ranks as a huge presence loomed before them. Hoxitl, disturbed by the delay, reared upward, lashing out with his tail and striking several ores from the cliff side.

The cleric beast shrieked his rage, pushing his way roughly through the column until he reached the battling ogres. The two monsters, suddenly distracted by the shadowy form looming over them, gaped stupidly upward.

“Fools! Imbeciles!” Hoxitl’s shrieks of rage terrified them, yet, perversely, rooted their feet to the trail.

With one savage blow, he sent an ogre tumbling off the cliff, the beast’s dying scream shattered by the jagged rocks below.

“This is the fate of the weak and the foolish among you! Let all pay heed!” he howled. “Save your warfare for the enemies-humans who still escape our vengeance!”

In the next instant, his paw, tipped by wicked talons, reached forward. The claws sliced into the other ogre’s belly, tearing the creature’s flesh and bowels in a spray of gore.

With a grunt of astonishment, the beast looked down as its insides gushed out onto the stony trail. Hoxitl’s other paw lashed forward, tearing into the creature’s neck and ripping the heavy skull away from the dying beast’s body. Contemptuously he kicked the gory corpse off the edge, where it tumbled like a bundle of wet rags onto the jagged spines of rock below.

A flush of excitement tingled the cleric-beast’s body as the scent of blood reached his nostrils. He felt the presence of the god of war-Zaltec was near.’ Eagerly Hoxitl turned his

thoughts to the trail and the victims ahead.

“Advance!” howled the manned beast. Mindless of the blood spattering his feet, Hoxitl started through the pass.

Behind him, his grumbling file of monsters started to follow.

Through the long subterranean night, the driders crept onward, gradually leaving the flaming seas of lava behind. No path upward greeted them, but this was satisfactory to the corrupted creatures of the drow. As dark elves, they had shunned the sun; now, as driders, they had little desire to walk the surface.

Yet only on the surface, sensed Darien, could they begin to wreak their vengeance. The queen of the driders now, she led her creatures eastward, thirsting for the blood of her enemies, desperately craving the chance to attack. Her albino skin, which had allowed her to conceal her drow nature among the humans, now set her apart from the black driders. Yet the fire that drove her to lead them came from within, blazing in hatred and power, giving her the strength to master her kin,

Her bitterness and hatred encompassed all the world and beyond, even including the dark form of Lolth, goddess of the drow. Yet, though she hated all things, she feared Lolth. Lolth had wounded her too profoundly, taking her lithe, female body and corrupting it into this malformed monstrosity, this hideous creature! And because of this, she feared Lolth.

She knew that the lime for vengeance must wait for now until the driders recovered their strength. Allies-an army of them- would-be necessary before the humans could be made to suffer the full wrath of the spider-beasts. She could not know that Lolth herself propelled her toward these allies.

Darien led her followers to the east, far from the volcanic reaches below central Maztica. Through great schisms in the limestone subsurface of the world they crept, finally reaching the jungled stretches of Payit. Always they traveled underground. Here great pools of water blocked their passage, but they plunged ahead, swimming for hours.

Once a channel of brine rose around them, and here she turned southward, for she knew that they approached the sea. Ever onward they pressed, until the dank, impenetrable recesses of the Far Payit jungle lurked above them. Now she was guided by a deep, primordial memory, a lingering awareness of a presence that the driders could employ for their own ends. Here, she sensed, they would find the tools of their vengeance, awaiting only her masterful command.

Darien did not sense the hand of Lolth in her discovery She did not know that, once again, she had become a tool of that hateful goddess. Instead, she only knew that she herself burned with hatred, and perhaps now she discovered the means to act upon that malevolence.

They came upon the nest in a great, moss-draped cavern, far below the steaming jungles. All around her were the eggs, and the dormant forms of the giant ants. Thousands of them, her army, cowered here and awaited her command.

A myriad of dark antennae flicked upward as the driders entered through a narrow, connecting cavern. The soldiers rose to meet her. but Darien raised a hand and twisted it before her, employing the magic that had so empowered her as a drow. It did no less for the drider.

The soldiers, antennae quivering with tension, stood aside as the pale, spider-shaped woman-thing crept past. The red ants stiffened and jerked with conflicting compulsions, but the might of the drider held them at bay. Holding her torso erect, Darien at last confronted the queen.

The great insect, her belly bloated with eggs, sensed her doom in that moment. Glittering, multifaceted eyes faced the drider as Darien again raised a hand.

This time she barked a harsh command, and power flew from her lips, wrapping the queen in a hazy glow of blue sparks. For long moments, that arcane might surged, and the great form before her twisted in unspeakable agony. The segments of the queen’s body bent and creaked, spilling eggs and ichor throughout the nest, until at last the magic tore her to pieces.

