Once a company of Nexalan warriors burst through the front doorway, driving dozens of feet into the great hallway. Captain Garrant led a furious counterattack by the swordsmen of his company and barely succeeded in driving the attackers back so that the breach could be sealed. More than a hundred Maztican warriors perished in this assault, yet word spread through the native ranks that victory was possible against the foreign devils, they were not invincible!
With Alvarro dead, Cordell personally organized his horsemen for a charge. He appointed a burly sergeant-major, a veteran of many campaigns, to lead them. The riders thundered forth, only to be immediately surrounded by the press of thousands of warriors, packed so tightly together that even the powerful chargers couldn't force their way through the crowd.
Desperately the panic-stricken lancers slashed their way back to the security of the palace compound. Even so, the press of the attack tore three men from their saddles, and screaming warriors quickly spirited them away. Tightly bound and marched into the Temple of Zaltec, these riders despaired while maca-wielding warriors chopped their horses to pieces behind them.
Another sortie, attempted by armored troops protected by a bristling barrier of speartips and longswords, made little more progress. The tightly packed legionnaires advanced into the Maztican horde, chopping their way forward, slaying many native warriors for each step gained.
However, by the time the detachment had worked its way free from the palace wall, the precariousness of its position became clear as warriors swept around behind it. Pressed on all sides, it was only with an almost superhuman effort of discipline and courage that the men fought their way back to the palace gates. They left hundreds of Mazticans, and more than a dozen of their own number, dead on the stones of the plaza.
Many of the natives took up torches — dried branches of pine, or clusters of brittle reeds, soaked in pine tar — and then lit and hurled them on top of the palace. The brick and clay walls of the structure resisted the flame, but the roof of wood had spent long decades bleaching in the high Maztican sun.
Frantically the defenders threw these torches back, stomping out the fires that started to crackle among the ancient beams of the roof. Others worked bucket brigades from the palace's lone well, though the level of water in the well grew noticeably lower after less than an hour. Finally Bishou Domincus invoked the water to rise in the name of Helm and it quickly did so, flooding over the rim of its small enclosure and pouring through the palace's central courtyard — precious men, ill-spared from the battlements, wielded fresh buckets and large clay jars instead of weapons. The water proved just barely ample to keep the fires at bay. They soaked more and more of the roof, and eventually the torches lost their effect. Late in the day, the Mazticans abandoned the incendiary tactic.
The warriors of the Nexala filled the plaza surrounding the structure. They claimed the high positions, atop the Great Pyramid and lesser pyramids dedicated to the other gods. Even the Pyramid of Qotal, dedicated to the most gentle and unwarlike of the gods, fell to military usage. A hundred warriors armed with slings and stones climbed on top of it, hurling their missiles at the legionnaires on the roof of the palace.
Yet, though the soldiers of Cordell made no headway in their attacks against the Nexalans, neither could the natives advance in their ceaseless assault against the bastion of their enemies. More than a thousand of them paid for the effort with their lives, but the steel-armed, tightly disciplined foreigners held firm against every breach.
In the face of the cautious defense, the Nexalans captured few legionnaires alive. The frustration of the attacking warriors grew, whipped on by Hoxitl's shrill commands. In desperation, warriors hurled themselves in suicidal attacks at the doorways, trying to use long hooks to snatch a legionnaire from the ranks of his comrades. But always they fell dead before they caught a victim.
Suddenly, charging from concealment behind the Great Pyramid, a thousand Nexalans carrying dozens of ladders advanced in a furious assault. All of them warriors of the Viperhand, they had been churned to a frenzy by Hoxitl's exhortations about the hunger of Zaltec, his hunger for the hearts of the invaders. They blew their shrill whistles of wood and bone, racing madly toward the palace wall. Swarming against a lightly held stretch of the wall, they quickly raised their scaling ladders, placing them against the wall faster than the legionnaires could knock them down. Even as a ladder touched the wall, fanatic warriors sprang upward, rushing to reach the roof. Desperately the defenders hacked them back down, kicking the ladders away when they could.
But the attackers numbered too many, and some of the warriors inevitably gained a foothold on the ramparts. Immediately they turned to attack the swordsmen beside them. Some succeeded in knocking a legionnaire or two to the ground below, where the press of warriors quickly seized and bound the unfortunate captives.
Cordell rushed a company of reinforcements, led by Daggrande, toward the place. Daggrande assembled two score men and led them in a charge onto the roof. Before they could reach their embattled comrades, however, the attackers swarmed back down their ladders and withdrew from the wall.
They took some dozen legionnaires with them.
All day the companions climbed and traversed the high slopes of Zatal, seeking the entrance to the Highcave. Bitter, sulphurous smoke swirled around them, and sheer cliffs plummeted below. Steep ridges formed most of the mountainside, and they scrambled up and down many of these.
Halloran led the group with fanatical determination, driving himself mercilessly. Poshtli followed watchfully in the rear, while Shatil and Erix struggled to maintain the pace. Chitikas floated about, saying nothing, investigating ledges where the approach was too dangerous for the earthbound climbers.
Shatil noticed, as Hal pressed on, that the snakeskin band around the soldier's waist had begun to drop away, unnoticed. The priest followed the man closely, pulling away from his sister. When the bend of hishna finally fell free, he snatched it up and wrapped it around his wrist, under his robe.
The priest continued to follow numbly, terribly confused.
Where once Shatil understood clearly the mission before him, now his mind reeled with haunting questions.
He reminded himself of the vow he had made, the pledge of his life and his soul to Zaltec. That god, the protector of the Nexalans, would reward his faithful. Or so Shatil had always believed.
Before he had scorned as weaklings those, including his sister and his father, who had professed that gods could be gentle and kind. Always he had had the proof of Qotal's disappearance before him, to show that gods like that could not survive in Maztica. They would be driven out by strong, virile gods — gods who feasted upon human hearts.
But now, before his very eyes, here was the couatl, the harbinger of Qotal. The creature had led them against the Ancient Ones, spokesmen of Zaltec, and had prevailed! What did this mean? Could it be that Shatil, that his whole faith, was wrong? He looked at his sister, wrapped in the soft, billowing cloak. She had become very strong, very beautiful.
And Chitikas! How swiftly the couatl had brought them here! Now they searched for the cave, seeking the entrance among the rocky ridges and plummeting gorges of these smoky, steaming heights. And what if they found it?
Angrily the priest shook aside the notion. The couatl was like any other enemy of his faith — a powerful, magical enemy to be sure, but one who could certainly be killed. He watched the colorful creature dart suddenly forward, disappearing around a mountain shoulder before them. Shatil felt the dagger in his belt and touched the Talon of Zaltec in his pouch.