Viperhand

RISING TIDE

Cordell stood on the palace roof with Daggrande and the Bishou, watching the Kultakans fight their way to the gates of the sacred plaza. The commander's sense of discipline wanted to condemn them for their flight and abandoning their allies.

Yet his soldier's spirit admired the courage and precision of their attack. In the pale blue light of dawn, they made their escape, and Cordell couldn't find it in his heart to blame them. The battle around the palace waned as the Kultakans broke from the sacred plaza, and the Nexalans paused to rest. Cordell knew that, despite the momentary calm, the next attack must come soon.

"Captain-General! Captain-General Cordell!" The breathless cry pulled his attention away from the courtyard.

"What is it?" he demanded, seeing Kardann puffing toward him. The pudgy assessor's face was flushed, his eyes wide with fear.

"It's Captain Alvarro, sir! He's been killed — by that woman!"

"Woman?" the general snapped. "Explain yourself!" Even as he spoke, he suspected the answer.

"The wench we captured, the one who came with Halloran! She murdered him!" Kardann gasped out the news as if it was the most important development in this long night of catastrophe.

Cordell sighed, raising a booted foot to the parapet and looking over the plaza. Alvarro. Such a willing tool for Darien's betrayal. It wasn't hard to see what had happened. The fool had disobeyed his commander, for whatever incentive the wizard had offered, and gone into the cell to kill the prisoner.

Only somehow the woman had turned the tables. The general could feel no regret at this news, save for the fact that his own punishment of the impetuous captain was now thwarted. In any event, he had far greater problems confronting him.

"The woman is still here, in the palace!" cried the Bishou, enraged. "She can be caught and punished!"

Cordell looked at the cleric as if he had lost his mind. He knew that Erix, and Halloran, and those two natives — together with that bizarre and frightening snake — had fought through the palace all night, chasing the drow elves that had teleported from one place to another across the roof.

"Thank you for the information," the general said to Kardann. "Now I suggest you go down to the trove. Make a plan for moving the gold, as much as we can. We shall not remain here for long."

The assessor from Amn looked at Cordell in shock. He hadn't considered the possibility of flight, particularly if such flight took them beyond the protecting walls of the palace. Yet something in the captain-general's eyes dissuaded any attempt he might have made at argument.

"Very well, sir," he agreed, with a bow.

"But the witch!" Domincus argued, turning on Cordell. "Surely you want her dead."

"The only witch, I fear, is the one who deceived me — deceived all of us — and is now beyond our reach. As for Halloran's woman, her death would gain us nothing."

"Look, General," said Daggrande grimly. The dwarf pointed across the plaza.

They all stared as the growing light clearly revealed the file of prisoners — Payit and Kultakan — standing on the steps, extending from the lofty temple of Zaltec to the ground, and continuing to wind around the base of the Great Pyramid. As the sun crested the horizon, the line began to move.

Darien stepped forward, passing among the robed figures of the Ancient Ones until she stood at the lip of the great bowl of the Darkfyre. Here she knelt, bowing deeply to the Ancestor as that venerable master of the drow sat back in his throne.

"My Father, I have returned," she whispered.

"And you bring us nearer to success than ever, my daughter," replied the Ancestor, his voice a harsh rasp. He raised his head, his white eyes blazing from his skull-like visage at the other drow gathered around the deep caldron.

"But still that ultimate triumph eludes our grasp" he said. "You tell me that the girl still lives, that she eluded the attacks of all of you!"

"She is protected by powerful pluma," said a drow, Kizzlok. He still wore the black chain mail and dark steel sword that he had taken to the palace, one of the few survivors of those who had answered Darien's summons there.

"It is true, Father," Darien added. "My strongest spells were useless against her, as long as she wore that token."

"Then we must try again, and keep trying until she dies!" snarled the leader, his voice low but heated. "My visions stressed the importance of slaying her before the war began, though we have failed in that, she cannot be allowed to survive any longer! Perhaps there is still time. Destiny shall pivot on the events of the next days. We cannot afford to fail again, when we are so close."