The great ants looked impassively at their queen’s gory remains. Again antennae twitched along huge, dark columns of soldiers. Hundreds and hundreds of the creatures, each nearly as large as the driders themselves, observed the killing and saw the spidery creature that now claimed them. Darien raised a hand, and they obediently followed her forward and upward.

She had found her army, and now the driders’ vengeance could begin.

Erixitl looked at Halloran. She said nothing, but the joy radiating from her face was a great tonic for him. All around them the camp of the Mazticans was breaking up as the refugees once again started their southward trek.

He looked upward, at the soaring eagle, and shook his head in wonder at the miracle that had apparently befallen him.

“You told me all along Poshtli was alive,” Hal admitted. “I shouldn’t have doubted your faith.”

“My faith.” Erix smiled wryly. “My faith in Poshtli was one thing; why can’t I find the same faith in Qotal?” She looked at the bright cloak that swung from her shoulders, touching it with her long brown fingers. “Perhaps there is a lesson for me in the return of our friend. Perhaps if I showed the same belief in the god who has chosen me…” She did not conclude the thought.

“Something must have brought him out of that mountain alive,” Hal observed. “What’s more likely than the power of Qotal?”

She looked at him seriously. “You’re right, you know. I have to find the hope and the strength to keep searching. Poshtli could be the sign that brings me to that point. After all these days of running and fleeing, maybe there is a goal for us and for our child.”

“The eagle will show us the way,” said Hal, going to Erix and taking her hands. “But after all this is done, we’ll go where we please. We won’t run from anything, and we won’t chase anything-just go and live where we want to.”

She leaned against him and pulled his body close to hers. The slight roundness of her belly was a firm bond between them. “Where should we go, then?” she asked. “Where do you want to go?”

Hal was silent for a moment. “Someday I’d like to go back to the Sword Coast-with you. Would like to see my world?”

“I… don’t know,” she replied honestly. “It frightens me, the thought of going so far away So much frightens me now!” He could hear her voice tighten and could feel the tension in her body

He held her for a while, not speaking, and they stood together among the departing folk. His arms wrapped and protected her, and in the warmth of his embrace, once again she grew strong.

Thousands of miles away, eastward across the Trackless Sea, the sun warmed a long coastline. Many nations thrived here, trading and building and warring among themselves. These lands, places with names such as Calimshan, Amn, Waterdeep, Tethyr, Moonshae, and the rest, had developed a certain smugness over the centuries.

Were they not the highest centers of culture and learning-indeed, of civilization itself-to be found among the Realms? True, the recent advances of nomadic horsemen, raging from the great central steppe, might give this smugness a short jolt. And of course the great oriental nations of Kara-Tur offered certain amenities not to be found here on the Sword Coast…

But still, the center of everything that mattered couldn’t be declared to be elsewhere, at least not by any rational individual.

The serene merchant princes of the Council of Amn considered themselves to be very rational indeed. Masters of all within their borders and influential over important matters without, the six anonymous men and women who ruled the mighty southern kingdom expected obedience and performance from those in their service.

Amn, a nation of traders, shippers, buyers, and sellers, controlled its empire not by the might of its swords nor the range of its catapults, but by the power of its gold. Governed by the six princes, all of whom kept their identities carefully concealed, Amnite trade extended across all the known Realms and worked its way toward unknown reaches as well.

These princes had invested a great deal into the expedition of Captain-General Cordell and his Golden Legion. More than a year had passed since the departure of that legion on its quest for gold over the western seas, and as yet no profits had found their way to the princely coffers.

Now the princes, each meticulously masked and robed, met in private session to discuss the disappearance of Cordell and-more significantly-the potential loss of their investment. The domed council chamber was darkened as usual, a further aid to the masquerade.

At last the golden doors opened softly and a courtier entered.

“Don Vaez is here,” said the silken-dressed attendant.

“At last,” rasped one of the princes from beneath his-or, perhaps, her-dark mask. “Send him in.”

In moments, a tall figure passed through the door, removing his broad-brimmed hat with its ostrich-feather plume in a sweeping bow. The man stood erect again, a thin smile playing about his lips. He was smooth-shaven, with long blond, almost white locks that fell about his shoulders.

“Ah, Don Vaez, you may do us a great service,” murmured another of the princes.

“As always, I exist to serve,” offered Vaez, with another courtly bow.

“Indeed.” The prince’s sexless voice dripped with irony. “You know, of course, of the Golden Legion’s expedition to the west?”

“Naturally. A great promise lay upon it. I trust there has not been… trouble?”

“For long months, we received steady messages through the Temple of Helm here in Amn. The Bishou, chief cleric of the mission, provided good reports. It seems that our expectations of gold were met, even exceeded, in this land Cordell had claimed for us.”

