Serpent's Blood

by Brian Stableford

  "Not at all like the dredger," she replied, with a slight hint of asperity.

  "Dredgers haven't an enemy in the world, except the occasional protracted drought. Nobody bothers them while they get on with doing what they're supposed to do, day in and day out. I don't have that luxury. I never did and I never will. We'd better get going. It doesn't look as if we'll be able to make any progress once night falls."

  "No," said Andris.

  "Another night, another gnarly tree Twenty hours of murk and mud."

  "Are you always as miserable as this?" she demanded.

  "Of course not," he told her.

  "Sometimes I get depressed." She laughed at that, and didn't seem to be forcing the laughter. That helped to lift his own spirits a little, and he resolved to make an effort to be more positive. It was difficult not to reflect the mood 185

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  of the weather whidf they couldn't escape its

  oppression, but it surely wasn't beyond the scope of his intelligence-especially if he made an effort to remember that if Merel had been right, he could have been navel-deep in mud in the garden on top of the Inner Sanctum of the citadel right now, with no balls and a thorn-bush growing in his entrails. He still couldn't believe that Princess Lucrezia had intended to do that to him, but he did know enough about the prevailing moral standards of royal families to be certain that it wasn't beyond the bounds of possibility.

  The horses didn't seem any more enthusiastic to be on their way than Andris was, but they weren't in the least mulish about it. They'd been brought up to obey- to them, every human being was a prince.

  "Good girl," Andris said to the mare, as she bore up bravely under his excessive weight.

  "Look at it this way- at least you're not a dredger. I may be heavy, but I'm grateful, which is more than you can say for mud."

  Talking to animals," Merel observed as they moved off, following the lazy river upstream, 'is a sure sign of a deep-seated inability to get along with peciple."

  "When I was in Belin's jail," Andris told her,

  "I shared my cell with a spider. Best cellmate He ver had until you came along."

  "That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me for seven years and more," she said drily.

  "In daylight, anyway."

  He was glad that she couldn't possibly mean it. He knew that much for certain and it seemed, just at the moment, to be a very satisfying thing to know.

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  4 although the hazy purple edge of the Forest of Absolute Night was now clearly visible along the entire southern horizon Lucrezia and Hyry were crossing country that was rather more open than that through which they had lately come. The terrain was almost flat, although it was frequently interrupted by streams edged with stands of purple-flowered furze. There were ragged clumps of young trees scattered at irregular intervals before them but very few bushes. The streams were a nuisance, for they often ran deep in spite of the fact that they were not broad enough to support dredgers, and Hyry had to pick their crossing-points carefully lest the donkeys' packs got soaked.

  The night was clear, and they could have continued riding indefinitely had it not been for the need to conserve the strength of the animals. Like Hyry Keshvara, the horses would have preferred to walk on good roads, spending every noon and midnight in well-roofed stables with straw-covered floors.

  The animals were not disposed to open rebellion, but they had ways of making their discomfort known.

  Eventually, Hyry called a halt as they passed close to a long, narrow mound whose shallow ridge was crowned by a young stand of trees.

  "What is it?" Lucrezia asked. Although the mound was by no means big enough to be called a hill the ideas of rising ground and drago mites were firmly associated in her mind.

  "A farmhouse and barns once stood here," the trader replied.

  "Probably built on a natural rise, which they increased when they rotted down. Maybe the cycle was repeated two or three times.

  Settlers will move in again soon enough, once the timber's more fully grown, but in sheep country people build where the good wood is, and move on when it's gone. "

  It was easy enough to find a clear space within the copse, and file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/Brian%20Stableford%20-%20Serpents%20Blood.TXT (190 of 495) [11/1/2004 12:26:21 AM]

  there was

  more than enough leaf litter to cushion the ground on which they spread their mats. They ate again, but it was a meagre meal and they did not let it delay them long. They stretched themselves out to sleep as soon as they could, because they wanted to be on their way again long before dawn, but Lucrezia could see that Hyry was apprehensive. She had taken care to look back the way they had come at regular intervals ever since she had first caught sight of the riders, and she remained anxious about them even though she had seen no clear indication of their continued presence.

  There were far too many insects about for Lucrezia's liking, but she had schooled herself to ignore them. The bites she had sustained during her first few nights in the open had caused fierce allergic reactions, but her body had now adapted to the commoner toxins and more recent encounters had caused her much less distress. She felt a certain pride in the fact that she had that kind of capacity, given that she was herself trained in the use of poisons. It would have been an uncomfrotable irony to find that she had an abnormally low tolerance to such tiny stings.

  She was very tired, and would have gone to sleep easily enough had it not been for Hyry's obvious unease. Although the older woman was making every effort to control her restlessness the faint sound of her breathing was quite sufficient to communicate a sense that all was not well. Some instinct or intuition was sounding a warning note inside the trader's head, and Lucrezia was disposed to trust its implications. The princess had been in peril before, when she first woke to find herself a prisoner of Checuti's men, but her sense of danger had then been ameliorated by the fact that she could sec and speak to her captors. Now, because she had no clear idea of what might be threatening her or when the threat might materialise, her trepidation was far greater.