"But what has that destiny unleashed, now that Naltecona has died, and the chosen daughter of Qotal still lives?" asked Kizzlok.

"I cannot say for certain, but the portents are dire. We must cope with events now, as they occur." The Ancestor snapped his commands. "You, Kizzlok, will lead a group into the city as soon as night falls again. There you must, you will, find and kill her, or you will not bother to return!"

"Wait," said Darien softly. "Perhaps there is another way."

"What is that?" asked the Ancestor testily.

"I think that the woman will come here of her own free will," she said. "They seek to disrupt our plans for war. After last night, they know where to direct their efforts — toward us, the Ancient Ones. And certainly they will know to find us here."

The Ancestor paused for a moment, deep in thought. "Do you really believe this?" he asked, and his daughter nodded firmly. "Very well. We shall gather our strength here and await her arrival.

"And just to be certain that she does not arrive unannounced, we will place guardians outside the cave — those who might even solve our problem for us!" The Ancestor laughed, a sound like the crumpling of brittle parchment.

"Summon the jaguars!" he decreed.

Another chest laid open, another heart ripped forth, tossed into the gorged maw of the god, Zaltec. "Eat well, my master!" croaked Hoxitl, teetering from weariness after the long morning of sacrifice.

More than a thousand of the captive Payit and Kultakans had already given their hearts. Above them, the volcano rumbled its hunger for more, and so the priests worked diligently, killing and feeding, as the dawn lightened into day-light and the legionnaires watched from the walls of the palace that had become their prison.

Finally Hoxitl stepped back, leaving the grisly task to other priests. He barely felt his fatigue, such a powerful stimulant was this, the work of his god. He watched the file of captives march, for the most part placidly, to the altars, and he critically studied the work of his enthusiastic apprentices in completing the rites.

Other priests tumbled the bodies down the rear of the Great Pyramid, where they collected in a huge and bloody pile. As he observed the laboring priests, Hoxitl saw the chief of the Eagle Knights, Chical, ascend the pyramid, together with several Jaguar Knights and other feathered warriors.

"Our battle proceeds splendidly!" exclaimed the patriarch, beaming, as the men reached the upper platform. From the slow, deliberate trudge of their steps up the steep climb, he could see that they were as exhausted as he. "Now you must begin the attack against the foreigners."

Chical looked at him in surprise. "The warriors have fought a battle throughout the night. We have taken many prisoners already — more than in any battle during my lifetime. Now the men must rest. There will be time to attack the foreigners tomorrow."

Hoxitl's eyes flashed. "No! Zaltec craves their hearts! These of the Payit and Kultakans only whet his appetite! We must attack now!"

"Where is Lord Poshtli?" asked Chical, diverting the high priest. "He gives the orders we will obey."

The high priest scowled. He recalled his attempt to find Poshtli, when it seemed that the lord had entered the secret passage below his palace. "I do not know," he replied carefully. "He is nowhere to be found. I suspect that he died among the foreigners, even before his uncle."

Chical's shoulders sagged, but he didn't question Hoxitl's report. "Still, we must rest."

"The foreigners require rest, too!" the patriarch cried, his voice growing shrill. "Now is the time to attack, when they are too weary to defend themselves! We must strike them this morning, make them fight through the long day!"

Several of the Jaguar Knights grunted their agreement with Hoxitl's plea. Chical, looking more like a commander who had lost a war than one who had just won a great battle, sighed.

"Zaltec requires their hearts!" raged the priest. "Now! Now!"

"Very well," said the master of Eagles. "Let the banners be raised. The attack will commence at once."

"Halloran? Captain Halloran?" The legionnaire, one of Daggrande's crossbowmen, called to Hal where he sat with his companions, beside one of the great thatched peaks of the roof.

Looking at his companions in puzzlement, Hal rose. "What do you want?"

"The general would like to talk to you, sir. Could you come to see him?"

Halloran shrugged noncommitally. The sun rose into a misty sky, and exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him. Furthering his discouragement, Darien had escaped.

