Viperhand

BLACK AND WHITE

Erixitl suddenly broke her feet free, and she instantly ran from the shadows into the bright moonlight, toward those clustered at the edge of the roof. Around her, the city seemed frozen, strangely paralyzed. "Hal!" she cried.

Whirling, his face split into a look of disbelief, then disbelieving happiness. He shouted, "Erix! You're alive!" then swept her into his arms. His relief turned to fury, and again he turned to Darien.

He saw the wizard's face then, twisted into a look of shock, dismay… and fear.

"No!" Darien gasped, her voice a strangled choke.

"You treasonous witch!" Daggrande howled, looking at the place where Naltecona had stood. "You've killed us all!" From below, howls of outrage erupted from the Nexalan masses. They surged toward the palace, blind rage growing quickly into battle frenzy.

"What — what have you done?" Cordell gaped at her.

"What are you?" asked Bishou Domincus, softly, fearfully.

Holding Erixitl at his side, Halloran studied the albino elf. He saw the other legionnaires, with their expressions of shock and anger and disbelief — and, slowly, growing fear as the rage of the Nexalans swelled from the plaza around them.

He alone understood.

"You're one of them, aren't you?" he stated quietly. "An Ancient One. A dark elf. That's why you avoid the sun, not because of your delicate skin. You've planned this for a long time."

The wizard, still gaping at Erixitl, didn't reply. Cordell, however, regarded Hal with confusion that the man found almost pathetic. "What do you mean? What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that you have been manipulated — used by the drow who seek to gain control of Maztica. Those who sought to start the war that would tear this land apart and give them ultimate mastery."

The sounds from the plaza below, where Naltecona's death and fall had been plainly visible, indicated that the war had indeed begun.

The sign! Hoxitl, watching from his lofty vantage on the Great Pyramid, saw Naltecona outlined in deadly magic, witnessed the grotesque dance of his assassination, and then observed the limp corpse tumble to the plaza below.

So did thousands of Nexalan warriors. For a prolonged moment, the square fell still from the shock. Then a rumble shook the ground as a burst of smoke billowed upward from Zatal's summit, and finally the high priest lifted his voice in a long, ululating call. Instantly the members of his cult — perhaps one in every five of the assembled warriorhood — understood the order.

The branded ones echoed the call and raised their weapons. Their fury and battle lust spread contagiously, and in another moment, the cult surged forward to attack. As Hoxitl had known they would, the other warriors of Nexal immediately followed.

A great wave of humantide swept across the sacred plaza, converging on the Palace of Axalt. A din of stomping feet, screaming voices, whistles, and wooden-hafted weapons clashing in rhythmic cadence rocked the center of the city. The volume of sound could surely, the priest thought, be heard by the gods themselves.

The Kultakan and Payit warriors allied with the legion suffered the first onslaught of Nexal, quartered as they were outside the palace. The Kultakans guarded the north and east sides of the structure, while the Payit were encamped to the west. This pleased Hoxitl, let the foreigners see the fate of their allies and know what was in store for themselves.

The Kultakans, braced for war, launched volleys of stone-tipped arrows into the approaching mass. Many Nelalan warriors fell, but in seconds, the two forces clashed in melee. Feathered headdresses waved above the fight, marking the line between the two nations, but soon the colors mingled in confused slaughter.

Hoxitl watched the battle, his features flushed with transcendent ecstasy. Zaltec would be well pleased.

Thousands of men whirled through a dance of death, macas chopping, stone daggers thrusting, all illuminated by the bright, eerie moonlight. Spears, arrows, and stones flew above the tide of warriors, landing indiscriminately among the packed ranks. Cries of the wounded, shrill howls of triumph, and hoarse shouts of warning all blended into a battlefield cacaphony.

Blood spread slick on the paving stones, glistening like black oil. The bright moon rose higher into the sky, covering the whole gory scene with its mockingly pristine glow.

The five thousand warriors of the Payit, on the west side of the palace, couldn't stand long against the rush. Fragmented by the shock of the attack, these spearmen tried to hold a line but soon found themselves fighting in small islands, surrounded by the hordes of Nexalans.

Desperately the Payit tried to fight their way free of the plaza. Some of them made it and some of them died. Most fell into the hands of their attackers. The Nexalans quickly marched the prisoners toward the Great Pyramid. Even as the battle against the Kultakans raged with increased savagery, the first of the Payit prisoners started the long, one way climb up to the altar of Zaltec.

Shatil stared, awestruck. Erixitl! His sister still lived! He didn't understand the speech of the foreigners around him, but he sensed their shock, and their anger, directed at the pale woman who had slain Naltecona. Too, he saw the sorcerer's fear when Erixitl arrived.

