Song of the Serpent

by Hugh Matthews

  An hour or so after the stars came out, Krunzle noticed that he could almost see his hands upon the reins before him. A few minutes later, he could see the horse's ears silhouetted against the water. "I think the moon is coming up," he said, and when he looked backward, he could see the point of a thick crescent rising above the bordering trees.

  They stopped to rest their horses and sat on a muddle of boulders and logs on the stream's bank. The thief was hungry; lunch had been a long time ago. He still had in his saddlebags his share of the bread, cheese, and ale they had bargained for with Drosket. Raimeau also had his supply, but Gyllana had left hers behind when they had joined the expedition. Brond had nothing.

  "We will share," said the thin man.

  Krunzle was tempted to use his advantage to exact concessions, but a moment's thought told him that Gyllana was the kind who would rather go hungry than submit to an unwanted imposition, whereas Brond seemed the type to remember a disservice as well as a kindness. So he said, "Of course. We must depend upon each other."

  The meal, like the journey, was accompanied by silence, except for the gurgle of the stream and the rustling of small creatures in the undergrowth. Krunzle used the time to reflect upon the events of the day. He was not an expert in orc behavior, but he knew enough about the monsters to know that they were creatures of instinct and impulse. Their low intelligence gave them enough cunning to lie in ambush or to seek the high ground before a fight; but once the enemy was in sight, an orc warrior's bloodlust rose. He might pause long enough to work himself into a frenzy, but it would not be long before the urge to charge, howling and snarling, would become irresistible.

  Yet the orcs at the river had had the intelligence to create decoys and the patience to dig pits on both sides. They had concealed themselves under sacks and rocks, then they had lain still and silent while the dwarves' main force had crossed over and walked right past them. Even then, only the orcs on the far side had leapt up and attacked. Those on the near side of the river had waited until Brond committed his reserves before attacking.

  The thief was no great tactician, but he knew that today he had seen the work of a competent planner and commander—good enough to overwhelm a hundred dwarven soldiers who had looked to be as able as any such force in Golarion. But few orc chieftains had ever been that competent, and even if one such orc genius led this band, how could he convince several hundred of his stunted-brained fellows to restrain themselves long enough to carry out the battle plan?

  It makes no sense, he told himself. Although it fit in all too well with the way his situation had developed since his arrival in Kerse. Here he was, however unwilling, on a mission to recover some object—he did not even know what—that a smooth-talking Wolsh Berbackian had persuaded a Kalistocrat's daughter to bring with her on an elopement. Apparently, the Blackjacket had been motivated by a dream, as had Raimeau, as had the Noble Head, as had Krunzle himself, in a general way. And coiled tightly around his neck was some kind of magical entity that felt itself to be waking from a dream.

  Chirk, he said inwardly, what's going on? Who's pulling our strings?

  I do not know, said the snake in the thief's mind. Not yet.

  Krunzle pressed the issue. But someone is pulling strings? Sending us dreams and organizing orcs?

  So it would appear.

  To what end?

  There was no immediate answer. The thief sensed that Chirk was straining to frame a response. Then the quiet voice said, It is no use. I sense that the memory is there, buried; but I cannot uncover it.

  I do not like to be a patsy, Krunzle said. It offends against my dignity. He was surprised when the snake took him seriously.

  I think all of us, said Chirk, even Wolsh Berbackian and Ippolite Eponion, have been offended against. And I believe that there is worse yet to come.

  The prediction sent a shiver through the thief's torso. How worse? he said.

  But Chirk had wrapped itself in its snake thoughts and would say no more.

  The moon was high above the gap in the trees by the time they finished their meal. The horses had found little to eat, but Brond said there were meadows higher up, and caves they could shelter in. In the morning, they could follow a trail that would lead them, at the end of a day's ride, to the diamond mine.

  "I'll be glad to see that," Krunzle said, climbing into the saddle. The pause to rest had made his legs and back go stiff, and his thighs ached as he heeled the horse into motion.

