Viper's Kiss

by Lisa Smedman

  “Lord Foesmasher,” one said. “Welcome.”

  Foesmasher removed his hands from Arvin’s and Karrell’s shoulders. “These two,” he announced, “are en route to the Chondalwood. Make sure they reach it without Lord Wianar’s patrols spotting them.”

  The officers exchanged a glance.

  “Is there a problem?” Foesmasher demanded.

  “We’re not sure,” one of the officers replied. “Wianar’s men seem to have drawn back from the river. There hasn’t been a sighting of them all day. But there may have been an incident.”

  Foesmasher frowned. “May have been?”

  “One of the patrols we sent across the river this morning didn’t return,” the second officer said. “Nor did the one we sent to find it. Until we know what happened to them, it wouldn’t be prudent to—”

  “These two must reach Chondalwood,” The baron growled. “Tonight.”

  The officer gave an obedient bow. “As you command, sir.”

  They crossed the Arran River in a wagon drawn by a centaur. The wagon had no driver, nor was the centaur fitted with reins; he seemed to be draft animal and driver in one.

  Arvin was amazed to see such a magnificent creature in harness. Centaurs were creatures of the wild, untamed and proud. This one was the size of a warhorse, his upper torso more muscular than any human’s could ever be, his arms nearly as thick as a man’s thighs. Coarse, almost woolly hair covered his lower torso, but his chest and arms were bare to the elements. He seemed not to mind the cold as he trotted on enormous hooves that thudded heavily on the massive timbered bridge that spanned the river. Every now and then he snorted, his breath fogging the night air, and tossed back his black, tangled mane, exposing pointed ears. Around his waist he wore a belt; from it hung a sheathed knife the size of a small sword. Hanging from the sheath was a purple feather, like the ones Foesmasher’s soldiers wore on their helms.

  Two of Foesmasher’s soldiers had been assigned to accompany Arvin and Karrell; each man was armed with a crossbow and sword. The first—Burrian, a burly fellow with a black beard and enormous, calloused hands who said he had been a woodcutter before joining the militia—would serve as their guide in the Chondalwood. The second—Sergeant Dunnald, a man with a narrow face and long blond hair—would return to Fort Arran with the wagon. Burrian was watchful as they left the bridge, turned right off the main road, and started toward the Chondalwood. Dunnald, however, seemed confident, even a little bored. Arvin hoped that boded well for their journey. Perhaps the two officers they’d met earlier had been alarmists. There were any number of reasons that soldiers might fail to return from a patrol. Even so, Arvin found himself touching the crystal at his neck, for luck.

  It didn’t comfort him.

  The forest lay some distance ahead, a dark, bumpy line against an even darker sky. Behind them, the bridge across the River Arran fell steadily away into the distance. Fort Arran dominated the far side of the bridge, its crenellated wooden towers keeping watch over the timbered arch that spanned the narrows and the road that led north from it to Arrabar. For now, this road was open, linking the two capitals of Chondath and Sespech. Come daylight, it would be dotted with merchant wagons and travelers. But if war broke out between the two states, Fort Arran would act as a gate, barring entry to any army that Lord Wianar might send marching south.

  Arvin glanced up at the sky. The moon was half full, haloed by a thin layer of clouds. At least it wasn’t snowing. The air was cold, but Karrell had cast another of her spells upon him, making him feel cozy and warm. He yawned, exhausted. It must have been well past middark by now. He leaned back, trying to make himself comfortable. Lulled by the thud of the centaur’s hooves and the warmth of Karrell seated next to him at the rear of the wagon under a thick wool blanket, he dozed.

  A while later, something poked Arvin’s side—Karrell’s hand. Instantly, he was awake. “What is it?” he asked.

  Karrell pointed at something ahead. Arvin tried to peer past the centaur but could see only the dark line of the woods, drawing steadily closer. Between the forest and wagon was a flat expanse of snow-covered ground that sparkled in the moonlight.

  “I don’t see anything.”

  “Was it the movement near the woods you spotted?” Dunnald asked Karrell. “It’s just a herd of wild centaurs, out for a moonlit trot. There’s nothing to be frightened of.”

  Burrian called out to the centaur who drew the wagon. “Some of your old pals, Tanglemane?”

  The centaur ignored him.

