“An alarm?” Was that why she was taking so long?
“I don’t see one yet,” Lhasha admitted. “But if this package is worth the fee we’ve been paid, there has to be something besides nasty rumors and a wall of crates to keep those workers out.”
Corin couldn’t agree more.
“I was sure there’d be more guards,” he said. Then an idea struck him. “Maybe they’re inside, just waiting for us to open the door.”
“Hold on, I’ll check.” Corin momentarily diverted his attention away from the surrounding gloom to see Lhasha lean forward and place her ear against the door.
“I don’t hear anything. I think we’re safe.”
“Let me get my pick out,” she added, standing up and turning to face Corin. “I’ll start on the lock.”
Then she froze.
Corin knew something was wrong, he could see it in her eyes. His muscles tensed, the adrenaline began to flow, but he didn’t move, not yet. Not until he knew what was going on. Sometimes sudden movement was the worst thing you could do.
“Corin,” she whispered at last. “There’s something in the shadows behind you. A snake, I think. A big one.”
“Don’t move,” Corin replied. “I’ll draw it out.” His decision to stay still seemed like the right one, now. Corin knew how to deal with snakes, and a sudden reaction could trigger the serpent to strike. With deliberate slowness, he turned on his heel to face the darkness. He could make out only blackness, but he trusted Lhasha’s elf ability to see in the dark. He began to tap his foot in a soft, irregular rhythm. Snakes sensed vibrations, it was how they hunted. With his tapping foot, Corin tried to mimic the actions of an injured animal twitching on the ground. It should lure the creature into the light.
“Wait, Corin. It’s gone now. It just sort of … disappeared.”
Puzzled, the warrior stopped his tapping. He didn’t think Lhasha was the type to jump at shadows, but could she have imagined it? Or maybe the flickering flame of the distant torchlight was playing havoc with her eyes’ ability to detect heat, making her see things that weren’t really there.
He heard a faint, hissing whisper. It sounded almost like a word.
“Sssleep.”
A sudden weariness washed over him and his head drooped. But he snapped it back up and fought off the sensation. Probably a reaction to some residual Mask poison still in his system.
“Did you feel that?” Lhasha asked. “For a second I was so tired I nearly passed out on my feet.”
It wasn’t the Mask poison, not if Lhasha felt it too. “Magic,” Corin said, making no effort to silence himself now. They had already been discovered. “There’s more than just a snake hiding in those shadows.”
“Wait, Corin. I see it again. In the corner. It’s huge.”
Corin couldn’t see anything. “Where is it?” he tried to ask, but his words made no sound. More sorcery, he thought, we’re sitting ducks!
The White Shields knew how to deal with wizards. Hit them hard, hit them fast, and hit them often. A desperate, all-out assault could usually keep a mage from using his powers. The relentless attacks disrupted their concentration and prevented them from casting spells. How could Corin attack what he couldn’t even see?
With a soundless scream of rage and frustration, Corin threw himself into the crates and engulfing shadows. He struck with his sword, he kicked out with his boots, his knees and elbows smashed into wooden boxes and barrels and sent them flying. A silent rampage of destruction, intended to drive his unseen foe out of hiding.
Then he saw it, slithering from the darkness and into the light—toward Lhasha. Its serpentine body was at least a dozen feet long, and covered with gleaming black scales. Its head was an unnatural hybrid of human and snakelike features.
The beast reared up from the ground, towering over the half-elf as she fumbled to draw her dagger. Its fanged head struck straight down at the tiny thief with lightning speed. Lhasha threw herself to the side and the beast’s jaws clamped down on empty air, then Corin was between them.
Corin had heard tales of such creatures before, snakes with human heads. A naga, it was called, but as he faced his adversary, Corin couldn’t have cared less what the monstrosity was called.
The beast hesitated before striking again, Corin could see the intelligence in its eyes. It was studying him, sizing up its foe before attacking. Corin was doing the same.