  It was almost a relief when her straining ears finally caught the sounds of approaching animals. As soon as she heard the distant snorting of tired horses she came fully awake and sat up. She would have whispered a warning to her companion, but Hyry had rsponded even more rapidly. The trader moved swiftly to Lucrezia's side, placing a finger over the princess's lips to instruct her to be quiet. They might pass by," Hyry whispered but Lucrezia knew that she didn't believe it.

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  Lucrezia felt an electric thrill of fear, but that was preferable in some ways to the aching anxiety of anticipation and she did not allow the terror to take a commanding hold of her. She felt calm and collected in spite of being on edge- and she also felt a certain grim glee at the thought that she was at last in a position to make an authentic field test of the lore which Ereleth had patiently imparted to her. The coming conflict, she told herself, would be far more valuable as trustworthy experience than all her experiments with worn-out slaves. She had already made her plans; now she changed her position to a predatory crouch, and reached into one of the pouches arrayed about her belt. There she found the instrument which best fitted the circumstances. She handled it with all due care. The clearing in which the two women had camped was broad enough to let a good deal of starlight through, but it wasn't possible to see the approaching men; they had dismounted and were coming forward on foot, as stealthily as they could.

  Lucrezia tried to judge how many they were from the pattern of the slight sounds they made, and became certain as they spread out that
there were at least three. Lucrezia knew that Hyry had a long, sharp knife in her hand, but she didn't wish that she had one like it. She had more faith in her own resources. She carefully anointed her own weapons: the sharpened and strengthened fingernails of her left hand. The nail of the forefinger had been broken in the course of her recent travails, but she had manicured the remainder with the utmost care in order to maintain their usefulness.

  She suddenly became aware that Hyry Keshvara was no longer by her side, although the woman had moved much more quietly than the men who were coming to rob them. She smiled. . . but the smile faded as she realised that the sounds made by the people who were creeping up on them had died almost to nothing. It was as if everyone had paused, waiting for some challenge or signal.

  Lucrezia felt an urgent desire to move into the shadow of one of the trees, so that she could feel its trunk against her back, but she didn't dare because she knew that she couldn't do it silently. She tried instead to remain as still as possible, hoping that because she was crouching down she would be unobtrusive.

  Suddenly, there was a fizzing sound and a brilliant light burst 189

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  forth.

  Lucrezia hadp9t expected it, and had the misfortune to be looking in the direction of the flare. She was dazzled and blinded, and knew immediately what a severe disadvantage she had incurred. She had time to hope that Hyry might have been warned by the fizzing sound, or fortunate enough to have been looking another way, but that was all the time she had- two blurred figures converged upon her from different directions with purposeful haste.

  Had the attackers grabbed an arm each and held them hard they might have rendered her incapable, but their first concern was to pin her down, and they had undoubtedly seen in the brilliant flash of light that she held no evident weapon. They thought she was impotent to hurt them, and they weren't afraid.

  She lashed out at them, although she had to guess where their faces were because she still could not see them. She made no contact. Then one of them was suddenly on top of her, kneeling on her chest. He was so heavy, and had come down so brutally, that the impact drove the air from her lungs, and one of his hands clenched upon her right wrist but her left was still free. Once he was still there was no difficulty in finding his cheek, and raking it.

  He laughed! { He actually laughed, as if the pain of the scratches was nothing more than a seasoning for the fury of his assault. He was dead, but didn't know it- and he laughed!

  Unfortunately, his ignorance had less pleasant consequences too. He struck back at her with his fist, and Hit her on the temple above and beside her left eye. The blow was unexpectedly disconcerting, and her vision which had just begun to clear after the flash- blurred again.

  For a moment, remembering that there was a second man still to be dealt with, Lucrezia lost confidence in the immediate practicality of her Art- but then the man who restrained her growled an instruction to his companion to hold her, and when the other grabbed both her arms he raised his weight slightly.

  The partial release left her just enough scope to squirm and twist.

  The one who was adjusting his position- the dead man! was quick to organise himself, and to bear down on her again, but the other was stupid enough to change his grip as she twisted, and her sharpened fingernails scraped across the palm of his hand. He

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  cursed, but not because he knew what had been

  done to him. He thought the wound as trivial as a wound could be, probably not having shed a bead of blood.

  They thrust her down hard, rolling her on to her back again- and this time they had her securely. Her wrists were pinned and pressed to the soft ground and the first man shifted him elf so that he was sitting on her thighs, groping at her belt.

