Feathered Dragon - Douglas Niles [15]
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From the chronicles of Coton:
Borne by the steed of the strangers, I ride toward the destiny of my own world.
The presence of the One Plumed God is nearby, imminent. / can feel his breath on my shoulders, propelling me. All the signs of the prophecy have been met; the pathway for his return lies open.
Yet I sense that a new obstacle has arisen from the chaos of the Night of Wailing. The acts of the bloody clerics and the fury of the Viperhand Cult have combined to bring a great presence into the world-a presence no longer content to be worshiped and fed from afar.
He is Zaltec, god of night and war, and he is here.
I sense his power in the darkness all around me. I see it in the vile corruption that has claimed his followers. What power it must be, to take tens of thousands of humans and pervert them into the beastlike forms we now see! He looms more mighty, more dangerous than ever, for now his legions of followers are not restrained by even the thin veneer of humanity.
Qotal is our hope, our only hope. Yet, witnessing the coming of Zaltec, I see that Qotal cannot enter this world unaided. He will require the help of humans, of people who will open the path for him and guard it until he has returned to the True World. Then his power will meet Zaltec’s, and the two gods-the two brothers-will wage war for the mastery of the land.
So now J ride, and 1 care not where the horse takes me. I will be one of those humans who opens that path and guards it; I will leave it to my destiny to guide me to the place.
CONVERGING PATHS
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