Viperhand - Douglas Niles [106]
"No!" Cordell said firmly, so that all understood. He gestured to a pair of swordsmen. "Find a secure room and lock her up there."
Halloran and Poshtli tumbled down the stairway, pausing at the bottom to listen for sounds of pursuit. Apparently none of the legionnaires wanted to follow the maddened swordsman into that dark passage, however, for they heard nothing.
"I've got to go back for her!" Hal gasped during the sudden respite in flight.
"Yes, but not now!" Poshtli pressed Hal against the tunnel wall, hissing the words into his face with brutal force. "They're waiting for you up there. You know that! Do you want to throw your life away uselessly, or do you want to have a plan-something that's got a chance to work?"
For a moment, Hal's fists clenched involuntarily. His rage blurred his thoughts, and he almost struck Poshtli a blow that, in his fury, could have killed his friend. Then, with a strangled sob, he brought himself under control.
"What… how can we do that?" he grunted, forcing himself to think clearly.
"We still have the map," said Poshtli. "And there's got to be more than one entrance into Axalt's palace. Let's have a look around and see if we can't find some other approach."
Both of them thought of the inexorable sunrise, even now doubtlessly lightening the sky over the city. When next the sun set, the full moon would rise in the east.
"Good idea," said Halloran finally. "Let's get going."
"Is he not back yet?" demanded Hoxitl. He and Shatil had waited long hours outside the throne room used by Poshtli.
The courtier, who had also waited those hours, shook his head sullenly. He had long ago grown tired of the high priest's agitation and complaints. "He will announce his presence."
"This is an outrage!" snarled the high priest. Suddenly he stepped up to the courtier and reached for the door to the throne room. The noble stared at him for a moment, but something in the high priest's impassioned gaze caused his spirits to quail. Meekly the courtier stepped aside.
Hoxitl pushed open the doors and entered the throne room, followed by Shatil. The young priest still clutched the Talon of Zaltec, though he no longer expected to find his sister-his victim-here in the palace.
"Lord Poshtli! My lord, where are you?" Shatil couldn't understand Hoxitl's agitation as the high priest dashed about the room, looking into the corridors that opened from the side opposite the doors.
"This is terrible-disastrous!" declared Hoxitl, turning back to Shatil. "Is it possible they have indeed gone to rescue the Revered Counselor?"
The young priest didn't hear the patriarch, for his attention was distracted by something he had just noticed. "Look!" he cried, crossing the room to point to a dark line along the stone wall of the throne room.
"What is it?" asked Hoxitl. The priest's gaunt face pinched tightly as he scrutinized the faint outline.
"A crack-there's a door concealed here!" Shatil drew his dagger and slipped its stone tip into the crack in the wall. With a slow, steady prying, he forced the stone portal toward him. In moments, it stood open, revealing a darkened passageway to a steep flight of stone steps leading downward.
"They must have gone this way and failed to close it fully behind them!" cried Hoxitl.
The high priest's mind raced through a tumult of concerns. Erixitl must die! For Naltecona's death, promised by the Ancient One, would signal the start of the uprising-and that attack was doomed to failure and disaster if the woman, the chosen daughter of Qotal, was not slain first.
Outside, the cult of the Viperhand grew ever more restless. The other occurrence Hoxitl needed to prevent, at all costs, was a premature attack. The solution came to him naturally.
"I must marshal the cult," Hoxitl told