Serpent's Blood

by Brian Stableford

  Hyry made no attempt to deny the possibility.

  "If things go wrong to that extent," she said dourly, 'your appetite for adventure might be more fully met than you had hoped. Don't drink the river water unboiled, by the way it's mother to a hundred kinds of infection, some of them very nasty indeed. "

  As she stretched herself out on the ground, relaxing her weary limbs, Lucrezia reflected that her appetite for adventure had so far been so meanly fed that it was hard to imagine a surfeit.

  "Be careful, child," Elema said to her, returning to the camp from i74

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  a

  brief exploratory foray.

  "It's not safe to lie too close to the shore when there are crocolids about."

  Lucrezia immediately sat up again. She had not yet seen a crocolid, but Hyry had warned her that they were to be found here, and having had ample opportunity to study Hyry's scar she knew that they were creatures it was better not to come upon unexpectedly.

  The banks of the river were an earthly enclave in the heart of the unearthly forest, but their resident fauna was by no means identical to that of the rivers which flowed through Xandria's farmlands. There were dredgers, of course, but their neighbours included amphibious reptiles never seen in the empire- not just crocolids but constrictor snakes too. Such creatures were intimidated by the scent of human artifacts and the smoke of cooking- fires, but Elema was adamant that the three of them ought to take turns keeping watch, for safety's sake. No one was inclined to disagree.

  During Lucrezia's first watch a crocolid did indeed appear, creeping uncomfortably close to the horses. Their whinnying raised the alarm, though, and the princess chased it away by waving a smoking brand from the cooking-fire at it. She couldn't see it clearly in the undergrowth, but she caught sight of its teeth as it snapped back at her while sliding into the water.

  The next day she saw one much more clearly- and saw Hyry kill it by driving a knife through its skull, with an altogether natural vengeful glee. The trader then spent hours skinning the beast and butchering its carcase, assisted by Elema.

  "The leather of its skin is by no means worthless," Hyry explained, 'and the best of the meat is worth eating in spite of its toughness. "

  Lucrezia suspected, however, that the work she and the dark lander were putting in was more a matter of whiling away the time than laying in valuable supplies. When they had taken all they wanted they threw the rest of the corpse into the water a little way downstream.

  "That'll take the edge off the appetite of its kinfolk," Hyry said.

  Later in the day Elema found fourteen crocolid eggs buried in the sandy soil of the bank and gave them to her companions while she went out on a more serious foraging expedition. Hyry boiled the eggs along with some thin strips of the creature's meat, but Lucrezia found the ensemble less palatable than she had hoped.

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  "You must learn q^forget that eating was ever a pleasure," Hyry advised her.

  "Think of it simply as a dour necessity. If you can do that you won't be distracted by tastes you've yet to acquire- and when you find yourself once again in a place where the cuisine is to your liking, you'll relish it all the more."

  "I shall never return to Xandria," Lucrezia said.

  "I must learn to savour different things. Are there fish in the river?"

  "A great many, and not so difficult to catch in the shallows," Hyry told her,

  'else there would not be so many crocolids. Alas, I have neither fish-hooks nor spears with which to go after them. Whatever you might have heard about the virtues of bent pins, they're no substitute for the real thing- and there's lust rust even here, where you would never think to find any iron, so my pins are staying safe in their sterile jars. "

  "I could harvest many poisons hereabouts," Lucrezia said, with a trace of mischief.

  "I ought to make what effort I can to test my skills and advance my Art while we wait."

  "By all means, highness," Hyry agreed.

  "Elema will doubtless give you very good advice on that score, since she likes you so much and counts herself a witch of sons. Unfortunately, there is little enough scope here for the exercise and improvement of my own Art, notwithstanding the ready availability of crocolid skins." i "Trading isn't an Art," Lucrezia said, for the sake of argument.

  "I

  don't mean to demean it by saying so, but it simply isn't. It has no lore. "

  "It's because it has no lore that it's the Only true Art," Hyry retorted, with all apparent seriousness.

  "In'spite of all your lamentations as to its unreliability, much of your Art is nothing more than plain rote learning, done by method and mental trickery.

  It's not so easy to keep track of the values of a thousand kinds of goods as they fluctuate without ever settling down, let alone to guess the value of things that no one has ever bought or sold before.

  Order is ready to be mastered, chaos is not- and sometimes, even the best of bargains can twist in your hand like a scorpion and sting you where it hurts.

  "

  "What you mean by that, I suppose," said Lucrezia lightly, 'is that she who trades with poisoners always risks a bellyache. "

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  'you

  still have far to go. " But there was so little bitterness in the way she said it that she almost smiled.

  Elema returned then, although the sack she had taken with her was no more than half-full. She kicked dirt over the remains of the cooking-fire to douse it, and gathered in the last of the clothes that had been hung out to dry.

  "What is it?" Hyry asked.