"Come along with me?" he asked the others. Erixitl had arisen, too, but now Poshtli and Shatil climbed wearily to their feet. The feathered serpent Chitikas, apparently tire-less, started to float across the rooftop toward Cordell's command post, and the four humans followed.

The general stood with Daggrande and the Bishou, overlooking the sacred plaza — quiet now, though littered with the blood and debris of battle — and the tall pyramid where the legion's allies met their deaths on the altar of Zaltec.

"Welcome, Captain," Cordell said wearily. "How fared your fight?"

Halloran remembered the thrill of that rank, when Cordell had first bestowed it upon him. That had been on a different continent, facing a different enemy. It might as well have been a different life.

"Just Halloran," he replied coldly. "I'm not a legionnaire now — perhaps you'll remember. And as to the fight, the wizard escaped."

Cordell sighed as Erixitl translated the exchange for Poshtli and Shatil's benefit. The general gestured to the plaza, where thousands of Nexalans rested, out of crossbow range but completely surrounding the palace. "It looks bad, doesn't it?"

"Very bad," Hal agreed. "Why did you want to speak to me?"

Studying Erix, wrapped in her bright cloak, and steely-eyed Poshtli, then scrutinizing the coiled form of the feathered snake, Cordell seemed to hesitate. Finally he spoke. "Will you join us in this fight?" he inquired. "Of course, you're pardoned of all charges that might have been brought against you, and I can offer you captainship of the lancers."

Halloran didn't even laugh, so surprised was he by the offer. But his response was quick and vehement. "I have done nothing that requires a pardon. But I want no part of your 'grand mission' — and I regret the small part I once played. You have come here for nothing more than a massive theft!"

Bishou Domincus had been glowering darkly during the exchange, but now he snorted. "Theft! To steal from barbarous savages who kill each other to feed their gods? Why, they don't even know the value of their gold!"

Hal turned to the cleric, with a meaningful gesture to the warriors in the plaza. "It seems that you are the ones who have placed a mistaken value upon gold. Now you see what it has bought for you.

"And as for savagery, there are good people here as well as bad. When we arrived with the likes of Alvarro and Darien, I wonder who are the savages?"

"You are a traitor!" Domincus raged. He stepped closer to Hal and then suddenly recoiled as the sinuous form of Chitikas interposed himself between them. The snake's eyes never wavered from the cleric's, and the Bishou took several steps backward, frightened.

"Darien," said Cordell quietly. "Where do you think she has gone?"

"I don't know" Halloran admitted. "This worries me. She is a great threat to Erixitl."

Suddenly Shatil, who had been following Erix's translation, spoke. "The Highcave," Erix interpreted for the others. "That is the lair of the Ancient Ones."

"Where is that?" Cordell inquired.

"Up there, somewhere near the summit." He pointed to the peak of Zatal, below its rising column of steam. The mountain belched and rumbled, looking every bit the suitable dwelling for a band of drow. "I — we don't know where, exactly, but it is very high on the mountain."

"She is the enemy of all of us now," said the general.

Halloran thought for a moment. He understood the truth of Cordell's words, and he was surprised to learn that Shatil knew where Darien had gone — or at least, had strong suspicions. In another moment, he made his decision.

"I'll go after her, if my companions are willing." Erix took his arm and Poshtli nodded. Hal may have imagined it, but Chitikas seemed to smile. Shatil stood back, looking at them in confusion, but then he, too, stepped forward.

"I wish you good luck," offered Cordell. "I suspect you'll need it."

Halloran thought for a moment, casting another look around the war-scarred plaza. "Good luck to you, as well," he said.

Then Chitikas surrounded the four humans. Whirling colors formed a bright ring, and they were gone.

The attack began at midmorning, with no warning. Warriors bearing the brand of the Viperhand surged toward the stone-walled palace from all sides, in an explosion of whistling, howling spearmen, archers, slingers, and maca-wielding swordsmen.