  “I did not mean the centaurs,” Karrell told the sergeant, an indignant edge in her voice. “And I am not frightened.” She stood and pointed. “There is something up ahead. A dark line on the ground.”

  Dunnald continued to smile indulgently. “That’s nothing to fret about, either,” he told her. “Just the trail left by the centaurs through the snow.”

  Karrell sat down again and turned to Arvin. “Do they always travel in such complicated paths?”

  Arvin stood and peered ahead. The line in the snow Karrell had spotted ran in a broad arc from left to right, paralleling the curve of the woods at a more or less constant distance from the forest. But instead of following a direct path, the centaurs seemed to have paused at several points along their journey to loop back upon their own trail. “Looks like they doubled back the way they came, crisscrossing their path,” Arvin told Dunnald, who obviously didn’t take anything a woman said seriously. “Several times. What would make them do that?”

  Burrian looked to his sergeant for an answer, but Dunnald only shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe they were playing follow the leader.”

  “Tanglemane?” Arvin asked. “What do you think?”

  The centaur shook his head. “It is unusual,” he said in a voice as low as the wagon’s rumble.

  As the wagon drew closer to a spot where the hoofprints formed a loop, Arvin’s frown deepened. Now that they were about to cross the trail through the snow, its complicated meanderings reminded him of something.

  “Stop the wagon!” he shouted.

  Startled, the centaur skidded to a stop, his four legs stiff and ears erect. The wagon jerked to an abrupt halt, jostling its passengers and causing Dunnald to drop his crossbow.

  “What are you doing?” Dunnald snapped, picking up the weapon. “Why did you order the beast to halt?”

  Arvin glanced over the side. He had called out a moment too late; the wagon was already inside one of the loops that had been stamped into the snow. “Don’t move, Tanglemane,” he instructed, reaching for his pack.

  “What is wrong?” Karrell asked.

  Burrian scanned the open ground around them, his crossbow at the ready. “Yes, what’s the matter?” he echoed. “I don’t see anything.”

  Arvin pulled a sylph-hair rope out of his pack. Soft as braided silk, it shimmered in the moonlight. “I’ll know in a moment.” He tossed the rope into the air, and smiled at the faint intake of breath he heard from Burrian as the rope streaked upward then hung, motionless, as if attached to thin air. He passed the lower end of it to Karrell. “Hold this, will you?”

  Karrell took the rope, a curious look in her eye.

  Arvin climbed. As he did, the meandering trail through the snow came increasingly into view. From a height, it was possible to see the intricate loops that had been stamped into the snow. The centaurs had not been wandering randomly; there was a design below—one that had been deliberately done. The wagon had halted inside one of its loops.

  “The centaurs weren’t playing follow the leader,” he called out to the others. “They were making an arcane symbol in the snow.”

  The soldiers, Karrell, and the centaur all stared up at him.

  “What kind of symbol?” Dunnald asked.

  Arvin, studying the design below, shook his head grimly. “I think it’s a death symbol.”

  Dunnald scowled. “You think? You’re not sure?”

  Beside him, Burrian looked nervous. “So that’s what got our patr
ols.”

  Arvin slid down the rope. “I saw a symbol just like this one, years ago,” he told the others as he recoiled his rope. “It was the central motif on an old, threadbare carpet from Calimshan. The carpet supposedly once had the power to fly; the noble who owned it thought that repairing it might restore its magic. He hired me to do the job. The day after I completed the work, he must have decided to try the carpet out. His servants found him sitting on it later that day, dead. He was slumped at the center of the carpet, without a mark on him. The spot he was sitting on was blank—the symbol I’d restored had vanished.”

  Karrell glanced nervously over the side of the wagon. “We are inside the symbol,” she observed.

  “Yes,” Arvin answered.

  “But not fully inside it?”

  “We’re not at the center of it, no,” Arvin began. “But I’m not sure if that—”

  Dunnald abruptly stood. “This is getting us nowhere,” he said. “We can’t just sit here all night.” He clambered down from the wagon and walked toward the line in the snow, then squatted down next to it.

  “Don’t touch it!” Arvin warned.

  Dunnald drew his sword and used it to prod at the symbol. “It’s a trick,” he announced. “A feint, to frighten us away from the woods. I’m touching it, and nothing’s happening.”

