Scion of the Serpent Read online

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Teferi leap from the rooftop to the hay pile below. He bounced to his feet and again raised the bow.

  Anok drew his two smaller swords just in time to fend off attacks from both directions at once.

  Another arrow felled the man to his right.

  Someone else slipped past, running for the gate carrying a spear. Three steps past the gate, the spear-carrier fell dead, an arrow in his eye.

  Anok dived between the two bodies of attackers into the garden, rolling down a gravel path and coming up next to a waist-high rock that offered him some cover.

  He could see Teferi, closer now, walking slowly across the street, pulling off shot after shot, a towering engine of death, though Anok could see his quiver was almost empty.

  Anok smiled as he deflected one sword while ducking under the arc of another. Wosret never thought archers were any good in the city. Perhaps I’ll remind him of that before I kill him!

  The rock offered Anok a brief advantage, as he could keep his defenses high and limit the arc of his opponents’ swings. But it hindered him as well, and the longer he stood there, the more attackers arrived to challenge him.

  Enough!

  “For Sheriti!” He stepped from his cover and began to advance toward the house, where he knew Wosret hid.

  Anok’s blades danced through the air so rapidly they were almost invisible, flashing like the wings of a dragon-fly. Outnumbered six to one, he drove them back, taught them fear.

  He knew he had never fought better or harder. Grant me this one battle.

  He pushed the men back. Beyond them, he saw Teferi, surrounded by three armored men, holding his own, but barely. The big Kushite had never been as skilled with the sword as the bow, yet he answered the call. “For Sheriti!”

  The big man’s strength seemed to double. One attacker’s broadsword was knocked from his hands, another’s sword hand was crushed against a garden statue by the heavy pommel of Teferi’s sword.

  But then he misstepped, only a tiny stumble, but it put him off-balance. The remaining attacker swatted his sword aside.

  One of Anok’s attackers fell, his throat sliced open, and Anok charged over him as he fell, changing his direction to rush to Teferi’s aid.

  Again the attacker’s broadsword swung, knocking the sword from Teferi’s hand.

  Anok felt a glancing slice across his rib, felt the hot blood running down his side.

  The attacker swung his sword around, over his head, plunging it down point first into Teferi’s chest.

  Anok saw Teferi looking up. He knew what was coming.

  There was no fear in his eyes.

  Anok ran, knowing he would be too slow. The sword fell from his left hand and he stretched out toward Teferi, as though he could somehow reach out and stop the blade.

  Desperately, Anok yelled, but instead of a warning, something totally unexpected, even to him, escaped his lips.

  As the sword, came down, time seemed to slow for Anok. He saw the point pierce effortlessly into Teferi’s ebony breast, set on a clear course for his heart.

  And the word came:

  “Water!”

  The blade, still plunging turned transparent as glass.

  Transparent as—water!

  The sword held its shape for an incalculable moment, then broke into a cascade, a splash that spilled against Teferi’s chest and momentarily washed away the blood from his now-open wound.

  For a moment, attacker and attacked stared at each other, transfixed with wonder. Then Teferi pulled a long dagger from his belt. It flashed up, plunging hard and deep under the man’s armpit.

  In little more time than it took for them to beat, one heart was traded for another.

  Anok’s attention returned to his own situation. He was down to a single, short sword, and still his attackers came.

  Teferi was down.

  Anok’s advantage was gone, his dance of death ended.

  And somehow he knew that the spell of water was spent and could not be used again so soon.

  They were lost, Sheriti’s vengeance undone, unless—

  He felt in his heart for the cold fire of rage that still burned there, and he threw open the floodgates that kept it in check.

  Vengeance! The snake branded into his arm seemed to burn like a smith’s forge.

  He plunged the remaining sword into the gut of an attacker and stepped back, leaving it there. He raised his hands.

  The nearest guard charged at him, sword high, ready to slice him in half.

  “Melt!”

