Douglas Niles - Feathered Dragon

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.