“We’ve had some good fights, eh?” Halloran fell back slightly, catching his breath while the monsters recouped their courage. His throat tightened at the evidence of the dwarf’s loyalty.
“ None better than this one.” The dwarf, too, gasped for air, then raised his axe in the face of renewed attack.
A trio of massive trolls forced their way to the front of the monsters packing the ravine floor. Each held an obsidian-studded maca, and they loomed high over Halloran even as they crouched and advanced.
A sudden shower filled the air over the ravine as shapes darted through the air like locusts, or driving rain… or arrows! Soundlessly, a volley of sharp missiles dropped from the high ground into the close-packed ranks of the trolls. The unseen archers launched another volley, and the attention of the monsters immediately shifted to this new threat.
“Where are those corning from?” demanded Daggrande,
astonished. “From our friends, whoever they are,” Hal answered,
equally dumbfounded.
The beasts howled in pain and chaos, turning their faces skyward in time to receive another volley of dark, stonetipped missiles. As the trolls plucked the arrows free and the bleeding wounds slowly closed, yet another shower sent stone tips digging painfully into monstrous flesh. The arrows came from the shoulder above the ravine floor, but still the archers remained unseen.
Then the narrow gulley resounded with fresh, hearty whoops of combat. Growling and cowering, the trolls raised their weapons and gaped upward, confused and frightened.
“Look! Here they come!” Halloran pointed upward as the
fringe of the ravine suddenly shifted into movement. Their
rescuers, they saw, had lain in plain sight on the slope above
but were so effectively camouflaged that they had been
virtually invisible.
They saw a swarm of small figures pouring into the ravine from the rim of the gulley to their left. Howling with instinctive fury, the new attackers descended upon (he creatures before Hal and Daggrande, striking them with sharp, brutal strokes of their stone axes.
“I can’t believe it,” Daggrande declared, lowering his axe and watching the light, too astonished and too exhausted attack.
“They’re dwarves.’”
From the chronicles of Coton:
In the light of day, we tremble now, as the bloody hand of Zaltec is nigh.
We wait for the future, our fate determined by the strong. arms and keen weapons of a soldier, a dwarf, and a youth; and though the enemy numbers many, our faith is great, for” the one true god of goodness watches over us.
We three, two old men-one blind, the other sworn MS silence-and a young woman who grows more round with child every passing day, can do naught for the battle. Yet our fate is tied irreversibly to those who strike blows in the name of Qotal.
And so we pause in the heights of the twisting ravine. The horse can climb no farther by this path, and even could we proceed, we have no future if our friends fall in this light.
But again the blessings of Qotal are manifest.
Now we find proof of goodness and also the truth of legEND: WE learn that the Hairy Men of the Desert do to fact exist. Indeed they have saved us, for the beasts of the Viperhand flee back to their master, bleeding and defeated We greet our saviors with curiosity, and so do they regard us — but we are allies in a great cause, and in our first contest together we have prevailed.
And now only the desert extends around us, and our goal beckons to the east.
10
Halloran thought that it must be the strangest victory celebration ever. The companions sat beneath the desert sky,] its immaculate dome of stars arcing from horizon to horizon, among a throng of a thousand dwarves. No fire blazed, even though the night was chill, and their newfound allies spoke in subdued, almost awestruck, tones.
From somewhere, Luskag, the chief of the desert! dwarves, had produced a number of jars of a bitter draft, more powerfully intoxicating than anything Hal had yet sampled in Maztica. Now they sat in groups, gathered along a wide, flat bluff, drinking the liquor and basking in the glow of victory.
Jhatli amused the dwarves by whooping and dancing about, describing to anyone who would listen the deadly rain of arrows with which he had showered the trolls. The youth spun wildly and leaped into the air, and the gruff dwarves chuckled at the spectacle.
Daggrande and.Luskag, meanwhile, talked earnestly in the dwarven tongue that linked them, They passed one era the gourds of drink between them, and Hal wondered] blearily whether the two of them would be able to finish the thing. After all, he himself had had only a few swigs, yet already he found a strange nonchalance flowing gently through his limbs.
“Sure,” he said to the grinning desert dwarf who squatted beside him. “I’ll have another taste.” The stuff coated hid tongue like pungent ink and cut a swath of fire down his throat, but then in his belly it became a flame of gentle warmth.
Daggrande clumped over to him, walking with a steady-gait. Vet when Hal looked at his friend’s face, he saw that the dwarf’s eyes blazed and his cheeks were flushed with a
ruddy glow.
“This was their first battle ever!” exclaimed the dwarf, collapsing beside Hal.
The man shook his head in amazement. “Dint do too bad, did they?”
Daggrande smiled, his eyes glowing brighter, “That’s dwarves for ya. You can take the dwarves out of the fight, but you can’t take the dwarves out of the fight… no, that’s out of the war… something like that.” He shook his head, suddenly morose at the lapse in his memory,
“I know what you mean.” Hal chuckled.
Suddenly the dwarf looked up. “Where’s yer wife?” he asked.
“Isn’t she right over…” Hal’s head whirled around 1 dunno,” he admitted. He climbed awkwardly to his feet, surprised when the ground seemed to shift under him. Odd the way the stars whirled around, too… “1 better go find her,” he mumbled.
A cool wind blew across the desert, cresting the bluff of their camp briskly, with freshening force. The air seemed to clear his head slightly, but Hal still found it difficult to maintain his footing. Not knowing why he did it, he headed toward the edge of the crest, away from the dwarves and his companions.
In a few minutes, he saw, or imagined, a brightness ahead of him. He was not surprised when he found Erixitl sitting quietly and looking upward at the stars.
He sat-fell, actually-beside her, and she laughed gently. When he tried to explain, she placed a hand to his lips to silence him.
For a long time, they sat together, watching the stars wheel gracefully across the heavens. A feeling of well-being encircled them in hope and promise, and they did nothing to break the spell.
“Our lives have changed these last few days,” Erixitl said softly, “We start on anew path-a long journey across the face of the True World.”
Halloran held her tightly He wanted to remind her that they had new allies now, and new prospects for success. They were together, they would have a child… A million thoughts raced through his mind.
For now, he remained silent, sensing that she knew these things and shared his contentment. Challenges and hardships awaited them, they both knew, and the success of their mission was far from guaranteed.
But for now, for tonight at least, all would be well with the world.
Hoxitl groaned in weariness, a bleak sense of exhaustion he had never before suffered. The fight against the humans had been savage, so close to victory! But ultimately so futile.
How he had missed the trolls! If only he had kept those savage creatures alongside him, instead of sending them after the woman! The monsters had returned to his camp now, with their own tale of failure, and a great lethargy settled over all the beasts of the Viperhand.