Serpent's Bane (Snakesblood Saga Book 3)

by Beth Alvarez

  Rune glanced up. “They live so long?”

  “They are free mages, they don't age like the rest of us.” Sera gave him an odd look. “I would have thought you'd know something about that.”

  His brow furrowed. “There aren't many like me, where I am from.”

  “Is that so? Interesting,” Redoram murmured. “I was under the impression free mages always flocked together and secluded themselves from the outside world. How many free mages are there, where you hail from?”

  “Including myself?”

  The old mage blinked. “So few?”

  Rune took a pastry and turned it between his claws. “I suppose I shouldn't be included, as I'm not there anymore. So, not counting myself... one.”

  Both mages stared at him in surprise. Sera leaned forward, her face twisted with sympathy. “No wonder you know so little about your magic. I'm sorry. I would have thought you'd have a teacher, like in Aldaanan culture.”

  “A reasonable assumption, given that he speaks their tongue,” Redoram said.

  “My teachers were all limited by affinity. I didn't know my Gift was different until just before I left.” He'd had time to consider that, too, while traveling. Rune still didn't understand why Medreal hadn't revealed her abilities sooner. He couldn't help but feel wronged by her secrecy. So much would have been different if he'd had a more capable teacher.

  And yet, if he hadn't pursued lessons with Firal, perhaps nothing ever would have come to fruition between them. He found himself reaching for the leather strap around his neck, for the rings he always wore, and he forced his hand down. The thought of Firal spawned memories of Core, and those turned his thoughts to Tren's peculiar death—and the event that led to him breaking the mirror the night before. There were so many fragments of his old life that made little sense, but perhaps he had a chance to unravel them now.

  “I do have a question,” Rune said slowly. “It is not related to Aldaan.”

  “Speak it.” The old man waved a hand.

  “What do you know about basilisks?”

  Sera snorted a laugh.

  Redoram seemed surprised, but humored him. “Real basilisks, or the sort found in folk tales?”

  “What's the difference?”

  “One is an ordinary sort of lizard. The other is a legend from a culture on the other end of the world.”

  Rune hesitated. He'd never heard the name before he caught it whispered in Core, moments after Tren had died. Somehow he doubted the ruin-folk would be familiar with strange lizards. “What does the legend say?”

  “That they're monstrous creatures, as tall as a horse, that turn their prey from living flesh to stone. Ridiculous, but there's a measure of truth in most legends. The lizards I've heard of are much smaller than a horse, perhaps the size of a house cat, but they have a venomous bite that can cause paralysis in its victims.” The mage poured himself another cup of coffee. “Why do you ask?”

  “No reason,” Rune murmured, staring at his pastry. He forced himself to take a bite. “Just a... dream I had, I suppose.”

  Sera drained the last of her coffee before she spoke. “Well, that aside, is there anything else you can tell us? About the meeting, not venomous lizards.”

  “I'm afraid not. Much of my evening was spent catching up on affairs, and convincing the rest of the council that I still had a right to be there.” Redoram stroked his beard, his mage-blue eyes glazed with thought. “I did learn that the Aldaanan are to send further instructions to Captain Kaith by wing, once the army is on the move. Once you depart, I will send word of new developments. If I hear any, that is. I believe they plan to have King Vicamros formally remove me from the council.”

  “Being imprisoned didn't remove you from it?” Rune asked skeptically.

  Sera rolled her eyes and put aside her cup. “Politics here are complicated, lizard.” She stood and smoothed her skirt. “Come along. The sun is up and Garam will be waiting. Thank you for your hospitality, Councilor.”

  Rune crammed the last of his pastry into his mouth and licked sugar from his claws. “And for breakfast. Though, next time, I'd ask that you have a pot of tea.”

  Redoram rose with a chuckle. “If there is a next time, friend,” he murmured as he saw them to the door.

  Sera slipped out first. Rune paused at the threshold, unsure what to say. Before he thought of anything, the old councilor clasped him on the shoulder and he returned the gesture in kind. Redoram kept his face neutral, though his eyes were grim.