  "And I would have been glad to show it to you," the dwarf said. "But now I will be bringing hard tidings to the miners. Many of those who fell today had fathers and brothers at the diggings." The thief heard him suppress a sob, then the voice hardened. "But Berbackian was supposed to stop at the mine. May Torag arrange for him to be there when I arrive."

  The dwarf's mood argued for silent travel, though Krunzle would have liked to have known Raimeau's thoughts about what had happened today. The gray-haired man had sensed, even at the site of the first ambush, that the orcs were behaving oddly: They had waited in the bushes until the dwarves were at their most vulnerable. And they had let the Blackjacket pass through their numbers unharmed.

  Could Berbackian be the brains behind the orcs' tactical brilliance at the river? But how could that be? Orcs hated men, except as food or, occasionally, as slaves. He knew that orcs would tolerate, for a little time, the few degraded humans who sought them out to trade with them, but the tolerance was directly related to the value the orcs put on the goods, otherwise unobtainable, that the traders brought. Even so, he had heard that at the end of a trading meet, with the orcs getting drunk on bad liquor, the men were wise to pull up stakes and be on their way, before some big buck decided to spit and roast them for dinner.

  Krunzle had heard tales, but Raimeau had read books. He might know things that would not be talked about in the places where rogues gathered to exchange gossip. Krunzle would take the thin man aside before they slept and ask for his views. Because chances were they were not yet finished with orcs on this journey; or, worse, the orcs were not finished with them.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Another two hours, with the fat sliver of moon riding high overhead, and they came to a place where the trees petered out and an alpine meadow began. They were not yet on the slopes of Mount Sinatuk itself, but on the wrinkled lands that led up to the volcano's base.

  "This way," Brond said, leading them out of the stream and up a gentle slope to a tumble of rocks. They threaded through them, crested a ridge, and on its far side found a place where a wide crack had opened in the earth. A dark passageway angled down.

  Krunzle sniffed the chill air that came out of the crevice: a faint odor of carrion and old dung overlaid by a lingering scent of greasy smoke. "Something lives in there," he said, "or has done, not long since."

  "A bear's den," Brond said, "but no longer—the beast must have been smoked out by hunters."

  "The horses will not fit through the gap."

  Despite the loss of three companies and his bodyguard, the bald dwarf still saw himself as in command. "We will tether them and let them graze."

  They brought into the cave their saddles and horse blankets to serve as bedding, then Raimeau went to gather wood from the forest's edge. When he looked around the cave for somewhere to lay the fire, he found a rude hearth in the middle of the wider space at the foot of the down-sloping passageway. Firewood was stacked against the back wall.

  "No bear did that," Krunzle said.

  The dwarf shrugged. "Then a troll," he said. "Either way, the place is untenanted."

  They sat around the fire, staring into the flames, each thinking solitary thoughts. After a while, Brond rubbed a hand over his hairless pate and sighed. He looked to Gyllana. "This Berbackian," he said. "What do you know of him?"

  "That he is a liar and a rogue," she said.

  Krunzle heard anger underlaid by some softer emotion. He waited to see if she would say more, and when she did not, he said, "You do not seem th
e sort of woman who is easily led astray. He must have been more than usually persuasive."

  She gave him a sour look, but said, "It has all become vague now. Then it was excitement, adventure, certainty of outcome, present happiness, and the promise of even greater joy to come."

  "It sounds to me," said Raimeau, "like ensorcelment."

  The woman nodded reflectively, her eyes on the fire. "So it may well have been." She sighed. "Oh, he was handsome enough, and knew what to do and where to do it. But ..."

  "But it takes more than this," Krunzle said, making a rude gesture with the fingers of both hands, "to win away a daughter of a high Kalistocrat."

  "Indeed," she said, still gazing into the flames, "and to make me bring him the—" She interrupted herself.

  "The what?" said the thief.

  She shook her head. "None of your business."

  Now Brond gave her a look that said he was definitely still the one in charge. "Perhaps not his," he said, "but certainly it is the Regulate's business. More than three hundred of our warriors paid with their lives; as far as I'm concerned, that purchases the right to know what this is all about."

