Shadow of the Serpent

by Shannah Jay

  The screams inside the shrine rose to a crescendo of agony and terror, and Shammaz signalled to one of the Servants. 'Let that woman go free now. She won’t try to shirk her duty again.' He took a step forward, taking Dennil by surprise, and grasped Lellia's arm, pulling her forward to join him. 'Come inside, sister. Let me help you to disrobe and lead you to the altar myself. No need to wait your turn in the pens.'

  She moved forward woodenly, a puppet in his hands, not daring to struggle against him here, not able somehow to do aught but his bidding.

  Dennil gathered his wits together and put out a hand to stop Shammaz. 'My wife, my sacrifice, brother. I'll help her to disrobe.'

  'Certainly.' But Shammaz did not let go of Lellia. 'Come forward, then. We're ready for you both.' The words were gloating.

  Dennil took a few steps inside the shrine, trying to resist the incense by breathing in a shallow interrupted pattern, as Katia had taught him. Beside him, Shammaz breathed the curling smoke in deeply and his face took on an avid look, like a predator about to pounce upon a victim. Lellia stumbled and tripped. The trip wasn’t feigned, but it shook her free of Shammaz and served to shake the fumes from her head at the same time. She knew things were not going as planned. Shammaz was pushing them inside too quickly. Dennil seemed half bemused, his body slack and his face losing its alertness. That gave her the courage to act. She gave a moan and sank to the ground, as if fainting.

  'Pick up your fool of a wife!' snapped Shammaz. 'If you two disgrace our name tonight, you'll die regretting it, believe me.'

  Dennil bent over Lellia, took several shallow breaths and shook his head clear of fumes. 'Come, Lellia. It's time.' He helped her up, repeating loudly, 'It's time!'

  At his words, several men standing in the queue waiting to enter the shrine, pulled out swords and knives and made a sudden attack on the Servants.

  Dennil also pulled out a knife and turned to the man who was, he felt, no longer his brother.

  'Traitor!' But instead of standing and fighting, Shammaz slipped backwards behind some dark curtains.

  Lellia grabbed a flaming torch from a cresset on the wall and swept it into the face of two Servants who were rushing forward to kill her Dennil. Suddenly, she felt full of energy, full of courage. 'Brother, look down!'

  she called. 'Brother, come among us now!'

  There was a cry of outrage from the two men attacking them. Before they could harm Dennil, however, the mêlée by the door erupted inwards and more men rushed into the shrine to join the fighting, calling upon their Brother's name as they ran. That was the watchword and the way they were to identify themselves during the fighting. They knew that those closely bonded to the Serpent could no longer invoke their Brother's name.

  'Who will join us?' roared Dennil, heartened by his wife's stand. 'Who will help us overthrow the Serpent?'

  For a moment, darkness writhed around him, fingers of it reaching towards his face as if they had a life of their own, but Lellia slashed at the shadows with her torch and the flame seemed to drive them back.

  'Women, will you let them kill you?' she shrieked. 'Come out of the pens and fight beside your men.

  Overthrow the Serpent. Brother, look down!'

  There were answering shrieks from inside the shrine and women in various stages of undress took up the call, some fighting beside their men, some fighting against men who were trying to pull them back inside.

  When they saw Lellia wielding her burning torch, they snatched other torches from the walls and dashed them in the faces of anyone who tried to stop them.

  Robed women rushed out from the side pens, where they were waiting their turn to make sacrifice. They were clutching stools, whips, anything that might serve as a weapon. Some of them fell to the Servants' knives, even as they rushed forward, and the survivors howled in fury and turned on the Servants, attacking them in turn.

  The smell of blood, always present in the shrine beneath the cloying scent of the incense, grew stronger.

  Shouts and screams, moans and gasps echoed around the struggling figures. The near darkness was filled with pain and anger. The far darkness seemed a land of terror.

  'Let in the light!' screamed Lellia, who seemed possessed now. 'Let in the light of the moons!'

  Women rushed to pull down the hangings and let in the moonlight. They seized more torches from the storage niches and lit them, then rushed to throw open the side doors, crying loudly for their Brother to look down upon them, and seeming to gain strength from the mere sound of his name.

