The Red Serpent

by Robert Low

  Not long afterwards, they had stopped to rest and suck water, for the place was hot and the feeling of being closed in made it warmer still; everyone eyed the dull flicker of Drust’s torch and tried not to think about what matters would be like when it went out.

  In the last blood-glow of it, they saw a shadow ahead and this time they gripped hilts and handles and braced, trying to work up spit as they edged forward. The shadow did not move, though folk heard growls and mutters.

  ‘Dis,’ Quintus declared portentously. ‘I can smell it.’

  The shadow suddenly ran at them, roaring and bellowing, so that the sound bounced round the walls and buzzed all their ears. Manius drew back to the rear but his elbow was thumped hard by Drust and the arrow spanged off the wall and whicked down the narrow way.

  ‘Hold!’ he bellowed and there was a moment of confusion and a brief clash of blade on shield, then folk broke apart panting, and everyone saw Mule, who was laughing with mad relief – everyone was, banging shields and helmets together with the ecstasy of finding him and not some beast-enemies.

  ‘I almost had your head from your shoulders, Mule,’ Ugo roared; Mule glared at him.

  ‘You may have dreamed of it,’ he growled back, and folk went off into more wolf-snarl laughing.

  ‘That was too close,’ Manius said, blowing out his cheeks; Drust fixed him with a stare the archer did not like.

  ‘We don’t need more Sibs,’ he said, and Manius’s face twisted into a snarl that Kag stepped into and held until Manius stalked off to find his arrow.

  ‘How did you get in front of us?’ Quintus demanded, and Mule blinked and then shrugged.

  ‘I lost you when the monster came…’

  ‘Dog killed that,’ Praeclarum interrupted and everyone laughed.

  ‘Well,’ Mule went on, clearly confused by the easy dismissal of the undead, ‘I went on the way we thought was most likely and came to another of those Sister carvings. There were three more ways leading off and I went for the sword-hand.’

  ‘Can you find it again, this carving?’ demanded Drust, and Mule frowned, then nodded and pointed back the way he had come up.

  ‘Down there and to the left.’

  They reached it just as the torch faded and died. Manius was already crouched at it, having found his arrow in the dark, and everyone took note of that, especially those who had always thought there was something unearthly about the man. It took long moments of harsh breathing and slow walking down the corridor for everyone else to get their wits and dark-sense into play, but when they did they all saw the carving, the same three-faced woman as before, no more than a dim shadow in the dark.

  ‘Hekátē,’ Praeclarum said, peering at it.

  ‘She Who Works Her Will. Hekátē,’ said the Empress, her voice a rasp of hoarse, cracked like an old bell. In the blue-black, her voice seemed sucked away.

  ‘That way,’ Drust said, pointing, and Dog snorted derisively.

  ‘The last choosing you made has had us walking to nowhere for some time,’ he growled.

  ‘I choose that way,’ Drust said, ‘because it seems lighter.’

  Dog blinked and stared – everyone squinted.

  ‘Now that Drust points it out,’ Mouse muttered, ‘it does seem less dark in that direction.’

  Kag settled it by moving off and everyone followed; Drust found Kag in his eyeline, just as the last man went past, leaving them in the dark.

  ‘The missing is found,’ he said, ‘which is Fortuna’s blessing. It may be that she smiles on us now.’

  ‘There is cheer,’ Drust answered scathingly. ‘The coda of the dice-player – I am happy for you.’

  Kag only laughed, but he was proved wrong not long after, when Manius stopped dead in his dust-shuffle and announced that something had moved under his foot.

  ‘Fuck Fortuna in her arse,’ Kag declared savagely. ‘You have good eyes and a better nose, but your feet betray you – you would do well to cut the pair off.’

  Drust moved to where Manius stood, half bent and frozen still; he peered, but it was too dim to see his own feet clearly let alone anyone else’s. To everyone’s astonishment, Kisa got down on his hands and knees and gently started brushing the dust away. The others crouched and listened, waiting for the grind and rasp, but there was nothing.

  ‘It is another old trap-frightener,’ Kisa declared assuredly. ‘Broken, no doubt.’

  Manius shifted his foot one step and there was a crack; Manius flung himself flat and was so crouched he was halfway to the ground before he started; others flung up shields and there was yelling.

