Eve of the Serpent

by Jon Jacks

  Could this story be true? Prytani wondered.

  Was this the true history of her lady in the tower?

  Or was it just a story?

  A story created to scare children. Or, even, created by Nechtan, just to scare her.

  Nechtan smirked, satisfied that this had set her wondering. Doubting.

  In the fields they were passing through now, the villagers were stacking wood in twin piles, preparing the great fires that would be lit later tonight. After their long winter confinement, cattle, sheep, pigs and horses would be purified by passing them between these frighteningly huge, roaring fires. Then, as the fires finally died down, the villagers themselves would jump over the last of the flames, hoping to draw on their vitality, hoping for good fortune or, perhaps, a child.

  The column of riders had slowed and, as more and more of the mounted men found themselves coming closer and closer to those just ahead, it soon came to a complete halt. As it was, they were crammed onto a narrow path, with thickets to their left, a wide, tumultuous river off to their right. Those gradually clustering closer around Prytani mumbled uncertainly, wondering what the delay could be. Heads were raised in curiosity as an urgently galloping rider thundered down one side of the halted column.

  The rider brought his horse to an abrupt halt just by Prytani, its hooves slithering in the dust, Tamesis having to leap out of the way to avoid being trampled.

  ‘Wizard!’ the rider yelled rudely. ‘We need you up front: now!’

  Without waiting, the rider spun his horse around and, with a sharp jab of his knees, urged his horse back into a gallop, this time racing back towards the head of the column.

  With a fleeting glance Prytani’s way, a twitch of his head to indicate she should come with him, Nechtan calmly urged his own mount to more languidly trot after the rider.

  At the head of the halted column, the reason for the delay was obvious. The king had dismounted, standing close by his speckled grey stallion as he clung on tightly to its reins. The horse shuffled fretfully from leg to leg, but took care how it set down its left, hind leg.

  ‘He stumbled badly,’ the king declared with a hard grimace of frustration. ‘A loose rock. He’s not lame, thankfully, but he’s injured a muscle.’

  Nechtan awkwardly slipped down off his own horse. He limped a little painfully himself, after sitting so long in the saddle.

  Kneeling down by the horse’s injured leg, he quickly, expertly, ran his hands up and down its length, feeling the tension in the muscles. The stallion whinnied in agony, shuffled wildly on its feet. It would have perhaps unintentionally trampled Nechtan if King Cadeyrn hadn’t maintained a taut hold on its reins, tried to calm him by pressing a hand down hard on its slavering snout.

  Tamesis kept her distance, perfectly aware that she could startle the already nervous stallion. Even so, as usual, she watched all the proceedings with growing interest.

  ‘It’s swollen: the muscle’s damaged.’ Nechtan glanced up towards the impatiently waiting king. ‘I suggest you ride another horse for a few days, my lord. By then, everything will have settled down.’

  ‘We already know that, wizard!’ King Cadeyrn snapped furiously. ‘Do you think that’s why I’ve had you brought up from the column? To tell me the obvious? I need him now! Not in few days!’

  Nechtan’s eyes narrowed in surprise at the king’s anger.

  ‘It would be dangerous to–’

  He paused in midsentence, his face white, draining of blood. Prytani followed his gaze, which was directed to the other side of the swiftly flowing river.

  On the other bank, a small troop of riders emerged from the thickly set trees that ran close to its edges.

  Despite the heavy armour they wore, the heftiness of their great warhorses, the mounted men were remarkably, even deathly quiet. Only their fluttering pennants could be heard, a noise like faltering heart beats.

  Pennants that fluttered in a breeze that only existed in another realm, another world.

  They were the scouting party of a Dead Legion.

  *

  Chapter 22

  There were only a handful of the dead to the fifty of their own column.

  But in any fight, their numbers would increase as their own were steadily diminished.

  Moreover, how many more of the dead were riding somewhere in those thick woods? A legion, at least.

  Maybe far more. They were on the very borders of the realm of the dead. Was there any kingdom that didn’t heavily patrol its borders?