The naga’s head swayed hypnotically from side to side as it evaluated him. Corin fought against his body’s natural fascination with the soothing rhythm. He needed to stay alert. He couldn’t allow the gentle swaying to lull him into a relaxed state.
The unnatural silence unnerved Corin. The familiar sounds of battle were absent, he felt as if he was fighting in a dream, as if things were not real. The silence distracted him, blurred his fighting instincts.
He needed to focus, to center his senses to compensate for the loss of sound, to keep himself sharp and aware in the noiseless vacuum, Corin keyed on the tiny visual details of the encounter.
The naga’s eyes were yellow with narrow pupils of black. Its mouth was disproportionately large, like the unhinged jaw of a snake, and its fangs were long and sharp.
More importantly, the fangs were slightly curved—a good sign. Curved fangs were meant to grasp prey, to hold it and draw it into the mouth. Not like straight fangs. Straight fangs had only one purpose; to inject poison into a victim. Curved fangs, as fierce as they looked, were no more dangerous than a blade of the same size.
Corin was so intent on the creature’s head that he almost didn’t see the naga’s tail lashing out at his legs. He skipped back, just out of range, then swung his sword high as the head swooped in for a quick second attack. The naga jerked its head back, narrowly avoiding the edge of Corin’s blade. It retreated, and resumed the mesmerizing, snakelike swaying.
Cursing himself for being so careless, Corin faced his foe with a new respect for the danger of this encounter. He wasn’t used to fighting monsters. Most of his career had been battles against other warriors. He knew to watch for the blades, the kicks, the head butts, but a tail was something unexpected, something new.
Carefully keeping the weaving head within the edges of his awareness, Corin turned his focus to the naga’s tail. It tapered to a thin, barbed point. Drops of glistening moisture fell from the tip—poison! Corin noticed that while the head rocked from side to side, the poisonous tail moved with its own independent rhythm.
He wanted to attack, to take the offensive, but he wasn’t sure how to approach. Attacking was all about pressing an opponent, forcing them to defend a series of thrusts and cuts that would throw them off balance and keep them from countering.
But how could he get this creature off balance? How would he even know when he had a tactical advantage?
As the naga’s head swooped in from the side, Corin ducked underneath. From the other side the tail stabbed forward, but Corin was able to deflect the poisoned barb with the flat of his blade. He threw his shoulder into the elongated body of the beast, trying to drive it back, but the muscles of the creature twisted and curved their form around him, threatening to wrap him in their grip.
A slash from Corin’s sword deflected harmlessly off the scaled underbelly of the creature—though it did cause the thing to recoil, giving Corin a chance to scamper away and reset himself for the next attack.
The naga shot forward again, still leading with the head. Corin slipped to the side, but this time he was watching for the tail. It whipped in belt high, and Corin calmly stepped back out of range and hacked at it with his sword as it swished past. He put the full force of his weight behind the blow, and was rewarded as the blade bit through the scales into the soft meat beneath, bringing up a small spurt of blood.
The creature slithered back quickly, stinging from the wound, trying to lure Corin into pursuing it, but Corin held his ground. He was beginning to understand the pattern of the creature’s aggression. He knew how to avoid the a
ttacks and retaliate with his own. If he took the offensive now, he’d have to begin a new strategy. Corin was content to fight a war of counter blows.
The naga hesitated, Corin could sense the bewilderment on its alien face. It was uncertain, hesitant. Like Corin, the naga could read the developing battle. It knew it needed new tactics to survive.
Corin braced himself for a different approach. The creature slithered forward, keeping its head low to the ground. It brought its tail in high, arching its back so the stinger could drop straight down on Corin from above. The warrior’s blade arced through the air, a huge sweeping slash designed to intercept and sever the creature’s tail.
There was nothing there. The attack had been a feint, a way to distract Corin while the creature darted past him toward Lhasha.
Corin expected to meet resistance with his wild swipe. When he caught only air he was left stumbling to the side. He took two steps to recover, and another to get his momentum heading back toward his opponent. Less than a second, all told. Far too long.