  Quinna, with Nim beside her, huge and fearsome, fur already blood-streaked, fought her way forward to stand beside Lellia, trying to protect the older woman, who was exercising a leadership role without realising it. The sight of Quinna seemed to disturb the Servants. They hesitated in their attack and seemed to lose their courage when faced with a huge well-muscled woman whose sword flashed as it darted to and fro with rhythmic expertise, and whose face bore the confident half smile of a trained fighter exercising her trade.

  When Nim leaped towards them, teeth bared, most of them simply turned and fled, or found places to shelter in, places too small for the great cat to penetrate.

  As the fight eddied to and fro across the town, Quinna persuaded Lellia to leave the shrine. 'You're just,'

  she paused to slash at a man creeping up behind them, 'getting in my way here. Let's me help you leave this place and return home.'

  Lellia turned obediently, still wielding her lighted torch. 'I'll leave the shrine, but I'm not going home.

  Better that I rally the other women. They'll listen to me. They know me well.'

  For a time, it seemed, it really did seem, as if Dennil and his rebels were winning, but then gradually Those of the Serpent began to recover, to regroup and to take the offensive. Shammaz seemed to be everywhere, brandishing a smoking incense stick, exhorting his followers to further effort, and directing them to the weak points in the attackers' lines. But he rarely took part in the fighting, if he could avoid it. And wherever he went, the shadows seemed to deepen around him and men lost their will to resist.

  Dennil tried hard to reach his brother, for he felt that the responsibility for ending Shammaz's life lay upon him, but the other was cunning enough to keep out of his way, and the only time Dennil seemed to have him cornered, one of the Servants gave up his life to allow Shammaz to escape. By the time Dennil had freed his sword from the man's body, his brother was nowhere to be found.

  Back at Dennil's house, Katia was white with pain, as violence eddied around the nearby streets, but this time she didn’t dare give way to her anguish. Always before there had been someone to help her, shield her, take over from her when fighting erupted around them. This time there was no one. She alone was responsible for protecting Yeldo and Jenna; she alone must help Erlic, who was doubled up and nearly incapacitated by pain at this night's violence.

  When Shammaz led a sortie into his brother's domain, it was Katia who set up illusions which gave her time to shepherd her charges down to one of the side courtyards. Jenna, white and distressed, yet managed to whisper that she knew a secret way out and to show the others where to go.

  But in that small courtyard they found Shammaz standing by the dead body of the old gatekeeper. 'I thought you'd come this way, Jenna. Did you think I didn't know our family's secret escape routes?'

  Jenna shrank back.

  He glanced quickly at her companions, then a look of triumph spread over his face. 'A Sister!' he breathed.

  'Dread my Lord, I shall bring you a Sister. Her sacrifice will lend great power to your cause.'

  Katia stood protectively in front of the others. 'I shall kill myself if you try to touch me,' she warned.

  'That will make little difference to the way we use you, though we shall miss the pleasure of your screams.'

  He spoke calmly, as though this were a normal conversation, but his eyes were wild and there was sweat mixed with the blood streaked across his face. He must have been fig
hting hard, or running.

  Jenna moaned and clutched Yeldo to her.

  'So the brat didn't die, after all,' Shammaz said, as casually as if they were talking about the weather. 'Well, we shall have to try a more direct approach next time.' He fingered his dagger as he spoke and thought with satisfaction of the other daggers hidden beneath his clothes. He would blood some of them tonight, for sure.

  Erlic moved to stand beside his mother. Like her, his face was wracked with pain, but like her he was beginning to pull himself together and stand up to their foes. 'You cannot win,' he said. 'Good shall prevail.'

  'Good!' spat Shammaz, a travesty of laughter twisting his face into a grimace. 'What you call goodness, we recognise as weakness.' He threw a dagger suddenly across the courtyard, but when Erlic raised his hand, the dagger slowed down and quivered in the air in front of him, as if it had hit an invisible obstacle. As Erlic flicked it aside, it shattered on the ground with a tinkling noise, like breaking ice.