  Elema flipped her right ear with the forefinger of her right hand, then pointed across the river.

  "Better you both stay hidden," she said.

  "Leave this to me."

  Lucrezia listened hard, and was just able to detect the distant sound of singing. There were many voices. Someone was marching along the far bank, behind the rampart of bushes.

  "Stay here," Hyry said to Lucrezia, pulling herself up into the branches of the gnarly tree and vanishing into its leafy crown.

  Elema didn't bother to repeat her own warning before moving off towards the ford, where she could meet the newcomers when they crossed. Lucrezia glanced briefly at the sheltered spot where the animals were tethered before moving into the bushes, trying to find a position from which she could see a long way upstream without herself being clearly visible.

  Although she had no idea what to expect, what she actually saw seemed disappointing. The singers were male dark landers apparently in good heart.

  As they crossed the ford in single file she counted them; there were thirty-three. Most carried steel- tipped spears, although a substantial minority had bows and arrows.

  Lucrezia half-expected Elema to bring some or all the dark landers to the camp, but when she came back she was alone. Hyry jumped down to meet her.

  "They say there has been a great battle and a great victory," she reported.

  "They say that the drago mites have been driven from the forest bur they have not been in a real fight. They have seen drago mites but not many, and those they saw did not attack them.

  They think they are heroes for having chased the creatures away . . .

  but I think they have returned too soon, having little stomach for a bigger effort against unknown foes. We have better men in the dark lands than that, Keshvara . . . best to hide the little witch from that kind. "

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br />
  "The little witch has little to fear from men with no stomach for effort," Lucrezia boasted.

  "You once killed two fools, and took a beating for it," Hyry told her sternly.

  "Don't think you can turn back the wind on that account."

  "Those in search of easy victories are more dangerous to womenfolk than real fighting men," Elema observed, 'but the news, such as it is, is good. If the drago mites which have come into the forest are not disposed to fight, so much the better. "

  "What of their riders?" Hyry asked.

  Elema shook her head.

  "According to the men, the riders fled too -but if they had really seen humans with the drago mites they'd have given a much fuller account of the wonder. Those men met no demons although they were afraid that they might, else they'd not have come back so quickly."

  "Boys' games," Lucrezia murmured, remembering Dhalla.

  "Lots of noise, but mostly pretence."

  There was no sign of the caravan that day, and when the middle of the night came again they settled to the same routine of watching and sleeping by turns. The visibility of the stars seemed to Lucrezia to be a comforting thing, and no crocolids came to disturb her.

  By the time Elema's turn came to sit up the princess felt more at peace with herself than she had since the explosion had blasted open the door of the Inner Sanctum and put a spectacular end to her childhood. She went to sleep very easily, and her dreams were pleasant . . but her subsequent awakening was rough and urgent.

  "Get up!" the old woman's voice hissed in her ear.

  "Not my people this time, nor yours strangers!"

  For once, Lucrezia's reaction had more fear in it than excitement. If the usually imperturbable Elema was alarmed, there must surely be more than adequate cause for alarm. Dragomites at last, she thought, and perhaps their riders too!

  That judgment was premature.

  "People at the crossing," Hyry whispered to her, as she came to her feet,

  'hesitating on the far bank.

  Goldens, I think, with horses. They must have come downstream for quite a distance- they can't decide whether or not to cross. Be very quiet. " With that she turned away, and went to the

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  gnarly tree swinging herself up into

  the dark foliage with practised ease.

  Elema took up a position in the bushes very near to the spot where Lucrezia had stood to watch the dark landers Lucrezia, forced to stand a little further back, could not see half as well.

  "These men are very scared," Elema whispered, after a minute of careful listening.

  "Are they definitely gold ens Lucrezia asked.

  "Not ambers," was all that Elema would concede. The starlight evidently wasn't bright enough to distinguish gold ens from bronzes in her untutored eyes.

  Lucrezia heard rustling in the boughs of the gnarly tree as Hyry tried to get into a better position, creeping like a lizard along a branch which overhung the river. She too was having difficulty seeing in the poor light, and she too thought it important to figure out who these newcomers might be.

  Lucrezia moved closer to Elema and craned her own neck. She could see horses as well as men, which implied that these were not the legendary dragomitc-riders. Might they be the people who had started this whole affair by bringing into the dark lands the goods which Hyry Kcshvara had bought? If so, they ought to be bronze, not golden.

  "They're coming across!" she suddenly said to Elema, although the dark lander could hardly be unaware of the fact.

  "Not all of them," the old woman replied anxiously.

  "Only scours, to see how the land lies."

  "They'll never find us in the dark," Lucrezia whispered, but she knew that she couldn't be certain of that. She wondered whether she ought to prepare her armoury again.