The young priest looked at his sister with a sense of overwhelming confusion. He couldn't deny the joy he felt at seeing her alive. Yet his mission had been to slay her, so that Naltecona's death could signal the uprising of the cult.

But now the Revered Counselor was dead, and the uprising already raged throughout the plaza below. He could no longer perform his task — it seemed that it was too late. But should he still slay her? What was the will of Zaltec now?

Surely if her death would signal the murder of Naltecona, killing her was no longer necessary. He wished Hoxitl stood beside him to give him advice. In the absence of such instruction, he must decide for himself.

Shatil convinced himself that the use of his venomous talon now did not meet the commands of his god. And so Erix would live.

At least until her brother received another command.

"No!" Cordell barked, suddenly regaining his senses and turning savagely toward Halloran. The attackers surging below seemed to bring him back to some semblance of his former generalship. "You're wrong!"

"He's right," said Darien, finally regaining her own calm demeanor. Suddenly she threw back her head, her white face turned toward the moon. She uttered a strange cry, something like the cry of a hawk, only deeper, more forceful.

Erix clenched Hal's arm, staring at the albino wizard. She sensed Chitikas floating up behind her and derived a vague comfort from the serpent's presence at her other side. Yet she didn't forget that the snake had brought her here, and then held her spellbound while she watched the nightmare begin.

In the next instant, a dozen black-robed figures popped into sight beside Darien, teleporting from some location where she had summoned them.

"The Ancient Ones," Halloran said, pointing. "Do you need more proof?"

"Greetings, sister," said one. He threw back his hood to reveal a tall shock of snow-white hair above a face of deepest midnight black.

"By Helm, it's true!" growled Daggrande. He raised his axe and took a step toward the dark elves.

"There stands the woman. You can see that she still lives!" Darien pointed to Erixitl, and they saw the drow eyes widen in shock, perhaps fear. "Kill her!" barked the mage.

Instantly the dark elves pulled swords of black steel from their robes, rushing Erix in a pack. Their white eyes reflected milky hatred in the moonlight, but their blades sucked the light from the air and showed only as black, deadly shadow.

But Halloran saw them coming, and he would not lose Erixitl again. And so, too, did Chitikas Couatl.

The feathered snake suddenly glowed with a light like the sun, and many of the drow swordsmen recoiled, shrieking and pulling their robes across their eyes. Dwelling all their lives underground, emerging only at night, their vision was seared by the couatl's sudden brilliance.

Halloran sprang forward, cutting down one with a single hammer-like blow of his sword. Poshtli, too, thrust a blade through the heart of a blinded drow, while Daggrande cut the legs from under a third with a vicious swipe of his axe. The others — Cordell, the Bishou, Shatil — stared in awe at the shocking explosion of violence and magic.

"Strike her down!" shrilled one of the surviving drow, stumbling back to Darien's side. Halloran, Poshtli, and Daggrande advanced menacingly.

"I cannot," the wizard snapped. She would waste none of her precious spells on attacks she knew to be futile.

Halloran rushed forward and hacked a fourth drow in two with a savage sidearm swing. Black blood sprayed the others, and they recoiled, vivid fear marking their features. He leaped toward Darien, murderous hatred propelling his blade.

But he struck only empty air as the blade whistled past the place where Darien had stood. She and the remaining drow blinked out of sight together, teleporting away from the fight on the rooftop.

"She's gone," said Cordell slowly. "What have you done?"

"What have you done?" demanded Halloran savagely. "You've led these men into a trap, and now your wizard is gone! you'll have to fight your way out!"

"Shatil!" Erixitl suddenly recognized her brother, standing off to one side. The priest of Zaltec looked at her dazedly. He dropped an object that looked like a small claw into his pouch as she ran to him, and met her embrace with one of his own.

A black-shafted, steel-tipped arrow suddenly cracked against Halloran's breastplate, ricocheting across the roof. "Over there!" he shouted, looking up to see the band of drow on the roof, a hundred paces away. Several of them had dark longbows raised, arrows nocked and ready.

The battle surged with growing intensity below the legion's commanders as the Kultakans fell back to the very shadow of the palace walls. Nexalans pressed all around them, and the howls and shrieks and whistles rang through the night.

"Come," said Chitikas, his whispered tones clearly audible. "Now we will strike!"

"Now?" Erix demanded. "A few minutes ago, we could have saved Naltecona, and now we attack? Are you too late for everything?"

Chitikas looked at her inescrutably. Poshtli grunted in pain as a black arrow tore into his shoulder. Pulling the missile free with a grimace, he looked toward the band of drow. Cordell, too, looked at the dark elves, and then at the raging fight below.

"Fight your battle here!" Hal barked at his old commander. "We'll go after them — come on!" He and Poshtli started forward, with Erix and Shatil running after them. Halloran saw the drow preparing for another murderous volley and wondered how many arrows he would endure before he and his companions crossed the distance to the dark elves.