  The group of men hemming them in took an involuntary step backwards at the sight of that. Only Shammaz and one other stood their ground.

  'A trick,' said Shammaz loudly. 'A filthy Sister's illusion. Do not be taken in by it.'

  'Not playing the gatekeeper now, lad?' the man who had tried to get into the house the previous night said, stepping forward. 'You played your part well last night, but you never did come to see me at the shrine. I should have realised, would have realised if I hadn’t been so busy.'

  'Remember that in future!' ordered Shammaz. 'No detail too small.'

  'I will, lord of my shrine.'

  He moved as if to attack Erlic, then stopped as his sword shattered in his hand, just as the dagger had done. He cursed and jumped backwards, shaking his hand, which had been seared by a surge of bitter cold.

  'Come closer,' said Erlic softly, his eyes flashing with an icy fire. 'If I touch you, I can make you shatter to pieces, too.' A bugling sound rang out in the distance, and Erlic murmured under his breath, 'Here, brothers, here!'

  Katia frowned. It was the sound of deleff calling out, the very last sound she’d have expected to hear in a town filled with pain and violence. Shammaz didn't seem to notice it, so she held her ground and played for time. 'My son has many talents,' she said. 'Our Brother has blessed him greatly.'

  'Aaah! This one is a whore's son, is he? Take him alive, if you can, my friends. That will make our sacrifices so much more welcome to our dread lord.' Shammaz's tone was still calm and agreeable, at variance with the mad light in his eyes, and the twitching of his hands.

  The bugling came again, closer this time, a shrieking cacophony of disharmonies that hurt the ears.

  This time Shammaz did look round. 'What, in the name of the Serpent, is that?' he demanded, then jerked a head at the man nearest to him. 'Go and find out what it is. Don't risk yourself, though.'

  'It sounds like deleff, lord of my shrine.'

  'It can't be deleff. Deleff would never enter a town where a battle is raging. Go and find out what tricks those sister-loving half-men are trying to play on us now.' All the time he was speaking, his eyes were flickering from Katia to Erlic and back. 'Who are you, Sister?' he demanded.

  'Just a Sister of the God,' she said quietly. 'A channel for our Brother, an influence for peace in a bruised world which your sort have driven into confusion and madness.'

  He took a step forward, signalling to his men to keep back. 'Leave her to me. When I give the word, you take the son and the others, alive if you can, but leave this one to me.' On his forehead a darkness that had looked like a smear of dirt, suddenly twitched into life, taking on the shape of a serpent. As his mouth opened, his words of abuse became hissing sounds. His hands writhed in the air, reaching out towards his intended victim.

  Katia flicked watch and ward in front of him and he stumbled, but quickly recovered.

  'Serpent, save your Servant!' he began to intone. 'Serpent, save your Servant!' Step by step he walked through the wards, slowed down, but not stopped.

  A wind began to blow around Katia, setting her robes fluttering and pushing strands of hair across her high forehead. A fury such as she had never felt before possessed her. Was the world to be lost to such as these? 'You are evil!' she cried and her voice echoed. 'And you are possessed by evil incarnate! In the name of our Brother, keep back!'

  Shammaz smiled and took another step, but frowned as he found it suddenly more difficult to move.

  Katia moved backwards before him, only able to slow him down. When the wall prevented her from moving further, she took a deep breath, murmuring her Brother's name, and concentrated all her forces. She would fight as long as she could, then she would kill herself, but she would never, ever submit alive to a creature of viciousness such as this.

  To the side of her, Erlic mimicked his mother's actions, but the wards he set almost stopped the group of men who had surrounded the others. It was only Shammaz who seemed to have the power to resist the wards, only Shammaz who could walk forward through them. And as he walked the darkness upon his forehead writhed and twisted, and his head seemed to rear up and sway to and fro like that of a snake.

  'Do not let them capture you, Erlic,' Katia called. 'Kill yourself first. And if you survive me, tell your father what happened.'

  Outside in the street was a heavy trampling sound, not the sound of human feet.

  'Brothers, come through quickly!' yelled Erlic.

