Keles had never heard of such a creature, but if it were coming out of the Ixyll Wastes or Dolosan, it would have been bred in the wild magic. As Borosan pointed out, the creature could have a very thick hide or only be vulnerable when its mouth was open, exposing a soft palate. His thanaton, they were assured, would figure things out, but it might take some time.
Time was not something they had. No one even suggested wandering off without killing the monster—even though dying in the process was a distinct possibility. Moraven was determined to fulfill his promise to them and perhaps add to the tales of the xidantzu.
Keles had helped as much as he could with the preparations. From the initial interviews concerning the fortress he was able to sketch out a fairly complete floor plan. He actually believed it was the Xoncyrkun mentioned in Amenis Dukao’s memoirs, for the general shape and tall tower at the heart matched the description very closely. The locals called it Dorunkun after a warlord who had occupied it more recently and from whom several of them claimed descent. They denied ever having heard of Amenis Dukao, which made them somewhat more ignorant than the sheep they herded, as far as Keles was concerned.
Even so, they knew the fortress well, and shared with him a wealth of detail. The ruins certainly dated from the late Imperial period, and had been part of the chain of strongholds used to discourage the Turasyndi from attacking. Built to encompass a hilltop and use a natural outcropping as the final stronghold, the entire fortress included tunnels and rooms hacked out of the stone. The monster lurked in these dark warrens.
Moraven said Borosan would accompany the group, but Tyressa still wished Keles to stay behind. Though Keles really had no desire to be anywhere near a monster that could drag strong men off, he refused. He pointed to one of the floor plans he’d drawn. “Look, during this period there were several basic designs for fortresses. Once I’m inside, I can determine where the garbage chutes will come out, as well as other alternate routes for getting down to the stables where this thing is lairing.”
Tyressa shook her head. “It is too risky.”
“It’s too risky without me. I have a bow and I can shoot pretty well. Besides, even if you leave me here, I won’t be safe.” He jerked a thumb toward the hut’s closed door. “I’ll be taking Borosan’s place if you fail.”
Tyressa did not like that argument, but agreed it was probably right. Keles didn’t like it, either, but was happy they were going to allow him to go along. “I’ll be fine. A Viruk couldn’t kill me, so I don’t imagine this thing will either.”
After a night of too little sleep they awoke to a breakfast that was well shy of generous. The illogic of wasting food on dead men was not lost on the village. Keles didn’t mind getting a tiny serving of gruel, since it was very watery and made out of some purple-blue grain he couldn’t identify. It and the fact that several of the village cats had spare toes and even an extra set of legs reminded him they were in the land wild magic had corrupted.
His stomach soured, and it wasn’t just the gruel that did it.
The five of them set out. Keles had hoped for bright sun to warm them as they trekked two miles through golden fields to the stronghold, but instead the day started grey, and a cold rain began to fall as they marched along. Moraven welcomed the rain, noting it kept the dust down, but Keles considered that a minor benefit.
Xoncyrkun had a ribbon wall that surrounded the top of the hill in an oval just over fifty yards from end to end. The wall, which once had been a dozen feet high in places, had fallen into disrepair, and the people of Telarunde had used it as a quarry for years. The squat outbuilding in which most of the garrison would have been housed survived save for the roofs. The main keep, which crested the hill and rose another thirty feet, had once had carrion crows roosting in it. Their guano stained the grey stone white and black in streaks, but Keles saw no evidence of current occupancy. He assumed the monster had frightened them off because, even if it were twice as big as described, it couldn’t have slithered high enough to eat the birds.
A dark hole in the wall about halfway between the main gate and the keep marked where the creature came and went. Low clouds soon descended to shroud the fortress, and Keles thought this was a good thing. Every step closer emphasized just how big the hole was, and that meant the monster was bigger than any of them wanted to think about.
The clouds dropped visibility to a dozen feet. Tyressa led the way through a breach in the wall and into the central courtyard. They all moved as quietly as they could. Keles studied the interior of the ruins, then crouched and pointed to the nearest of the blockhouses. “That would have been the storehouse. There are passages down to the stables there, and over there, past the garrison, just to the left of that stone spur. That would be the main ramp down, from which warriors could ride up and out. The opening is probably as wide as the hole in the wall.”