The stones from the slingers and arrows from the archers drummed onto the palace roof, each volley pounding like a sudden downpour among the ranks of Daggrande's cross-bowmen gathered there. The dwarf's doughty company fired back, volley after volley. The steel darts were perhaps a hundred times more lethal than the stone-tipped arrows of the Nexalans, yet the Maztican archers were a thousand times more numerous.

The warriors hacked and bashed the gates of the palace to pieces, then threw themselves into hand-to-hand combat with the legionnaires. Cordell's men fought desperately in the constricted conditions, their discipline and courage enabling them to — just barely — hold each breach.

When the assault began, the legionnaires stood firm at the several wide doorways to the palace. They lined the rooftops, defending against the hordes of attackers who tried to scale the walls and attack from above.

Led by the cult, warriors hurled themselves at the structure throughout the day, their attacks growing in ferocity with each passing hour. Thousands of warriors surged at the ramparts. Crossbows, swords, and spears tore into them, but for each native that fell, two, four — a dozen more advanced to take his place. Urged on by Hoxitl and his fellow priests, the Mazticans attacked with brutal savagery, each man ignoring his own personal safety in the quest to destroy the hated foe.

Once a company of Nexalan warriors burst through the front doorway, driving dozens of feet into the great hallway. Captain Garrant led a furious counterattack by the swordsmen of his company and barely succeeded in driving the attackers back so that the breach could be sealed. More than a hundred Maztican warriors perished in this assault, yet word spread through the native ranks that victory was possible against the foreign devils, they were not invincible!

With Alvarro dead, Cordell personally organized his horsemen for a charge. He appointed a burly sergeant-major, a veteran of many campaigns, to lead them. The riders thundered forth, only to be immediately surrounded by the press of thousands of warriors, packed so tightly together that even the powerful chargers couldn't force their way through the crowd.

Desperately the panic-stricken lancers slashed their way back to the security of the palace compound. Even so, the press of the attack tore three men from their saddles, and screaming warriors quickly spirited them away. Tightly bound and marched into the Temple of Zaltec, these riders despaired while maca-wielding warriors chopped their horses to pieces behind them.

Another sortie, attempted by armored troops protected by a bristling barrier of speartips and longswords, made little more progress. The tightly packed legionnaires advanced into the Maztican horde, chopping their way forward, slaying many native warriors for each step gained.

However, by the time the detachment had worked its way free from the palace wall, the precariousness of its position became clear as warriors swept around behind it. Pressed on all sides, it was only with an almost superhuman effort of discipline and courage that the men fought their way back to the palace gates. They left hundreds of Mazticans, and more than a dozen of their own number, dead on the stones of the plaza.

Many of the natives took up torches — dried branches of pine, or clusters of brittle reeds, soaked in pine tar — and then lit and hurled them on top of the palace. The brick and clay walls of the structure resisted the flame, but the roof of wood had spent long decades bleaching in the high Maztican sun.

Frantically the defenders threw these torches back, stomping out the fires that started to crackle among the ancient beams of the roof. Others worked bucket brigades from the palace's lone well, though the level of water in the well grew noticeably lower after less than an hour. Finally Bishou Domincus invoked the water to rise in the name of Helm and it quickly did so, flooding over the rim of its small enclosure and pouring through the palace's central courtyard — precious men, ill-spared from the battlements, wielded fresh buckets and large clay jars instead of weapons. The water proved just barely ample to keep the fires at bay. They soaked more and more of the roof, and eventually the torches lost their effect. Late in the day, the Mazticans abandoned the incendiary tactic.

The warriors of the Nexala filled the plaza surrounding the structure. They claimed the high positions, atop the Great Pyramid and lesser pyramids dedicated to the other gods. Even the Pyramid of Qotal, dedicated to the most gentle and unwarlike of the gods, fell to military usage. A hundred warriors armed with slings and stones climbed on top of it, hurling their missiles at the legionnaires on the roof of the palace.

