Douglas Niles - Feathered Dragon

“I’m coming with you,” Daggrande declared, facing Hal and Erix. He coughed awkwardly. “That is, if you think you could use some help.”

Halloran looked at his old companion with deep affection. I know we could use your help, my friend.”

“Don’t get mushy on me,” huffed the dwarf, his own voice gruff with emotion. “Just let me get my whetstone-my damned axe keeps going dull, what with all the dust and all!”

Daggrande marched away, and Hal watched him with affection. A “dull blade” by the old dwarf’s estimate was still as sharp as a barber’s razor, he knew. The sturdy veteran’s presence would greatly enhance their chances of survival.

Several Mazticans approached. Hal recognized the priest Xatli and the Eagle Knight Chical. Erixitl explained their plans and accepted their good wishes for their journey. The cleric of Qotal looked at her seriously.

“Out there in the desert, sister, I sense that your destiny awaits. I would offer to accompany you, to offer whatever feeble aid I can, but I know this: You will have the aid of someone far greater than myself.”

“Who do you mean?” she asked, surprised.

The cleric shook his head. “1 do not know, but I sense it

about you. You will lie carried to your final challenge on the wings of your friends.”

“I hope you’re right,” Erix admitted with a shake of her long black hair. She pulled her cloak, growing brighter with each minute of increasing daylight, tightly around her shoulders.

The great monolith looked like a living form as it moved. Two great legs, thicker than massive tree trunks, supported it and carried it cumbersomely forward. Two arms, humanlike in shape but tipped with wicked talons of crooked stone, swung at its sides.

The form of Zaltec disdained the broken causeways that still connected the island to shore. Instead, the huge stone form waded into Lake Tezca. striding easily through the thick mud. The water came only to the monstrous form’s knees.

Then it emerged onto the lake’s south shore, its heavy footfalls crunching into the ground. It passed the smoldering remains of Mount Zatal without a sideways glance. Instead, the glowering eyes, gray orbs of granite in a stark, stone face, remained fixed upon the desert, in answer to some distant and unknown compulsion.

And Zaltec marched on, until a watcher on the rim of the valley could have seen only a huge, monolithic form, moving into the remote wastes of the desert, like a towering, sheer-sloped mountain.

A mountain that walked.

“Forward, beasts of the crimson hand’”

Hoxitl urged his minions into a lumbering advance. Earlier, while darkness still shrouded the desert, the ogres bad stalked through the camp, kicking and cursing their charges awake. Now the ranks of ores stood armed and restless, ready to move.

The route lay plain before them: the wide, flat-bottomed valley that curved gently through the desert, lb each side, ridges of windswept rock, red and brown in color, provided a jagged outline to the track of their quarry.

“Today we will find more humans, and there will be more killing!” promised the beastlord.

The assembled creatures snorted and stomped at the pledge, pounding spear-shafts against the ground or clashing macas and clubs together. The throbbing noise rolled across the desert, all the way to the camp of his hated enemies, Hoxitl hoped.

HOW he hated the humans’. The anger that had spurred him from the ruins to lead his army on this great march seemed a pale flame compared to the fiery loathing that now consumed him. With each slain body, with each life claimed for Zaltec, his fury had grown.

With an explosion of howls and roars, the beasts lumbered after Hoxitl as the great monster started to advance. They spread into a vast wave, moving down the same valley the humans had followed the day before, advancing at a steady trot. For an hour, the horde rushed forward, covering distances it had taken the humans four times as long to march.

The first clue was an odor on the dry wind, the sweet scent of prey. Hoxitl howled, and the cry arose from the ranks behind him until a horrid shriek of bloodlust filled the air, reverberating across the desert like a killing gust from the north.

Hoxitl searched the dry valley floor before them, but no sign of movement caught his eye. The humans had probably moved on early in the day, but his nostrils told him that they had been here, and very recently.

Then he saw them.

Atop one of the low ridges that bordered this desert valley, Hoxitl saw a flash of color. Squinting, he picked out several shapes-human, no doubt, though one seemed somewhat short and stocky.

And then a hot, hissing spear of light lanced into his eyes. The colors! The brightness! Screaming in pain and rage, Hoxitl tumbled backward. His clawed hands scratched at his eyes in agony.

Very slowly the pain faded away, and the beast, with a low growl, sneaked another look at the ridge. He blinked in confusion and fear, and red spots swam before his eyes, but no further blaze assaulted his vision. Yet he recognized it for what it was: pluma. Only the power of feathermagic could cause such pain to his powerful senses.

Dimly he realized that the attack had come from the ridgetop, from that point of color up there. And with this awareness, all of his hatred, all of his rage, focused against that distant, slowly moving spot of color.

Hoxitl’s heavy eyelids drooped over his wicked, gleaming eyes as he pondered this mysterious development. The great mass of humans, he knew, continued to flee along the valley floor. Yet the one who now climbed the desolate ridge must be one of special significance. Certainly the power of the pluma he had just witnessed indicated this.

He could not ignore the mass of victims awaiting his army. No, the taste of blood on the previous day had been too sweet, too tempting. Yet neither could he ignore the spoor leading to the east, into the desert.

He gestured to his trolls, long-limbed creatures who were very fleet of foot. “Pursue those who slip away to the east,” Hoxitl ordered.

The green-skinned creatures lumbered away, in groups of three and four, from the rest of Hoxitl’s army. Finally several hundred of the monsters-all of the trolls-broke away, heading for the sheer ridge. They lumbered forward in the rolling gait typical of the long-limbed creatures. The beastlord knew that they would move quickly and inexorably after the pathetic humans.

Hoxitl turned back to the rest of his beasts, the crowded mass of ores and ogres. These he led toward the south, in the direction taken by the warm bodies that would make food for his hungry god.

Jhatli sat beside the trail, watching the long columns of his countrymen march past. They followed the unobstructed route of the valley, toward the water and food that they knew lay before them. The sight of yet another sullen youth, apparently without friend or family, was no longer enough to stir their hearts, so the Nexalans passed Jhatli with neither a look nor a word.

Running… fleeing! Jhatli looked at his countrymen in scorn. Was that all they could do? Why didn’t they stand and fight? This was no life for a warrior… or one who would be a warrior.

Still, it was the life led by the Nexala now. The youth shook his head angrily, looking to the north, imagining the lumbering horde over the distant horizon. How long until they reached these people, until they forced them into a battle for which they were not prepared?

Finally Jhatli cast a look back over his shoulder. The first thing he noticed was the great eagle, soaring high in the sky to the east. Looking down, he spotted the trio: Erixitl, the Lady of the Plume; and the two soldiers, Halloran and Daggrande.

He didn’t know where they went, but he suspected that it involved the hideous beasts that pursued them all. His own promise for revenge still burned in Jhatli’s heart, and so he watched them carefully.