  Nothing happened. Then the roof leaked some dust and a desiccated animal fell to the floor.

  ‘Gods above and below,’ Kag said, rolling the object with his foot. ‘This is a dead fucking wolf. Fixed to the roof with a swinging cradle. Look – the metal of the cradle is rotted with age.’

  Dog toed the dried snarl of the beast and nodded. ‘There is a spear through it. If it had worked as it should, the spear would have gone through someone, as if the beast had attacked.’

  They all saw that it was true and Kisa looked fearfully around. ‘This is not the easy way, then. You would not be coming in here just to ask the seer who you would marry.’

  There would be an easy way – but, as Kisa pointed out, they had missed that, and now had to watch every step.

  ‘Especially you,’ Kag said to Manius.

  Drust put Mouse in front and they crept on, though most were now unconvinced that the way Drust had picked was any lighter. A little later, Manius stopped again, and Kag ripped out a curse that would have stripped the gilt off a forum statue.

  ‘Again with your feet?’ Kisa demanded and then looked at where Mouse was, ahead of the others. ‘The fattest man we have managed not to set off a trigger, but you follow him and do.’

  ‘Do not move, Manius,’ Mouse snarled. ‘At least until I am well away from you – and I am not fat, you little worm.’

  ‘Something went click a little,’ Manius admitted and then stepped away, looking around. Nothing happened. Then Praeclarum squinted and pointed. There was nothing anyone could see but the myriad points of sparkle from the dust… Drust grunted when he realised it.

  ‘The dust,’ he said and everyone saw it now – the dust, that dark shuffle through which they had moved, breathing in the harshness of it, was now sparkling again. Reflecting light. Already it was thinner here, enough for folk to see the flagged stones once more.

  ‘You were right after all,’ Kag announced cheerfully. ‘This way is lighter. Probably a fleece of gold shining in the dark.’

  ‘Don’t sound so surprised,’ Drust said, aggrieved. ‘I am right a lot of the time.’

  No one spoke in defence of it and Mouse broke the moment.

  ‘I do see the shine of gold,’ he said. ‘A fleece, for sure.’

  ‘A dragon’s arse,’ Mule declared. ‘For sure.’

  ‘If it shows me its arse,’ Ugo growled, hefting his axe, ‘then it is not a dragon. It is a good sheath and a pair of shoes. Perhaps a hat…’

  That made them laugh, and Mouse shouted out that he could see more light – a pile of gold, for sure. He shuffled into a trot.

  ‘Wait,’ Drust called out, and Kag lunged to grab Mouse but might as well have caught hold of a downhill cart.

  ‘Watch your feet…’ Quintus yelled.

  The crack had an inevitability that made Drust’s belly sink to his boot soles. The floor panel Manius had activated was supposed to work when someone stood on it, but age had caused one half to drop and the other half to stick. Mouse stopped too late, teetering. Then he tried to jump, landed hard on the other panel, and they all saw him vanish with a despairing shriek.

  There was a moment of horrified stares and whipped-dog fear, then they braided themselves together, crept cautiously to the edge of the black pit. Without light they could see nothing.

  ‘Mouse,’ Drust called, his voice rasped with the dust in his throat.

/>   ‘We have to get him out,’ Praeclarum said, but then she saw Drust’s face.

  ‘We have no rope,’ Kag said.

  ‘No way of seeing how deep the pit is,’ Quintus added, ‘or what is at the bottom.’

  ‘Spikes,’ said a voice, thin as a vagrant wind.

  ‘Mouse,’ Mule yelled. ‘Mouse… wait, we can get you out…’

  ‘No point,’ came the bleak reply. ‘I am rammed through and through and leaking out here.’ There was nothing left but the last of his strength and the final rasp of his voice, wavering and weak; they could all smell the blood now – he had been a big man so there was a lot of it.

  ‘Anything left to say?’ Dog asked him, looking for a message for someone somewhere.

  There was a choke that Drust took for an attempt at speech, so he bent closer with Dog. He realised, when the words came, that the choke had been laughter.

