Viperhand - Douglas Niles [64]
Erix left the road that ran through the mayzfields lining the valley bottom. She circled to the north of Palul, finally reaching the stream that ran past the town. Here she stopped for a quick look around.
She spotted two silver-plated riders on the road, about a mile away. From the black atop the helm of one of the riders, she recognized him as the captain of the sava'ge horsemen. For a long, hateful moment, she wished she was a warrior, with a powerful bow, so intensely did she want to strike him from his saddle. Then she saw his face turn toward her, and she dropped into the shallow streambed, knowing such a thought for the utterly futile desire that it was.
She splashed through the shallow water, staying low, and started to move along the stream bank on the opposite side. For half a mile, she worked her way back toward the town.
Finally Erix reached a bend in the stream, near the base of the ridge below her father's house. Here she broke from cover, darting up the bank and through another field of mayz toward the security of the brushy slope before her.
Sudden hoofbeats pounded behind her, and she knew she had been spotted. Without looking back, she guessed the identity of her pursuers, and that knowledge spurred her to deerlike swiftness.
But the horses were swift, too. Before she reached the undergrowth, Erix felt a charger thunder close, and suddenly a brutal weight smashed into her body, sending her crashing to the ground.
With a savage scream, she sprang to her feet and whirled, only to see the red-bearded legionnaire leap from his saddle and crash into her with the full force of his metal-armored frame. Again she smashed into the ground, this time driving the air from her lungs.
The legionnaire's companion pulled up beside him, casting a hungry glance at her. He dismounted, then stood to the side, looking around them.
Erix scratched blindly, hatred driving her fingers, but the horseman only laughed. With one brawny hand, he pinned both of her arms to the ground. She smelled the octal on his breath, saw the mad flush in his eyes. His laughter dropped to a menacing chortle.
"You're a pretty one, aren't you!"
She spat at his face, and he sneered.
"Spirited, too! I can see what Halloran liked about you."
At the name, she stiffened reflexively, then cursed to herself as she saw the pleased smile crease his gap-toothed mouth.
"Now," he said, reaching a bloody paw to the bodice of her dress. "Let's have a look at you!"
Lolth tasted the blood, felt the heat of the battle, and began to take a great interest in the faraway realm ofMaztica. Her attentions, originally fixed upon the rebellious drow who dared worship another god, began to grow.
Perhaps her vengeance should not be hasty. Measuring in the time scale ofgodhood, she felt no hurry to punish her wayward children. They would feel the lash of her anger soon enough.
But perhaps, before then, she could enjoy the show of slaughter and butchery presented by the humans.
And in the near future, this land called the True World seemed likely to yield a plentiful harvest of blood.
FLIGHT AND SANCTUARY
Halloran didn't need to ask Poshtli; he knew the plume of black smoke billowing into the air before them marked the town of Palul. Still miles from the community, they began to meet haggard Mazticans fleeing down the road to Nexal. These refugees invariably scrambled into the brush or mayzfields beside the road at the approach of the two riders on the roan mare.
Sickened with apprehension, Hal felt acute shame at his own appearance, dressed as he was in the uniform of their enemy. Children saw him and shrieked with horror. He saw an old woman with badly injured legs crawling from the roadway, trying pathetically to reach the shelter of the undergrowth.
But Hal's overwhelming fear for Erixitl compelled