  This time the bugling sounds were pain rather than noise. Men clasped their ears and rocked to and fro under the assault of the piercing sounds. The noise built up to a level of agony that made even Shammaz sink to his knees and Katia sag helpless against the inner wall. Then the outer wall of the courtyard burst asunder, fragments of stone flying in all directions. Around Erlic light seemed now to be flickering, dark blue-tinged light. As the shower of stones and dust settled, a deleff stamped through the gap, its wings pulsing with the same dark light as haloed Erlic.

  The wings of light swept over the group in the courtyard and as the wings touched the men, they shrieked in agony. The wings passed on, leaving the men on the ground, moaning and twitching. Only Shammaz remained standing. The blue light gathered around his defiant body, beating at him in vain. The mark of the Serpent showed clearly on his forehead, burning darkly, then suddenly it began to fade.

  'Lord, stay with me!' he pleaded, hands upraised.

  There was a vibration in the air, a rumbling so deep that it was almost inaudible as sound and was felt more as a shuddering in the belly, then the mark faded entirely from Shammaz's forehead. As the deleff's wings swept over him again, he dropped to the ground, screaming. After the wings had passed, he curled up into a foetal knot of agony, then he jerked several times and fell silent. Very slowly his body uncurled again and grew still.

  The light from the wings didn’t hurt Katia or her companions. It seemed no more than a cool tingle as it touched them, though they found it hard to move while it flickered along their limbs.

  Erlic stepped forward to lay his hand on the snout of the nearest deleff and the light around them both began to fade. 'We thank you,' he said, 'and we share your pain.'

  Katia moved forward on legs that seemed not to be functioning properly. She went to stand next to her son, who was, at this moment, not quite her son, and laid one hand on his shoulder, the other on the deleff's snout. 'We thank you, illustrious friends.' Then she stood for a moment fighting the nausea, stood and conquered her aversion to pain and killing. When she raised her head again to scan the courtyard, she was ready to take charge again.

  'Will your friends go outside to help the others, Erlic?' she asked. 'Can they? Things are balanced on a knife edge in the town.'

  He nodded. 'Yes. These deleff have been trained to endure pain. One of them will stay here to protect us.

  The rest will go out. And when this is over, they'll unite to destroy the shrine. Completely. Jeddiak, at least, is saved.'

  CHAPTER 9 SEA OF GRASS

  Jonne
r the trader opened his eyes and rubbed his forehead, which was hurting. Where was he? The last thing he remembered was passing through some sort of portal. It had felt different, though. Herra had called something out - Quequere's name. Yes, that was it. Quequere, that strange crystalline being, must have found some way to save them.

  Thank you, Quequere, he thought.

  Wherever they were now, they’d left the ring of attackers behind, and hopefully they were safe. If you could ever be truly safe in a world where the Serpent ruled.

  Nearby somebody groaned and he turned his head, blinking as the sunlight hurt his eyes. He could see no other living creature, but he could see the trading wagon, thank goodness, and it didn’t look damaged. Why was he lying on the ground beside it, though? Had he fallen out of it when passing through the portal?

  He heard another groan, then a voice muttered from the rear of the wagon, 'Brother, look down upon us!'

  He tried to get up, but fell back, because his limbs seemed loose and unco-ordinated. 'Hello! Is anyone there?' he called, in a voice that sounded thin and wobbly, even in his own ears.

  'Jonner? Jonner, is that you?' Cheral's voice sounded faint and uncertain, too, which was an unusual thing for her.

  He still couldn’t move, but nodded instinctively in the direction of the wagon.

  'Jonner? Speak to me!'

  He swallowed and tried again. 'I’m here, Cheral.'

  'Are any of the others there with you?'

  'No. Just me.'

  'Well, there's only Narla here in the wagon with me.'

  Relief flooded through him, surprising him with its intensity. The mere thought of anything happening to Narla made him feel panicked. 'What's happened to us? Where are we now? And where are the others?'

  'How do I know where we are. Or where anyone is? But we came through another portal and we escaped from Those of the Serpent, so wherever we are, it's an improvement. Now, stop talking and give your body time to recover. You know what those portals are like. Just lie still and take slow deep breaths.'