  Rune flashed him a disarming grin. “Remember, tea. Served with honey and cream.” He pulled back, righted his uniform, and strode after Sera at an easy pace. He wasn't thrilled about marching to a war that wasn't his to fight, but he reminded himself of his time in the arena and tried to think of ways to work the situation to his advantage. There had to be some way it could help his standing.

  Besides, he thought. We're going up against mages. What could they do that I haven't suffered before?

  12

  Greater Forces

  Shouts from the rear of the procession brought the army to a halt again. Rune fell out of formation to assist, alongside several others. Lightning crackled overhead, spooking the horses and making matters harder for the men who fought to keep them still.

  The rain had begun not long after Rune and Sera set out from Redoram's house, the sort of downpour Rune hadn't expected to see outside of Elenhiise. In spite of Garam's effort to make an early start, it had been well past noon before they left the Royal City. The army hadn't even made it past the city limits before the wagon wheels churned the roads to mud and stuck fast. It had been slow going since. The army moved perhaps a dozen yards at a time, then paused to pull the wagons out of the mire. They couldn't move ahead without their supplies, not with several thousand men behind Captain Kaith's buckskin horse.

  “And we're to travel all the way to Aldaan in this,” a soldier muttered, hushing the horses as they tried to flail in the sucking mud. Odds were one of the animals would break a leg before the day was over.

  Someone handed Rune a shovel, and he looked back the way they'd come. The barren trees surrounding the city were still visible, though the army had been on the move for hours. Had he been able to use his magic, he might have pulled the wagons free on his own, but the flows of energy that hummed in everything around him still escaped his grasp.

  “For the safety of the city,” Sera had said. “If you can see the city, magic is out of reach.” It seemed overly cautious to him, but complaining wouldn't make any difference. Eventually they'd pass beyond whatever barrier held magic at bay and he'd have his power. Enough power to decimate the army he walked with, he thought bitterly. Enough to cause the sort of chaos and confusion he needed to escape. But he refused to leave his father's sword. He could wipe out a tenth of Garam's army on his own, but without the captain's help, he wouldn't find the blade again.

  It took some time to free the wagons, but as they dug the wheels from the mud, they guided the wagons off the wide road and into the tall grasses alongside it. The horses would tire faster pulling the wagons on an unbroken trail, but it seemed their best chance for progress. The men moved back into formation, occupying the road the horses couldn't travel. Frigid mud squelched beneath Rune's feet as he took his place. The men weren’t as hindered by the mud as the animals, though it stained their boots and uniforms black.

  The march went on for several miles without interference, winding northwest until the last traces of civilization disappeared behind them and they reached the edge of the barrier that kept the Royal City free of magic.

  It wasn't like the mage-barrier surrounding Kirban Temple. There was no prickle or tingle to feel as Rune passed through. Just the sensation of magic being beyond his grasp, then a sudden deluge, a frigid rush that made him suck in a breath and stop dead in his tracks. It was revitalizing and refreshing, and he found himself drawing power close just to savor the sensation of it being there. Men kept moving around him, men without a Gift
, who didn't know what they were missing. He closed his eyes and held on a moment more, until shouts from ahead drew his attention.

  Garam had halted. Sera stood beside his horse and the two of them leaned close to one another, to speak without having their voices carry. Rune had seen very little of Sera as they traveled, but she was a scout, not a fighter. He assumed her reappearance meant she'd found something important. She pointed up. He and Garam both looked to the sky. A bird circled overhead, spiraling downward. No, not a bird; too big, too oddly shaped. Rune's brow furrowed as he tried to make it out, but it was little more than a dark shape against gray-bellied storm clouds.

  “Stop the wagons!” Garam shouted as he dismounted his buckskin gelding and passed the reins to a nearby man, who walked the horse back to the wagons. “Keep the horses back and keep them calm. We can't afford to have them injure themselves in the mud.”

