But already she began to savor the thought of its death.
“Shall we strike them down with arrows?” asked Hittok, his voice a bare breath of wind against Darien’s perspiring cheek.
“No!” In her agitation, she spoke louder than she had in-tended. The driders held their breath as the humans below hesitated, but it was not Darien’s remark that had alerted them.
Staring into that light, Darien saw that one of the humans moved slowly, as if in pain. Then she began to see… it was her, Halloran’s woman! She was the burning force that! tempted the drider’s appetite.
“No,” the white creature hissed, softly this time, “No arrows. We shall await them here, and when they start up the steps, we shall attack.”
“Very well,” said Hittok, slinging his bow over his shoulder and pulling forth his dark, black sword.
“And know this,” Darien cautioned, tension again ringing.; in her voice. “All of you remember: When we attack, the woman is mine!”
Erixitl collapsed with an inarticulate groan of pain. She curled up into a ball of misery, wincing from the pain of a I sudden contraction.
“The baby!» she whispered. “Now is the time!”
Halloran’s mind went blank. All during the march, through the months in the desert and jungle, during their entire epic journey to Ulatos, he had been telling himself, preparing for this event. But now that his wife lay here in agony, he couldn’t think of a thing to do.
“The pyramid!” said Lotil quietly. “We must take her up the pyramid!”
Halloran looked at the blind man in astonishment. “That has to wait!” He turned back to his wife. “We’ll get you back to the woods, to some mossy clearing. It’s going to be all right!”
“No!” Erixitl’s voice carried surprising strength. “Lotil is right. We must go up the pyramid!”
Halloran looked from daughter to father in astonishment. His eyes met Coton’s, and the cleric looked at him with an expression of deep understanding-but also of steely-eyed will. Halloran knew that they had to ascend the steep stairway with Erixitl. The destiny that had driven them this far now compelled her presence atop the looming structure.
“The baby!” he protested. “We must get her to shelter and make her comfortable!”
“Listen!” Erix gasped, her teeth clenching. “On the pyramid! Take me to the altar!”
Halloran stared at her in disbelief. It was the same altar where she had so nearly met her own death! What if this was the cost of the god’s return, a ghastly sacrifice of his wife or his child?
“No!” Hal couldn’t allow it. He stood firmly against the men, but he couldn’t ignore his wife’s groan, and when he looked down at her and saw the pleading in her eyes, he was lost. “Very well,” he said quietly, kneeling beside her again.
“The pain has passed for the moment,” said Erix, slowly sitting up and climbing to her feet. “Let’s go!”
Jhatli led them toward the base of the stairway. Around them, the deep black of the night closed in, past moonset, as a last shroud of darkness before the first traces of dawn. Feeling his way rather than seeing anything in particular, he started up the stairs.
He had taken no more than four steps when strong, sinewy arms grasped him. A hand clapped roughly across his mouth, and insistent arms pulled him against a body.
A body covered by a hard, bony shell.
From the chronicles of Coton:
The beasts of darkness sweep from the steps of the pyramid. Jhatli, taken first, struggles for a moment and then grows still.
I stare in consternation and cannot help but recoil, for these are beasts every bit as corrupted as the creatures of the Viperhand. They bear every mark of a god’s punishment, in their misshapen bodies, their fur-covered, spider-like legs.
Now, among the creatures of night, I see one of pale whiteness, standing apart from the rest, looming over us all as we look upward from the ground. This one, clearly female, is full of might and danger.
And this one also is a creature of talonmagic. I sense the power of Zaltec within her, and I know that she is a menace that must be destroyed.
21
Possessed by his full battle instincts, Halloran did not stop to think. Through the dark of the black night, he saw the horrible shapes descending the pyramid as the first one grabbed Jhatli and held the youth several steps up from the structure’s base.
Instantly Helmstooth gleamed in his hand. In another moment, the sticky black blood of the leading drider dripped from the blade. The creature died as it stepped onto the ground, and the next one backed cautiously upward, away from Halloran.
With their eight legs, the driders had little difficulty supporting themselves on the steep stairway. Keen eyes, adapted to complete darkness, gave them an additional advantage in the Stygian night. Helmstooth’s glow faded almost to insignificance against the opacity surrounding them.
Help!” cried Jhatli, trying to twist away from “the powerful black arms encircling him. He kicked reflexively, shocked by the suddenness of the attack and by the ghastly nature of his opponent. The driders moved around him, and he saw three of them advance on Halloran on the ground below.
Erixitl sank to the ground beside Hal, and the terrible knowledge of her vulnerability was like a physical tie binding him to her. The fight was inevitable; indeed, it had already begun, and he could not allow it to rage at his wife’s side. Coton and Lotil went to the woman as the swordsman advanced to Jhatli’s aid, stepping onto the first steps of the pyramid.
“Get it off me!” Jhatli squirmed in the drider’s grasp as another of the creatures rushed at him, raising a keen black blade. Helmstooth came between them, deflecting the drider’s blade as Hal climbed up another step. He lunged upward, driving the tip of his blade into the flank of the drider holding Jhatli, and the youth tumbled free. Halloran de-fleeted two attacking driders, backing down the steps until once more he stood upon level ground.
Jhatli sprang to his feet beside him, drawing his own shortsword. The steel blade gleamed, reflecting Helms-tooth’s brightness almost as if it held a fire of its own.
Behind them, Erixitl moaned again, and more of the driders swept toward them. Both of their blades clashed with dark steel, and then another pair of driders tried to slip past them. Jhatli spun to the side, lashing outward, but his inexperience with the blade proved a costly handicap.
The drider met his thrust squarely and parried the blade downward and away, to Jhatli’s right. For a brief moment, the youth’s chest and stomach lay exposed to attack, and the drider was swift to capitalize. His black blade darted down, thrust powerfully forward, and Jhatli gasped in pain. Blood spurted from a deep wound, and he collapsed, motionless, in the dust.
Shouting a dark curse, Halloran whirled on the killer, driving Helmstooth with the power of his pluma and his rage. The drider’s eyes widened in terror, and it raised its weapon, only to have the blade shatter like glass when it met Hal’s blow. The gleaming scythe that was Helmstooth continued its driving force, slicing through the skull and the neck and half the chest of the creature.
But he had no time to tend to his friend nor grieve for him. He saw the white shape of a drider, a pale freak among the black creatures, and deep in his gullet, he recognized her. Then her creatures swarmed toward him, and he stood before his wife and the priest and the blind featherworker, raising his sword, the only barrier between the helpless trio and certain, horrifying death.
Halloran fought the fight of his life. He charged the driders, feeling the pluma cuffs at his wrists driving his blade forward with a power he had never imagined. He sprang to