  ‘Tell Drust – eat me or fuck me,’ came the last moth-wing hiss. ‘I have… no… preference…’

  * * *

  They sat until they were sure he was dead and then started to move, helping one another across the dark gap. Drust levered himself up on legs that felt like wooden timbers and led the way, away from the iron reek of Mouse’s blood, stumbling onto the smooth flags and on towards the light. They came out into it like wary wolves, moving in crouched half-circles.

  There was a great open space, a seeming circle with the light falling from a shaft in a roof no one could see clearly. It was sharp and golden, that light, enough to bring tears to scoured eyes and make people squint. The centre of the Spiral Dance, Drust thought and looked round, as if the goddess would suddenly appear.

  The light fell directly on an altar, a great slab of marble stained with ominous dark marks of old bloodletting. There was no sign of worship now – whatever oracle had once pronounced here was dead and gone and all that was left was a pungent reek; the golden glow of riches was simply the distant sun.

  Now everyone peered and sniffed and spat out the last of the cloying, dusty passages, then fell to wondering what was happening and where they were.

  They moved cautiously out into the far, dark reaches of the circular chamber, widening like slow ripples from the ice-stone altar. There were torches, some fallen, some still in sconces on the rough walls, and they lit a couple of fresh ones, exchanging soft words of relief, exultant now that they seemed safe. One by one they filtered back to report what they had found, which was much the same – fallen statues, smashed pots, old must smells, a heap of bracken and a scatter of old bones.

  ‘This is wild pig,’ Manius said, holding up a skull. ‘There are the bones of some big horned beast here, too. Mountain goat, I think.’

  ‘There is something different here,’ Drust declared uneasily – then Praeclarum let out a cry and dipped. When she turned, she held a small white bundle of fur, cooing to it. It was still blind, looking for heat, and Praeclarum nestled it inside her tunic, beaming her gummed smile to everyone.

  ‘It’s a kitten,’ she declared, then saw the horrified faces. ‘What?’

  ‘Here’s another,’ Kisa said, darting across the floor to where something crawled. He held it up, a bundle of white fur that mewled out little piping snarls.

  ‘Fuck me with Jupiter’s cock,’ Kag growled, and did not need to say more to those who had hunted beasts for a living.

  ‘Out,’ Dog snarled. ‘Get out of here – run.’

  The shape came out of the corridor where it had prowled, attracted away from the kittens by the smell of Mouse dying. Frustrated by not being able to reach the rich blood smells, she had come back, following the strange new scents that unnerved her – now she heard the panicked, angry mewling of her offspring.

  Drust saw the huge, white shape of it, the stripes barely darker than the rest. Big as a small horse, he thought wildly, white as a walking shade. The idea of meeting it in those tight, dark corridors almost made him cry out.

  Kisa stood with the mewling cub, fixed and frozen, watching the huge beast seem to shrink, belly low to the ground. The shoulder blades went up like moving knives and it padded sideways, silent, showing fangs longer than their hands, and the eyes, cold and green, were locked on the man who held her cub.

  The Hyrcanian tiger, Drust thought. A rare white one – we ignored the very name of this mountain. We forgot about the ghost we had been warned about, forgot all about tigers entirely…

  Slow and silent, the tiger drew its hind legs up into a crouch. It swayed slightly, gaining balance, and the muscles on it quivered. It tilted the massive head to one side and jaws opened wider, revealing the yellowed length of those fangs.

  Drust had seen all this before, watching from safety as lions and tigers and leopards stalked the sands, fixed on the venator who was equally fixed on them. They would roar, a belching blast of sound designed to paralyse; then they would pounce. This was not the safety of inside looking out…

  ‘Put the cub down,’ Kag said desperately to Kisa. ‘Gently. Then step back from it slowly. Do not run. Do. Not. Fucking. Run.’

  He ran.

  Two steps was all he got before the huge ghostly cat lunged, one paw clipping his heels so that he sprawled and rolled. They all knew such hunting cats, had watched them in amphitheatres the length and width of the Empire – knew that the next move would be a massive, crushing pounce, a bite to the throat or neck, a disembowelling rake with the rear claws.

  Ugo was there, swinging his big axe and roaring; the beast reared back, snarled soundlessly and gave the big Frisian time to grab Kisa by the slack of his tunic and back up, dragging him.

