Serpent Catch: Book Two of the Serpent Catch Series

by David Farland

  “You had better leave!” Wisteria warned Tirilee.

  Tirilee dropped her wood as if in weariness. She stared at Wisteria for a minute, then dropped into a crouch in the wet grass and began crying. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I can’t stop this. I don’t know if I’m strong enough to leave. I don’t want to hurt you. Any of you. Am I so wrong for wanting someone like him? Someone who will love me the way he loves you?”

  Wisteria felt shaken. She was angry, and sorry, and frightened. She did not know what to say. Tirilee was such a child. But she was dangerous.

  God, her skin was so clear, Wisteria imagined that she could almost see the dryad’s aura shining through. Now that Tull had seen her naked, how could Wisteria ever hope to erase that image from his mind? What would a man do for a creature like her?

  “Stay away from me,” Tull told Tirilee, yet he watched her with longing.

  ***

  Chapter 11: The Scent of Spring

  Phylomon and Scandal heard the gunshots and cautiously returned from their hunt.

  Phylomon stripped the gunman—a thin little man with only one ear. Upon seeing the lost ear, he knew the man was Blade Kin. Among the Blade Kin, when a man joined the ranks, he would cut off his ear and give it to his sergeant as a sign that he would always listen to his orders. Yet there were no other markings identifying the man as Blade Kin—no tattoos indicating rank, no letters or written orders.

  Born-in-Snow came creeping back to camp a short while later, and Wisteria pointed to where Short Tail lay. Tull expected Born-in-Snow to weep or throw himself on the ground. Instead he very carefully crept over to the dead gunman, shoved one fist into the dead man’s chest, and pulled out his lungs and began to eat. Wisteria shouted in horror and turned away. When Born-in-Snow finished, he pummeled the carcass with his club, smashing the skull to a pulp. He then urinated upon the corpse.

  “Do not let it bother you,” Phylomon said, “It is only the Hukm way of showing contempt.”

  Tull and Phylomon boiled water and removed splinters from Ayuvah’s head and arms, and the others joined in to help prepare Short Tail for his final journey.

  Scandal broke out the Hukm’s favorite spices and filled small gourds with them.

  They had been carrying two month’s rations for the Hukm—dried pears and apples, pumpkins and cured leaves, nuts and wild yams. At Phylomon’s insistence, the finest of delicacies were separated out for the ceremony.

  Born-in-Snow dragged Short Tail to a small tree, tied the body upright, then stuffed food into Short Tail’s mouth. They laid the gourds in his arms, and placed mounds of food at his feet and his war club across his legs. Born-in-Snow went to Short Tail’s dead mammoth, wove a tiny rope from its hair, and placed the rope in one of the dead Hukm’s hands, ferns in the other. When Born-in-Snow was done, he sat and watched Short Tail until the last rays of light faded.

  That night, the camp was somber. After sundown, Born-in-Snow threw himself on the grass and roared like a bear. As the others sat around the campfire eating, Phylomon asked Wisteria, “You were with Short Tail when he died?”

  Wisteria nodded.

  “Did he speak?”

  “He talked in finger language. One sentence.”

  “The Hukm place great importance on the last words of their dead,” Phylomon said. “They believe those words will reveal the final state of the dead’s spirit. Born-in-Snow would be comforted to know his brother’s last words.”

  “I watched his fingers,” Wisteria said, “But I’m not sure I remember. He went like this:” she raised her hand and slowly dropped it, waggling her fingers woodenly as she went, trying to imitate exactly the patterns of loops, waggles and curls.

  “Are you sure that is the pattern he used?” Phylomon asked.

  Wisteria hesitated a moment, thinking, and nodded her head.

  Phylomon laughed.

  “Well, what did he say?” Scandal asked.

  “He said, ‘Give me a boot, for I must pee.’”

  That night, a steady rain drizzled from the sky, more heavily than it had done for a week. Tull, Ayuvah, and Wisteria slept in the barrel, while Scandal, Tirilee, and Phylomon slept under the tarpaulin. Phylomon spoke to Born-in-Snow about possible routes before coming to bed, but he could not rest afterward, for he feared telling the others of the plans they had agreed upon.