The naga was bearing down on Lhasha, who had heeded his earlier warning to stay out of the way by retreating toward the stone room when Corin had engaged the creature. Now she was trapped against the stone wall, unable to get away. She had her short blade drawn, but the way she held it told Corin she was inexperienced in combat.
The naga sensed Lhasha’s vulnerability, and attacked with reckless abandon.
A quick head strike, two sudden lashes of the tail, another bite. Lhasha ducked and twisted and spun away to the side, but with no fear of counter blows the creature kept pressing forward.
Corin hacked down at the thing’s back, leaving a deep, oozing gash on the scaly torso. Quick jabs from the naga’s tail forced Corin back again as he parried the blows of the poisoned barbs, leaving Lhasha at the mercy of another round of attacks.
The half-elf stabbed her tiny blade into the naga’s underbelly, the point pierced the skin and drew blood, but the naga was oblivious to her efforts. It slammed its writhing body into Lhasha, driving her back against the outer wall of the stone room, momentarily stunning her.
Before she could recover, before Corin could come to her aid, the naga stabbed its tail deep into her thigh. She opened her mouth in a scream Corin was glad he could not hear and dropped to the floor.
Corin was on the naga again, chopping and slicing at his enemy from behind. He rained short, quick blows onto the back of the creature’s midsection. Most bounced harmlessly off the tough scales, but a few left deep wounds on the flesh beneath. With an undulating wave of rippling muscle, the creature’s serpentine body snapped around like a whip. It caught Corin in the ribs and knocked him off his feet.
He thrashed his head desperately from side to side as he lay on the ground, the poisoned tail jabbing at him again and again, each time striking the ground mere inches from his face. Corin rolled out of range and scrambled to his feet, driving the creature back away from Lhasha with another series of attacks to its bleeding torso.
From the corner of his eye Corin stole a quick peek at the inured half-elf. She was leaning against the wall, the wound to her leg tied off to stanch the bleeding. Then she slumped to the floor, succumbing to the poison coursing through her veins.
Lhasha’s collapse triggered something in Corin, a warrior’s lifetime spent training in the arts of hand to hand combat snapped, leaving only a being blind with rage and intent on revenge. Corin hurled himself at the naga, heedless of his own safety.
For a brief moment Corin’s defenses were down, leaving him wide open to any and all attacks from his foe. The naga was taken aback by the mindless ferocity of the sudden assault, the sudden shift from the tactical approach it had begun to expect. Retreating from the berserk warrior’s wrath, it missed its chance to strike, and then Corin was on it.
He swung without thought, without strategy or technique. Primal fury fueled his blows. Stumbling forward in a blind madness he struck at the head, the tail, the body; overwhelming the creature with animalistic rage, hacking and chopping until his foe was nothing but a mass of bloody, quivering pulp beneath his relentless blade.
The magical silence ended at last, the spell spent. The thick, wet sounds of his blade butchering the naga’s corpse touched the small part of Corin’s mind that was still capable of rational thought. The sudden noise jarred him, brought him back to his senses. He dropped his gore-covered blade and ran to Lhasha.
He swept her up from the floor, her tiny frame all but weightless in his arms. She was breathing softly, but made no response when he called her name. He peeled back an eyelid, but her pupils had rolled back into her head.
He must take her to Fendel. The gnome had saved Corin from poison. He could save Lhasha, if he saw her in time, but it was a long, long way to the House of Hands.
Corin slung Lhasha’s body over his right shoulder, holding her in place with the crook of the elbow on his amputated arm. With a speed born of desperate urgency he clawed his way up the collapsible ladder without a second thought, his fear of heights pushed from his consciousness by his concern for Lhasha.
Up in the rafters he draped Lhasha’s inert form over the beams so she wouldn’t fall off, then he began to pull the ladder up after him, stuffing the pieces into Lhasha’s carrying pack as he disassembled them. He’d need the ladder to get down from the roof once they were outside the building.
He wasn’t as fast as Lhasha at taking the ladder down. He hadn’t practiced, as she had, and of course, his missing hand complicated matters even more. Each second he struggled was another second lost, another second the poison could spread through Lhasha’s body.