Ciras rose and began to move toward the storehouse. As he circled left around a large block that had tumbled from the wall, a black serpent rose from behind it. Its maned head swayed easily nine feet above the ground and its body was as thick around as Keles’ thigh. The snake hissed and reared back, but before it could strike, Ciras’ sword cleared the scabbard and came around in a flat arc. The silver blur bisected the serpent as if it were no more than the fog that had helped hide it. The upper half toppled back to the stones, while the main body writhed in a gush of blood.
Ciras spun away with a greasy grey vapor rising from his blade and his overshirt where both had been splashed with blood. Keles felt a burning on his own right cheek and smeared serpent’s blood away with his fingers. They began to tingle as a result, but he resisted the temptation to put them into his mouth and suck.
Ciras yanked his overshirt off and used a corner to wipe his blade before tossing the garment away. He slid his blade back home, then allowed himself a laugh. “Well, Master Gryst, what trouble would your thanaton have had in killing that?”
Borosan frowned. “It should have had none. And it should be out here now, if that’s what it was tracking.”
The young swordsman snorted. “You should save your magic for mousing. The monster is slain; our duty is done.”
Ciras’ master dropped to one knee. “You are mistaken.”
“How? It is exactly as the peasants described it to Keles—though they exaggerated mightily. It was strong enough to carry off sheep and men.”
“Yes, but look at where you cut it.” Moraven pointed at the severed spine and, beside it, a slender tube ringed with cartilage. “It might have been able to carry men off, but it never could have swallowed them.”
Ciras frowned. “Perhaps it feeds as a spider does. It injects poison into prey and when they dissolve, it drinks.”
“Or,” Moraven said quietly as he stood, “it suckles at the breast of something a good bit larger.”
A low vibration ran through the ground, as if a big rock had plummeted from the top of the tower and struck the courtyard. Another vibration shook the stone, and another, coming faster and stronger. Unbidden, the image of something much larger slithering up a narrow passage, its coils slamming into the walls, came to Keles’ mind. He looked toward where the ramp should have come out and dug for an arrow at his right hip.
Time slowed, and every sensation registered with indelible clarity. Fingers still tingling from serpent blood brushed soft feathers and closed on hard wood. The jade thumbring refused to warm. The silver broadhead rasped against the quiver’s hide, then the bow groaned as he nocked and drew the arrow. His right shoulder began to burn, and the tip of the arrow quivered as Moraven’s blade hissed from its scabbard and Ciras sprang to his feet.
Borosan’s thanaton came rolling out of the fog first, striking sparks from the garrison building and the outcropping. Just beyond the narrowest point, its four legs sprang out with loud clicks. A curved panel slid from front to back over its dome, and a heavy crossbow emerged, twisting and locking down. Two delicate arms set a quarrel in place, while another heavy arm cocke
d the bow. The thanaton crouched, its knees rising above the dome.
The monster came on quickly, a black shadow undulating through the mist. It reared up as the fog parted, giving Keles a good view of a golden-scaled, blunted, wedge-shaped head. He saw no eyes and only slit nostrils in its face. The creature’s lower jaw dropped, revealing serrated ivory teeth. It hissed, and panic froze Keles in place.
The thanaton did not register fear. It shot, hitting the snake in the throat at close range. The bolt pierced the creature’s flesh, muting the hiss for a heartbeat, but clearly it was more from surprise than damage. The bolt might as well have been a wasp’s sting to an elephant.
The snake’s head darted forward and the rising hiss cut off abruptly. Crystal-clear venom streamed from within its mouth and splashed over the thanaton. The crossbow’s wooden stock immediately burst into flame and the stones beneath the mechanical hunter began to smoke. Pieces of the thanaton began to melt, with springs and wires pinging as they snapped. First one leg then another twisted and rotted away, with Borosan’s agonized screech giving voice to what his creation might have been feeling.