  The cat crouched and again the jaws widened, but no sound came other than a slight, high rumble. Drust realised it had no voice, was some strange mute, pale version of what should be.

  The beast moved swiftly to the cub, picked it up in massive jaws and swung round, loping away. Drust saw the smooth speed, the bunched muscles, and let out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding in.

  ‘Out,’ he yelled, and they scrambled, heading for the narrow entrance to a rough-hewn corridor. The darkness should have warned them all, but panic drove away sense and they came up short, crowding against a solid wooden door.

  ‘The way out for the oracles and priests,’ Kisa gasped through rattling teeth and shivers. ‘They would not want anyone wandering in this way…’

  ‘There must be a lock,’ Mule said from the back, his voice rising as he shouted.

  ‘I think I can open it,’ Quintus said, bending and squinting. ‘Hold that torch closer, Dog – mind my fucking hair, you arse…’

  There was a lifetime of sweating, crammed together at the bottom of a dead-end, breathing each other’s fetid air while Quintus mused and picked. ‘Think it is rusted… if we have some oil…’

  ‘It’s coming back,’ Mule howled. Dog cursed and shouldered his way through the pack to the rear, sword determinedly up; when Drust risked a look, he saw the pale wraith pad one way, stop and then pad back. Dog moved to it, waving the torch, and it backed away, shaking its head while the eyes seemed to glow.

  We are trapped, he thought, bunched like sheep in a pen…

  ‘Bring back the torch,’ Quintus protested. ‘I need the light…’

  ‘Out of the way,’ Ugo said. ‘I will show you how to pick locks.’

  Drust fought his panic, fought for breath. He heard Dog muttering something – prayers to the gods, no doubt. Drust had tried to be a follower of Stoic once, had tried to believe there were no gods, that the world, the universe was governed by a Divine Reason which the Stoics called Logos, Zeus or God.

  Yet each time my life is versus steel or fangs, he thought, I summon every god I know at the top of my voice…

  The smell of smoke drifted to them, making heads turn to see a flare of flame. Dog came back, his grinning skull seeming to glow in the dim light, and Drust realised he had set fire to the bracken nest; the piping wails of cubs floated to them.

  Ugo put a shoulder to the d
oor, drew back and rushed it. There was a crack. He did it again and the lintel broke. A third time burst him through and everyone scrabbled after him, out into cold, rainwashed air and a light that scoured their eyes to tears.

  ‘There is also that way of lock-picking,’ Quintus growled sullenly, but Ugo merely grunted. Smoke billowed out, sucked by the new flue they had made.

  ‘Move,’ Kag warned. ‘She will shift her cubs to safety and then maybe come after us.’

  ‘She will stay with her kits,’ Dog argued, but no one rightly knew what such a beast would do. They had seen Hyrcanian cats before, but they were golden with dark stripes, not ghostly grey with faded markings. Not ones which made no sound, even when snarling.

  They stumbled away from the entrance, sliding on weed-covered steps which curved down a steep green pass between tan and pink hills that seemed to stretch on until their blurred eyesight failed. When the stair curved round, still heading down, exhaustion drove them to a halt, panting and gasping; for the last few hundred steps Ugo had been helping Praeclarum carry the Empress, who was now slumped at their feet. Mule, hands on thighs, kept lifting his head and looking back up the trail, which Kag noted.

  ‘If you are leaving tracks,’ he said.

  ‘Shut up,’ Drust snapped. He was jangling like temple bells at the thought of being stalked by the ghost-cat and did not need Kag’s wisdom right at this moment.

  ‘Pray,’ Ugo suggested, seeing Drust’s distress. ‘Mars Thingsus has never failed me yet.’

  ‘There is only one god,’ Kisa muttered.

  ‘It is convenient that there be gods,’ Kag said, smiling, ‘and as it is convenient, let us believe there are.’

  ‘Ovidius Naso,’ Dog said as he passed them, heading downwards and picking his steps carefully. ‘I never liked him nor his verses – neither did the Divine Augustus, who banished him.’

  ‘For conspiracy,’ Kag shot back, ‘not for poetry. He was part of a plot.’

  ‘He only knew of it because he was fucking the chief plotter’s wife,’ Dog answered, ‘who was also Augustus’s granddaughter.’