Yet, though the soldiers of Cordell made no headway in their attacks against the Nexalans, neither could the natives advance in their ceaseless assault against the bastion of their enemies. More than a thousand of them paid for the effort with their lives, but the steel-armed, tightly disciplined foreigners held firm against every breach.

In the face of the cautious defense, the Nexalans captured few legionnaires alive. The frustration of the attacking warriors grew, whipped on by Hoxitl's shrill commands. In desperation, warriors hurled themselves in suicidal attacks at the doorways, trying to use long hooks to snatch a legionnaire from the ranks of his comrades. But always they fell dead before they caught a victim.

Suddenly, charging from concealment behind the Great Pyramid, a thousand Nexalans carrying dozens of ladders advanced in a furious assault. All of them warriors of the Viperhand, they had been churned to a frenzy by Hoxitl's exhortations about the hunger of Zaltec, his hunger for the hearts of the invaders. They blew their shrill whistles of wood and bone, racing madly toward the palace wall. Swarming against a lightly held stretch of the wall, they quickly raised their scaling ladders, placing them against the wall faster than the legionnaires could knock them down. Even as a ladder touched the wall, fanatic warriors sprang upward, rushing to reach the roof. Desperately the defenders hacked them back down, kicking the ladders away when they could.

But the attackers numbered too many, and some of the warriors inevitably gained a foothold on the ramparts. Immediately they turned to attack the swordsmen beside them. Some succeeded in knocking a legionnaire or two to the ground below, where the press of warriors quickly seized and bound the unfortunate captives.

Cordell rushed a company of reinforcements, led by Daggrande, toward the place. Daggrande assembled two score men and led them in a charge onto the roof. Before they could reach their embattled comrades, however, the attackers swarmed back down their ladders and withdrew from the wall.

They took some dozen legionnaires with them.

All day the companions climbed and traversed the high slopes of Zatal, seeking the entrance to the Highcave. Bitter, sulphurous smoke swirled around them, and sheer cliffs plummeted below. Steep ridges formed most of the mountainside, and they scrambled up and down many of these.

Halloran led the group with fanatical determination, driving himself mercilessly. Poshtli followed watchfully in the rear, while Shatil and Erix struggled to maintain the pace. Chitikas floated about, saying nothing, investigating ledges where the approach was too dangerous for the earthbound climbers.

Shatil noticed, as Hal pressed on, that the snakeskin band around the soldier's waist had begun to drop away, unnoticed. The priest followed the man closely, pulling away from his sister. When the bend of hishna finally fell free, he snatched it up and wrapped it around his wrist, under his robe.

The priest continued to follow numbly, terribly confused.

Where once Shatil understood clearly the mission before him, now his mind reeled with haunting questions.

He reminded himself of the vow he had made, the pledge of his life and his soul to Zaltec. That god, the protector of the Nexalans, would reward his faithful. Or so Shatil had always believed.

Before he had scorned as weaklings those, including his sister and his father, who had professed that gods could be gentle and kind. Always he had had the proof of Qotal's disappearance before him, to show that gods like that could not survive in Maztica. They would be driven out by strong, virile gods — gods who feasted upon human hearts.

But now, before his very eyes, here was the couatl, the harbinger of Qotal. The creature had led them against the Ancient Ones, spokesmen of Zaltec, and had prevailed! What did this mean? Could it be that Shatil, that his whole faith, was wrong? He looked at his sister, wrapped in the soft, billowing cloak. She had become very strong, very beautiful.

And Chitikas! How swiftly the couatl had brought them here! Now they searched for the cave, seeking the entrance among the rocky ridges and plummeting gorges of these smoky, steaming heights. And what if they found it?

Angrily the priest shook aside the notion. The couatl was like any other enemy of his faith — a powerful, magical enemy to be sure, but one who could certainly be killed. He watched the colorful creature dart suddenly forward, disappearing around a mountain shoulder before them. Shatil felt the dagger in his belt and touched the Talon of Zaltec in his pouch.

It would be dark soon, he knew. Shatil had a feeling that it would be a long night.