Keles loosed his arrow, and the shot went far better than he would have expected. He allowed himself a flash of pleasure at how well his brother’s gift worked, because the shaft flew directly where he’d aimed. His joy vanished, however, as it skipped off the snake’s flat head and raked back through the black mane. It hadn’t so much as dented a scale and, with a sinking feeling in his guts, he realized that even it if had, it would have hurt the snake less than the thanaton’s bolt.
His arrow did have one unexpected result, however. As it sped through the mane, it transfixed a snake the size of the one Ciras had killed. Two more, then three and four, then up to a dozen of them emerged from that thicket of fur, all of them hissing madly and spitting venom as their mother had. To make things worse, his arrow had not actually killed the snake he’d hit, and the way they were writhing and springing free, he doubted he could hit another.
Keles suddenly found himself detached, as if he were standing back, watching himself draw another arrow and letting fly. The observer cataloged all the details of the beast, drawing conclusions and, he hoped, somehow communicating them to his grandfather or brother, even as he died. The snake’s young clearly nested in the mane and likely took nourishment there. The mother, blind—by design he assumed, since he could see no scarring—relied on them for gathering food, which she then devoured and fed to them. He could only hope the snakes had some sort of natural predator, for if that clutch grew and reproduced, stemming the tide of their expansion would be difficult.
Moraven, Ciras, and Tyressa flew into battle. The Keru hurled her spear and stuck the mother through the lower jaw. The spear’s head lodged in the snake’s upper palate and clearly caused her pain. The viscous venom already had the spear smoking, mixing with the black blood dripping from the shaft. Drawing her sword, the Keru closed fearlessly, intent on wounding the beast even more.
The two xidantzu attacked with a spare economy of effort that should not have surprised Keles. Their command of their bodies and weapons so surpassed anything he had seen before—including Moraven’s fight in Asath—that he could do little but marvel. Swords beheaded several of the smaller vipers, then warriors leaped past writhing bodies to strike at others.
For the barest of moments, Keles believed they might actually win the fight. The smaller snakes had begun to fall and all three of the attackers had drawn within range of the largest snake’s belly. His own second arrow had stuck it in the mouth. It had not done nearly the damage of Tyressa’s spear, but the viper had reacted to the pain.
Then one of the smaller snakes whipped its tail around, sweeping Tyressa’s legs from beneath her. As she went down, Moraven leaped to her side and slew the snake that had dropped her. To his right, however, another of the small vipers breathed venom in a vapor that sent Ciras reeling back. His sword clattered to the ground as he spun away, hands over his face, coughing heavily. Keles loosed a third arrow at the snake chasing Ciras and missed, dooming the young swordsman.
Then Borosan stepped up and whipped his arm forward. The mouser spun through the air. The small snake struck at it, catching the ball in its mouth. Suddenly the legs sprang out, thrusting up through its skull. The snake flopped, writhing, but that proved to be only a momentary benefit, as the small snakes were truly the least of their worries.
Moraven stooped to help Tyressa up. The mother rose above him as the undissolved pieces of the spear fell away. Whether the snake intended to spit venom or just lunge to devour them, Moraven Tolo and Tyressa were dead.
Then a keening screech of contempt and ecstasy filled the fog and echoed from the fortress walls. Something angular and dark descended through the mist and slammed into the back of the viper’s head, jolting the creature. The attacker disappeared immediately into the mane. The viper’s head rose, nose high in the fog, to smash into the tower. It wriggled side to side as if trying to scrape off whatever had landed. It hissed furiously for a moment, then squeaked piteously. A shudder rippled through its entire length, cracking its tail against the tower’s base. The body slackened for a second, then, as if it were a piece of cable falling, it crashed to the courtyard, cracking ages-old mortar.
Keles went down, groaning inwardly as his arrows clattered onto the stone. Rising to his knees, he grabbed one and tried to fit it to the bow. His hands trembled and his stomach began to roil. The arrow fought him, refusing to be nocked. He glanced down, guiding it into place, then looked back at the head of the viper, five yards distant and twice his height.