  They seemed assured, Prytani thought, observing the way they calmly brought their horses to a halt, the riders’ unnervingly unblinking eyes locked on the actions of the men closest to her. Didn’t they need to scan the entire column, checking for any suspicious moves elsewhere up the line? It didn’t seem so. Did that mean they could sense movement, rather than having to see it taking place? Even if you don’t see or hear someone throw a pebble into a pool, you can see or feel the ripples the action creates.

  ‘Yes? It would be dangerous?’ The king brusquely reminded Nechtan that he had been speaking, only to halt before finishing. ‘What would be dangerous?’

  King Cadeyrn didn’t seem to be at all surprised by the presence of the dead riders. Neither did he appear in anyway perturbed by the way they were carefully studying him.

  ‘I mean, my lord, I can cure it briefly.’ Unlike the king, Nechtan was very uneasy. ‘But it may well – probably will – result in death for your horse.’

  ‘Do it then!’

  With a resigned creasing of his brow, Nechtan indicated to Prytani that he needed her to reach into the saddle bag strapped to her horse’s flank. Inside, she found an even smaller bag, which Nechtan wanted her to throw to him. He caught the bag with surprising deftness, opening and taking out a small box and thick gloves.

  Quickly slipping on the gloves, he pulled back a small compartment door on the box. He quickly reached inside. When his hand appeared again, he was holding a frantically writhing serpent, having grasped it tightly just behind its head.

  The nearest horses neighed and shied nervously, until brutally brought back under control by their riders.

  ‘Wait!’

  With an abruptly raised hand, the king stopped Nechtan from going any further. Prytani sighed with relief: she had already seen how much a horse suffers when struck by venomous snakes.

  ‘How long before it takes effect?’ the king asked Nechtan casually. ‘How long will it give me?’

  Nechtan shrugged uneasily.

  ‘You can never be sure, my lord. But, whatever it is you intend to do, I would suggest you do it as soon as you feel your mount is at ease once more.’

  He nervously glanced across at the silently waiting warriors, his face whiter than ever, as if he already had an idea of what the king intended to do.

  ‘A crossing place?’ The king was studying the length of the bank, gazing much farther down the river. ‘How far to a crossing place, do you think wizard?’

  So this was why they’d brought Nechtan along, Prytani reasoned. He would have a better understanding than any warrior that the river bordering the dead realms couldn’t be crossed by any normal means

  ‘It’s never easy to discover, my lord. It’s never a regular ford, as most people expect.’

  Nechtan was edgier than ever. He was playing for time, Prytani realised. He didn’t want to show the king a crossing place.

  The serpent in his hand hissed furiously. The riders were struggling to keep their horses from bolting.

  The king wasn’t listening to Nechtan. He was distracted by something he’d seen much farther down the bank.

  ‘That’s the girl’s fox, isn’t it?’ he said curiously.

  Tamesis was standing close by the edge of the flowing waters, inquisitively sniffing the bank where a small hawthorn bush had sprouted.

  Prytani instinctively knew why.

  Tamesis had sensed a crossing place.

  And the king knew it.

&
nbsp; ‘Do it now, wizard!’ the king ordered triumphantly. ‘Let your serpent do its work!’

  *

  A crossing place. That also meant the dead could easily cross over too.

  ‘Why aren’t we getting out of here now?’ Prytani mumbled to herself, glancing fearfully at the silently waiting warriors once more.

  Looking at them now, so much more intently than she had before (when she had worried that staring too hard might somehow draw them over towards her), she thought she actually recognised one of them. He had the same proud bearing, the rigidly upright way of riding, that she’d admired in one of the men who had originally taken her.

  One of the men so expertly and brutally killed by the werewolf.

  Like the others, though, he had those strangely incredibly curious yet ultimately empty, motionless eyes. It gave her the impression, once again, that they didn’t see the same way she did. There appeared to be nothing lying beyond those eyes, even though they seemed to effortlessly take in everything around them, sucking up life, only to instantly negate it, absorbing then throwing it all into a bottomless void.