  At first she thought that he had guessed its value, or hoped that there was a well-stuffed purse in one of its pouches, but she realised belatedly that he had another reason for wanting it loosened. He thought- wrongly! -- that there was all the time in the world for robbery, and that there was time for amusement first.

  Lucrezia had no wish to lose her virginity in such a fashion, but she knew that it was a straightforward race against time, which she might not win.

  She struggled as hard as she could, in the interests of making their work more difficult, but she had not the weight or the strength to accomplish much. She tried to kick up with her legs, but had so little effect that the man who was inclined to humour laughed again, while his companion grunted something that was half a word and half a cry of derision.

  For her own part, Lucrezia said nothing at all. It might have been better to cease struggling, because the man on top of her became impatient with the difficulties she was making, and he lashed out at her again with his fist.

  This time she took the blow on the cheek. It hurt terribly, but she couldn't feel a broken bone and it didn't knock her unconscious. She felt her trousers being ripped, parted by means of the simple strategy of tearing the seams apart. Still, it seemed, the dead men had not begun to suspect their fate. When her tormentor began to loosen his own belt, Lucrezia thought that the race against time was lost-but then, by the light of the stars, she saw him pause, and reach up to his face, to run his fingertips along the scratches she had made. She could see the scratches now, or thought she could and he was moving oddly, losing control of his limbs.

  Slowly- very slowly- he fell.

  He fell forwards, but that wasn't such a bad thing. He fell on top of her, and he was so tall that his chest fell on her face. His startled companion took a step back, letting go of her wrists. She clutched 191

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  the dead man

  to her wrapping her arms around him as though to enfold him in a warm and protective embrace. He didn't try to fight her- and his companion didn't try to do anything at all.

  Lucrezia turned her head sideways and fought for breath, sucking air into her lungs. The dead man didn't struggle, although his lower limbs were twitching slightly. Her face was throbbing where he had hit her, and she could feel blood and tears mingling on her cheek, but she didn't let go.

  It was the other dead man- the man who had still to complete his dying who finally pulled his companion away . . . but whatever he had intended to do after that was quite irrelevant. He lifted the corpse away from her, and promptly dropped it. When Lucrezia raised her head he was kneeling on the ground, frozen by puzzlement as well as by poison.

  Lucrezia stood up. It took some time, because the blows to her head had made her unsteady, but when she was erect he was still kneeling in the same position. She made the fingers of her left hand rigid, and stabbed the middle finger into his wide-open right eye. He didn't blink, nor did he moan. He simply fell backwards. Lucrezia turned, all her fingers splayed like the claws of a frightened cat but the only person she could see was Hyry Keshvara, standing mutely in the shadows, four or five paces away. She had a knife in her hand.

  Lucrezia couldn't see the blade clearly, but in her mind's eye| she saw blood: lots of blood. Hyry looked as if she wanted to race to the princess's side, to help her as best she could - but she also looked as if she' didn dare rake the first step, lest she be mistaken, for another enemy.

  It wasn't easy to make out the expression in the trader's eyes, but the way she stood suggested that she was afraid. She was afraid that the witch-princess wasn't entirely in control of her poisoned claws.

  It isn 't supposed to be like this, Lucrezia thought. It isn 't . . .

  But then she changed her mind, and what she said aloud, in an exultant whisper, was: "Oh yes it is. This is exactly what it's supposed to be like."

  Then she sat down with a thu
mp, and took a very deep breath. "I told you so," she said to Hyry Keshvara.

  "I told you I could be useful, I have poisons enough to kill a whole nestful of drago mites 192

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  " I dare say you have, highness," Hyry replied drily.

  "But could you kill them before they killed you?"

  Lucrezia laughed, and was surprised at the way the laugh took hold of her, and shook her whole body with false merriment. It was only then that she fully understood how awkwardly rigid with fear and determination she had become. i93

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  j acorn cerri stood with Sergeant Purkin on the steps of the Khalorn Corn Exchange. He studied the crowded market square with a distaste which his father would have found difficult to understand. The midday had barely ended but the whole expanse was a hive of activity from one end to the other. There were horse drawn carts by the dozen, hand-carts and backpacks and unburdened townsfolk by the hundred, all engaged in a constant war of attrition as they tried to haggle prices up or down. There were countless ragged children in the crowd, dodging this way and that, snapping up anything left as waste and many things not yet relegated to that status by their owners.

  Everything imaginable was being hawked Alere: raw and prepared foodstuffs; lighting oil and cooking oil; spices and cosmetics; weak and strong liquor; cloth by the bolt and made-up garments; buttons and needles; jewellery in brass or silver, inlaid with every kind of coloured stone which lapidarips could manufacture; candles and cage birds pens and parchment; and inevitably a thousand kinds of pastes for a thousand purposes, many of them fake.

  "I'm very sorry, sir," Purkin said, without making the least effort to conceal his insincerity. Jacom had noticed that Purkin never apologised for anything that might conceivably be reckoned his fault.