  As he’d seen in the temple that day, the man’s bones lost all substance. He fell like a loose tapestry, falling helplessly on his own sword. He lay there like a beached jellyfish pierced by a stick.

  The other men hesitated, their eyes wide.

  He raised his hands.

  They bolted and ran.

  The way was clear to the house. Teferi forgotten, he marched forward relentlessly.

  He marched into the entry hall. Another guard charged at him with a spear.

  “Burn!”

  The wooden shaft of the spear burst into flame, and the man threw it down. His eyes went wide with horror, then seemed ready to bulge out of his head. His skin began to bubble as the blood boiled in his veins. He fell screaming, a torrent of steam shooting from his mouth.

  Onward, Anok marched. Down the hall from which the spearman had come.

  A manservant stood at the entrance to the cellar and watched him with alarm. As Anok approached, the man took down a mace from where it hung on the wall and stepped toward him.

  He held up his hand. “Bleed!”

  The servant stared in horror as blood oozed from under his fingernails, then popped out of his arms and chest like sweat. It ran in rivers from his nose, like tears from his eyes, and he gasped a liquid gasp of blood and fell on the floor dead.

  Anok turned slowly.

  From a doorway, Wosret looked at him, his eyes wide with terror.

  “Anok Wati,” he said desperately, “I have no quarrel with you!”

  “It wasn’t me you killed, was it, Wosret?”

  Wosret stepped backward through the door, into a wine cellar, a wall torch revealing rows of wine jars stacked on their sides to the low ceiling.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about! I killed no one!”

  Anok laughed. “Liar! You kill every day! Do you even notice it anymore, or is it like the swatting of a fly?”

  “You dare say this? You, who are soaked to the skin with the blood of my guards.”

  “They attacked me, Wosret. Unlike you, I have a code of honor. I told you to leave me and mine alone, and if you had but honored that pledge—”

  “I don’t know—”

  Anok cut him off with a wave of his hand. Lies! He felt the power surging in him, the anger like a roaring flame in his heart. Wosret had to die.

  As if in answer to his silent request, a tiny white head popped from between two of the jars behind Wosret. Unseen by him, it looked out with blind eyes, tasting the air with its flickering black tongue.

  Then another appeared, on the other side of Wosret, nearer the floor, a bit of its body emerging and hanging down in a curl.

  Then another.

  Then two more.

  Then a dozen.

  Anok noticed a metal grate near Wosret’s left foot that probably led to the sewers. As he did, a wave of squirming white bodies boiled up through it.

  Wosret saw them and screamed like a woman, falling back against the stack of wine. In response, dozens of tiny snakes struck, their teeth setting into his flesh like hooks into a fish, their outstretched bodies pulling him tight against the wall of jars, while their fellows rolled up over his feet and up his legs like a wave.

  He screamed.

  Up they came, waist high, tiny white heads plunging in, emerging streaked with blood, falling away to be replaced by a dozen more squirming fellows.

  Out from behind the jars they c
ame by the hundreds, covering his hands, his arms.

  Wosret screamed and howled. With a mighty effort, he pulled one arm from the squirming mass behind him, only to hold it before his face and see naked bone as the snakes fell free of his fingers.

  Up they came, until they covered his face and plunged into his screaming mouth like water closing over a drowning man.

  A line of bloodied white bodies flowed back into the drain.

  “What a terrible death,” said Anok to himself. Then he threw back his head and laughed.

  Still he felt the power in him. It ran through his veins like poison, and he liked it. Still the rage burned for—what was her name?

  It didn’t matter.

  He looked up at the stairs and wondered who else was left to kill. Please let there be someone else to kill!

  Then—happy day!—he heard heavy footsteps coming down the stairs, the scrape of a drawn sword accidentally touching stone.

  His lips curled up in a smile. He held up his hands, fingers curled, feeling the power rushing up in him like a mighty tide, building to—something.

  Oh. This would be very good.

  Outside there was thunder, though the sky had been cloudless when he’d entered the house.