  The airborne silhouette shifted to circle above Garam and Sera, obviously intending to land near them. Curious, Rune moved closer to the captain. The winged creature banked and he got a good look at it for the first time.

  Its lean body was like that of a great cat, but instead of fur, its mane was tawny feathers. More feathers fringed its long tail and feathered tufts like an owl's stood in place of ears. Its head wasn't feline, but wasn't quite that of a bird, either, despite its sharp beak.

  “What's the matter?” Sera grinned. He hadn't seen her approach, his eyes fixed on the strange animal. “Never seen a gryphon before?”

  “I had no idea they even existed.” Rune shaded his eyes with a scaly hand as the beast alighted not far from Garam. Almost more startling than the creature itself was the way it sat up on feline haunches, wiggled clawed fingers on its eagle-like forefeet, and plucked some sort of eye coverings from its face. It pushed them farther up on its head. Rune's jaw went slack. Sera slid a finger underneath his chin and pushed it shut.

  “Can't have rain in her eyes, now, can she?” she teased.

  Rune blinked. “How do you know it's female?”

  “The plumage.” Sera gestured toward her throat and chest. “Males have a bright patch in their mane.”

  “Captain Kaith, I presume?” the gryphon spoke, and everyone fell silent. The creature's voice was distinctively female and startlingly human, her words clear and crisp.

  Startled, Garam eyed her from ear-tuft to tail. “Yes,” he replied. “You'll have to forgive me. When I heard the Aldaanan were sending a message by wing, I expected a carrier pigeon.”

  The gryphon laughed, a strange trilling sound that made Rune's skin prickle. He fought an involuntary shiver.

  “A pigeon, in this storm? Goodness no, Captain. I suppose I'll just have to do.” The beast dropped to rest her clawed forefeet on the ground. Her head was level with Garam's when she stood on all fours. “I expected your army would have traveled farther by now, but it seems you've been more hindered by the weather than anticipated.”

  “We move as best we can,” Garam said, irritated.

  Rune frowned at the declaration. The mages in the Royal City weren’t familiar enough with Aldaan to open a Gate for the army, but it still seemed like there should have been something they could do to make it easier.

  As if reading his mind, Sera snorted and strode forward with her hands on her hips. “I've told you a dozen times that I could pull the wagons from the mud on my own. How much faster would progress be if you let me?”

  “And have your magic spook the horses and half the men here?” The captain gave her a hard look.

  The gryphon's ear-tufts raised. “A mage in your company?” She turned toward Sera, her golden eyes as piercing as they were keen. Then she paused and tilted her head as her gaze slid to Rune. “Two mages. Well now, that's not something I expected to see.”

  Startled, Rune took a step back. The gryphon trilled in laughter again and padded toward him. He couldn't sense anything in the creature, no hint of a Gift at all. For a moment, he couldn't fathom how she'd identified his power. Then he set his jaw and reprimanded himself for the thought. He hadn't sensed Medreal either, and her Gift was the same as his own. It was foolish to assume he'd feel power in something as different as the gryphon before him.

  “What makes you say that?” Garam asked. He looked as cautious as he sounded, his expression guarded.

  The gryphon chuckled and clucked to herself. “Please, Captain. You are Garam Kaith! Your exploits are well known throughout the Triad's provinces, as is your dislike of anything magic in nature. No, don't look surprised, you aren't. News slanders a man as fast as it praises him, and I'm not offended. None of the Aldaanan are bothered by your opinions, so long as you're respectful to us. And you will be, won't you? Otherwise, you wouldn't be captain.” Then she ruffled her feathers, shaking off raindrops and adjusting her wings against her back. “Now! I've come to give you direction, so let's start off in the right one, hmm?”

  As the gryphon strutted ahead, Garam turned to bark orders for the men to move. The whole procession lurched forward. The captain hurried after the gryphon and spoke to the creature in tones so low Rune doubted he’d be able to hear if he walked right behind them.

  “I'd best walk with them, get directions to scout ahead.” Sera took a step, then paused and gave Rune a dark look. “And I felt what you were doing, you know. Don't go getting any ideas, now that your power is back at your fingertips. The Royal City isn't the only place where people can be kept from magic.”

