Which will give first? He couldn't help but wonder. The witch's armored skin or your bones?
"Well?" The tiny voice in the dark was familiar. It was that of a young boy. "Can I?"
"Can you what?" asked the boy's father.
"Pick out a foal this spring?!"
Shapes began to emerge, and color. Little Sasha Belmorn. Not even nine and already a man.
"Oh my son," said the father. "I know this can be a difficult business, waiting to grow up. But do you remember what I told you about a blackfoot's work?"
The boy looked miserable. In fact, if his body language could be believed, the prospect of responding was a labor equivalent to emptying the river with a bucket. Finally though, he forced the word out with an exaggerated sigh. "Yes-s-s. It doesn't end when the sun goes down."
"That's right," said the father, privately brimming with pride. "A blackfoot's work follows him home. Sits with him at the supper table, lays in his bed, even colors his dreams. And do you remember why?"
"Because the river bites hard."
"And... ?"
"And it doesn't let go."
14 - 4
Belmorn's consciousness returned with a sense of extreme motion. It felt as if he were weathering rapids on Magnus' back. As if he was a fish caught in the mouth of a hungry salt lion who was playing with its meal.
"Let him go!"
He heard the voice but didn't understand. Sudden motion swung him up. Pain exploded from every corner, but such things were relative. He could see something round, orb-like. A black sliver in a sea of ember green.
It was an eye. Her eye. And, by Rinh, it was close enough to touch!
Belmorn tried to move, but this only resulted in more pain. His arms were pinned and useless... but how? None of what his eyes told him made any sense.
Unless he was in her mouth.
"I said..." came the voice of Rivka from the back of an enormous horse. "Let... him... go!"
The witchwyrm regarded this new nuisance with pupils that widened into ovals.
Galloping at full speed, Magnus lowered his head and rammed full force against the monster's long neck. The adamandray hardly lost momentum, trampling right over the beast with heavy hooves. The small girl bounced in the saddle, keeping her seat against all odds. The witch rolled, scuttered, shook its head, and then lashed out with its tail. But it did not let go of the blackfoot in its mouth.
Steam shot from the horse's nostrils. Squealing a deep trumpet blast, charged for a second time. Carrying a small, very angry girl on his back, Magnus galloped toward the cowering snakeish-thing who was hurting his oldest friend. At the last second, the animal turned its bulk, striking with both hind legs. The first kick was a mighty thing, but the horse did not stop there. Rivka clung to the saddle, barely hanging on through the attack. Again and again, the body of the witch suffered the bite of Graelian steel until the hooves passed through where meat had been, finding only open air.
The ground rushed up to meet Belmorn through shimmering, rolling space. Once again, the witch had slipped away.
The girl in the high saddle steadied herself and shouted, "Rander!"
Belmorn rolled over, forced himself up on one knee and then to his feet. His body thrummed with uncountable agonies, but he was happy to feel every one of them. They meant it wasn't over.
"Rander!" Rivka shouted from atop the towering adamandray, nervously considering the ladder of rings. "Are you okay?"
The man coughed, grasping his aching side. He didn't know how or why, but the beast had vanished and left him behind.
"Her fangs..." said the blackfoot with a slight tremble. "I felt them. They were like iron bars against my back but... they didn't go in!" With that, he reclaimed his axes from where they lay.
Rivka shouted once more. "There!" The girl's finger was indicating a shimmering patch of air.
Belmorn pivoted, swinging his weapons as hard as he was able. Tracing a circle around the man, the blades sliced at the boiling air, but connected with something undeniably solid.
The witch shrieked, pulling back and shaking its head.
Yet the beast suffered no fresh laceration. Even so, there was fear in those reptilian eyes. Faced with the tall man and the gigantic horse, the creature backed away. It stopped to rear back on its hind legs--standing once more at full height. Then, like two leathery wings, great hood flaps shot out from the sides of its neck, making the front half of the thing appear more cobra than adder.