  "The information is proprietary," Gyllana said. "My father would have to give his permission—"

  "He did not give his permission," Krunzle interrupted, "for you and your charming Blackjacket to misappropriate the item. He sent me to get it—and you—back. Logic argues that you assist in that effort by clearing up the mystery."

  She folded her arms and said nothing, but the determination in her face struggled with some other sentiment.

  "Could it be," said Raimeau, "that the seducer laid more than one spell on you? Perhaps you will not tell because he does not wish you to?"

  Gyllana's eyebrows rose, and she blinked several times. Then she swore. "I think you are right," she told the thin man. "Very well, my father collects arcana and mystical objects, particularly from the far east. Recently, he came into possession of an old amulet or talisman whose origins were obscure. He showed it to one of the wizards employed by the Kalistocracy to protect the Bourse in Kerse against unlawful manipulation."

  "And what did the wizard say?" the gray-haired man said.

  "That it might be a flippety-pertickety tundle-shrep." She stopped, perplexed. "What did I just say?" she said.

  Raimeau answered her. "Something about a ‘flippety-pertickety tundle-shrep.'"

  "But that is nonsense!"

  The gray-haired man stroked his nose. "I'm no spell-slinger," he said, "but I have heard of an incantation known as Fezzariot's Locutionary Jumble. Those who have been afflicted by it are prevented from disclosing specified information by mouth or pen."

  "That is a sophisticated spell," said Brond.

  "Not the sort of thing," Krunzle said, "that one would expect of an undercaptain in the Mercenary League." He turned to Raimeau. "Is it an incantation that could be employed at a distance?"

  "Again," said the other man, "I am no expert, but distance means little when the caster has access to items that the target has handled."

  The image of Thang-Sha came into Krunzle's mind.

  "Could I draw a picture?" Gyllana wondered. "I can see it clearly in my mind's eye."

  Raimeau handed her a piece of kindling and smoothed a space in the dust of the cave floor. But when she tried to sketch whatever was in her inner view, the image that appeared in the dirt resembled a child's drawing of a flower in a pot. Gyllana threw down the stick and swore again.

  "Try this," said the gray-haired man. "Instead of telling us what it is, describe what it does."

  "All right," she said, "if it is what the wizard thought it might be, it desnertinizes the flobbule."

  "Hmm," said Krunzle. "That doesn't help."

  Brond made a gesture of termination and said, "Enough! We do not know what the rogue took, but the fact that he—or someone else—went to such measures to prevent anyone knowing argues that it is an object of power more than of mere value. It does something."

  "You are right," said Raimeau. "He does not want us to know what the thing does, because that would tell us what he intends to do."

  "Which might also tell us," Krunzle said, "where he intends to do it, allowing us to try to cut him off before he gets there."

  Gyllana was nodding in agreement. "Exactly," she said. "Berbackian means to desnertinize the flobbule—no doubt about it. So the question is: where will he find the flobbule to desnertinize?"

  "I couldn't have put it better myself," said the thief. "But here's the question I've been pondering: what kind of power allows a man to make hundreds of orcs betray their natures, suppress their ungovernable instincts, so that they can spring an ambush like the one we saw today?"

  Both Brond and Raimeau shook their heads. The bald one said, "No spell that I've heard of. Orcs feed off each other's emotions. You'd only need one to become so excited that he'd begin to break through the restrictions, even if it was just to growl. Then the one beside him would hear the growl and twitch in response, and then the next would let out a yip and a howl, and before you know it they'd all be up and stamping and lathering and charging off in all directions."

  Raimeau concurred. "It would take not only a mighty spell, but a mighty wielder. The will of the spellcaster would have to be immensely powerful."

  "Powerful enough," Krunzle wondered aloud, "to send dreams that would draw people from all over the Inner Sea?"

  The faces of the others in the firelight changed as each dealt with the implications of the thief's suggestion. After a moment, Brond stuck out his chin and said, "As for me—"

  A frightened whinny from outside the cave reduced the four of them to silence. Something was spooking the horses.

