Season of Sacrifice

by Mindy Klasky

  The smoky light glinted off a glass box sitting beside the hearth. As Maddock blinked, he made out thick crystal walls that were as high as his chest and twice as long as his body. Sand gleamed behind the bubbled glass, pure silver like the finest stuff on the People’s beaches. A bare branch leaned against the glass walls, stark black. Thorns as long as Maddock’s palm glistened in the firelight.

  Before Maddock could wonder at the meaning of such a large enclosure, of such long thorns, High Priest Zeketh reached out for his prisoner’s chain, pulling the fisherman toward the glass with one sharp tug. As Maddock raised his hands to protect himself, the priest grabbed hold of his wrists, twisting the golden links with thick, strong fingers.

  Even as Maddock fought to free himself, the priest produced a knife out of nowhere, an iron blade that barely glinted in the firelight. Maddock thrashed as the weapon drew near; he kicked out and bellowed wordlessly. His timing was off though, victim of the drug that still pumped in his veins. Zeketh’s blade found its home easily, slicing through Maddock’s palm as if he were simply a boiled fish.

  For an instant, Maddock felt nothing, and then the dungeon’s fetid air stung his wound like the acid in a sea snail’s trail. He sucked air through his teeth and braced himself for further attack, but there was none. Instead, the priest held the knife aloft, muttering some unholy prayer.

  “Hail, Seven Gods,” the priest intoned. “Accept this offering of blood and sanctify the one who bleeds. Make him most holy, that he may do thy sacred works. Bless the one who bleeds, most honored Seven Gods.”

  Zeketh twisted the blade in the flickering firelight, and Maddock could see his own blood glistening silver-red on the dagger. He fought down a wave of nausea. Unbidden, he remembered the words of Bringham’s man—no one had survived this ordeal. Maddock must find a way to get through whatever the priest plotted, to get through, and to escape the palace, and to deliver his intelligence to Bringham’s men.

  And to find Reade and Maida. He mustn’t forget Reade and Maida. Reade and Maida and Landon and Jobina. Maddock shook his head and silently cursed the drugged food and ale. His thoughts were thick, muffled. He was having trouble remembering his most basic mission, his most basic goal. He needed to concentrate, needed to focus on what was happening to him. That was his only hope to get out of the dungeon room alive.

  The priest lowered his weapon and stalked to the fireplace. Maddock swayed and squinted to make out a wooden box that sat beside the hearth. The priest knelt low, touching his brow to the iron clasp, all the while holding the dripping knife above his head. Then, with Maddock’s harsh breath the only sound in the room, Zeketh opened the box.

  Maddock knew that he should attack the priest. He should take advantage of the fact that Zeketh had his back to him. Maddock should raise the chains that were slung between his wrists, should throw them around the priest’s throat, pull them tight. Try as he might, though, he could not make himself move, could not issue the order through his fuzzy mind to his drugged arms.

  As Maddock fought down a moan of fear, he blinked hard, managing to clarify the scene across the room. Against all expectation, the priest lifted a rabbit out of the wooden box. The coney trembled in the man’s hands, but the priest ignored the creature’s obvious terror. Slowly, he shifted his grip to the front of the animal’s furry throat. Then, he took his bloody knife and thrust it into the rabbit’s neck, piercing the base of the animal’s skull.

  As Zeketh sawed back and forth with a double motion, the rabbit convulsed. Blood began to well from its wound, but the priest neatly shifted his furry burden, holding the animal so that the crimson pooled against its soft grey fur.

  Maddock watched with horror as Zeketh approached the glass cage. For an instant, he thought that the priest was going to impale the rabbit’s carcass on one of the long thorns. Instead, the holy man laid the animal on the silvery sand, passing a hand over it with apparent gentleness.

  For ten heartbeats, there was nothing, not even the sound of Maddock’s ragged breathing, for he caught his breath and waited. Then, the sand exploded upward, grains of silver flying through the air, spattering the glass walls, showering the black branch.

  Maddock jerked back and his eyes blinked in reflex, but he still made out the horror in the glass cage. He saw the long, scaly body, the yawning mouth, the razor fangs that glinted in the dim light, dripping with a poison that glistened like pearls.