  He raised a brow. It didn't sound like a threat, exactly, but he wasn't sure what else it was supposed to be. She didn't give him time to ask questions, turning and sprinting ahead to join her brother and the gryphon as the army moved into formation again. Rune took his place and fell in step alongside countless strangers, marching on toward the rise of mountains on the distant horizon. As conversation between the men resumed, he lifted his head in effort to see the gryphon again. Looking at the creature made him feel strange, but not in a negative way. For the first time he could recall, he didn't feel so unnatural.

  Rain ceased after the first night, though the mud lingered for days. The army wound toward the northwest at a steady pace after the storm passed, halting only occasionally to pull wagons free. More than once, Rune heard Sera complain about not being allowed to use her magic to help, but Garam did not waver in his decision. Rune thought better of saying anything, regardless of whether or not Sera was right. Agitating either one of them wouldn't help.

  They moved from the neutral territory that surrounded the Royal City to the lands of Aldaan without fanfare or notice. There were no markers, and the land looked no different than that near the city, though the farther they went, the hillier it became. Only snippets of conversation Rune overheard between Garam and the gryphon betrayed their location.

  Almost a week passed with nothing of interest to report. No news, no trouble, just an endless march through an unremarkable landscape. Then an afternoon came where storms rumbled on the horizon and Garam brought the army to a halt early to make camp where they were.

  Most of the men seemed relieved. Whatever merriment had filled the campsite the first few nights was gone now. Breaks had grown rare, and the weary army seemed to suffer in their absence. Rune didn't know how they expected to survive a war with an army that was, as he understood, mostly untried. The seasoned warriors among the ranks were all older, though Captain Kaith himself seemed unfazed by what lay ahead. Garam was difficult to read, but he was Captain of the Guard. It was unlikely this was his first battle. Rune studied the faces of the men in the camp and paused when he found the gryphon doing the same.

  She turned her head under the weight of his eyes, her feathered mane ruffling as she stared back. Her expressions were oddly human, and there was no mistaking the curiosity in her birdlike face. She rose and flicked her wings as she padded toward him at a lazy pace. He shifted but stayed in front of the tent he had to himself—a luxury and an insult, since the fact he didn't have to share stemmed from the way the other soldiers av
oided him.

  The gryphon slowed as she neared him, and she leaned in to study him with sharp golden eyes. She tilted her head this way and that, observing his figure and his peculiar reptilian feet, though her gaze always went back to his eyes. “You're an odd one, aren't you?” she murmured at last, sitting beside him and fluffing her feathers. “A free mage, if I'm not mistaken. You feel like the Aldaanan, but you certainly don't look like them.”

  “And you don't feel like a mage at all.” Rune narrowed his eyes at her, pretending to inspect her with the same scrutiny.

  She cackled. “Gryphons don't use magic, we are magic. There's quite a difference.” But she smiled, another expression he was surprised to see. “What's your name?”

  “Rune.”

  “Liar.”

  He raised a brow.

  She made a clicking sound with her beak and nodded toward his hands. “Men are named at birth. Scars like that come later. What is your name?”

  He hesitated for a time, then shrugged and looked away. “It was Ran. Now it's Rune.”

  “I see.” The gryphon's eyes wandered elsewhere. She seemed to have determined he didn't like being stared at. “My name is Ria. Now it's Ria, anyway. Brantmen aren't very good at speaking the language of gryphons. It was easier to change.”

  “Brantmen?” he repeated, unsure he'd heard her right. The term was wholly unfamiliar.

  “Humans,” Ria said. “And Eldani. The Aldaanan. Two-legged fleshy things, like yourself.”

  “None of whom can speak your language?” Rune gave her a sidewise glance. “What was your name before?”

  She ruffled her feathers and let out an odd warble that reminded him of a creaking door. Then she adjusted her wings and snorted. “So, as you can imagine, it was just easier to change it.”