"This way," Chitikas hissed, suddenly driving his wings downward. He settled the coil of his body around the four humans, and again that white light flared on the rooftop. Halloran felt a sickening, whirling sensation as his feet lost contact with the boards beneath them.

But suddenly they stood on the roof again, just a few feet away from the drow — and behind them! Chitikas teleported them as swiftly and accurately as the drow themselves! "Get the witch!" Hal grunted, chopping the head from a drow who stood between him and Darien. Poshtli charged beside him as the startled elves whirled to face the sudden Attack.

Another drow stepped before Hal, protecting Darien. He raised a blade of midnight black, and Helmstooth clashed against the weapon with a ringing of hard steel. But the power of Hal's pluma proved dominant, and the drow howled as the bone in his arm snapped. Halloran stared into Darien's widened eyes, feeling a brutal, angry thrill at the fear he saw there.

Then, once again, the band of Ancient Ones blinked out of sight.

The Nexalan warriors, led by the fanatic bloodlust of the cult of the Viperhand, drove their Kultakan enemies against the walls of the palace. With the Payit already vanquished — slain, routed, or captured — the Kultakans now felt the full brunt of the assault.

Hoxitl watched the battle from the Great Pyramid, knowing that many hearts were coming to Zaltec. The initial flush of his ecstasy did not wane, if anything, it grew as the battle raged throughout the night. He saw his warriors using nets, ropes, and long hooks to drag Kultakan warriors from the ranks of their comrades. A long file of prisoners already stretched around the pyramid, gathering in the temple below.

He awaited only the dawn to commence the feeding of his god.

Down on the blood-slicked stones of the courtyard, Tokol, war chief of the Kultaka, understood the grave peril of his situation. His warriors fought with discipline and savagery, killing even as they died. But the enemy numbered too many, and with the high palace wall behind them, they couldn't fall back any farther. Overhead, bolts fired from legion crossbows showered from the wall into the ranks of the attackers, but there were pitiful few crossbows when compared to the endless thousands of attacking Nexalans.

The son of Takamal wondered if he had led his people into annihilation by placing their trust and their service in the hands of the conquering legion. The battle here was lost, he knew, and all that remained to him was to try to save as many of his warriors as he could.

Grimly he spread the word, and the Kultakans tightened their ranks. Upon a whistled signal from their leader — a sound that carried somehow above the din of the battle — the allies of the Golden Legion charged the Nexalan hordes. Their tight formation pushed through the chaotic jumble of the attackers as they drove toward the gate of the sacred plaza.

Soon the Nexalans parted before them, still fighting but making no desperate attempt to prevent the breakout. Tokol led the way, his maca dripping with gore, his heart bursting with the tragedy he had brought upon his people. Of the twenty thousand warriors he had brought to Nexal, a little more than half of them escaped — and only because their enemies let them go.

As for Hoxitl and the cult, they knew that the true enemy remained trapped inside the palace of Axalt. Alone now, bereft of allies, the Golden Legion's fate would soon be sealed.

More black arrows arced through the moonlit night, but Chitikas saw them coming and blinked the four humans out of the way before they landed. Once again Halloran and Poshtli pressed home the attack against the drow, and again the dark elves flashed away before their swords could reach Darien.

Another drow lay dead upon the roof, but Poshtli and Halloran bled from several wounds each. Gasping with exhaustion, the companions paused to breathe.

"There!" Erixitl shouted, pointing around a corner of the peaked central roof.

The men, including Shatil, leaped to Erix's side as Chitikas again whisked them into an attack. Again and again, the battle of teleportation raged all around the palace roof, with neither side gaining a clear advantage. The legionnaires took little note of this fight, engrossed as they were in the defense of the building itself.

Throughout the long, bright night, Hal, Poshtli, Erix, and Shatil pursued the dark elves across the rooftop of the palace, while the square around them reeled under the raging battle. Eight or nine of the dark elves perished in the chase, but always Darien escaped.

Finally, as dawn began to color the eastern sky, the Ancient Ones blinked out of sight and did not reappear.

From the chronicles of Coton:

Amid a surging sea of blood, the Temple of Qotal remains a shrinking island of calm.

Around me rages war — total, uncontrolled, hateful battle that can only result in complete annihilation. The priests of Zaltec thrill, now, to their victory, little realizing the future cost of their triumph. The Ancient Ones, serving Zaltec, strive to kill the chosen daughter of Qotal, but now — and they must know this — it is too late to avert disaster.

They remain unaware of Lolth, creeping ever closer, growing ever larger. The spider goddess watches, with pleasure, the bloodshed. She bides her time, not yet ready to add to the killing, when the humans do such a splendid job on their own.

But soon it will be time for her to strike.