  “You’re touching it with your sword,” Arvin noted, wondering if the sergeant would be stupid enough to touch a foot to the line.

  He wasn’t.

  “If it is a magical symbol, it’s not very effective, is it?” Dunnald commented as he straightened up. “It’s narrow enough to step right over.” He gave Burrian a meaningful glance. “If this is what waylaid our two patrols, we need to get a report back to the fort.”

  Burrian’s eyes widened. He wet his lips. “Sir, I….”

  Dunnald cocked his head. “Are you refusing my order, Burrian?”

  Burrian shook his head. “No, sir … It’s just….”

  Dunnald gestured at the track in the snow. “Tanglemane walked across it without harm. Look here—one of his hooves actually touched it.”

  “He’s a centaur,” Arvin interjected. “Perhaps centaurs are immune to it and humans aren’t.”

  “Humans crossed the symbol once already,” Dunnald countered. He glowered at Burrian. “Get down from that wagon, Burrian.”

  The soldier swallowed. “Yes, sir.” He glanced at Arvin, lowering his voice to a whisper. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” Arvin said, less certain now. “The sergeant’s right about one thing: we did pass across it once already in the wagon. But I’m no wizard. I don’t know how these things—”

  “Trooper Burrian!” the sergeant snapped. “Now!”

  Reluctantly, Burrian climbed down from the wagon. He started to walk up to the track in the snow, then turned around again and came back to wrench a board off the wagon. He laid this across the track, visibly screwed up his courage, and took a long step across, taking care to keep both feet on the board. As his foot touched the board on the far side of the track, however, he crumpled to the ground.

  Karrell gasped then leaped out of the wagon. Arvin shot to his feet, calling out a warning to her, but Karrell had the presence of mind to stay well back from the line in the snow. She dragged Burrian away from the dark line in the snow, lifted his arm, tugged up his sleeve, and pressed her fingers to the inside of his wrist. “He’s dead,” she announced, staring accusingly at Dunnald.

  Dunnald’s eyes narrowed. He wheeled on Arvin. “This is your fault. You said the center of the symbol was what killed, not the—”

  Arvin leaped out of the wagon and caught Dunnald by the collar of his cloak. The sergeant tried to draw his sword, but Arvin batted his hand aside. “Not another word,” Arvin growled. Shoving the sergeant aside, he stared at the dead man who lay facedown in the snow, feeling sick. Then he squatted to study the symbol. The line was darker than it should be—blacker than the shadows that filled it. Though both Burrian’s body and the board he’d tried to use as a bridge had been drawn back across it, scuffing deep gouges in the snow, the line itself remained intact.

  “Can you dispel it?” Arvin asked Karrell.

  She looked doubtful as her eyes ranged up and down the symbol in the snow. “It is so large. But I can try.”

  Spreading her hands, she began to pray. As she did, Arvin watched the line in the snow. When Karrell completed her prayer, there was no visible change. The darkness was just as intense.

  The sergeant, meanwhile, rotated his hand in a circle. “Tanglemane! Turn the wagon around and go back across the line. Return to the fort and fetch one of the clerics. We need someone who can dispel this thing.”

  The centaur snorted, his ears twitching.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” the sergeant said. “You crossed it once already. Go on—move! What’s the matter—what are you afraid of?”

  “Afraid?” the centaur snorted, his breath fogging the air. His eyes narrowed. “You’re the one who’s afraid, human. Cross it yourself.”

  Arvin was still staring thoughtfully at the line in the snow. He noted the ruts the wagon wheels had made as they traversed it and the spot where one of Tanglemane’s hoofs had touched the symbol. Perhaps the captain was right about Tanglemane being immune to its magic. Then again, perhaps he wasn’t.

  Arvin stood and pulled out his lapis lazuli. “Sergeant, there’s no need to send another person across. I can use mind magic to send a message back to the fort.”

  Dunnald wasn’t listening. His face red, he glared at the centaur. “That’s an order, Tanglemane,” he said in a low voice. “Don’t forget, you are one of the baron’s soldiers now. Shall I report to Lord Foesmasher that you broke your vow by failing to carry out your duties?”

  Tanglemane shook his head, a pained look in his eye.