  The two men and the dwarf drew their weapons. The passageway between them and the night was wide enough for two full-sized orcs to squeeze through. But that would not give them room to use their weapons. So it would have to be just one at a time.

  "If we kill the first one or two," Brond said, "their corpses will make a barrier."

  "Unless these orcs are being directed by our mage of great will," Krunzle said. "In which case, they'll do what the hunters did with the bear."

  They listened. The horses were all voicing their fear now. The travelers could hear other sounds, too: brutish voices, several of them, and the snap and rattle of dry wood.

  Krunzle peered up the passageway. The moon must have gone behind Mount Sinatuk by now, but there was still light enough in the sky for him to see dark shapes moving across the cave's narrow mouth. And something building there.

  "They're going to make a bonfire," he told the others.

  Raimeau took a look and concurred. "Another case of orcs being depressingly unimpulsive."

  Brond gave orders: "We'll extinguish our fire, so that it does not draw theirs. But first let us see if we can use the blankets to make a barrier."

  They tried, poking sticks through the coarse wool to make a kind of frame, and stitching two blankets together to make a sheet tall enough to cover the entrance to the passageway. But the only way to keep the flimsy barrier in place was for two of them to hold it against the uneven rock, and even then there were gaps.

  While Gyllana and Raimeau held the blankets against the opening, Krunzle smothered the fire with dirt from the floor of the cave. Behind the pile of firewood was a longish, flattish bone that made a decent shovel. They were plunged into darkness, but only briefly—as soon as their eyes adjusted, they saw a yellowy glare of firelight flickering on the blanket barrier. When Krunzle touched the fabric, it was warm and growing hot.

  "Water," said Brond. He threw the contents of his bottle onto the wool, soaking it, then collected all the others' water and did the same. The fabric began to steam, and the smell of stale horse sweat filled the cavern.

  "It's not going to work," said Gyllana. "It's already drying. Soon it will char. Then it will burn. What will we do then?"

  "Go out and fight them," said Brond. "Kill or disable as many as
we can in the first rush, then all scatter. One or two of us may get away."

  "No," said Raimeau. "I will go first. I will leap the bonfire and attack whatever I see. They will all try for me—orcs have no sense of chivalry—and when they do, you three can come after and take them in the back."

  "It is a good plan," said Krunzle. "I only wish I had thought of it first."

  "Your chances of survival are slim," Gyllana told the gray-haired man.

  Raimeau shrugged. "I have long believed I am fated to perform a brave deed. Perhaps this is it."

  Krunzle communed with Chirk. Will my sword and boots serve me as before?

  If you use them to defend the others, particularly Gyllana, the snake said. Otherwise, they might actually work against you. On the other hand, I would have no objection to your making a brave show and earning Brond's gratitude—and a few blue diamonds. Once my work is done.

  Aloud, the thief said, "I will go first and make the leap. You will not know it, but I am a prodigious vaulter. Also, not insignificant as a swordsman."

  "I wish to be the first," said Raimeau. "Though I am grateful for your help in rescuing me from the gold camp, I must claim the honor."

  "No," said Krunzle.

  "Stop it, both of you," said Brond. "I am the Noble Head of the Regulate. You stand on my land. I will decide."

  "Then do so quickly," said the woman. "My fingers are starting to burn." A stink of scorched wool now joined the odor of horse.

  "Here is my decision—"

  But Raimeau said, "Listen! Something is going on out there!"

  They put their ears close to the now-smoking cloth. Above the crackle of the fire, they could hear angry shouts, orc howls, and the clang of iron on iron.

  "They are falling out amongst themselves!" Brond said. "At last, orcs you can depend on! With any luck, there'll be only one or two left standing. Get ready to rush them!"

  The air was growing more than smelly in the cave. Despite the blankets across the entrance, the bonfire at the end of the short passageway was drawing oxygen through and around the barrier, while the heat it was radiating was enough to sap their strength.