"I thought you killed them," the woman whispered, "but they're only asleep."

"Guards – a good sign," Poshtli added. "It means they have something worth guarding here, and this looks like a royal garden. Naltecona might be in one of these sleeping chambers."

They advanced along a grassy path between ferns and blossoms. Several tall, graceful palms leaned over them, silhouetted against the sky.

"Wait!" Erix warned quietly, her voice taut with alarm.

"What is it?" Hal turned from side to side, peering into the shrubbery around them. Was something moving?

"Kirisha!" The command, barked in a woman's voice, suddenly filled the garden with white light. A dozen or more legionnaires leaped from the rooms around them, swords drawn.

"A trap!" cried Poshtli. He raised his longsword and deflected the attack of the first swordsman.

Halloran leaped in front of Erixitl and slashed with Helms-tooth at another attacker. He grunted in astonishment as the weapon cleaved his opponent's sword and went on to slash the man's body into two pieces. Never had he struck a blow with such power.

He turned and chopped at another legionnaire who rushed him from the flank, surprising him. Nevertheless, this blow sent another attacker flying across the garden to smash, stunned, against the wall. Halloran hacked again, an overhand chop that once more snapped his opponent's sword and cleaved the man in two.

Poshtli stumbled against Hal, pressed by three attackers, and Halloran whirled. He charged into them, his blade flashing, bone-crushing power behind his attacks. Three savage blows dropped the swordsmen, and Hal rushed ahead, driving a rank of legionnaires back before him.

He saw stark fear in the faces of the men he fought, but, mindful of his companions, he didn't pursue too far. He moved back to Erixitl's side, and saw the awe upon her face. "How did you do that?" she gasped, gesturing to the broken bodies around them.

For the first time, Halloran noticed the tingling in his wrists. He looked down and saw the delicate rings of his feathered wristbands – the dowry given him by Lotil, the featherworker. Could those beautiful objects truly be the source of his sudden, giantlike strength? What had Lotil told him?

"… they may not look like much, but I think that you will appreciate them"

Indeed he did! Panting slightly, Hal looked around. The swordsmen stood in a rough circle around them, their eyes wide with fear. He saw movement behind the legionnaires, recognizing the dark form of Darien. It was she who had cast the light spell.

She raised her hand, and he saw a dim pebble of light float from her finger – a pebble he had seen in battle before. "Fireball!" he cried, feeling a hopeless sense of panic as that innocent-looking globule of flame drifted toward them.

Erixitl seized his arm and Poshtli's, pulling them both close to her. Spellbound, they watched the dot move closer.

The two or three seconds of its flight passed like hours.

Then the world around them erupted into searing light. Tongues of liquid flame exploded from the pebble, encircling them, hissing with infernal heat. Moist, succulent plants sizzled into ash. The ring of encircling legionnaires stumbled backward, many suffering burns on their faces or hands.

Halloran felt the heat pressing around them, bringing sweat to his forehead. Numb with terror, he awaited the devouring kiss of flame that would end their lives. He sensed Erix's fear beside him as her hand squeezed his arm with viselike pressure.

But then the flames faded away, and they were unharmed! They stood amidst a large, circular patch of blackened, smoldering garden, but Erix's pluma had protected them from the spell.

"Take them, you cowards!" He heard Darien's voice, uncharacteristically shrill, commanding the legionnaires. Perhaps two dozen of them still stood, and once again they pressed forward.

"Stay close to me," warned Erix as Hal started to lunge toward the swordsmen. He saw, from the devastated plant life, that the ring of protection around Erix seemed to extend some ten feet away from her.

Feinting toward the men before him, he drove them back. Then he turned and, with Poshtli at his side, attacked those rushing from the rear. In three blows, three more men fell, and the Maztican stayed another. Hal noted that Poshtli readily adapted his skill with a maca to the use of the hard steel blade.

Halloran saw Darien raise her hand again. A bolt of magic hissed from her finger, a magic arrow forming in the air. It crackled toward him, and he grunted with pain as it hissed into his hip, leaving a smoking burn.

Again a bolt crackled, and he flinched backward, knowing he couldn't avoid the attack. But then a lithe form stepped before him. The magic arrow struck Erixitl between her breasts, where the pluma token lay against her skin, unseen beneath her dress.

The bolt crumbled into sparks and fell harmlessly to the ground. The swordsmen paused for a moment as Darien's shrill cry of hatred split the air. Bolt after bolt shot forth, each one popping into nothingness against the Maztican woman. Finally Darien dropped her hand, her spell exhausted. The other attackers closed tentatively.

"We've got to get out of here," Poshtli grunted. "They knew we were coming. Naltecona's too well guarded!"

Sensing the truth of his friend's words, Halloran cursed in frustration. He felt he could go anywhere, attack at any odds, with the pulsating might flowing into his muscles from his pluma wristbands. But he knew this was an illusion. He might be strong and quick, but he was still mortal.

"Come on!" said Erix, starting back toward the concealed door they had used to enter.

Hal and Poshtli fell back beside her, fighting off the approaches of the attackers. Feeling no remorse in the heat of the battle, Hal struck brutally to the right and left, slaying his former comrades as he would kill any foe in any battle. If anything, the presence of Erixitl beside him and the need to protect her drove him to greater heights of savagery than he had ever known.

The door stood open before them. The three guards still slumbered incongruously as the battle raged around them. One of them began to stir as Hal and Erix turned back to the smoldering garden. The legionaires pursued at a safe distance, giving the bone-crunching sweep of Halloran's sword a wide berth.

"Get through – I'll close the door!" Poshtli leaped into the portal, stepping aside so that Hal and Erix could slip past him.

"Go!" Halloran urged Erix, facing outward to hold back the pursuit.

Neither of them saw the groggy legionnaire sit up near the doorway. The effects of the sleep spell melted away as he saw the fight raging before him.

Swiftly the man sprang to his feet and dove into Erixitl, carrying her heavily to the ground. The two rolled away from the doorway, away from Halloran.

"Erix!" he cried, his voice cracking. He leaped after her, seeing other legionnaires reach down, helping their companion to pull her away.

Dimly he saw Darien raise her hand, her spell a sharp bark of sound amid the chaos in the garden. Erixitl disappeared before Halloran as he crashed into a wall of stone – a hard granite barrier conjured between him and his wife by the elfmage.

"No!" he raged. Legionnaires swarmed around either side of the wall, blocking his passage with their bodies. The stone barrier towered over his head, extending across half the garden to the right and left. Behind him, he sensed Poshtli at the open door.

With a growl of inarticulate rage, Halloran threw back his fist and smashed it into the wall. His knuckles met the granite with stone-crushing force, and the arcane power of his pluma, coupled with the berserk rage of his own strength, shattered the barrier. Leaping through the wreckage like a wild beast, Halloran saw Erix, firmly grasped by four swordsmen, disappear into one of the compartments.