  Their faces remained expressionless. Did they ever smile? Did they ever get enjoyment from life? Did they ever suffer?

  She had heard, of course, that they often laughed. But always scornfully, mockingly, it seemed.

  Nechtan had pressed the head of the serpent against the edge of a small glass phial he’d taken from another compartment in the box. Forcing the snake’s surprisingly long fangs against the inside of the phial, he’d begun to extract venom that poured into the bottom like a thick, grey milk.

  ‘Hold him hard!’ the wizard said to the king and his squire, in his urgency forgetting to be respectful, his voice muffled by a knife he’d placed between his teeth.

  Suddenly, while the venom was still freely running, he pulled the snake’s head free of the phial – and plunged the exposed fangs into the flanks of the king’s stallion.

  The horse, its eyes almost bursting with terror, bucked wildly. The king and his squire held on tightly to its reins and harness, however, preventing it from bolting, gradually easing it down from its urge to frantically lash out.

  Ignoring the panicked thrashing of the horse, Nechtan took the knife from his mouth. He brought its sharp blade down in a hard, curving sweep, deftly cleaving the serpent’s head from the rest of its body.

  As equally deftly, as if well practised, he dropped the knife and, in the same movement, caught the still writhing body before it fell to the ground. As blood spouted from the snake’s severed body, he let it run into the phial he still held in his other hand.

  With an expert swirl of the phial, he mixed serpent blood with serpent venom.

  ‘Force him to take it,’ he ordered the squire, handing him the phial containing the darkly crimson drink.

  The squire needed the help of a number of men to hold the horse’s mouth open while the drink was forcibly poured down its throat. The men had also had to help when, only moments before, the squire had been similarly ordered to make the poor horse swallow a number of dark red, pebble-like pills Nechtan had withdrawn from his box.

  The serpent’s head appeared to be clinging onto life, injecting its own imminent death relentlessly into the horse’s flank. After leaving it like this for what seemed an age to Prytani, Nechtan at last pulled the snake’s head clear. He tossed it aside as casually as he had the box and, once he’d drained what he’d needed, the serpent’s body.

  ‘Walk him around a little, until it begins to take effect,’ Nechtan declared with satisfaction to the squire. ‘It will numb the pain.’

  With a thrilled grin, an admiring nod towards Nechtan, the squire lead the stallion off on an unhurried walk along the edge of the river bank. The king walked with them, elated that the horse’s limp seemed to have already eased a little.

  Turning, Nechtan walked not towards his own horse but Prytani’s, where he went through the motions of rifling through a saddle bag. Being careful to hide his actions from everyone else there, he grimaced up at her. He fleetingly glanced the king’s way with what could only be disgust.

  With his head lowered once more, as if intent on retrieving something from the bag, Nechtan whispered to Prytani as quietly as he could,

  ‘So that’s why he wanted us here; to help find him a crossing place into the realm of the dead!’

  His eyes briefly locked with the empty gaze of one of the dead warriors. They were patiently observing the stalled column with what appeared to be complete disinterest, going by their blank expressions, their lack of any responsive movement.

  The pennants on their raised spears continued to gently flap in their very own wind, the odd snap of a banner mixed in amongst the sound of fluttering, like the pop of a cleanly hewn skull.

  ‘He’s fool enough to attack them, you know that?’ Nechtan continued in a bitter hiss. ‘Ever since that damn girl arrived with her sheath, he’s talked of nothing else!’

  ‘He has the sheath?’

  Nechtan shook his head with a harsh chuckle.

  ‘No; but his blood’s up. He’s seeking blood for Siren to taste. Or whatever it is the dead bleed, anyway.’

  ‘But surely some–’

  ‘Surely someone knows how they die for the second time?’

  He chuckled bitterly once more, shook his head again.

  ‘Perhaps somewhere way back in Siren’s history, someone’s witnessed it. That’s how the legend started, I hope. Unless that’s all it is – a baseless legend.’