  Phylomon had decided to try Gold River Pass. True, there was a large garrison in the pass, but it was the widest pass, and it was the only one he dared with such a heavy threat of avalanches. Phylomon recalled an avalanche there in his youth, a great wall of powder cascading down upon a party of Pwi that he and his brother had been escorting through the mountains six hundred years ago. He remembered his brother’s red symbiote skin as he pulled him free—the only survivor.

  His brother’s pyroderm had melted the snow enough so he could move. It was all that had saved him. He replayed the memory of the avalanche again. The movement of the snow, the crashing, reminded him of a tsunami he had once seen—a sixty foot wave of white crashing against the cliffs at Smoke Reef in fury and thunder.

  Unlike Phylomon, Born-in-Snow wanted to take that pass because it was well-guarded. “I will kill twenty of them in vengeance,” he’d said, speaking with fury, the movements of his fingers sharp and decisive.

  In all his long war with the slavers, Phylomon had been losing ground. True, he beaten them in decisive battles, but every time he turned his back they bred twice as many more. He could kill the slavers, but he could not kill the greed that drove otherwise good men to become slavers. Born-in-Snow wanted vengeance, but Phylomon wanted something different. He wanted the madness to stop.

  Phylomon turned restlessly.

  Scandal laughed under his breath, “Does anyone smell spring in the air?”

  “What do you mean?” Phylomon whispered.

  “Spring. When young men’s thoughts turn to love?”

  And Phylomon realized what Scandal was talking about. He’d thought he couldn’t sleep because he was worried about the pass. But in reality he could not sleep because he was sexually aroused.

  “Aphrodisiacs are on the wind, Friends,” Scandal said. “If I’m not mistaken, our little Dryad is a bud getting ready to open. Why, she’s giving off a scent that could arouse the dead, if not raise them.”

  “I know. I feel it, too,” Ayuvah said from the barrel. His voice was shallow and husky, full of lust.

  “Well, I’m up for it,” Scandal said. “In fact, I haven’t been this up for anything since I was thirteen years old. Am I the only one, or when you were that age, did the rest of you walk around with erections for six months at a time?”

  Ayuvah chuckled up in the wagon.

  “Ayuvah knows what I’m talking about,” Scandal said. “Come on men, confess.”

  “We were more civilized in my day,” Phylomon said. “We had drugs that helped keep us less inclined to rigidity.”

  “And you, Tull, don’t pretend you’re sleeping, did you have such a problem?” Scandal asked.

  “Scandal, you must have been a sickly child,” Tull replied, “I mean, if your erections lasted for only six months at a time.…”

  Scandal laughed, “Ayaah, well I found ways to ease my burden,” he sighed. “Ah, Denna Blackwater, she knew how to corrupt young men. By the Starfarer’s blue—I know my attraction for this girl is purely chemical, but how are we going to sleep if this goes on?”

  “This might be a problem,” Phylomon said, “But not for long. Tirilee’s Time of Devotion won’t come upon her until she finds a stand of aspen to call her own. And she can’t help it if she releases her pheromones a bit early from time to time, just as you couldn’t help your own youthful arousal. I’d hoped we could get her to the trees before this started, but we might be in for a rough time with her.”

  “I don’t know if I can take this,” Tull admitted. Phylomon listened closely to the Tcho-Pwi’s tone. Tull was deeply disturbed.

  “We’ll have her bed downwind
from us tomorrow,” Phylomon said. “You Pwi have a saying, ‘Touch a Dryad, and she will destroy you.’ There’s truth in that saying. You’ll have it harder than us humans. Keep your distance, and don’t let her touch you. The aphrodisiacs she releases are in her perspiration. She can’t help it, but you don’t want her touching you. If you feel yourself getting aroused beyond control, it may be that you have come in contact with some of her perspiration on a blanket, or just by sitting on her seat on the wagon. Make sure you get up and wash off in a stream—scrub that scent off as if you’d just been sprayed by a skunk. Don’t wrap yourself in furs she has warmed herself in, don’t comb with a brush she has used.

