Feathered Dragon - Douglas Niles [136]
Darien shrieked in hatred and revulsion. At the same moment, the cleric threw himself upon her. Coton moved with surprising quickness, and by the time Halloran had drawn his sword, the cleric and the drider were clasped together like a pair of grim lovers, the cloak of plumage bright between them.
Again the gods clashed, and the world shook. The dragon breathed another spout of fire, and whole sections of forest burned away to ashes. Zaltec pummeled the dragon with his great stone fists, and where the blows fell, great barren craters opened in the ground. The chasms in the earth widened, and it seemed as if the loser must take Maztica with him when he perished. Earthquakes wracked the point, and parts of the bluff fell away, crashing into the ocean below. The world seemed ready to fall apart around them.
Coton, too, sensed this imminent peril. A lifetime of service to his god had led him to this, to the end of all life. Once again the land rumbled, and the pyramid settled lower on its foundation. The drider and the cleric lashed around atop
the pyramid, a mingling of hishna and pluma, of the respective magics of Zaltec and Qotal.
The battle continued to rage, and then the cleric of Qotal did a thing that surprised even his god. For more than two decades, he had remained silent, bound by a vow to this god who now threatened imminent destruction.
Coton threw back his head, and he cursed out loud.
“Damn your pretensions!” he shouted, and the gods paused in their strife. “Damn your greed and your cruelty- yes, both of you!”
For a moment, the gods held their blows, turning their great heads to this impudent mortal. Then Qotal bellowed in rage, lunging toward the cleric who had betrayed his vow and now cursed his god. Zaltec, too, lumbered toward him, ready to slay the one who dared interrupt the immortal tasks of the gods.
Coton twisted to look at Halloran. The cleric’s face tightened with the agony of his struggle as he clasped Darien, still holding the blanket of pluma around her, enclosing her own power of hishna.
Then the priest spoke to Halloran. “They will destroy us! We must send them back-remove them from this world. They do not belong here!”
“But-but how?” demanded Halloran, his blood chilling as the monstrous figures loomed closer.
“You dare curse my name?” Qotal’s voice was a rumbling bellow, nearly shattering their ears. “You, who have prayed for my return, pleaded for my presence?”
The two gods loomed overhead, one the source of pluma, the coalescence of all its power; the other, the dark font of hishna and the root of its dark might. They looked with cold detachment at the mortals. They saw a man of pluma, bearing a cloak of high feathermagic, wrapped about a foul creature of hishna. The essence of the two powers flowed through the blood of these tiny creatures and gave them the vitality to carry their fight across the world.
The priest whirled back to Halloran. “Kill me!” he hissed, his voice taut. “Kill us both-now! It’s our only chance!”
The gods loomed closer, rearing above the pyramid, ready
to squash them all into nothingness. But Halloran couldn’t force his hand.
“Now! There is no time!” Coton’s voice was a desperate plea.
Halloran stood mute and helpless. He couldn’t bring himself to strike this old companion who had silently and patiently accompanied them across the True World. He tried to force his hand to his blade, but it wouldn’t move. Erixitl looked at him in terror, clutching the baby in her encircling arms.
But one man was free of those restraints. Poshtli suddenly grasped the sword from Halloran’s hand. Whirling toward the combatants as the spread his jaws, ready to immolate them all, the warrior sprang.
And he thrust the keen blade home.
The bloodstained tip of Helmstooth cut easily through the cleric’s body, tearing the cloak of pluma and driving into the drider’s bowels. Darien shrieked in pain, staggering