Looking more intimidating than ever, the witchwyrm proceeded to reclaim the step it had lost. In full display, it shot its head forward, all fangs and fury, to unleash a monstrous, hissing roar. Threads of hot saliva spattered the man, the girl and the gigantic horse. Then came the barks. One, two, three.
Down slammed a huge three-toed foot. The impact sent tremors, over snow covered earth, into the riverman. Two orb-like eyes seemed to glow--not with light but with waves of untellable, green hate. She could see the little man who had slipped from her embrace, but he wasn't the only thing that had hurt her.
The adder head lashed out--dodging around the tall man to hit the adamandray. Fangs sunk in, and the enormous horse was ripped off its feet, swung in a high arc.
The girl was catapulted but Belmorn did not see where. His eyes were on his horse. Proving too heavy to lift again, both Magnus and the witch's head crashed to the ground. Once released, the furious adamandray squealed, flailing its long white legs as the witchwyrm tumbled away.
"Old Man?"
Belmorn's voice was swallowed by an explosion of powder and light which cracked into being.
BANG!!
Shrieking howls filled the air and ears of all in proximity. The cobra hood snapped flush against the witchwyrm's neck as she thrashed about. Stomping, smearing her own yellowish blood in the snowy street
That was when Belmorn noticed the tail was only half as long as it was a second before.
Spurts of witch-blood were fired like water from the trunk of a mammoth. Slashes of startling yellow-green further painted the ground. Spattering rocks and snow and the sides and steps of buildings.
The snake head snapped chaotically, clicking its teeth over and over. Hind legs bent at the knees as the beast returned briefly to four-legged locomotion to scramble a short distance away.
Belmorn looked in the direction of the explosion. Though it did not explain the BANG, he saw someone standing there, one arm outstretched, holding...
"Rinh," he muttered in distant disbelief.
The hair of the alchemist was black and silver. Matted in places and burned away in others, sticking out on one side like the wing of a great bird. Without the cloak, Belmorn almost didn't recognize Tenebrus Kro.
The man's face had burned to a raw, blackened ruin. It was difficult to look at, but in that moment, all Belmorn felt was relief.
Kro closed his eyes, breathed deep the northern chill. The cool breeze was a relief as it blew through his hair and over his blistered skin. Right then, he possessed neither the will nor strength to do much else.
With trembling fingers, he found the scarf inside his shirt collar and pulled it up. The deep maroon stood out starkly from the dark blue of his tight-fitting patchwork ensemble.
"No more vanishing." Kro's shouts were misshapen--muffled behind the form-fitting scarf. "Not without that."
He looked to the bloody segmented stinger. Then down the length of severed tail to the raw, blackened end. He had one shot. Only one. So he had moved stealthily. Belmorn had the witch's full attention by then so approaching from behind was possible. Then, after tumbling over the adamandray, the thing had been stunned. Seizing his opportunity, Kro moved fast. Closing the remaining gap and pressing the pistol's muzzle into the wound as he fired.
"You hear me, bitch? You're trapped with us now!" Kro's words quaked with an unsettling elation that bordered on madness. "Right here with me!"
The witchyrm opened her serpent jaw wider than ever before, unhinging it for a throaty, tongue
-lashing roar that seemed to go on for days.
PART FIFTEEN
OVER THE EDGE
15 - 1
"Rivka-a-a!!" Belmorn shouted at the top of his lungs.
His ears strained to hear through the witch's noise. In agony, the monster stomped around with the gait of a drunkard. Balance, it seemed, had been lost with the back end of its tail.
"Rivka-a-a!!"
The riverman's eyes passed over his oldest friend. Though Magnus lay still in the snow, Belmorn could allow himself to see no more. No matter how much it hurt, his focus had to be on the girl.
She had been hurled from the saddle when the witch retaliated. He'd seen her tiny, limp form fly almost weightlessly through the air towards one of the buildings. And now his eyes darted between that very structure and the shrieking, stumbling monster.