  “And most importantly, don’t ingest any of her saliva. It catalyzes her aphrodisiacs—makes their effect a hundred times more potent. Once you get a dose, it may well be impossible to resist her. Be very careful not to drink from her cup or eat with her utensils.” Phylomon thought back to his own Dryad, Saita, so many years ago, and remembered the dark cravings she had caused him. Those kisses had been so sweet, so delicious. He licked his lips in remembrance. Phylomon had once known a chemist who said he believed that the kisses were addictive, but Phylomon doubted it. Saita lost her power over him in time, and after a few years he was able to leave her. If the kisses were addictive, their power faded over time.

  “What if she kisses one of us?” Tull asked, his voice filled with genuine terror. Phylomon smiled. Tull sounded as frightened as a newly-wed Pwi should sound at the thought of being kissed by a Dryad.

  “Don’t let her,” Phylomon said. “She might well try—it is a natural instinct for her. But don’t let her. As long as she does not get her saliva on your lips, you will be fine.”

  Ah, the kiss of a Dryad at her Time of Devotion. Such kisses were powerful, and the catalyst remained active for months. The lust it caused was both ecstasy and torment, but one tended to remember only the ecstasy. What had it been, Phylomon wondered, eight months that he had been under Saita’s spell? Yet it had seemed years. Suddenly, he wondered why Tull should be so concerned.

  “She hasn’t kissed you, has she?”

  “No,” Tull said hesitantly. “No.”

  “Good,” Phylomon said, wondering if Tull lied.

  “We should kill her,” Ayuvah whispered, “now, tonight, before it is too late.”

  “Nonsense,” Phylomon said. “She is people, and she can’t help herself. Scandal, if her Time of Devotion comes while she’s still in our camp, I think you should do the honors.”

  “Ayaah, our thoughts sail down the same channel,” Scandal said.

  “Don’t make your plans for me,” Tirilee said. “I’m not a cow to be bred by the bull of your choice. When my Time of Devotion comes, I will choose my partner!”

  Phylomon laughed with embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were awake.”

  “You think you understand Dryads because you married one,” Tirilee said to Phylomon. “But you know nothing about us. You say men crave us, and we destroy them for it. Don’t you know that we are like you? We crave men as they crave us. Your scent is an aphrodisiac to me as mine is to you. Your lips drive me crazy, as mine do you. I must fight! I must fight!”

  “I am sorry,” Phylomon said. “I knew this about Dryads.”

  “Then why don’t you tell them the truth? Tell them that we are destroyed by love just as you are. Tell them that when a Dryad gives herself to a man, she knows that in three days her love for him will die, and she will be forever tormented by guilt for what she has done. My mother.… My mother!” Tirilee broke off and began weeping. “I only want a man who will love me,” Tirilee said. “I want someone who is kind, someone to grow old with.”

  “You are mistaken,” Phylomon said. “You don’t want someone to grow old with. You can choose your mate, that is for sure, yet a day later you will be willing to discard him forever. Your love will turn to the trees. You may find that our perspiration is an aphrodisiac and a kiss from a man’s lips might well send you to heaven, but you are not a Pwi enslaved to the kwea of your memories. You will not become imprisoned by love.”

  “I … I’m not like Garamon,” Tirilee said. “I don’t keep people in cages. I won’t put people in cages.”

  “Not by choice,” Phylomon admitted. “Not by choice.”

  ***

  Chapter 12: Gold River Pass

  The party took four nights to sneak to Gold River Pass, and they covered their tracks whenever they could. They scouted well. There were no fresh tracks that they could see, but squalls were so frequent that someone could have passed two days before and left no sign.

  The Gold River snaked up the mountain and slithered through the pass. Beavers had cut down many trees, and the party used two downed alders to make skids for the wagon. As soon as they reached unbroken snow, they swapped the wheels for the alder skids.

  The trip upriver was grueling. The skids left no way to slow the wagon going downhill, so when they reached the top of a rise, they often had to stop and tie the wagon to a tree, then slowly let the rope out as the wagon crept down the hill.

  Forage for the mammoth became sparse. It ate pine needles and dried raspberry along the trail, but such fare could not sustain it. On some windswept ridges the summer hay still lay on the ground, and each evening while the others camped in the valley with the wagon, Born-in-Snow took his mammoth into the mountains to forage.

  The party traveled ten miles a day.

  Tirilee kept her distance from the men, and Phylomon felt grateful for that. As quickly as the aphrodisiac sweat had come upon her, the process stopped. Only Scandal sought out her company.