  Four men were clearly visible, making their way very gingerly across the ford. They knew shallows when they saw them, but they were testing the crossing with the utmost care. It was impossible to tell how many more men were skulking in the trees, or how many horses they had, but Lucrezia had the impression that the whole party was less than twenty strong, perhaps no more than a dozen. Their skins seemed dark, but she couldn't be sure that they were bronzes rather than gold ens Their clothes were dark too, cut to hug their bodies rather more closely than Xandrian clothing. The men in the water carried neither spears nor swords in their hands, 279

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  although they

  migh^well have had knives in their belts. One of them --the second in line-was dragging a thin cord; Lucrezia presumed that he intended to use it to draw a thicker rope across should the crossing prove difficult, for use as an extra support.

  "If they knew how many crocolids there are hereabouts they'd move a lot faster," Lucrezia muttered.

  Again the princess heard the boughs of the gnarly tree rustle as Hyry moved higher in search of a better vantage-point . . . and then she heard a gasp. It was an awkward and awful sound, and she was convinced that it would have been much louder- perhaps as loud as a scream- had Hyry not been making such an effort to be silent.

  Elema looked up in sudden alarm, and Lucrezia knew that the same thought must have crossed both their minds. Flowerworms preferred the unearthly giants to gnarly trees but they were not exclusive in their habits, and anyone who went climbing in the dark was at some risk.

  The branches of the tree rustled yet again, and now their rustling seemed horribly ominous. A bad sting would have paralysed Hyry's arm, and the paralysis might easily spread to the rest of her body. If she were not solidly wedged . . .

  Don't fall! Lucrezia thought fervently. She repeated the invocation, as if the urgency of the sillent command might somehow lend it force.

  Please, Hyry, don't fall!

  Hyry's body shifted again," moving even further out, and then became still.

  The rustling ceased, and Lucrezia almost breathed a sigh of relief. For a moment or two she was certain that Hyry was clinging tight, and that all was well but then the unfolding disaster took a different turn. The trunk of the gnarly tree began to creak and groan, and there was a horrible glutinous sound as the roots shifted within the bank which suddenly seemed far softer than it had before.

  Lucrezia realised that the roots of the ancient tree must be rotten, and that they no longer had sufficient purchase in the muddy soil.

  The weight of the crown, augmented and unbalanced by Hyry Keshvara's body, was dragging them free and Hyry, hurt by whatever injury had made her cry out, could make no adequate response.

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  gigantic

  splash, which must have frightened the men at the crossing half to death.

  For a few seconds Lucrezia thought the matter might be over and done with, but the water was not quite shallow enough.

  As the roots broke free the slow current dragged the crown downstream . .

  and the whole tree began to float away, with Hyry Keshvara trapped in the branches that were underwater.

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  j acorn sat on the backboard of the smaller wagon while Aulakh Phar knelt to examine his left leg. The calf was badly swollen and he could hardly walk.

  "I see what's happened," Phar said.

  "You've had a run-in with a tack tick They're not fliers, so the netting which keeps most of the bloodsuckers at bay while you sleep isn't so effective against them -- they can just crawl under it. If you don't mind me saying so, that red skirt that comes with your uniform is
a liability- bare legs are an open invitation to tack ticks

  "Have you got something to put on the bite?" Jacom asked curtly. He was not in the mood for lectures about his mode of dress.

  "It's not a bite, as such," Phar. told him. The problem is that the tick sinks her whole head into your flesh to get at a deep-lying blood vessel.

  Left to herself she'll take it out again when she's full, but you must have felt a slight itch and' scratched severing the body from the head and leaving the mouth-parts embedded in your leg.

  They've rotted and caused an infection. I can give you something to knockout the bacteria, but it needs to be properly lanced to make sure the remaining bits of tack tick are all cleaned out. "

  Jacom didn't like the sound of that. Properly lanced sounded like medic-talk for This is going to hurt.

  "I don't believe in all that mumbo-jumbo about bacteria," he said sourly.

  "Bacteria don't care whether you believe in them or not," Phar retorted.

  "They just keep right on multiplying and your blood keeps right on turning to pus in the attempt to keep them under control. If you want it fixed, it'll have to be cleaned up. If you're too squeamish to have it done with a local anaesthetic I can get one of the dark landers to knock you out, but it'll smart just as badly when it wears off."

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  Jacom knew that the soldierly thing to do was to opt for the local anaesthetic and watch Phar carve and cauterise with a stout heart and an unflinching eye, and he certainly didn't want anyone thinking that he'd taken a less courageous option.

  "Go ahead," he said, with a sigh.

  "Get it over with."

  Phar climbed up and rooted around in the back of the wagon until he found a corroded bottle containing a turbid liquid. Jacom hauled himself into a clear space and lay down on his stomach while the physician carefully dripped the liquid on to the back of his leg. A comforting lack of feeling soon possessed the leg from the knee downwards. Phar unfurled the canvas strip in which he kept his instruments, and picked out a suspiciously rusty knife. He rubbed it with a cloth soaked in alcohol, then passed it lightly through the flame of an unshielded lantern.