Feathered Dragon - Douglas Niles [79]
As he schemes, he knows that Qotal can have but one more opportunity, and then he concludes where than chance must come.
And so [feel evil move toward Payit, where it prepares fog the final confrontation with the.
RITES OF CAPTURE
“I don’t like it. It’s not like Halloran to be gone so long.” Daggrande huffed in annoyance, but he couldn’t conceal his concern. Anxiously he paced about the small campsite while Luskag and Jhatli looked at him sympathetically. Lotil listened impassively, his short, blunt fingers dexterously working a tuft of plumage into the cotton mesh he held upon his lap.
The camp of the desert dwarves filled a broad clearing in the forest, with several dozen small fires lighting the area. They had feasted on the forest’s bounty, for several deer had fallen to their bows that afternoon. And still Halloran and Erixitl had not returned.
“He’s always been a good lad-reliable, responsible. A true companion, the kind of fellow you’d like to have at your back in a fight.”
Jhatli looked at Daggrande in surprise. Obviously the characterization of the brawny fighter as a “lad” struck him as somewhat unusual. Still, he hadn’t previously appreciated how far back the paths of the two legionnaires were linked. There was something paternal in the way the gruff dwarf spoke of his human companion.
‘”Course, I never told him that,” continued Daggrande, his tone angry, “The big lunk wouldn’t have understood!” Daggrande looked at the group around the fire, as if he expected someone to challenge him.
“ What’re you starin’ it?” he growled at Coton as the cleric eyed him curiously. The priest made no answer, and Daggrande sat down with a sigh. “I don’t know what’s got into me! Surely they’re all right somewhere. They’ve got to be!” He couldn’t allow himself to think of any other alternate c
“Maybe they just wanted some time by themselves,” guessed the youth. Still, a look at the darkening jungle around them dispelled this suggestion even as he made it The forest at night did not create a very romantic environment.
“Should we search for them?” asked the chieftain of the desert dwarves.
“Yes-but not now,” came Daggrande’s response. “We’ll only get more of us lost in the jungle, and we can’t hope to find anything until morning.”
“They could be back before then, in any event,” Lotil offered, though the blind man’s tone suggested that he shared the dwarven captain’s concern.
“At first light, then,” said Luskag. “If they haven’t returned, we shall commence the search.”
* * * * *
Hoxitl stirred in his stench-filled lair, which had once been the grand temple of Zaltec in Nexal. Now ruined stone walls leaned and tilted around him. Where once a proud archway had created the entrance, now a slimy tunnel cut through the piles of rubble.
Beyond the lair, the monsters of the Viperhand prowled restlessly through the ruins of the city Gangs of orcs snarled and fought with each other, only to scatter, howling, at the approach of looming ogres. After the long march across the desert, the creatures had returned to their city with crude pleasure. Yet now, after many weeks of en-forced idleness in the brackish ruins, the pleasure turned to boredom. The beasts, Hoxitl knew, needed activity.
He himself had succumbed to a lethargic passivity that had verged on the comatose. For a time, he lay unknowing his mind vacant, awaiting the command and the vitality OF his god. The towering statue of Zaltec, near his lair, stood impassive and unmoving as the weeks became months. Finally, not knowing why, the monster Hoxitl raised himself from lethargy into stiff, unpleasant movement.
Gradually a command took shape in the cleric-beast’s
mind, an image of a destination and a growing compulsion to again put his beastly force into motion. At the end of this march, he sensed, there would be killing, and hearts to feed the god, and final, ultimate victory over the humankind of Maztica.
Hoxitl emerged from his cavelike lair and raised his voice in a high, ululating howl. The sound echoed from the great mountains around the