Hooves splashed through puddles of rainwater, and the steady drizzle ran into the riders' eyes, but they nevertheless found many targets for their steel-tipped lances. Through the darkness, their bodies slick with water, they slashed back and forth.
Warriors swarmed into the sacred plaza, scrambling over the walls from the surrounding city, but the column of legionnaires pressed onward to the gate, advancing at a fast march. The men at the front charged with raised shields and a deadly array of speartips before them. The rest of the column followed, maintaining tight formation.
Through the gate, Grimes swept his riders into the street beyond. He saw waves of warriors approaching from both directions, running toward the battle as quickly as possible. He recognized instantly that these were not the well-formed ranks they had faced before, so he gambled.
"Red and Blue wings — with me! Black and Gold, charge to the right!"
He wheeled his horse and lowered his lance. A dozen riders formed a line beside him, and they thundered up the street. Behind him, a similar line charged in the other direction. They met the Mazticans in seconds, lancing them or crushing them under the hooves of the steeds. In another moment, the remaining warriors turned and fled, disrupted and panicked by the sudden, brutal onslaught.
Quickly the sergeant-major wheeled his lancers, racing back to the plaza gate. He found the other wings had done the same, and in another minute, the leading rank of the footmen started into the street from the sacred plaza. The legion poured steadily through the gap in the wall.
"Take half your riders and start toward the causeway." Cordell barked the command to Grimes. "Have the other half bring up the rear. Now, go!"
Instantly the blond rider spurred his mount down the wide avenue toward the southwest causeway, the shortest route to the shore of the lake, with half of his company trailing.
Meanwhile, Cordell wasted no time turning the column of legionnaires after Grimes, leaving the rear guard under Daggrande's steady command. "Double march-move!" he barked. With the captain-general at the head, the invaders trooped toward the hoped-for escape from this city of chaos.
The press of warriors soon spilled from the plaza, and more attackers rushed from side streets and buildings as they passed. The Golden Legion fought its most desperate fight, a running battle through the dark, rainy streets of Nexal. Many men fell, badly wounded, and had to be left behind. Often they begged for a final blow to spare them the horrors of the Nexalan altars. Many a veteran trooper broke down and wept as he delivered this stroke of mercy to an old companion.
Suddenly Cordell, at the front of the footmen, came upon Grimes. The horseman's dozen riders were eight now, halted by a press of Nexalan warriors. Water dripped from their helmets, and their beards and hair were matted from the rain. Grimes shook his head in exhaustion.
"Charge them!" Cordell demanded.
"I did. It cost me four men!" Grimes retorted. "They're packed too thick. It's at the crossing of two of those wide streets."
Cordell recognized the place. It agonized him to know that the causeway lay just beyond.
"Helm may strike us a blow!" said Domincus, coining up behind them through the tightly packed ranks of the legion.
He raised his hand, bearing the gauntlet marked with the all-seeing eye of Helm. Chanting a plea to his god, he raised his other hand and gestured at the mass of warriors in the intersection before them.
Immediately a droning buzz rose above them, and almost as quickly sharp cries of pain and dismay rose from the Nexalans. Visible even in the dim light, a shapeless darkness appeared over the crowd, a darkness that consisted of millions of tiny insects, each of them biting and stinging whatever lay in its path.
Quickly the warriors broke for the shelter of the side streets or nearby buildings as the insect plague gained control of the crucial street crossing. The Bishou raised his hands again, and the buzzing mass began to move out of their path.
Again Grimes's horsemen rushed for the causeway. Cordell led the footmen on a rapid push right behind him. The horses struck a rank of defending Nexalans before the bridge. These warriors, armed with very long spears, knocked several riders from their saddles. Grimes's own horse went down, its belly gashed in a deep, mortal wound.
But a final surge carried the legion forward, and at last they gained the narrow roadway, surrounded on both sides by the deep, black waters of the lake. Grimes and Cordell, heedless of the rain, rushed forward on foot as the men of the legion raised a cheer and followed. They charged headlong down the causeway, meeting no opposition, though gradually they became aware of warriors swimming in the water beside them, in Lake Zaltec to their left and Lake Qotal to their right. Soon they caught sight of canoes — many, many canoes — on the dark lake's surface.
And then the advance came to a sudden stop. They had reached the first of the two gaps in the causeway where the waters flowed back and forth between the lakes, beneath the heavy planks of a bridge.
Only now, the bridge had been removed. Rain continued to shower the city, and before the legion stood thirty feet of black, deep, silt-bottomed water.
Heavy clouds swirled around them, and chill winds drove stinging needles of rain into their faces. High on the slope of the mountain, in the dark of impenetrable night, Halloran fought despair, pressing on in the endless search for the Highcave.
He pulled himself up a steep slope, finding a narrow ledge. Reaching down, he helped Erixitl to climb up beside him. She gasped as the mountain rumbled beneath them, and they clung to each other for a panic-filled minute while it seemed that Zaltec tried to shake them loose from his towering volcano.
But then the tremors eased, and finally Shatil and Poshtli reached the ledge as well. Chitikas hovered in the air, swirling slowly while the exhausted humans rested.
"Zaltec's hunger grows," observed Shatil, touching the rock of the peak.
"Hunger!" Erix whirled on him, surprising the three men with her vehemence. "Must a god always feast? Must we always feed him?"
Shatil leaned back, chagrined. "I am sorry to upset you, my sister. But, yes, the gods I know require food. We can do little else but to feed them."
"What of Qotal?" she challenged. "A god who grants food, not demands it? And our ancestors drove him from Maztica for it!"
"Perhaps, if you speak the truth, he will indeed return," Shatil said quietly.
She looked at him, half angry that he wouldn't argue, but surprised at his willing aquiescence. She opened her mouth, but then decided not to speak.
"Here," whispered Chitikas Couatl, speaking from the darkness above. "Here I see the mouth of a cave."
Black water stretching before them, Cordell and Grimes turned desperately to the sides, their arms weary from the strain of constant battle. Cordell wielded his sword, Grimes his lance. Rain still drummed the city and the lakes, but they could dimly see the fleets of canoes swarming around the causeway. Behind them, the screams of their comrades told them the battle raged there as well.
The surviving legionnaires couldn't advance along the causeway, since the bridge before them had been removed and the lake to either side swarmed with Nexalan warriors in canoes. At the tail of the column, the press of warriors drove forward savagely, pinching Daggrande's rear guard into a steadily shrinking stretch of the road.
"Below — look out!" Grimes cried, stabbing downward with his blood — and rain — slicked lance.
A warrior fell back into his canoe, toppling the craft. At the same time, Cordell felt strong fingers grab his feet, and he sliced viciously downward with his sword. He was rewarded by the sharp chop of the blade through flesh and bone, though to his horror, the severed hands continued to clutch his ankles until he kicked them free.