  He heard someone outside, saw the point of a broadsword slip through the door.

  The sky rumbled.

  The enemy stepped through—tall—menacing. He had no chance.

  Anok opened his mouth and prepared to bring down the fire—

  “Anok!”

  He took a deep breath, and on the exhale—“Ligh—”

  “Brother!”

  He blinked. “Teferi?” He blinked again, at last recognizing his friend, who stood leaning against the doorway, eyes wide, sword hanging from his hand, a blood-soaked wad of yellow silk clutched to his chest.

  Teferi’s voice had stopped him, but the power still raged, demanded release. He thought of the man whose blood had boiled. That would be nothing compared to the rage that boiled within him.

  The snakes were gone. As Teferi watched, Wosret’s skeleton, picked clean, fell forward and clattered to the floor.

  “Brother, what have you done?”

  Anok’s body writhed in pain, his fists clenched, his nerves burned. He had called forth the fist of Set, and it would have to fall.

  It wanted its target.

  It wanted Teferi.

  “No!” He gasped. “No!”

  But the fist must fall.

  He looked at Teferi, who looked back.

  To Anok’s eternal regret, as he looked into Teferi’s eyes, this time there was fear—

  He brought down his fists, throwing his hands open, as though trying to shake the blood off onto the ground.

  Lightning!

  In a blue flash, the world exploded.

  FOR GENERATIONS TO come, they would tell of the day.

  Of the day when the black cloud appeared out of the empty sky, hovering over the White Scorpions’ stronghold, its surface boiling like a cook pot, flashes of lightning playing over its surface, until, in one great stroke, the lightning fell.

  Some said there were ten bolts. Some said a hundred. Mostly it was Odji, and lacking the skills to count, they just said “many.”

  Many onlookers were blind for days, and when sight did return to those stunned witnesses who could still see, nothing remained of the stronghold but a pile of rubble the height of a man’s knees. No stick of wood, no rock, no shaft of iron bigger than a man’s fist was left.

  Of the White Scorpions who defended the place, nothing remained but shards of bone and hunks of blackened meat that the dogs fought over long into the night.

  23

  RAMI ARRIVED BACK in Odji shortly after dawn the next day. He’d been gambling in a village an hour’s walk south of the city, stealing the farmers blind with a little sleight of hand and some loaded dice. He’d managed to slip back to the waterfront before they’d figured him out, stolen a boat, and rowed his way back to the harbor.

  Even where he’d been, they’d heard the thunder. The farmers, who were attuned to matters of weather, had been mystified by it, given the clear skies, but Rami had thought only about the take.

  It was only after he tied up at the harbor, sold the boat for a handful of silver, and walked up the hill to his old haunts that he heard the whispers. Lord Wosret was dead, they said, the White Scorpions mostly dead, those that survived were scattered, often seeking the mercy of other gang lords.

  It was all so strange, so unbelievable. Who could have done such a thing?

  He wound his way through the Great Marketplace, overhearing bits of conversation. He was passing a poisoner’s booth when he heard something that made him linger. He heard someone say, “—saw it with his own eyes.”

  He slipped in, pretending to examine a rack of potions, and listened as an old woman talked to the poisoner.

  “—his brother was one of the Scorpions assigned to Lord Wosret’s guard, and he was wounded early in the battle. He fled across the street, and thus survived to tell the tale. It was Anok Wati!”

  The poisoner looked incredulous. “The Raven boy?”

  “A grown man now, and from his robe, joined the cult, he did. Brought down the sky on them all, he did.” She leaned closer. “Sorcery,” she said in a too-loud whisper.

  Rami grunted and slipped out of the booth, redoubling his pace, as he headed toward the White Scorpion compound. He knew the way well. It wasn’t far beyond the market, at the foot of the closest hills.

  He arrived to find crowds of people circling the site. But where the house had once stood, there was nothing. He pushed his way through. Many came to stare and gawk, but nobody seemed brave enough to stand upon the site itself.