  ‘You’re saying no one’s really sure it can kill the dead?’

  ‘How would anyone know? To see if it’s true, you’d be putting your life at risk – and, even worse, if it does work, you’d just be starting a war with the dead.’

  He give a sidelong glance over to where he’d last seen the king. What had been a hateful glare, however, instantly transformed into a welcoming smile. The king was excitedly heading back towards them, leading a stallion that was now gracefully prancing once more. The squire was walking alongside the rear of the horse, hurriedly unstrapping a bundle tied behind the saddle.

  ‘He’s fine!’ King Cadeyrn cried out joyfully. ‘Well done, wizard!’

  Appreciating the praise, Nechtan grinned, a grin that slowly became a sickly smile as he watched the squire finally pull the bundle clear of the horse’s rear.

  With a snap of his hands, the squire fully opened up the wolf pelt.

  The king really was intending to go into battle against the dead.

  *

  Chapter 23

  ‘Everyone stays here! I won’t need your help against just five!’

  King Cadeyrn continued walking past his line of men, still dismounted, still leading his gaily prancing horse. Only the squire accompanied him as he made his way towards the crossing place.

  As they approached, Tamesis pulled back from the river. She raced back towards the column of men, rushing past the looming riders until she just about ran beneath the legs of Prytani’s horse, only to suddenly veer off and lie upon the ground.

  On the other side of the river, the dead had begun to move again, exactly matching the king’s pace as he made his way towards the crossing. They displayed no urgency, reaching the ford connecting the two realms at the same time as the king and his squire.

  They lined up on the edge of the water, their faces remaining blank, expressionless. They could have been readying for an attack, or preparing to defend against one. There were none of the usual signs of either eagerness or nervousness that would normally help an opposing force determine what they intended to do.

  Even as the king made a great show of slipping Siren out of its sheath, they refused to respond in any noticeable way. Freed of its confinement, Siren’s great blade began to sing joyously.

  The dead showed no sign that they could hear the eerie singing. They remained unmoved, unmoving.

  With the help of his squire, King Cadeyrn slipped on the charmed wolf pelt.

 
The abrupt transformation from man to immense wolf hybrid unnerved every horse in the column. They skittered anxiously, brought back under control only by the firmest – in some cases callously brutal – handling.

  Neither the dark horses of the dead nor the riders themselves reacted to the transformation. They waited, unimpressed rather than unnerved, if it could be said that they showed any emotion at all.

  King Cadeyrn’s stallion most have grown accustomed to his master’s terrifying changes. It showed not even a glimmer of the horror it had exhibited when confronted by the serpent. Even as the Wolf King drew closer, lithely swinging up into the saddle without letting go of his sword, the stallion remained composed.

  It now dawned on Prytani why the king had insisted on Nechtan’s effective yet cruel treatment of the stallion. No other horse would allow the transformed king near, let alone allow him to mount up.

  ‘With his sword and skin, he thinks he’s invincible!’ Nechtan breathed sourly. He was still standing close by Prytani’s horse, still making sure no one but she could hear him. ‘Once he has his sheath, he thinks they’ll be no problem he can’t master. But what about us? Everyone else is going to end up dead!’

  The squire ran back towards the head of the column.

  The king raised Siren high in the air.

  And then he charged across the ford leading into the underworld.

  *

  An immense wolf-like man, riding a stallion stung into action by a venomous serpent. A sword that sang with glee as it readied itself to wreck, to taste, death.

  A sparkling river lying between and connecting the realms of the living and the dead. A ford you could cross, moving from this world into the otherworld.

  A foe silently, calmly, waiting for the attack. An enemy who doesn’t fear death. Warriors who are already dead.

  Could even Siren taste the death of those who have died once before? Surely, at least, it wouldn’t be tasting blood.

  These were the thoughts coursing through Prytani as she watched the king launching his attack. Glancing about her at all the anxious faces, she reasoned that these – or something similar – were also the thoughts of everyone surrounding her.