Feathered Dragon - Douglas Niles [99]
into the air. Many of the ants tumbled from the sheer wall, shaken free by the force of the upheaval to crash among the bodies at its base.
Suddenly the whole mountain collapsed in a deluge of rock and earth. Sheets of cliff broke away, and the ridge itself collapsed. Thunderous explosions rocked the driders, and they watched the heart of the ant army swept away by rockslide and avalanche. Darien and her companions remained safe, beyond the destruction, but they watched the instruments of their power obliterated before them.
Massive sheets of gray rock broke free, tumbling and pounding into shards on the stone shelves below. The ridge collapsed, swept away by a force the driders could not see but with effects that wracked the broad vista before them.
The roar reached a crescendo as clouds of dust and debris sailed into the air. The entire crest of the ridge dropped, as if it had been lowered gently to the ground. But then lower support fell away completely, and the summit twisted and collapsed, vanishing quickly into the massive cloud.
A few of the ants crept around the fringes of the landslide, still heading implacably upward, as if unaware of the disaster visited upon their fellows. The great majority, however, perished in the crushing assault of rock.
A rolling dust cloud, far greater than that raised by the human rockfall, billowed outward, swelling across the swamp toward the watching driders. A smell like bleak decay filled the air as rocks and debris crashed into the stagnant waters. Finally the cloud swept around them, and the image before them vanished from view.
Most of the ant army vanished with it, their tough bodies crushed under a thunderous deluge. To the right and left of the wide gap, small bands of the giant insects struggled to retain their footing, though more and more of these tumbled from the sheer cliffs as the mountain trembled beneath them, falling into the rumbling maelstrom below, crushed by millions of tons of mauling stone.
Gultec gaped in shock, staring at the place where the top of the mountainous ridge had stood. It was gone! And with it, he knew, had died the army that had so terrified and relentlessly pursued his people for the last weeks.
He and the Itza warriors had been making their way] down the western slope of the pass. The route here was not so steep as that on the east, following as it did a wide and relatively shallow valley. The valley floor was lined with dried brush, and the Jaguar Knight had been eyeing its potential as a firetrap, preparing for the inevitable pursuit he had expected from the ant army.
Now he stared, horrified by the might that had claimed Zochimaloc. Then slowly he forced himself to understand that which seemed to defy explanation. Yet he knew that it had to be the truth:
Somehow his teacher had summoned the power to tear the mountain apart. The damage had been total in the area of the summit, yet the destruction had stopped short of Gultec and his retreating warriors. The army of ants, however, had been caught in the full brunt of the earthquake.
The warrior shook his head. What kind of power was it that could cause such damage to the very world itself? With- out thinking about it, he knew that it had to be the power of a god, and he said a silent prayer of thanks.
Still dazed by the event, he looked around, and then his shock deepened to a consternation that made him wonder if he was losing his mind.
He saw another army approaching! And this one came from the west, opposite the ants! A vast band of men advanced hurriedly along the valley bottom, coming toward them, apparently from the flatlands below. They marched in files and carried axes and short bows and arrows.
Even more unreal, however, was the appearance of these men. Most of them were only half as high as a normal human! Some of them were broad-shouldered, with bristling beards sprouting from their faces. They looked like the dwarves who had come with the Golden Legion, except that they were dressed as crudely as any desert-dwelling savage.
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