  Rami pushed on through. It certainly wasn’t courage. It was the absolute certainty that whatever horrors had been unleashed there, they had played themselves out. As for the rest, he had to see it for himself.

  He marched past the circle of onlookers, across the debris-scattered street and onto the low mound of rubble. Here and there he saw a recognizable object, a broken cup, a spearhead, half of a comb carved from shell. He spotted something glinting in the dirt and reached down to pull out a jeweled stickpin made from silver. Looking around to see if anyone was paying attention, he slipped it into his shoulder bag.

  But mostly, he saw pulverized stone and splintered wood, pounded down to almost nothing. He wandered around, kicking his way through the stone, looking for other treasures, and thinking.

  First Sheriti—what a waste!—and now this. He’d warned Teferi that no good would come of it. He’d said the same thing when he heard Anok was joining the cult. He knew it was all going bad, which was why he’d contrived an excuse to leave Khemi completely for a while. He’d had no idea how bad it could be. Well, his older brother had warned him to stop hanging around with people who had scruples. “Honor is for fools and weaklings,” he’d said. Now it was just for the dead.

  He reached into his bag, fingering the stickpin. That was a pretty good-sized stone. He wondered if it was an emerald, or just crystal? Perhaps he should be satisfied with his prize, whatever it was, and be on his way from this cursed place.

  He wondered what was left at the Nest that might be worth stealing.

  He turned around and was about to leave when he heard the noise.

  He turned back and listened.

  Nothing.

  Perhaps he’d just imagined it.

  Then he heard it again. A tapping, scraping noise. It was coming from under the rubble!

  He wondered if there were rats down there, digging for buried corpses. He knelt trying to hear better.

  Then a stone rolled back, and Rami yelped as a large bone poked out of the ground, almost hitting him in the nose, then vanished back into a hole in the ground. Rami fell backward sprawled in the rubble.

  He stared at the hole, wondering how far he should run, and how fast, when he heard a voice, muffled by the earth. “Rami! Is that yo
u? It sounded like you.”

  Oh, gods, the place was haunted.

  “Is anybody there?”

  It was Anok’s restless spirit, come back to haunt him!

  “Rami, you ass, get help!”

  Cautiously, timidly, Rami crawled over to the hole on hands and knees and, with greatest reluctance, peered inside. The hole was narrow for a foot or so, and then seemed to widen out below. He was startled to see Anok’s face looking back at him, illuminated by an eerie bluish glow. “Anok, is it really you?”

  Anok glared at him. “Get help! Do you know how hard it is to dig your way out of a cellar using only a gang lord’s hipbone?”

  24

  IT TOOK TWO hours to dig them out.

  While they were still digging, Anok sent Rami to find a healer, who was waiting to tend Teferi’s wounds as soon as they pulled him from the hole. He’d lost quite a bit of blood, but he was in good spirits, considering there had been plenty of wine to help deaden his pain.

  Anok had made them take Teferi out first, then he’d climbed out on his own. As he emerged into the sun, he wiped the blood off the back of the Jewel of the Moon and slipped it into his bag.

  While they bandaged Teferi, Rami took advantage of the delay to set up an instant business, selling jugs of wine from the cellar for two gold pieces each, more than twice what they were worth at market.

  Anok looked at him counting the coins and shook his head. “Is there anything you won’t try to turn a profit on?”

  He grinned. “I’d sell tickets to my grandmother’s funeral if there was some silver in it.”

  Yet when Anok took a step closer, Rami suddenly jumped back like a scared rabbit. “Whoa! No! I don’t want any of that bad magic rubbing off on me. I did my part here today, but that’s it. I’m taking my coin and leaving. I don’t want anything else to do with you or the Ravens, which I guess now just means you two, ever again!”

  Anok nodded. “I understand.”

  Rami swept up the last of the coins and threw them into his bag. “See that you do.” Then he was gone.