Viperhand

"Sorcery!" wailed Zilti from before the altar, looking at the massacre below. "How else could they have learned of the trap?"

Shatil, standing beside his high priest, looked around numbly. Accustomed to bloodshed and death – indeed, he had performed over a hundred sacrifices himself – the destruction below nonetheless horrified the young priest.

The legio

First they had bottled up the north exit from the plaza, while the sudden horde of insects had closed egress to the west. The cloaked figure with the tiny stick had sealed the eastern side of the square, now marked by hundreds of stiff, frozen corpses. Only to the south could the villagers find escape, and it was from this side that the refugees poured out of the courtyard.

Finally the horses began to slip and stumble on the blood-slicked pavement, and the riders dismounted. There were no more living victims around them, in any event.

Shatil raised his eyes to the surrounding ridges, knowing that thousands of Nexalan warriors were concealed there. From the height of the pyramid, he could see over the houses and trees of the village, gaining a clear view of the surrounding heights. Surely those warriors had seen this treachery.

They had, but the priest saw that the Kultakan allies of the legio

The Nexalans tried a desperate charge that was quickly broken and routed by the steady macas of the Kultakans. Inexorably, one after another, the attacks separated the thousandmen regiments of Nexal from each other. Each surrounded block of feathered warriors fought desperately as the battle on the ridges degenerated into numerous melees.

But each Nexalan thousandmen fought alone, in isolation and without coordination. The Kultakans, Shatil saw, concentrated their forces against first one, than another block of enemy troops. One by one, the Nexalan regiments broke, pressed from the battlefield by the overwhelming, savage force of the Kultakan ranks.

Around the square, the companies of legio

Bolts from legion crossbows raked the pyramid, and in a sudden rush, the attackers pressed upward, three quarters of the way to the top. On all four sides, Shatil observed numbly, the clamor of battle threatened to sweep upward, into the temple and its sacred statue. Grimly, clutching his sacrificial knife, he stood before the door, prepared to give his life in the desperate last stand before the bestial icon.

For now, there was little he could do. The warriors still fought on the narrow stairways, and their macas and spears, though outclassed by the invaders' steel, were still more formidable weapons than his obsidian dagger.

A house exploded into flame, and Shatil swore the fire was caused by the woman in the dark robe. She simply raised her hand and pointed. Immediately columns of flame had spurted from the building's doors and windows. Maztican warriors, their bodies blistered and flaming, dove through the windows and doors, only to collapse and die on the street.

Then the disbelieving priest saw the woman turn to another building. This one had started to disgorge warriors from several doors, angry spearmen who rushed forward to exact vengeance for the massacre.

But the woman raised both hands this time. A pale mist suddenly appeared before her and immediately fa

The mist grew thicker, seeping through the doors and windows of all the buildings along the street. From some of these, bodies stumbled forth to collapse outside, gasping out their last, wretched breaths. In others, Shatil could see nothing, but he retained no illusions that any villagers remained alive within.

The deadly cloud drifted up the street, and in its wake, the village finally fell into stillness, except around the priests. The warriors fighting on the steps finally fell back to their last position, the top of the pyramid itself.

Companies of swordsmen still smashed into houses, killing whomever they found. More and more, the swordsmen discovered that these buildings had already been abandoned, their residents in flight or perhaps lying dead in the square.

"We are finished here," said Zilti, his voice an agonized grunt. "But one of us must carry word of this betrayal back to Nexal, to Hoxitl."

"We must defend the statue to the death!" objected Shatil. "The invaders must not reach the sacred image of Zaltec!"

"No" Zilti commanded firmly, his voice tempered with gentle compassion for Shatil's devotion. "I will stay here, but you must flee."

"How?" asked Shatii practically, as legio

"This way!" Zilti led Shatil into the small temple building itself, past the gruesome statue of Zaltec and its blood-caked maw. Shatil hesitated, shuddering under the image of that statue falling, torn down by the blood-drenched savages from across the sea.

Zilti didn't delay, however. The priest pushed a stone on the back of the statue, and suddenly a hatch fell away in the floor, revealing a steep stairway that vanished into a terribly dark pit.

"This will take you to the bottom of the pyramid," said Zilti. "You will come out beside the temple, but wait until nightfall, until the strangers have gone."

The high priest now pressed a parchment, rolled into a tube, into Shatil's hands. "Take this to Nexal. Give it to Hoxitl, high priest of Zaltec there. It will tell the tale of the treachery here. Now go!"

Shatil took the parchment, knowing that there had been no time for Zilti to compose a message but not questioning the older priest's command. But again he hesitated, not from fear of the dark path but out of loyalty to his teacher. "Come with me," he urged. "We can both get away!"

Zilti looked outside the temple. Already several legio

Without another word, Shatil dropped into the hole. He carefully felt his way past the first step. Before he touched the second, Zilti had closed the secret door above him.

The sweet scent of blood tickled Alvarro's nostrils, driving away the fatigue and exhaustion of the long combat. His sword, dripping with gore, remained in his hand, but he saw no victims for its deadly blade. Beside him, his top sergeant, Vane, galloped smoothly. The two horsemen rode far beyond the confines of the small village.