Don Vaez’s eyes gleamed, but he remained silent.

“Several months ago, however, these messages abruptly ceased,” offered another prince, in a higher but still subtly masked voice. “We have reason to expect the worst.”

“That explains many things,” replied the adventurer. None of the merchants made any response, so Don Vaez continued. “Two dozen carracks gathering in Murann, companies of harquebus, crossbow, and horse. Even some of the veterans of Cordell’s legion, those that did not sail with him to the west. The rumors that Amn has decided it needs an army…”

One of the princes raised a cautious hand. “We do not need an army, not here. But quite possibly such a force will be required in order to see a proper and deserved return on our investment.”

“Do you suspect that Cordell has betrayed you?” inquired Don Vaez sympathetically. He now knew why he had been summoned to appear before the council. He knew, and he was well pleased.

“We do not know. Perhaps he ran into greater difficulties than he anticipated; he took but five hundred men. Now we will send nearly three times that number on his trail. We know, through the temple, what course he sailed, even where he made landfall.”

The air seemed to grow heavy in the room for the space of a brief pause. Don Vaez waited.

“We want you to lead the expedition after him,” a prince finally offered. “We send you after our gold, and to learn Cordell’s fate. If he lives, you are to bring him back-in chains, if necessary.”

Another of the princes raised a golden bell, shaking it slightly to elicit a musical tinkling. In moments, the golden doors opened to reveal the courtier who had admitted Don Vaez.

“Summon Pryat Devane,” ordered the prince curtly.

In a few moments, the cleric entered, bowing first to the

princes and then to Don Vaez. The adventurer studied the short pryat. The clean-shaven priest wore a close-fitting cap of steel and a loose robe of fine silk. His hands were cloaked in the silver gauntlets of Helm.

“Pryat Devane was Bishou Domincus’s closest aide,” explained the prince.

“You’re the one who maintained contact with Domincus?” asked Don Vaez.

“Indeed, my lord. Every few weeks, through the conduit of our faith, the Bishou informed me of the progress of the mission. They made good progress for a time. They penetrated to the heart of the continent, to a city that was overflowing with gold. Then… silence.”

“That’s a mystery we’ll soon solve,” the captain said heartily, “You’ll be making the journey with me, I presume?”

“With my lord’s pleasure,” explained the pryat, with another bow.

“Of course!”

“I am sure you will find the pryat a useful addition to your expedition,” remarked one of the princes. “We have provided him with a small gift, that he may aid you more effectively-a flying carpet.”

Don Vaez nodded to the cleric and then bowed, more deeply than ever, to the council. Indeed, he could think of many uses for a cleric that could fly. As he turned from the masked princes, a sly smile toyed with his lips. The task pleased him-pleased him greatly-for Cordell had long eclipsed the Don’s own reputation as a loyal mercenary.

And to use Cordell’s own men against him! The irony did not escape Don Vaez. The Council of Six had granted him the opportunity of a lifetime! When he finished with it, he determined that his name would hold a high place in the annals of the Sword Coast.

Cordell shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. He had always been a hard campaigner, but never had he pushed himself as hard as in the last months, since the escape from Nexal. Now there was no part of his body that did not ache, throb, or cry out from fatigue, hunger, or thirst.

He looked across the vast encampment. His own legionnaires, the hundred and fifty that still survived, spread in a ring around him. working at polishing and sharpening weapons, oiling tattered boots, or sewing plates of armor together where the desert heat had rotted worn straps.

Six of the men, led by young Captain Grimes, rode patrol in the desert They needed more scouts, but only fifteen horses remained to the legion-fifteen horses in all the True World-and the unfortunate steeds all were near total exhaustion.

So were the men, for that matter, he realized. Now his legionnaires the remnants of his once valiant force, fled alongside their former enemies, the Nexala. The greater enemy of the monstrous horde menaced both groups equally He realized with bitter irony that the gold of Nexal had also been lost There was no longer any reason to make war with the Mazticans.

One bright spot in the months of flight and disaster had been the loyalty of the Maztican warriors from the nation of Kultaka. when he had first entered that nation on his march inland Kultaka had resisted his legion furiously Following Cordell’s victory, however, the young Kultakan chief, Tokol, had become his most staunch ally Now some six thousand Kultaka warriors marched alongside the Nexalans and the legionnaires. The ancient rivalry-hatred, in reality-between Kultaka and Nexal had been temporarily subordinated to the pressing need to escape the monstrous horde that threatened them all.

Nearby Cordell saw Captain Daggrande, the doughty dwarven captain of the crossbow, talking with a small cluster of Maztican archers. Daggrande was one of three dozen dwarves to live through the Night of Wailing. Unlike most of his comrades Daggrande had learned to speak the Nexalan tongue.