The building had two stories with a porch on the ground level and a balcony above. It was about thirty feet away, but infuriatingly, there was no sign of the girl. Not in the snow, on the steps, nor anyplace in between himself and there. He spied storage crates, stacked on top of each other, but these were frosted with fresh fallen snow. Undisturbed by any falling bodies.
"Rivka! Answer me!"
Belmorn clenched his jaw. It felt like a frozen hand was reaching up out of the earth, grasping his stomach. He'd known grown men who had their spines shattered from lesser throws than that. River men who'd lived the better part of their lives in a saddle.
"Damn it, girl," he hissed in a low voice. "Where are you?"
The girl snapped awake but her surroundings made no sense.
She was in a room she had never seen before. There were barrels and boxes, storage crates like the ones on the street. She remembered that miners stored their supplies in boxes like that. There were lamps and ropes and chemicals for leeching silver from the hard flesh of the mountain. Her father had taken her to a room like this once. In another life. Or perhaps only a dream.
Rivka inspected herself. On her chest was broken glass and splintered wood.
"What?" her voice was startling in the confined space, even to herself.
She moved to brush off the debris, drawing a sharp, stabbing pain. The wound in her chest had improved--far more than good reason would claim possible, given the time--but it was healing, not healed. Cognizant of the area, she managed to get to her feet.
"What?" She exclaimed. "What the hell is this? A storage room?"
Her eyes fell upon a window. Broken pieces of frame hung at wrong angles. Bits of errant glass trailed to where she now stood, but certainly not enough to fill the gaping rectangular hole. Slowly, she began piecing it all together.
She remembered being on Magnus' back. And she remembered the face, the strike, and flying. She remembered flying. But, if she had been flung here, why wasn't she hurt? Bleeding at the very least? Rivka patted herself, checking shoulders, arms, and back for protruding shards, but the only sore spots were those she remembered from before.
The tapestry.
On the floor where she had been laying was the purple cloth that had once covered one side of Kro's wagon. Earlier, it had sheltered them all from the razor gale and here, the tapestry had protected her once more. The cloth was thick, rugged, meant to insulate as much as to advertise the arrival of the wagon's driver.
Carefully, Rivka picked up one corner, lifted it to see the edge of a faded pattern.
Snake scales.
Sticking out of the fabric and lying on the ground were the missing window shards. Shimmering glass was everywhere in nuggets and slivers and triangular knives. The window gaped a mouth lined with horrible, irregular teeth that seemed to mock the girl. To remind her that she should probably not be alive. But she was alive. And based on the shouts and noises coming through the window, she wasn't the only one.
Desperate to get eyes on the only friends she had made in a very long time, Rivka rushed to the window. Judging by the commotion, the battle was very nearby but something blocked her view. Not the ground but wooden planks--old and covered in snow. Looking straight, then to the sky, the girl realized that she was not on ground level. The planks outside formed the floor and rails of a balcony.
"Is that even possible?" The words were small as they left her. "Across the street... through a second-floor window?
Frantic to escape her current surroundings, Rivka wasted no time finding a door. Unfortunately, years of disuse had frozen the internal latch in place and no amount of effort was making it budge.
With a grunt of frustration, the girl again considered the window. Part of her wanted to just leap through and face the consequences, but too much glass remained. It was a miracle she hadn't been hurt her first time through. Lucky indeed that the tapestry had taken the brunt of--
The tapestry!
After crossing the room, she lifted the heavy fabric. As she dragged it to the yawning window, she could hear terrible scraping noises coming from underneath--dagger-glass on old wood.
She heaved the thing through the window, covering the shards that looked so like teeth. Carefully finding places for her hands, the girl lifted herself up and through, landing on the other side with a resounding THUD!!
In seconds, she was across the balcony. Gripping the railing, she peered down at the street.