  In seconds, all was over. The coney’s belly was shoved against three brutal spikes, suspended above the floor of silver sand. On either side of the priest’s knife slash, fang marks gleamed like holes to another world. The flesh already shriveled around the strike marks, boiling into pustules that broke open and filled the room with a rotten stench. As Maddock stared, the coney’s body writhed on its spikes, contorting as the corruption spread from the pair of wounds. Great gobbets of flesh fell onto the silvery sand, staining it black with polluted blood.

  Maddock’s gorge rose, almost distracting him from another motion in the sand. The silver grains began to move, sliding across each other with an audible hiss. Maddock could make out a spiral shape in the sand, swirling faster and tighter. The chunks of rotted rabbit fell toward the center of the vortex, clumping together in a single night-black mess. Before the rotted blood could melt into the sand, the massive snake reappeared, exploding from the bottom of its whirlpool. Jaws agape, the serpent swallowed the entire putrid mass that moments before had been a living, breathing beast.

  Only when the snake had bolted its meal did it lie upon the sand. Its eyes glared up at Maddock, daring him to look at the bulge of meat that even now moved down the animal’s throat, pulsing slowly toward its acid gut.

  “Excellent,” Zeketh whispered, pulling Maddock back from his horror. The outlander, still snared in his drugged haze, was captivated by the single word, fascinated by the other man’s red, red lips, by the white teeth that glinted against his night-black beard. “So, now you have seen the Avenger’s power. You’ve seen her power, and her attraction to the drug that beats in your veins.” At Maddock’s confused look, the high priest laughed. “Aye. The capon you ate and the ale you drank were laced with a tempting little potion, a poison that cries out to the Avenger. It summons her from her sleep beneath the sand. It still runs thick enough in your blood to transfer to my knife, to the rabbit.”

  Maddock clenched his fist, willing his heart to stop feeding the crimson seam across his palm. His fingers were slick with his own blood, and he imagined that the snake was stirring in its cage, even now flickering its tongue, seeking out another fresh meal.

  Meanwhile, the priest towered over Maddock, seeming to fill the dark chamber. Maddock looked at the gorged snake and fought the urge to empty his stomach on the sooty flagstones. He closed his eyes and willed himself to stillness.

  “You’ll look at me when I speak to you!” the priest bellowed, and Maddock’s head shot up. “That’s better. Now, what is your name?”

  Maddock’s throat worked as he remembered his assumed muteness, and the priest took a moment before he laughed. “Ah, that’s right. The guards said that you were mute. I should have thought of that before—a speechless man tells no tales. Of course, that assumes that you’d ever have someone to tell tales to. None of my other…assistants have.” The priest darted another fond glance toward the crystal cage. “Very well then. I shall call you…Blackhand, for such you shall surely have before your service to Duke Coren is complete.”

  Maddock was certain that he blanched at the priest’s chortle, but he refrained from speaking aloud. He could not keep his sickened glance, though, from falling on the thread of blood that still trickled across his palm. “So, Blackhand,” the priest continued. “Here is your mission. Our duke needs the Avenger’s poison. One bite, like the coney received, makes her venom flow. The second bite, though, that’s the treasure trove. The poison will drip from the Avenger’s fangs, more copious, thanks to the drug that you consumed. Unfortunately for you, there’s o
nly one way to harvest that wealth. I’ll collect it from your wounds in the few seconds before…it is too late.”

  Zeketh turned to the mantel over the fireplace, showing Maddock a crystal goblet. “I hope you give us a fine harvest. Time is running short. Your flesh might withstand the poison for a few minutes—you look like a strong man. Better than some of the miserable wretches we’ve had here.”

  Maddock shook his head, trying to clear away the cobwebs in his drugged mind. The miserable wretches…Of course, those must be the other men that Bringham’s followers had mentioned; they must be the rebels who had found their way into Coren’s palace, never to escape. What had the men said—three of their fellows had been lost? How many others had been taken to this dungeon, though? How many others who had begged at the postern gate, unnoticed by rebels or dukes? How many men had been offered a meal, drugged, poisoned?