  “Then return to the fort,” Dunnald ordered, pointing back at the distant bridge.

  “As you order … sergeant.” Tanglemane began to turn the wagon.

  Arvin rushed forward and grabbed the harness. “Tanglemane, wait.” He turned to the sergeant. “We don’t know how the symbol’s magic works. Maybe trying to leave is what activates it.”

  “Leaving it is what we need to do,” said Dunnald. He pointed. “And quickly. The centaurs are headed this way.”

  Arvin glanced in the direction the sergeant had just indicated. The herd that Karrell had spotted earlier had turned around and was moving toward them at a brisk trot. Arvin glanced at Tanglemane. “Are they hostile?”

  “Of course they’re hostile,” Dunnald snapped. “They’re wild things. Not like Tanglemane, here.”

  “They will be angry, if they see me in harness,” the centaur said in a low voice. He started to unbuckle the straps across his chest. “Already they have drawn their bows.”

  “The centaur’s right,” Dunnald said. “We need to get moving.” He offered Karrell his hand, as if to help her into the wagon. “We’ll be right behind you, Tanglemane, in the wagon,” he told the centaur. He gave Karrell a sly look. “Won’t we?”

  Karrell took a step back, folding her arms across her chest.

  “We’re not moving,” Arvin said. “Nor is Tanglemane,” he added. “We’ll take our chances with the centaurs.”

  Dunnald climbed into the wagon, muttering under his breath. Then, louder, “You’ll all see in a moment there’s nothing to fear.”

  Tanglemane continued to unfasten his harness.

  “Stop that,” the captain ordered. “Get moving.”

  One of the harness straps fell away from the centaur’s broad chest.

  “Move!” Dunnald shouted, drawing a crossbow bolt and slapping it against the centaur’s flank.

  At the sting of the improvised whip, Tanglemane’s eyes went wide and white. He slammed a hoof against the wagon, splintering its boards. The wagon shot backward, yanking the partially unfastened harness from his shoulder.

  Dunnald sprawled onto the floor
of the wagon as it rolled away. “You stupid beast!” he shouted from inside the wagon. “When we get back to the fort, I’ll have you—”

  As the wagon rumbled to a stop just beyond the line in the snow, Arvin suddenly realized the shouting had stopped. Karrell took a hesitant step forward. Arvin caught her arm, holding her back.

  Beside them, Tanglemane whickered nervously. “I have killed him,” the centaur said. “Killed the sergeant. When the baron hears of it….”

  “It was an accident,” Karrell said softly. “You didn’t mean to.”

  Behind them, Arvin heard the sound of pounding hooves. Glancing in that direction, he saw a dozen centaurs racing toward them across the open plain. They skidded to a stop just outside the symbol and aimed powerful composite bows at Arvin, Karrell, and Tanglemane.

  One of the centaurs—a male with a white body and straw-colored mane—snorted loudly and stared at them. “Soldiers of Sespech,” he said in heavily accented Common. “You yet live?” He tossed his mane then pulled a white feather from a leather pouch that hung at his hip and waved it over the line in the snow. The magical darkness that filled it seeped away and the trail through the snow became just that: an ordinary trail of hoofprints. The centaur put the feather away and gestured curtly. “Come you with us.”

  “What are they saying?” Arvin whispered to Tanglemane.

  The centaur swiveled an ear to listen to the combination of whinnies, snorts, and whickers that made up the centaur language. Thirteen centaurs surrounded Arvin, Karrell, and Tanglemane, herding them along through the ankle-deep snow north along the river, toward Ormpetarr. The Chondalwood lay to their right, but it was falling farther behind with each step. The forest was still close enough that they could have reached it by dawn at a walking pace, even hindered by the snow. But it might as well have been a continent away. Six of the centaurs had their bows in hand with arrows loosely nocked; if the prisoners tried to flee, they’d quickly be shot down.

  When the centaurs had first captured them, they had confiscated Karrell’s club and Tanglemane’s knife, giving the centaur several swift kicks when he didn’t surrender it quickly enough. They’d taken an intense dislike to Tanglemane, perhaps because he’d allowed himself to be harnessed to a wagon. Tanglemane, however, showed a stoic indifference to the kicks the other centaurs had aimed at him, bearing them with only the slightest of winces.