With the ladder stashed inside, Corin quickly slipped Lhasha’s carrying pack onto his back, then hauled her still unconscious form up onto his shoulder again. It was awkward crawling along the rafters with Lhasha draped across his back, but somehow Corin managed. He lifted her through the chimney vent, then pulled himself up after her.
On the roof he scrambled to reassemble the ladder, then used it to climb down to the streets of the Caravan district below, Lhasha still dangling from the now aching shoulder of his bad arm. At the bottom Corin gratefully shifted her weight to his left side, and set off at a running trot toward Gond’s Church, leaving Fendel’s collapsible ladder behind.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Corin’s breath came in great gasps as he ran through the streets of Elversult. He prayed Lhasha still lived, but he couldn’t spare the time it would take to stop and check. He was afraid of what he might find.
His legs burned from the strain of running while carrying the weight of his friend, but he ignored the pain. His left arm was wrapped around Lhasha’s waist, bracing her. The stump of his right arm stuck way out to the side to help offset the extra weight slung over his shoulder. The uneven load caused him to hunch over and twist as he ran, and after only a few minutes he could already feel himself cramping up, but he didn’t stop.
A soft voice inside his head drove him on. Lhasha’s voice.
“Corin, let me down.”
He was her protector, her guardian, her friend, and he hadn’t been able to save her. The voice came again, he half imagined he heard it out loud.
“Corin, let me down.”
Shaking his head to dispel the hallucinations, he doubled his efforts, but the accusation endured, it grew stronger with each repetition.
“Corin, let me down.”
He wanted to throw his head back and scream apologies to the sky, drop to his knees and beg forgiveness for failing her, but instead he kept running, the relentless voice spurring him on, louder still.
“Corin, let me down.”
And then, suddenly, the voice was a shout.
“Are you deaf? Corin, let me down!”
Corin was so stunned he actually dropped her. Lhasha landed with a loud grunt, scraping her chin along the pavement. She rolled over onto her back and glared up at him, massaging her side with one hand, and rubbing her chin with the other.
&nbs
p; “First you crush my ribs, then you break my jaw.”
“Sorry,” Corin mumbled in reply, still too amazed to say anything else.
She smiled impishly up at him from the street. “You big lug, I’m just teasing you.” She extended a hand for Corin to help her up.
Still trying to puzzle out the miracle of her unexpected recovery, the warrior grabbed both her tiny hands in one mighty paw and pulled.
“Whoa,” she said, pressing a palm to her head once he hauled her to her feet. “Still a little woozy. Probably from all the blood rushing to my head while you carried me like a gunny sack.”
“Sit down,” Corin said quickly. “Rest a minute.”
Lhasha waved him off as he came over to support her. “I’ll be all right.” She laughed weakly. “Some warrior I turned out to be, huh? One little stick in the leg and I pass out from shock.”
“It wasn’t shock. It was poison. From that thing’s tail. The naga.”
“Poison?” Lhasha glanced around. “Well, this doesn’t look like the great beyond, so somehow I must have survived.”
Corin had figured it out, now. “The venom wasn’t fatal. That particular species probably devours their prey while it’s still alive,” he guessed. “The poison doesn’t kill. It just keeps food from squirming during the meal.”
“There’s a pleasant image.” Lhasha shivered, and wiped her still bleeding chin. “If its all the same to you, I could really use a drink right about now.”
“There’s a place just around the corner,” Corin replied.
As always, the Weeping Griffin was virtually empty. Corin and Lhasha took a seat at one of the tables in the back. A hunchbacked serving wench limped over.
“Hadn’t seen you in a while. Thought you were dead,” she said to Corin, making no effort to hide the disdain in her voice. “Nothing’s changed. Cash up front. What’ll you have? The usual?”
Corin shook his head. “Nothing for me. Not anymore.”
The waitress gave him a sour look. “This here’s a business, see? No loiterin’! Yer keepin’ me from me other customers!”
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