Feathered Dragon - Douglas Niles [23]
Erixitl laughed, then looked upward, making sure that the great eagle remained in view. Poshtli wheeled majestically just to the south.
“His return is a miracle, don’t you think?” inquired Xatli.
“A miracle, perhaps. A just reward for his courage. Is it the magic of pluma?” she queried in turn.
“Or the blessing of Qotal. Can you not admit, sister, that his goodness could have brought Poshtli back to us?”
For once, Erixitl seemed to ponder his question. “Perhaps. I know that it is the most joyous news I can imagine.”
“It is a sign to you of the Plumed One’s pleasure,” observed the cleric quietly.
“How do you know that?” asked Erix in good-humored skepticism.
Xatli shrugged, grinning. “I don’t. But it could be, couldn’t it?”
Erixitl looked at him curiously, without replying, so the puffing priest continued. “1 only mean to suggest that you need not fight the will of the god. You are his chosen daughter; that much we all know. He spared your life on the Night of Wailing, and you have led your people away from the horrors behind us. He has a great purpose in mind for you, Erixitl of Palul!”
She turned back to the trail before her, her expression serious. “1 have fought against that will-that purpose.” Once again she looked at the great eagle, wheeling lazily above. Her joy at Poshtli’s return remained, and she admitted to herself that his presence seemed miraculous.
“I shall try to accept his wishes, to do as he wills,” she finally promised, almost inaudibly.
* * * * *
Jhatli hurried toward the rise in the undulating desert terrain, panic urging him forward. How could he lose a thousand people? He asked himself the question angrily, but then his body weakened with relief as he reached the crest and looked into the shallow, windswept vale beyond.
Quickly the youth tensed again, mindful that he would let no one know that he had been lost. Already the hours of fright faded, and he began to look upon his daylong trek as a sort of grand exploration.
That, in fact, is how he had gotten separated from the column of refugees in the first place. In the valley before him trudged a small part of the survivors of Nexal, trailing the vast mass by several days. These included some of the weaker and injured folk, many of whom had already perished on the trek through the desert.
They followed the wide valley on the well-trodden trail blazed by the main body. For most of its length, that pathway wound through parched desert valleys, surrounded by bleak, rocky heights or vast expanses of rolling dunes. But every so often-two to three days’ march apart-the trail descended into a deeper valley, and here water had somehow burst from the ground. In these valleys, the procession remained for a few days, resting and preparing for the next march before the food was totally exhausted. Thus the straggling groups such as Jhatli’s still found sustenance as they moved along after the rest.
Jhatli and several other youths approaching the age of warriorhood served as the scouts and runners for the band. In this constant, wearing routine he had begun to find solace from the nightmare he had left behind in Nexal. The images of his mother, swallowed by the steaming crack opening in the ground, or his older brother, torn asunder by a monstrous green beast even as he bought time for Jhatli to flee, still lived in his mind. He had not seen his father die, but Jhatli knew he could never have escaped the crumbled house alive.
These visions remained with Jhatli throughout each long night, and so he filled the hours of light with hard work and complete vigilance. At dawn of this day, the young man had taken up his bow and obsidian-tipped arrows and his flint dagger, setting out to explore a shallow canyon that seemed to parallel the course of the valley
But the canyon had deepened and diverged in course from the valley followed by the rest of the group. Finally forced to scale a rough, cactus-studded cliff, Jhatli had hurried in order to rejoin his family by sunset.
Or at least, what remained of his family