The witch wasn't far, and reared up the way she was, her head was almost at Rivka's height. From this vantage, she could see there was a pattern on the extended flaps that so brought to mind a cobra's hood. Stark hues were conspiring there--mimicking a pair of silver eyes that appearing to be weeping.
Something else she hadn't noticed at ground level--the monster was holding itself in a strange, asymmetrical way. Favoring one side over the other. Rivka's mind raced back to the glade in the woods. Along with visions of a towering rose monster, sounds returned to her ears: a dull cracking, as bones within the witch buckled in the terrible embrace of long, green tendril-vines.
Far below, two men came into view. Not in her memories, but right there on the ground! Kro was attacking the witchwyrm. Then he disappeared underneath it!
The beast looked like a cat searching for a mouse between its feet. Suddenly, it reared back up, and with a rattle of that wide weeping hood, it lifted one hind leg into the air. Rivka gasped. Her hands flew to cover her mouth because she knew exactly what it was about to do.
But Rander--he was already running, already diving.
He connected with Mr. Kro at the last second, pushing him out of the way of the clawed foot. In a single puff, Rivka released her breath.
This was no good. She could see her friends, but what good was that if she couldn't help them? She searched for something--anything that she might be able to use. Various supplies were strewn about the balcony, but only one caught her eye. Something conspicuous gleaming in the low light of dusk. In the confusion, she had forgotten all about it.
"My knife!" Rivka gasped. "Must have slipped from my hand when I was..." she looked at the window, then picked up the weapon. Gripping it she peered down at the thing that had murdered her parents.
"Your uncle was right, child. It wasn't a sickness." she heard the words of Mr. Kro in her head. "Seems there are spores in the eggshell... released by the very act of hatching. A diabolical defense mechanism. Removing threats to the newborn witch while providing it with plenty to..."
Kro had trailed off then. His thought, simply too terrible to finish.
"Plenty to eat." The words exited the girl in a snarl. Thinking of her parents as they lay bedridden, getting sicker and sicker--until sick was no longer what they were. Part of her still hated them for that, for leaving her.
"Plague didn't kill your family, girl. I did."
Rivka shook the memory away. It was confusing because Mr. Kro seemed like a good man. He had helped save her life. He'd given her fish, even let her take clothes from his wagon. And then there was the knife.
Just then she recalled swinging Rander's axe. The freedom. The feeling that her life might no longer depend o
n the whims of a cruel world. The axe had felt heavy at first, but as she'd smashed it into the face of that bastard bird man, it had seemed all but weightless.
Again the girl regarded the dramatic scene below. The beast was moving backwards. Away from the men but closer to Rivka's balcony. With a frown, she flipped the knife so its blade was pointing down. Then she renewed her grip, tighter than ever.
The weapon had been a gift from Mr. Kro. A way to defend herself or possibly just to placate her. Still, simply having it had made her feel better. Powerful even. And now, she finally knew what the damn thing was for.
15 - 2
Adrenaline. It had helped Belmorn through a string of moments already. But there were limits to all things. He had dropped one of his axes, employing that hand to cradle his left side, where the beast had bitten him. Breathing was difficult. Lungs ached for air, but the stabbing pains truncated every breath. Still, Belmorn had bigger problems. He would take a step, swing something, block something else. Adrenaline or not, this couldn't go on much longer and he knew it.
There were broken things in her too. That ugly hag. He could see from the way she moved and held herself. Or the way an attack might end halfway in a loud screech. Truly, they owed much to that strange plant creature--that damned abominable rose. Whatever the hell it was, it had given them a chance.
They were almost at one of the buildings. A big, boxy, two story affair with a second floor balcony. Had he imagined it? Was this where Rivka had been thrown? It was so difficult to concentrate on anything beyond the barrage of reptilian appendages being thrust his way. Belmorn looked up at the hideous adder-face, at the bulging ember-green orbs and their unrelenting hate. Then his eyes moved past all of that. To something inexplicable.
Mark of the Witchwyrm Page 26