  At dinner, at the bottom of the pass he said, “You know, when you go into town, every business has its own advertisement out front boasting its wares—Gadon’s Bakery, the Best Bread Ever, Vargas’s Fine Cutlery.

  “But have you ever noticed that people don’t advertise their sexual prowess? Why, could you imagine a sign above my door: Theron Scandal—the Best Sex Ever? You might well laugh at the idea, but I’m not joking. Why, if you think about it, someone somewhere is entitled to make that claim! Why, if you didn’t know about it, you could pass that person in the street and never realize what you had missed! What do you think, Wisteria, am I right?” Though Scandal spoke to Wisteria, he was watching Tirilee, and the Dryad shifted on her seat on the back of the wagon.

  “Well,” Wisteria said, gulping a bite of stew in surprise, “I suppose you’re right.”

  “Ayaah, when I was young, I used to travel the ports of the world searching for recipes. I tasted the finest foods, the finest wines, the finest women. I became known as the ‘Gourmet of Love.’ Not only did I taste the best each town had to offer, I served the best. Why, in Debon Bay one time, I once saw a young maiden on the docks. She was a flat-chested little thing, yet I fixed her with my sexiest gaze, and poooh! Her chest puckered so hard you’d have thought she worked as a wet nurse!

  “So I jumped off the ship and asked her to dance right there, without music, and she melted in my arms in answer. I put my arms around her and took a couple of steps, brushed my lips across her forehead, and whooosh! In front of a hundred witnesses she burst into flames and burned to the ground, my kisses aroused such heat in her.”

  “Yes,” Phylomon said, “when I was in Debon Bay last spring, I heard of your exploits.”

  “Oh? What did you hear?” Scandal said.

  Phylomon said, “The docks still have the black spot where she burned. You’ll also be pleased to know that six young men and women in that town bear your last name, and another dozen bear your likeness.”

  “Ayaah, when I was young and hot,” Scandal said, “The green grasses were skirts for the hills, and I was the thunder that rolled over those hills. In the dry days I would storm upon parched grasses; my wind would buffet the valleys until they cried out in pain and ecstasy. Generous was my name. Giving was my nature. The earth would tremble at my touch, and shudder at my will. Endlessly I would pour myself
out, and rainbows sprouted in every green valley.”

  Tirilee got up and left with her dinner, shooting an angry look at Scandal. “I’ll storm one out on you, sweet child,” Scandal murmured under his breath, fixing his gaze upon her, “and a rainbow will break forth in your dark valley.”

  The next day, they rounded a bend high in the pass and came upon a great forest of aspen trees, their white bark shining above the snow. Tirilee smelled them from within the wagon, jumped out, ran up to the tree line, and dropped to all fours. She stared, just watching the trees. She was dressed in her green robe, and she lay like an emerald in the snow. She sang out, one sweet melodic line, almost a cry of joy rather than a song. And from deep within the aspen forest, an answering song rang back.

  Tirilee hung her head and cried in despair, looked back to the wagon. “This forest belongs to another,” she said, and trudged back to the wagon in defeat.

  Yet there was a change in her. When she reached the wagon she smelled like a field of wildflowers, and the aphrodisiac scent struck Phylomon like a fist. Tull shouted for help, and Born-in-Snow jumped from the back of his mammoth, pulling his giant war club in one fluid move.

  Phylomon gazed at Tull, who lay in the barrel next to Wisteria, hugging his knees. Ayuvah backed up on the wagon, but he could barely contain himself. Scandal stood, transfixed by the scent, quivering.

  “Get away from us!” Phylomon shouted.

  Tirilee backed from the wagon in dismay, “But, I’m all right. My Time of Devotion has not come!”

  “Your Time of Devotion is far too near at hand,” Phylomon said. “It is time for you to leave.” He rummaged through the wagon, threw down some food, blankets, a long knife. “Do you want the gun?” he asked.

  Tirilee shook her head. Wisteria watched, and she could hardly stand to see it—the thought of leaving a child in these snowy mountains. Yet she clung to Tull, and she did not want the Dryad near.

  They continued on up the canyon, and watched Tirilee standing motionless in the snow.