Douglas Niles - Feathered Dragon

The ants turned to trees, bushes, even grass, tearing and chewing, reducing all to a wasteland. They pulled the bark from the trees, killing centuries-old forest giants in a matter of moments. Hard, knife-edged mandibles ripped and splintered the wood of the forest, while more and more of the monstrous insects poured from the cave.

Darien and the other driders began to move, compelling the ants to follow their new masters. Still more of the creatures emerged from the cave, expanding into a column twenty paces wide, steadily growing in length, pressing through the jungle.

And everywhere the ants destroyed.

“Do you know where he’s leading us? Or why he comes in the body of an eagle?” Halloran wondered aloud about the majestic bird wheeling gracefully above them.

“No… of course not.” Erixitl, too, followed Poshtli with her eyes. “I saw something in his eyes, though, when he perched on that rock. A message, or a plea of some kind. It seemed to promise hope.”

“We could use a little of that,” Hal agreed.

They looked backward from the low rise where they rested, along with a hundred others who had collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. The file of refugees filled the valley behind them, stretching to the dusty horizon in the north. Before them, the column continued unbroken to another rise, perhaps a mile away. A further elevation, even higher, beckoned beyond the next ridge.

“How is your strength, today, sister?” The voice, behind them, signified the approach of Xatli.

Erixitl looked at the priest, a wan smile across her dustand sweat-streaked face. “I’ll make it the rest of the afternoon, but I think I’ll sleep well tonight.”

The priest chuckled and lowered himself to the ground beside the couple. “You will have earned your sleep, for certain,” he agreed. “May Qotal see that you are untroubled by dreams of ill.”

Erix looked upward, quickly spotting the eagle as Poshtli soared over the winding trail that led steadily, endlessly southward. “Once I would have argued with you, you know,” she told the priest. “But now 1 can only hope that the blessings of Qotal are real, that he will return to us.”

She sighed, then asked no one in particular, “Without that hope, what do we have?” She met the eyes of an old woman who walked slowly along the trail, clutching the arm of a young man. The woman smiled, and then the steady march carried her away. But her face was replaced by others-a pair of young children holding hands; a man carrying a child; a husband and wife. All of them looked at Erix, and each sought some measure of comfort and hope from her face. She tried desperately to communicate her own sense of hope.

“ Faith can only lighten your burdens,” declared the priest. “The signs have been fulfilled; his return is imminent! Accept his help, and you will gain his everlasting strength!”

“But it must be soon” the woman said, sitting up and staring into the priest’s dark eyes. Slowly Xatli nodded. He understood.

“My friends!” A voice pulled their attention toward the front of the column and they saw the broad-shouldered form of Gultec approach. The Jaguar Knight wore his tunic of spotted jaguar skin, with the helmet that framed his face through the open jaws.

“Gultec!” Erix cried, brightening immediately. The lanky Jaguar Knight crossed the ground in long strides, coming back toward them beside the file of Nexalans who marched steadily southward. In moments, he reached them and squatted, resting easily on his haunches. “What did you find?” she asked, seeing the look of promise in the warrior’s thin smile.

“Water. A day and a half away. A large lake, with marshes-and even fish!” The warrior’s eyes flashed as he conveyed the news. “To the southwest… this trail leads directly there.”

“That’s splendid.” Erixitl looked skyward. The great eagle wheeled overhead, as if patiently waiting for them.

“Perhaps we can remain there for a while,” said Halloran. “Let everyone rest and restore their strength.”

“Yes,” said Erixitl absently as she cast another look skyward. Hal knew that she would only be content to rest as long as the eagle did not urge them on.

There was also the matter of her father. When the two of them had journeyed to Nexal before the Night of Wailing, he had seemed safe in his house, high on the ridge above the town of Palul. Now, with chaos spreading across the land, the blind old man’s life could not help but be endangered. Erix spoke of him only rarely, but Halloran knew that Lotil was much on her mind. He, too, worried and wondered about the old man. Yet he accepted the fact that they could not go to him-not with the horde of the Viperhand looming between them.

With the growing life of their child, the man knew that his wife needed a quiet, secure place to live, to go through her pregnancy and to make a home. Yet for now they could have none of that, and this knowledge tore deeply at his soul.

“I hope that we may have that time,” Gultec added, “but I fear it will not be so. I myself may have to leave you.”

“Leave us? Why?” Erixitl looked at the Jaguar Knight with genuine fondness.

“I owe a debt to one who is my master in all ways, in a place very far from here. He granted me freedom to journey to Nexal, to witness the shape of the threat looming over the world. But always 1 await his summons to return, and when he calls I must obey.”

“Have you been called?” asked Halloran.

“No, but I sense… things in the air around me, in the earth beneath my feet, terrors stalk the land-terrors beyond those we know and already fear. It is this, I am certain. that will call me back to Tulom-Itzi.”

Erixitl nodded, meeting the warrior’s gaze as her own eyes misted. “We cannot long escape the needs of… fate,” she said.

“Or gods.” Gultec smiled, raising his eyes but still speaking to Erix. “Perhaps we can use whatever help is offered.”

Erix sighed. Abruptly she turned away from the priest, from all the Mazticans, and started away from the procession. Halloran stepped after her.

He took her hand, silently accompanying her as they walked slowly over the brushy, rock-strewn ground. He sensed her need to get away from the silent, shuffling mass of people. He tried, by his presence, to comfort and shelter her.

Finally Erixitl sat on a boulder. She was not out of breath, but lines of strain showed around her eyes and mouth. Halloran sat beside her.

“They all need so much,” she said finally “And all we can offer them is hope! When will something happen? How long do we have to wait?”

“We’re alive, we’re healthy” Halloran said. “The important thing is to stay that way. The rest will take care of itself.” It has to! he added silently.

While the people of Maztica marched past, she leaned against him and he held her for a while. Then Halloran saw a horseman galloping toward them. At the sound of hoof-beats, Erix stiffened and stood up.

“Hello, milady… Halloran,” grunted the rider, Captain Grimes, as he dismounted. “We’ve got some bad news.”

“What is it?” asked Erixitl.

“A young lad just caught up with the rear scouts. Seems he was with a group bringing up the rear. They were attacked, massacred almost to the last man, woman, and child! He gave some details. Sounds to me like it was ores and ogres.”

“How far back?” asked Hal.

“Don’t know. He said it happened this morning, so not more than a few miles.”

“It’s more than that to the next water,” Erix reminded them.

“There’s another question,” said Hal, suddenly looking skyward. “Gultec said that the water lay to the southwest, right?”

“Yes,” Erix said, also looking upward. And as she did, she understood Halloran’s concern.