Douglas Niles - Viperhand

The Jaguar Knights bowed their heads humbly, but the high priest smiled to himself as he saw their bodies tense with excitement.

"There are two people — a woman of Maztica, and a man from the strangers — dwelling in the palace of Naltecona. Zaltec hungers for the man's heart. He wishes to taste of the stranger's blood. The woman, too, must be slain, though she can die in her chambers.

"You are to enter the palace tonight. Kill the woman and bring the man to us. And know that Zaltec shall remember and reward."

The horse whinnied nervously, and Halloran came instantly awake. Storm had grown fat and lazy on the easy life in the palace, and the horse rarely made any sound of distress or displeasure.

But again that whinny, and this time the alarm in the sound was clear. Indeed, the horse sounded close to panic. Hal felt pressure against his chest and realized he had fallen asleep with the heavy spellbook on top of him. He had been studying it, trying to master a few more of its secrets, when sleep had claimed him.

Then he remembered. Erixitl was gone! All the loneliness and despair came back to him, a wave of hopelessness that left him weak and paralyzed on his bed. Never in his life had he felt so alone, so useless. Roughly he forced the emotion aside, fixing his attention on the disturbance that had awakened him.

Sliding Helmstooth from its scabbard beside his bed, Halloran extended the longsword before him and silently stood. The dim glow of the enchanted longsword's blade barely illuminated the chamber.

A sudden stench assailed his nostrils, reminding him of an inn he had frequented back in Murann. The place had been surrounded by alleycats, and the odor reminded him of the tomcats who sometimes yowled on the fence outside.

A low growl rumbled in the darkness, confirming his suspicions.

"Kirisha!" he cried, and instantly the room was awash in cool, white light. The magic spell allowed him to see and also startled and frightened the intruders.

These, he saw, were a pair of monstrous jaguars. Halloran gaped in shock for a moment, but then his fighting instincts took over. The cats crouched in the doorway to his room, blinking at the light and uttering their deep, rumbling growls. One spread his jaws in a snarl, and Hal grimaced at the huge fangs he saw there.

Storm, in the garden, whinnied in terror, and Hal didn't stop to think. Instead, he charged into combat with an almost welcome sense of release.

Helmstooth pricked one of the jaguars in the shoulder, but then Hal grunted in pain as the other sprang at him, raking his thigh with long, curving claws. "Damn!" he hissed, limping backward. He lunged into another attack, but both the cats leaned nimbly out of the way.

He heard another sound in the large room beyond his own. More of them! For a moment, his heart filled with panic as he saw two jaguars slinking toward Erix's room. It was with a great sense of relief that he remembered she was gone, safe on the road to Palul.

But that same relief quickly turned to anger. His frustration with her departure, and now a growing sense of outrage at this invasion, galvanized him into action. He feinted at one of the cats and then, as the other lunged toward him, turned to sink the point of his blade into the second cat's well-muscled chest.

As quickly as Hal struck, the first jaguar leaped toward him, and he scrambled desperately backward, barely avoiding a potentially disemboweling slash at his gut. He felt acutely aware of his vulnerability. His steel breastplate hung beside his bed, but he had no chance to don it.

Suddenly the unwounded jaguar sprang into the air, in a powerful leap that drove toward Hal's face. The man twisted out of the way but heard the cat land behind him while the other one crouched, still menacing him from the door.

Hal's reaction was as instantaneous as it was desperate. Knowing the two-sided attack meant certain death if he let them spring, Halloran struck first, driving savagely at the wounded jaguar in the doorway. He slashed at the creature's face and then, as it twisted aside, drove his sword into the unprotected flank. Helmstooth lunged forward almost of its own will, as if the steel blade somehow sought the blood of this feline victim. The sharp tip penetrated fur, skin, and muscle, finally puncturing the savage heart.

With a yowl of pain and dying rage, the animal fell to the ground, kicking helplessly. Hal gaped, watching the fur-covered limbs slowly stretch and twitch. A paw distorted grotesquely, the claws extending and straightening. Then the claws became fingers, the fingers of a human hand that lay limp in death. The body of the beast, as it perished, returned to the form of the man that was its soul.

His fascination with the gruesome transformation almost cost Hal his life. A premonition of danger warned him to roll to the side, and he barely dodged the leaping attack of the jaguar that now sprang out of his room. This cat, and the other two that darted out of Erix's empty room, now faced Halloran. In the courtyard, the horse cried again, a whinny shrill with panic. At least Storm still lived, Hal thought.

But the three cats crept closer, jaws wide. Their yellow eyes gleamed at him, reflecting the glow of his light spell, mocking him with their advantage in numbers.

Behind him, Hal felt the corner of the room blocking him in. He knew that he was trapped.

"Can you listen to me, Grandfather?" asked Poshtli, bowing humbly outside the door to Colon's cramped quarters.

The high priest was the only person the warrior could turn to, the only one upon whom he would confer the honorary title of "Grandfather." Colon had always been his trusted adviser, and even after the cleric took his vow of silence, Poshtli had found these one-sided discussions very useful. And Colon, too, seemed to enjoy the companionship.

The cleric of Qotal smiled gently, waving a piece of copal incense around his small painting chamber, leaving a trail of sweet smoke in the air. He gestured for the Eagle Knight to enter and sit.

"I feel as if I am in the grip of a giant's hand" said Poshtli, clasping his hands together and staring into Colon's deep, unfathomable eyes. "I have answered what I thought was the will of the gods. I have brought the stranger to Nexal because that was the hope of the city. Him and the woman, Erixitl." For some reason, it was difficult to say her name. He told Coton of his proposal, her gentle rebuff. "Perhaps she doubted the depth of my devotion. Truly, I offered my hand out of fear for her, though indeed she is strong, smart, and very beautiful. She would be a fine wife.

"And her life is in danger! I have brought this trouble upon her! By marrying her, I hoped to protect her!"

Colon stood and stepped to the door of the small chamber. The sun had long since set, and he saw the dying torches on top of ihe great pyramid, left there by the priests of Zaltec hours earlier, before they had descended from their grim evening rituals. Poshtli turned to follow the cleric with his eyes.

"I have seen the destiny of Nexal, Grandfather! It is to lie in ruins — in black, smoking wreckage!" The Eagle Knight stood. "My visions have shown me that this stranger offers some hope of salvatation, but now he, too, is seized by events beyond his control!"

Poshtli abruptly reached his hand to his shoulder and plucked one black, white-tipped eagle feather from his cloak. He offered the plume to Colon, and the old cleric reached out to take it.

"If I aid Halloran, I shall break the vow to my order, for this I have been forbidden to do." Now the knight's pain was mirrored in the cleric's eyes.

"I have spent my life striving to be the finest Eagle Warrior the True World has ever known. Now the life of a man from another world can snatch that away from me. For I know this, Grandfather: I cannot let him die."