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 legionnaires burst onto the platform, gaining the top of the stairway on two sides. A shrinking ring of warriors, desperately striving to keep the attackers from the sacred altar, surrounded the two priests.
"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 legionnaires had reached the altar, hacking about themselves with their invincible swords. "No. I have to close the hatch. Begone, and avenge!"
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.
And still they did not rein in their chargers. The horsemen had ridden through the fields, chasing down fleeing natives, but the rest of the cavalry unit scattered in the process. Now the fleeing Mazticans dispersed into the brushy country outside their town. Bands of legionnaire footmen drove through the thickets, often flushing out additional victims.
Alvarro saw a group of swordsmen pull a young woman from a hiding place. With whoops of glee, they dragged her to a grassy clearing. For a moment, the red-beareded captain stared, thinking this might have been the woman who had caught his eye in town. As the footmen threw her to the ground, her panic-stricken face turned toward him, and he saw that he was mistaken.
Why had that woman, the translator, seemed so familiar? A memory tugged at Alvarro's brain, driving him forward even after the other riders turned back. Certainly her beauty was captivating, and the unique feathered cloak she wore had glowed with almost magical color, but his fascination went beyond that. He knew that he had seen her before.
Halloran! Suddenly it came back to him. His old enemy had struck him from his horse at the battle in Payit to save that same woman from Alvarro's lance! The captain's eyes narrowed. The pieces began to fit together. How had she learned the tongue of Faerun, if not from Hal? Shrewdly he wondered if she might know something of the fugitive's present whereabouts.
Alvarro knew of the hatred both Bishou Domincus and Darien harbored for Halloran. If he could apprehend the traitor, he would win the gratitude of these influential leaders of the legion — Cordell's two top lieutenants.
Squinting again, he tried to think. She had fled with the crowd going west, he knew. With a brutal kick at his charger's flanks, Alvarro turned down the road leading west, Vane following closely. The trail lay empty before him, though he saw natives scrambling away to either side. He kept his eyes narrowed, searching the mayzfields along the road, looking for this woman.
They rode at an easy canter. Alvarro laughed every time he flushed panicked villagers from the brush before him, but he no longer cared to ride them down. Now he had specific game in mind.
He saw a flash of movement across a field, a wave of long dark hair above the mayz, and something compelled him to stop. A woman fled the battle, but oddly, unlike the rest of her folk, she seemed to be circling back toward the village. Then he saw the flash of color — that cloak! Still staring, Alvarro saw the girl turn to look at him before she dropped out of sight.
And he recognized his quarry.
Bands of Kultakan warriors roamed the countryside, seizing stragglers as captives. Still, Erixitl knew she couldn't flee with the rest of the villagers, most of whom seemed intent on racing all the way to Nexal. She had to go back and find her father. Surely the invaders would discover his home atop the ridge on the opposite side of the village. She, assumed that her brother, trapped atop the pyramid, had fallen during the massacre. Still numb with shock, she began to ache with a foretaste of her pain, for she hadn't yet grasped the full extent of the disaster. Her village had died today.
Erix left the road that ran through the mayzfields lining the valley bottom. She circled to the north of Palul, finally reaching the stream that ran past the town. Here she stopped for a quick look around.
She spotted two silver-plated riders on the road, about a mile away. From the black atop the helm of one of the riders, she recognized him as the captain of the savage horsemen. For a long, hateful moment, she wished she was a warrior, with a powerful bow, so intensely did she want to strike him from his saddle. Then she saw his face turn toward her, and she dropped into the shallow streambed, knowing such a thought for the utterly futile desire that it was.
She splashed through the shallow water, staying low, and started to move along the stream bank on the opposite side. For half a mile, she worked her way back toward the town.
Finally Erix reached a bend in the stream, near the base of the ridge below her father's house. Here she broke from cover, darting up the bank and through another field of mayz toward the security of the brushy slope before her.
Sudden hoofbeats pounded behind her, and she knew she had been spotted. Without looking back, she guessed the identity of her pursuers, and that knowledge spurred her to deerlike swiftness.