For a moment, the general’s mind drifted as he thought of other men-Captain Garrant, Bishou Domincus, many faithful soldiers-who had met their ends in the dying city. He

thought of the mountainous trove of gold there, now buried beneath tons of rubble and guarded by tusked and taloned beasts. Once the loss of that gold had seemed the end of the world to him. Now it seemed but one more thread in the doom that still threatened him and his men.

Still, there remained the gold buried within the walls of Helmsport. This, the trove he had claimed from the conquest of Ulatos, had been left behind when the legion marched to Nexal. All of the men who knew the exact location of the treasure had accompanied him to Nexal; among the small garrison left at the port were none who knew where the gold was buried.

The general dismounted and walked over to Daggrande as the dwarven veteran looked up from his discussion of weaponry. Cordell winced inwardly at the look of guarded suspicion in his old comrade’s eyes. Even Daggrande loses faith in me!

“How can you speak that Helm-cursed tongue?” the commander asked, joking.

Daggrande ignored the humorous intent. “It only makes sense, since it seems as though we might have to spend the rest of our lives here.”

“Nonsense! We’ve got good men left. As soon as we get out of this desert, I see no reason why we won’t be able to reach the coast and make ourselves some ships.”

Daggrande grunted, and Cordell sensed blame in the sound. His own conscience growled at him daily. If only I had been satisfied with the gold we had already gained! Why did I march on Nexal? Now an expedition that had, at one point, owned a tenfold profit was reduced to struggling for escape for the fortunate survivors.

“We’re leaving today,” Daggrande said. He gestured across the camp, and Cordell saw that many of the Mazticans had already begun to trudge wearily from the valley heading southward in search of more food and water.

“So I heard. I don’t know why though. There’s still enough provisions here for a few days.”

“We march to follow a bird. That’s what these warriors tell me, anyway” Daggrande added. “It seems some eagle came to camp, and Halloran’s woman decided we all should follow it south.” His tone as he spoke of “Halloran’s woman” remained carefully neutral.

Cordell turned away, suddenly irritated with the dwarf. Daggrande started to pack up his weapons, preparing to march.

Among the warriors, Cordell saw Chical, proud chief of the Eagle Knights. Chical wore his cloak of black and white feathers and his wooden helmet with its curved-beak visor extending over his rugged face. The man had been a stalwart enemy, leading the attacks against Cordell’s legion during the struggle to escape Nexal, but then quickly realizing the greater threat when the world had come to pieces around them all.

Now Chical had become the accepted war chief of all the Nexalans, though there had never been any formal acknowledgment of such status. Cordell had found him to be a proud, brave warrior who understood perhaps better than any of his people that his world was never again going to be the same.

He looked across the valley, spotting Erixitl easily by the brightness of her cloak. She stood beside the trail as a wide column of Mazticans marched past. Beside her, tiny in the distance, he recognized Halloran.

How had that man reached inside these people the way he had? How, indeed, had Daggrande been able to understand and converse with them? The general felt a sharp jolt of envy for these soldiers, both of his legion but now his no longer. They might even be able to make a home hereTo Cordell, Maztica remained a great, faceless void. But where once it had been a space beckoning to adventure, promising reward, now it was a nightmare, threatening extinction, promising only constant flight and terror.

His reverie of self-pity suddenly broke as he sensed someone approaching behind him and saw the pudgy figure of Kardann, the Assessor of Amn, hurrying toward him. Appointed by the council of the merchant princes, the accountant had been an annoyance and a bother throughout the expedition. Now the mere sight of him aroused Cordell’s

ire. Why did the useless assessor live when so many good men had perished?

“Hello, general,” gasped the red-faced accountant, mopping his brow.

“Yes?” inquired Cordell coldly.

“I’ve been thinking,” began Kardann, speaking carefully. He crossed his arms over his chest and met the commander’s gaze. “Perhaps we can go back to Nexal. That gold can’t be too hard to find. And with this group as an army, we could surely drive those monsters away from there!”

“We?” Cordell asked angrily. He well knew that Kardann’s taste for battle grew in direct proportion to the distance between the accountant and the prospective combat. “I’ve had enough of your mad schemes, Kardann!” he snapped. “Look around you. Do these people look like an army? Even the warriors can think of nothing more than protecting their families!”

Kardann’s eyes glowered, but finally he turned and stalked away from the Captain-General. Cordell watched him go, feeling his own frustration rise again. Pushed by the circumstances of their surroundings, he saw no prospect other than flight. Yet this fact burned painfully inside of him. He didn’t like to yield to destiny.

Instead, Cordell liked to sweep fate before him.