"Run! Head for the trees!" Halloran rushed toward Erix, puzzled by the girl's apathy.
She regarded him with a passive expression, vaguely sad. Her eyes instantly wrapped him in their luminous web.
"A deserter and a traitor!" Alvarro's hoarse voice came as a cruel taunt. Hal reached Erix as the rider turned and drew his razor-edged longsword.
"But not a butcher!" Halloran's voice carried to Alvarro's ears. The man's red beard split into a grin as he kicked the horse forward. The greyhound, too, raced forward, but now Halloran recognized Corporal. Surely, he hoped, that dog would remember him.
Hal seized the heavy lance, ponderously lifting the tip to face the rushing rider. The weapon was lethal when backed by the momentum of a charging horse and well-seated rider, it was little more than a heavy pole in the hands of a footman.
The horse thundered closer, and Hal suddenly knelt, resting the hilt of the lance on the ground behind him. Steadying the weapon carefully, he sighted upon Alvarro's armored chest.
The captain hacked with his longsword as he closed, attempting to knock the lance out of the way. But Halloran held firm against the stroke, and in the same second, the wooden tip crashed into Alvarro's chest, splintering the lance even as it drove the rider from his saddle.
The greyhound snarled toward him, and Hal stared into the dog's eyes. "Corporal, no!" he shouted. The dog halted in astonishment, looking at the two men in confusion.
The red-haired lancer lay on his back, moaning. Halloran sprang forward and snatched the man's longsword off the ground. For a moment, he considered thrusting it into Alvarro's body, fair payment for the man's orgy of slaughter. But he could not bring himself to do it, especially with Alvarro's taunt of "traitor" still ringing in his ears. Instead, he tore Alvarro's belt and scabbard away, girding the man's longsword on his own belt.
Then Hal looked around. The black charger, Storm, stood placidly some hundred paces away. The other horsemen of the captain's wing had separated, each pursuing his own victims. They ranged about the field around them, and it would only be seconds before one of them noticed their leader had fallen.
Erixitl slowly realized that she was not about to die, though the nature of her deliverance escaped her. Something had angered the monster just before it killed her, and the beast had leaped and snorted and bellowed its rage from both its mouths.
Then she had recognized the stranger, Halloran, and it slowly occurred to her that he was saving her. But why? Wasn't he the servant of these monsters, like all of his companions? She looked at him wistfully, numbed by the brutality of his kind.
She had felt a thrill of admiration for him as he lifted the spear, desperately fighting the monster. It seemed sad that he would die here, now, with her. Surely no man could stand before the rush of the hellish two-headed monster.
But he broke the monster's body!
Erix gasped in astonishment as Hal's blow tore the top half of the creature away, smashing it to earth. The beast's torso twitched on the ground, but her blood chilled at the sight of its great body lumbering on. The beast looked even more like a deer now that its human part had been ripped away.
Too, it seemed to lose some of its terrible nature. She saw it pause to nibble on the trampled grass among the bloody bodies it had, moments earlier, slain.
Her astonishment was compounded when Halloran barked a command at the small monster and the creature obeyed! It, too, did not look nearly so fierce when it responded to the man's command.
Halloran still dashed around in agitation, followed by the small monster. Now she saw him seize the long knife and start toward the lower half of the greater monster. She understood now: Each half must be killed separately.
But the man did not strike the beast. Instead, he seemed to speak to it. Nor did the monster attack or flee the man, instead standing docilely while Halloran stroked it.
Then Halloran joined the beast! She watched him replace the torso he had torn away. The recreated monster wheeled toward Erix and lumbered in her direction again. But the sensations came too quickly now, and her lively mind was overwhelmed.
By the time Halloran reached her she had collapsed, unconscious, to the ground.
I see a coyote, speaking to me very slowly. I cannot understand him, but he stands over the body of a man. A buzzard, dark with dried blood, lands before me and greets me very politely. He calls me "Most Excellent and Enlightened Lord Poshtli," and I am pleased.
The body between coyote and vulture stirs, struggling to speak. The man is dead, has been long dead, yet he sits up and talks to me. I see that it is my uncle, the Revered Counselor Naltecona.
The coyote, hungry, plucks at an arm of the corpse. It is always hungry. The buzzard pecks at a cheek. My uncle helps them; he pulls pieces of his body away and feeds the scavengers, an arm to the coyote, an ear and an eye to the buzzard.
Then the body of my uncle changes.
Poshtli blinked at the short, bald figure that squatted before him. Slowly the Eagle Knight looked around from the stone bed where he lay, seeing that he was in a cave of some kind. Yellow sandstone walls reflected in golden hues the light of a small fire.
"You speak with the gods. Feathered Man," said the fellow sitting beside him. "Will you speak with me now?"
Poshtli studied the strange speaker, for he had never seen anyone like him. Short and powerful, with bowed legs and broad shoulders, he was a misshapen man. His head was bald, but his face was covered with a whiskered profusion of hair that descended across his belly. The fellow's skin was sun-bronzed, dried like old leather but not as dark as Poshtli's. The stranger stood, and the Eagle Knight saw that he was perhaps four feet tail.
"Who are you?" asked Poshtli, discovering that his tongue felt like an old sandal.
"Eh? I'm Luskag, chief of Sunhome. Funny you should ask that. I've been wondering the same thing about you."
Poshtli's mind cleared. He remembered tales, dismissed as fantastic legend, of the Hairy Men of the Desert, dwarflike people who lived far from any human settlement, past a supposedly uncrossable waste of desert.
"I am Poshtli, of Nexal," he explained, sitting up with difficulty. "I owe you my life."
Luskag nodded. "You came farther than any man I've seen, but no one can live for long in the House of Tezca. Though that's not why I saved you." The dwarf handed Poshtli a flask of water, and the warrior sipped a few drops as Luskag continued.
"Sometimes humans come into the desert and die there. Other times, we desert dwarves save those humans and bring them here, to Sunhome. When we save someone, we must have a reason.
"I saved you because of my dream. I dreamed of a great buzzard, and he circled you, alone in the House of Tezca. And I came to you, gave you water and life, and the buzzard was pleased.
"I don't know why I should want to please a buzzard, but this was somehow important to me." The dwarf looked at Poshtli as if he hoped the lord would have an explanation.
"I dreamed of a buzzard, too… just now, before I woke up," explained the Eagle Knight. "But I don't know what it means."
"Why did you come into the desert?" asked Luskag.
"I seek a vision of the future, some way to bring meaning to the events of the True World. Strangers, powerful men, have flown to our shores. Naltecona, the Revered Counselor of Nexal, has been beset by omens and visions. One night, I had a dream. The Plumed One, Qotal himself, spoke to me, telling me that I might find the truth my uncle seeks. But I could never find it in Nexal.
"The vision showed me an image of heat, sand, and sun, that I took to be the House of Tezca. And within that desert, I must find a great silver wheel. This is why I came here, seeking this knowledge." Luskag sighed, shaking his head in resignation. "It is as I feared."