Something rustled in the mane, then stood. Steaming viper blood drenched it and ran from elbows and hunched shoulders. A hot light burned in its eyes, then it raised clawed fingers to the sky. It shrieked again, this time triumphant, then lowered its hands. It moved forward, then crouched on the viper’s golden brow.
“Keles Anturasi. Very good.” The scars on Keles’ back began to burn as he recognized the Viruk. “The journey has been long. I have come for you.”
Chapter Thirty-six
14th day, Month of the Rat, Year of the Dog
9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court
162nd Year of the Komyr Dynasty
736th year since the Cataclysm
Anturasikun, Moriande
Nalenyr
Even though Nirati had not liked Majiata, she hated seeing the hopeful look on Lord Marutsar Phoesel’s face. A small, slender man, he wore a nicely trimmed moustache and goatee which, like his hair, had been dyed to hide signs of age. His black robe had gold cranes embroidered on breast and back, and a narrow gold sash had been wrapped twice around his middle to keep it closed. Many people considered him handsome and charming—stories abounded about his legion of mistresses—but knowing Majiata had sprung from his loins killed any appeal as far as Nirati was concerned.
She quickly amended that thought. That she had come after Keles at her father’s prompting is what makes him hideous in my eyes.
Lord Phoesel’s only concession to mourning was the white undertunic he wore. It was visible at throat and cuff, and suggested to many that he was holding his grief deep inside. Nirati felt the man just thought he did not look particularly good in white. And while she did not really mourn Majiata, she would have thought her father might make more of a show of it.
The man hesitated for a moment as he came into the antechamber to Qiro Anturasi’s receiving room. When Marutsar met with Qiro before, Qiro had received him in a different room—one much lower in the tower and less intimate. This room, with its stark white walls and bare wooden floor, mocked the finery of the halls leading to it.
The room had only two adornments, and neither seemed appropriate. Most notable was the semicircular cage of golden bars that ran from floor to ceiling. It extended to the middle of the room and covered the far wall from corner to corner. Built into that wall was a doorway, similarly barred with gold, only four feet in height.
&n
bsp; Nirati, waiting inside the cage, welcomed Lord Phoesel through the door. “If you please, enter and wait over there by the other door.”
The man nodded and looked around as he entered. “I have not been here before.”
“Few have.” Nirati moved behind him and pulled the cage door shut. It closed with a click. Another click echoed it, and the small golden door slid up into the wall. “My grandfather will see you now.”
Lord Phoesel approached the low doorway and stooped. He peered in, then glanced back at her, consternation on his face. She said nothing, so he started forward in a crouch, then yelped as his forward foot missed the step down. He sprawled forward on his belly.
As my grandfather intended.
Nirati sank to her hands and knees and crawled through, then rose inside the far room. The circular cage extended out on this side of the wall, the circle trapping visitors. She bowed to Qiro, then waved a hand toward Majiata’s father, who had risen no further than his knees. “You know Lord Phoesel.”
Qiro, who was studying a gold-plated human skull he’d brought back with him from the Wastes, nodded. “We have met before.” The old man stared into the skull’s empty eye sockets, then returned it to the small pedestal upon which it normally resided. He smiled and looked down at the merchant, but said nothing.
Lord Phoesel remained on his knees, his head craning back to take in all the treasures displayed around him. While Nirati and he were the only things inside the cage, all around it, an arm’s length past the bars, lay wooden casks and ironbound chests. Huge tapestries and paintings covered the walls. Weapons had been stacked in the corners. The scent of spices filled the room, wafting from dozens of containers piled high in pyramids. Jewels glinted from half-open boxes and split sacks had spilled out a glittering carpet of gold coins.
The skull, while a unique piece of art, was not the most unusual artifact. The heads of countless animals, from four-horned oryxes and sable tigers to the gaping jaws of a Dark Sea shark, had been mounted and hung. Hides of rich, thick fur covered the throne centered against the back wall, and plumage of unimaginable delicacy decorated ceremonial masks, armor, and fletched quivers of arrows.
A Secret Atlas Page 29
