The darkness seemed to move, so thick was the press of Nexalan attackers. Cordell stabbed and hacked, unseeing and uncaring of his victims, knowing that everyone in the canoes below them was an enemy.
More of his legionnaires pushed their way to the gaping end of the causeway, hurling themselves into the water in a desperate attempt to swim to safety. Many of these — those who had loaded themselves down with gold — sank beneath the water and disappeared. Others were hauled, screaming and struggling, into canoes, bound, and spirited back to the city, destined for the fate that had become far more fearsome to the legionnaires than death on the battlefield.
Overturned canoes and other craft wrecked during the combat clogged the water before them. Rain alternately pounded them or misted lightly. Many bodies bobbed in the lake now as both Nexalan and legionnaire fighters fell into the water, drowning in the press of chaos.
"We've got to do something!" cried Grimes as more and more of their men jumped or were dragged into the lake. Indeed, before them, the water had virtually disappeared among the mass of wreckage.
"Any ideas?" grunted the captain-general. He heard a cry of pain and a splash behind him, turning to see one of his men struggling with six Mazticans in canoes. The swordsman struggled in the water, slipping on the bodies below him, howling with terror as the natives pulled him into the canoe. With swift strokes of their paddles, three of them steered their craft away while the others turned to the causeway, after more victims.
Cordell heard more screams and the triumphant whistles of the Mazticans, and he knew that, somewhere, still another legionnaire had been dragged to a short, grim captivity.
"Murdering savages!" Bishou Domincus's bellow carried above the din, and Cordell saw the cleric struggling along the edge of the causeway, laying about with a heavy staff.
"Almighty Helm!" cried the Bishou. "Strike the heathens with your vengeance! Deliver your faithful from the jaws of death!"
But the heavens only delivered more rain, in the dull, pounding cadence that had marked the brutal tempo of the night and now, as gray dawn filtered into the valley of Nexat, counted time for the steadily growing illumination.
"Bishou!" The cleric looked up and saw Cordell standing at the lip of the causeway. With a sinking heart, he saw the dark water blocking their path.
"Helm has forsaken us!" groaned Domincus, reaching the commander. "I fear we have angered him, and he turns away from us in our hour of need!"
"Never mind!" snapped the black-bearded commander. "Do you have any magic, anything at all that can help us across this?" Cordell gestured to the strip of water, bristling with enemy canoes. Even the continuation of the causeway across the thirty-foot gap was packed with Maztican warriors who fired arrows or slung stones at the embattled legionnaires.
"No," the cleric said. "My power is exhausted now. It will take many hours of quiet meditation to restore my spells."
Cordell turned away in disgust. He didn't see a hook dart forward from one of the canoes, suddenly sweeping the Bishou from the causeway. Domincus cried out, plunging into the water, and Cordell whirled back to see many natives eagerly pulling the cleric into a canoe.
"No! Leave him, you devils!" cried Cordell, lashing toward them with his sword. The canoes paddled back, out of range, but the captain-general lunged dangerously far in his fury. Only Grimes, reaching out with a brawny hand and pulling him to safety, kept him from following the cleric into captivity.
"Praises to Zaltec!" crowed Hoxitl from his vantage atop the Great Pyramid. The high priest didn't try to suppress his burst of exultation. Though he could see nothing beyond the veil of darkness and rain that shrouded him, he knew of the great victory his warriors won on this black night. "Long live his almighty name!"
Scouts and priests brought him regular reports, and he heard of the many thousands of warriors who fearlessly hurled themselves at the strangers trapped on the causeway. He no longer feared that they would escape him. Already nearly half of the legionnaires had been delivered into his hands.
Still, he hoped to have them all by morning — to march the entire lot of them up the pyramid, offering their hearts to Zaltec in unworthy penance for the wrongs they had inflicted upon Maztica.
Though all Nexal had united and arisen to throw off the yoke of the invaders' presence, it was those men who wore the crimson brand upon their breasts who had ignited the fires of resistance. Warriors of the Viperhand, the most fanatical of attackers, displayed the greatest courage in the battle, and now led the way for their countrymen's greatest victory.
And these were his warriors, his to command and control and lead!
"They remain trapped before the bridge," reported Kallicl, who had just climbed the long, rain-slicked stairs to the top of the temple. "They shall pass no farther."
"Splendid!" crowed Hoxitl, waving his fist at the sky. "We shall have them all! And Zaltec will feast until he can eat no more!"
Chitikas hovered outside the Highcave as the companions came up to him. The feathered snake floated between the bodies of two jaguars — unmarked by visible wounds, but undeniably dead. Halloran didn't even want to know how the snake had killed them.
"Let's go," he said. He and Chitikas started into the cave, while Erix came right behind them, followed by Shatil. Poshtli brought up the rear.
The entrance led to a smooth, wide passageway, obviously excavated from the soft volcanic rock. Still, no evidence of hammer or pick stroke could be seen in the walls or floor.
A stench of noxious gas burst around them. Hal clapped his hand to his face, squinting. Fortunately a blast of fresher air cleared the hot vapor away.
Chitikas floated out in front as they entered a larger cavern, with a high, domed ceiling. A deep crater filled the center of the room, emitting a dull crimson glow that seemed to pulse in varying intensity. They couldn't see inside the pit, but the surging light frightened them, alternately hot and cold. The feathered snake drew himself into a coil.
They're in here. Halloran sensed the snake's message, though Chitikas had not spoken. The Ancient Ones. They are invisible.
The information sent a chill through Halloran's body. He unconsciously tightened his grip on his blade. From the tension in Erixitl's hand, resting on his shoulder, he knew that his wife had received the same news.
Chitikas hovered before them, his tail touching the ground but his twisting neck and head a full ten feet in the air. His great wings beat slowly, supporting him, as the snake turned his head this way and that, looking about the large chamber.
Suddenly a pale white light flashed in the cave. "Ice-tongue!" shouted Hal, involuntarily flinching backward. At the same time, he noticed that he and Erix weren't even the targets of the attack. Instead, the cone-shaped blast of the wand had struck only one of them.
"Chitikas!" Erix cried. They stared in horror at the feathered snake. Chitikas crashed to the floor before them, his brittle, suddenly frozen wings snapping into many shards of different colors. The wingless couatl writhed there silently.
At the same time, Hal saw Darien appear on the other side of the glowing fire crater. The wizard, her invisibility spell broken by her attack with Icetongue, regarded the intruders with a faint smile that Halloran found more disturbing than a grimace of hate and rage.
She didn't wear her customary robe. Instead, her white skin showed plainly through the tiny, gold-rimmed garments that barely preserved her modesty.
"My spellbook!" she demanded.
"I brought it," Hal answered, sensing that it was foolish to lie. Yet his mind worked desperately, seeking any kind of plan.