"Bring the first captive forward!" Hoxitl barked the command, the cruel glee plainly audible in his voice. Priests half-dragged, half-carried the hysterically sobbing figure of one of the captured legionnaires to their patriarch, stretching him backward across the altar.

"Praises to Zaltec!" cried the priest, raising the knife over the captive's chest. The man's eyes grew wide, and he babbled something incoherent as the cleric observed him with scorn. These foreigners certainly didnt know how to die! Hoxitl prolonged the moment, enjoying the spectacle, so long desired, of the pale foreigner awaiting the strike of his blade.

Swiftly the stone knife dropped, and with one brutal gesture Hoxitl sliced open his chest and reached inside the man's dying body to tear out his heart.

A great cheer arose from the warriors of the Viperhand, all the surviving members of which were gathered below the pyramid. The cheering continued as the rest of the dozen prisoners were dragged, one at a time, to the altar. There each gave the essence of his life to Zaltec. By the end of the gruesome ceremony, dark night surrounded the pyramid, and a steady rain soaked the city.

After the last of the sacrifices, the shouting, whistling, and stomping in the plaza created a pounding drumbeat of noise throughout the city. The celebration went on and on, and Hoxitl encouraged them. He knew that the enemy, trapped within the palace in the midst of the joyous mass of warriors, would understand what had occurred.

"I told you coming here was a terrible idea!" moaned Kardann, wringing his hands. "Now we'll never get out of here alive!"

"Shut up!" barked Cordell. "Or I'll send you to join those brave men on the pyramid!"

A grim silence descended over the assembled officers. The scene at sunset had left not one of them untouched, and this, more than their commander's rage cowed them. They met now in one of the rooms that they had used to dine so luxuriously.

"Now," said the captain-general, pacing back and forth before his officers. "We've got to make a plan. I need suggestions!"

Before him sat Daggrande, Garrant, Bishou Domincus, and Kardann. The four squirmed awkwardly, understanding as well as Cordell that their situation was indeed dire.

"Let the horsemen charge them again," declared Daggrande finally. "But back them up with the footmen. We can fight our way out of here!"

"Through that gate? Down these streets? You're mad!" objected Garrant, the Golden Legion's resolute commander of swordsmen.

"What else can we do?" asked Kardann. "You've got to try something!"

Bickering swept through the ranks as Cordell shook his head in dismay. Indeed, what else could they do? Yet without spells, without the magic of Icetongue, without Darien…

With a groan, Cordell sat down at the table, placing his head in his hands. How could she have betrayed him? He wallowed in his self-pity for a moment before forcing himself free of the mire, to once again stand and pace before his men.

"They seem to have withdrawn at nightfall, at least to some extent," observed the Bishou. "Perhaps that's our chance, to break out of here in the middle of the night."

"The clouds have moved in," added the dwarf. "It's a dark night — and still raining."

"I have some spells that might prove of some use to us," interjected Bishou Domincus. "An insect plague, perhaps, to clear them from our path. Or wind and water, such as Helm grants me to use."

"Perhaps you're onto something," said Cordell, desperate for any hope. "One thing's for sure — to remain here is death, death for all of us." He made his decision quickly.

"Tonight, then!" said the captain-general, a trace of his old commanding presence returning to his posture and his voice.

"But how many lives will we lose?" squeaked Kardann.

"We know which life you are concerned with, my good assessor," said Cordell dryly. "And rest assured that we shall do our best to get it to safety.

"You, on the other hand," he continued, "must complete the plans to move several tons of gold. You have two hours."

From the chronicles of Coton:

A note before I retire, while the city dies around me.

Now at last Qotal sends his sign, as the couatl again strives in his name. Forgive me, Great Wise Master of my faith, that I do not record my gratitude at this event. All my pleas and prayers to this end notwithstanding, hoping — nay, begging — for you to take some action.

But now I must ask why? Why has the couatl come? What purpose is there to any struggles at this hour, in this dark night?

Now, when it is too late for all but the dying?