  Shaking his head against the gilded potion that still confused his thoughts, Maddock flashed a defiant glare toward the priest. “Ah,” the tall man crowed. “You have spirit. Fine. The Avenger feeds best on rebellion. Come then. Let the harvest begin.”

  Before Maddock could brace himself, the high priest unlocked the warrior’s golden manacles with a single twist of a suddenly produced key. The same movement brought the priest behind Maddock, forcing his chest against the sharp upper edge of the glass cage. The priest caught Maddock so that his still-bleeding hand was levered over the crystal side, hanging dangerously above the sand pit.

  Maddock bellowed as the priest pushed him, but before he could fight for his freedom, he felt the telltale prick of an iron knife, steady above his vulnerable kidneys. Realizing that he could not waste time on such a mundane threat, Maddock forced himself to focus on the greatest danger in this room of death.

  The Avenger turned toward him, sluggishly flicking her crimson-tipped tongue. The smell of fresh blood apparently excited the beast, and Maddock heard a warning above the pounding of his own heart—the jangle of the animal’s scales as she inflated the fleshy collar about her head. The snake began to weave, mesmerizing the outlander. She swayed back and forth, ignoring the absurd bulge in her gullet, the only remaining evidence of the meal she had consumed only minutes before.

  As Maddock stared at the Avenger, he experienced the cold shock of memory, a shiver of ancient recollection that cut through the Smithcourt drugs. For just a moment, his bavin burned hot against his flesh, stinging sharper than the knife cut across his palm. He thought of Alana Woodsinger, thought of the woodstars that were lashed to every fishing boat among the People.

  And as he remembered those woodstars, he recalled his childhood. As a boy, he had played along the People’s rocky beaches. He had challenged other children to capture the stinging eels that nestled in stony crags along the shore. The eels were long and muscled, with a bulge in their throats where they strained shrimps and small fish. They had sharp teeth and a mean bite; the People’s children dared each other to venture onto the slippery rocks to snare the creatures. They were not good for eating, but their oil burned bright and clean.

  Now, forgetting that he was in a duke’s dungeon, forgetting that he was in danger for his life, forgetting that he was an entire country away from the ocean that had nurtured him and protected him and fed him all his life, Maddock took a deep breath against the edge of the glass cage.

  Blood had filled his cupped palm, and a single shimmering drop fell to the silver sand. Before Maddock could react, the Avenger darted forward, sinking her fangs into the sand, impaling herself on a single ruby pearl of man-blood. Maddock moved before the snake could discover her mistake.

  With his cut hand, he grabbed the serpent behind her neck, using the bulge of digesting rabbit as an anchor for his muscled wrist. Without pausing to think of what would happen if the snake’s jaws worked differently from the stinging eels’, Maddock clamped his thumb and forefinger on either side of the creature’s mouth, forcing her jaws open.

  Fangs glinted in the firelight, pearly with poison, and Maddock whirled toward the mantel. He seized Zeketh’s crystal goblet and caught the snake’s fangs against the cup’s edge, bearing down with all his weight. The Avenger had recovered from her initial surprise, and now she thrashed about her cage, sending up sprays of silver sand. Maddock’s grip slipped because of the blood that slicked his palm, but he dared not shift to a more secure position. Instead, he crushed the snake against the glass walls, trapping the serpent’s head between the sheet of bubbled glass and the crystal goblet’s sharp edge.

  The snake’s venom flowed more freely as she fought to escape. Two drops of poison turned to four and then eight, and Maddock continued to grasp the furious beast. The poison slid down the inside of the crystal goblet like sweetened wine, pooling in the bottom of the cup.

  Even as Maddock stared at the opalescent liquid, he realized that he was not yet done. He needed to release the snake and clear the top of the cage, all without letting the poison touch his own open flesh. He could only use one hand, and he must act soon, or he would have no more strength.

  Already, his right arm was beginning to tremble from the unrelieved exertion. Filling his lungs and planting his feet, Maddock used the last of his strength to shift his grip on the massive snake’s head. With a flip of his wrist, he thrust her toward the far side of the cage, managing at the same time to pull himself safely over the top of the enclosure. Throughout the maneuver, he kept the goblet steady with its precious pool of poison.

