Panic compelled Erixitl's reaction, and she darted away from the man, disappearing into the throngs of weeping, screaming Mazticans. Even as she disappeared, Cordell had turned away, stabbing a charging Jaguar Knight through the heart.

The pale flash of light washed the plaza once more, this time flooding around Erix herself. She stared, stunned, as villagers died on all sides of her. Only after the effect had passed did she realize that she herself and several youngsters who had been right beside her had been unaffected by the blast. She sensed her pluma token puffing lightly out from her dress, and she realized that somehow her father's magic had saved her from the wizard's spell.

Darien regarded her coldly from the impenetrable depths of that cowled hood. Erix's eyes couldn't penetrate the shadows there, but she saw the elfwoman's eyes, glittering like hard diamonds.

Breaking from her thrall and spinning in panic, Erixitl ran from the wizard. Nearby she heard the stomping and snorting of horses and saw legionnaires swinging into their saddles. The youth with the feathered headband looked up in astonishment as the red-bearded captain of the riders loomed above him. With a cruel sneer, the man slashed savagely with his sword, splitting the youth's body from his forehead to his belly.

A woman carrying a baby screamed in front of Erix, falling to the ground, writhing and spitting blood. Erixitl saw one of the deadly steel darts fired by the legionnaires' crossbows. This one had pinned the woman's baby to her own body, and Erix turned away, horrified, as the mother and child perished before her.

More and more of the lethal, steel-tipped arrows flashed past, slaying indiscriminately. The dull chunk of the weapons' triggers created a grim cadence of death. The cross-bowmen stood in a circle, loading and reloading their weapons, driving their missiles at point-blank range into a solid mass of targets, puncturing bodies of male and female, old and young, with constant, gory slaughter.

Erixitl slipped on blood that washed across the paving stones. Like most of the other Mazticans in the plaza, she thought only of escape. The warriors among them seized their weapons and sprang to battle, desperate to give the women and children time to flee. At the time, it didn't seem odd to Erix that so many spears and macas should be available to warriors who had entered the plaza unarmed.

Erix tried to run north, toward her father's house, but the surging crowd carried her west in the stampede to escape the massacre.

She saw the riders charge into the mob. The horse that, moments before, had been contentedly eating and resting, the picture of animal contentment, now became the snorting, stamping creatures of war that had so terrorized the Payit at Ulatos. They had the same effect on the Mazticans at Palul.

The huge war hounds that had once flopped peacefully on the ground now snarled and slavered. They savagely attacked the villagers unfortunate enough to fall before them, tearing with their great fangs and, with their growls, adding to the nightmarish din.

The cavalrymen used their swords to chop about, apparently since the quarters were too confined for their lances. They thundered through a line of warriors that tried to stand before them, breaking the bodies of many brave men. Bodies fell by the dozen, writhing, bleeding, dying.

In moments, the horsemen plowed into the mass of women and children beyond the warriors. These victims scattered in every direction, but not before the cruel blades and stamping hooves had slain dozens of them.

Above the whirling mass of chaos, Erix saw the black helm, with its trailing streamers, of the captain of the horsemen. He guided his charger with cruel abandon, his face split into a gap-toothed grin. For a moment, once again, his eyes met Erixitl's. She was surprised at the lack of life there – he looked to her every bit as dead as the corpses sprawled around him. She felt certain this time that he recognized her. Then the crowd closed around Erix, sweeping her along with its tidelike rush.

"By the power of almighty Helm, a plague beset you!"

The booming voice of the Bishou thundered over the volume of shrieks and cries, sending powerful tendrils of panic into Erix's heart. She knew, from Hal's descriptions, that the cleric wielded supernatural powers in much the same way as the wizard.

The fleeing mob came to an abrupt halt, and Erix saw people before her suddenly begin to thrash wildly, twisting and crying out in pain. Young children dropped to the ground, wailing, and then, moments later, fell still. At first she could see nothing through the shadows, though she could hear a deep humming sound that filled the air with heavy vibration.

Then Erix saw heavier darkness among her own shadows. At the same time, she felt a burning flash of pain on her wrist. Slapping involuntarily, she saw a huge wasp fall dead, its stinger embedded in her inflamed flesh.

Now the source of the droning became apparent, as more wasps swarmed around the panicked villagers. Before her, all fell into blackness as the savage insects swarmed thickly around every living thing. She saw pathetically twitching bodies, covered all over with stinging, biting bugs. Another jolt of pain, and another, shot through her as stingers plunged into her shoulder and then her neck.

What kind of power was wielded by these men? She realized, with a sense of hopeless awe, that the Bishou had summoned these insects, and the creatures had arrived to do his bidding! How could the True World hope to stand against might such as this?

Screaming and crying now, driven by panic and pain, Erix turned with the crowd toward the south. Her own voice melted into the cacophony as, mindless with terror, she sought any path of escape from this hellish place. The mob surged forward in blind terror, trampling those who were too slow or too frail to keep up.

They reached the tree-lined fringe of the square, and here many of the weaker villagers collapsed from exhaustion. Erix saw, with numb surprise, that fights raged among the nearby houses as well. Legionnaire swordsman rushed from building to building, slaying any Matzicans they found. The warriors made valiant attempts at resistance, but divided as they were into small bands, they quickly fell to the savage, sudden onslaught of the steel-toothed strangers.

Across the lane, tongues of fire licked upward from one of the houses. Something seemed to explode there, silently, but with a great eruption of heat and flame. The inferno leaped to the thatched roof of a neighboring dwelling, and quickly the entire block crackled into a tinderbox of fire.

Shadows mixed with smoke everywhere Erix looked, but the combined darkness couldn't block out the sight of blood and death. Her nightmare seemed forgotten, a pale image of true horror.

It seemed to Erix fitting, as she collapsed on the paving stones and gasped for air, that the village should burn.

The terraced pyramid of Zaltec stood, perhaps fifty feet high, near the middle of Palul's plaza in the midst of the feast and, subsequently, the battle. A steep stairway ascended each of the four sides, leading to a square platform on top. In the center of this platform, a small stone building enclosed the sacrificial altar and a statue of the war god, Zaltec.

Brave warriors had gathered below the pyramid at the outbreak of battle, instinctively seeking to protect the sacred image of their god. Equally instinctively, the soldiers of the legion pressed from all sides, attempting to gain the top of the pyramid and shatter the barbarous idol.

The warriors conducted their defense with savage fanaticism, but the tightly packed legionnaires concentrated their attacks. Slowly the defenders fell back, giving up a step at a time, and each with a high price in blood. But the inexorable tide of attack grew ever closer to the bloodstained platform on top.