Feathered Dragon by Douglas Niles

Author:Douglas Niles
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9781560760450
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Published: 1991-04-15T04:00:00+00:00

THE MAKING OF THE LITTLE

PEOPLE

When the great gods created humankind, according to the wishes of Qotal and Zaltec and their children, they made man tall and strapping, fitted for war and for hunting. Soon, they knew, he would become master of his world.

But other gods-Kiltzi and her younger sisters-stole the mold used to make man. They found their brothers’ tastes too warlike and saw that man was too big. They desired a toy, a little person that could become part of (he forest world without becoming its master.

So the sisters began to work on their own mold. They copied everything that they could from the shapes created by

their brothers, but they made their humans smaller, that they might more easily serve as toys.

And when the little people had been made, the sister gods set them free in the deepest forests, where they might for. ever escape the notice of their larger brethren. They bade them to hunt and fish and populate the forest, but not to become its masters.

The Little People promised to obey, and they did.

CAPTIVITY AND FLIGHT

“Who was it?” Darien inquired, her voice icy cool yet taut with seething rage. Hittok had found her in a grassy clearing, and now they squatted among the tall blades, only their elven torsos showing above the vegetation.

“Dackto. The cat bit him right through the neck and broke his spine.” Hittok explained the death of the drider dispassionately, yet the news had struck them all a shocking blow. For the first time since Lolth had corrupted their drow forms, one of their number had perished.

“The cat was a human, no doubt-probably a Jaguar Knight,” guessed the albino. “No animal would be so brave or so foolish.”

“One of those we pursue, whose city we took?” Hittok ventured.

“Certainly. And when we catch these humans, they-all of them-shall pay for this affront. How fares the chase?”

“The humans flee quickly through the forest, remaining just ahead of the leaders,” Hittok explained. “Yet the ants are tireless, and the people will eventually begin to fatigue. Then we shall encircle them and take them all.”

“Very well. We must maintain the pace at all costs. Have you plotted their course?”

“Yes, mistress. It seems that they head for a pass through the mountains we have observed before us. Perhaps there they will be foolish enough to stand and fight so that we may overwhelm them.”

Hittok gestured to the purpled massif that lay to the northwest. For days, they had been approaching it, and now they could discern individual peaks and ridges, softly outlined by verdant, jungled slopes. In another day of pursuit, if the people of Tulom-Itzi held to their present course, they would enter the foothills of the range.

“Press forward with redoubled haste!” Darien barked The command, raising her own swollen abdomen from the ground to stand on her eight spidery legs. “Let us insure that the humans are fatigued when they reach the mountains.” She gestured to the others of her tribe, the nineteen remaining driders, who pressed forward in the wake of the marching column of ants.

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