  For an instant, the only sound in the room was Maddock’s tortured breathing. Then, he became aware of other noises—of something knocking frantically against glass, of High Priest Zeketh crying out to his Seven Gods.

  Forcing himself to focus, Maddock made out the cause of the commotion. The Avenger writhed on the spiked branch, impaled neatly on the same three thorns that had caught the rotting rabbit. As Maddock watched, the snake’s thrashing increased until the beast snagged her own skin, ripping her flesh in a frenzy to be free. As Maddock stared, the Avenger tore her neck from the branch, twisting enough to sink her fangs into her own tortured side.

  The snake’s demise was as swift as the rabbit’s. The serpent’s venom ate her own flesh, boiling the meat into black corruption. Within seconds, the Avenger’s only remains were a streak of slime and her own vicious fangs, glinting through the cage like deep-ocean pearls.

  Maddock tore his gaze away from the mess, managing to face High Priest Zeketh. As if he intended the motion, he raised his left hand, still grasping the crystal goblet. Just remembering to hold his tongue, he bowed deeply and set the cup in the High Priest’s waiting hands.

  “Ah,” Zeketh said after settling the chalice on the mantel. Maddock read volumes of furious respect in the single word. The priest studied him through eyes that glistened like venom. “Killing the Avenger was a grievous wrong, Blackhand. The Mothersnake will not take well to your action. I’d execute you here and now, but you might still serve the Seven Gods. We still need venom—two more harvests at least. Fortunately for you, we have another of the Mothersnake’s spawn. You’ll meet the Destroyer tomorrow.”

  Then, before Maddock could brace himself, Zeketh reached forward and twisted his golden chains, jerking the outlander upright so abruptly that Maddock thought his arms would be pulled from their sockets. The priest ignored his prisoner’s wordless exclamation, producing his iron key from some deep pocket and shutting the lock on Maddock’s manacles. Before the outlander could struggle, Zeketh forced him out of the snake’s room, back to the antechamber and the door at the bottom of the stairs.

  Belatedly, the two soldiers sprang to attention, and even through the screen of his drugged, exhausted vision, Maddock realized that they had never expected to see a live prisoner emerge from the inner chamber. The older man recovered first, jumping forward as Zeketh growled, “Remember, men. You have not seen me, not here in Coren’s palace. It will be your lives if I hear otherwise.”

  Both guards assented and bowed their necks, and then th
ey chivvied Maddock up the twisting stairs. Zeketh disappeared back into the smoky dungeon room, shutting the door with an ominous thud.

  Maddock could barely make his legs climb the endless steps. Why were the guards to pretend that they had not seen Zeketh? What had happened in that dungeon room? What did Zeketh want with the deadly poison? And what, in the name of all the Guardians, was the Mothersnake?

  After a lifetime of climbing, Maddock was shoved into his chamber. “Cursed fool!” the older soldier spat. “Now we’ll have to stand guard the rest of the night. You!” the man snarled at his companion. “Keep an eye on him. I’m going to get our evening rations.”

  The door slammed on the younger soldier’s protest, and Maddock sprawled on the floor, trying to catch his breath. What evil did Coren intend to work with the poison? Was he going to murder Bringham, or one of his other rivals? That made no sense—there were easier means of assassination. Perhaps he intended to make an example of Jobina and Landon, to execute them so that they became a hideous lesson to any who would rebel against the duke? No sense there, either. One twist of rope was all he needed to dispatch the rebel pursuers—a good executioner could teach many an object lesson without the showmanship of the Avenger’s poison.

  Shivering, Maddock pulled himself to his knees and dragged his aching body across the small room. He was thirsty; his throat burned as if he had lived in the Avenger’s silver desert for decades.

  He lifted the hammered metal to his lips before he smelled the metallic drug. Of course, the water would be tainted. With a prisoner’s certainty, Maddock knew that he could slake his thirst, he could drink, and awake tomorrow, and find another snake, the Destroyer. And, if he were strong enough, he’d find yet another serpent. And maybe even another, even the Mothersnake.