Scion of the Serpent Read online

  He leaned close to the woman. She smelled of sweat, leather, and—surprisingly—flowers. “Quiet,” he said.

  He tried to quiet his own ragged breathing and still his heart pounding in his ears, straining to hear any sign of pursuit.

  “They are coming,” the woman said, matter-of-factly.

  “You’re sure.”

  “They move slowly in the name of stealth, but they are coming. By Crom’s name I swear it.”

  Crom? Who was Crom? It didn’t matter. “Up ahead,” he said, “there are iron gates, used to close off part of the alley to pen the mules that haul wood for the ovens and kilns. We can bar them behind us and escape through the other end of the alley. If they catch us, it will only be after a long detour.”

  “Then lead on, Anok of the Ravens.”

  He trotted down the narrow alley, hearing her right behind. “Just Anok,” he said. “You have a name?”

  “Fallon of Clan Murrogh.”

  “Fallon,” he said, slowing his pace.

  Ahead, a wall with a narrow archway cut across the alley. He could barely see the wall, and had to find the arched opening by touch. “Through here,” he said.

  Once again by feel, he found the iron bars of the hinged door. It swung shut with a screech of metal and a loud clang, which would doubtless be heard by their pursuers. If all went well, it wouldn’t matter.

  He found the heavy iron bar he knew would be leaning against the alley wall and jammed it through a pair of iron rings in the door. A metal pin hanging from a chain on the wall locked the bar in place, and, for good measure, he grabbed the top of the pin with both hands and threw his weight against it. The thin metal bent, then snapped off at the top, leaving the end of the pin stuck inside the catch.

  “Come on. There’s another gate, then we’ll be away.”

  He ran another fifty paces down the alley to where he knew the second wall and archway awaited. His fingers found the edge of the masonry arch, but the barred door was not where it should have been.

  For a moment, he was confused, until he stuck his hand into the archway and jammed his fingers painfully into a metal bar. The door was closed! He grabbed the bars with both hands and pulled. Locked!

  Fallon came up beside him, tested the door with both hands, then threw her weight against it, hard. The door simply rattled. “You’ve trapped us!”

  “This door should be open! It’s always left open at night!”

  “Indeed, it was this night as well,” a familiar voice came from the far side of the gate, “until I came along.”

  “Dejal! Let us though.”

  Anok could see nothing in the darkness, not even a silhouette.

  The answer was only smug laughter.

  “Open the gate! I hear them up the alley!”

  A soft blue light made Dejal’s chiseled features visible to him, and Anok noticed the full moon peeking out from behind a ragged veil of black clouds.

  “Perhaps, brother Raven, we can come to an arrangement.”

  “Open the gate, Dejal!”

  “Give me the Scale.”

  “The what?”

  “The Scale of Set. The gold medallion you collected from the pirates. It is mine.”

  “This—Scale is paid for.”

  He laughed softly. “Paid for by me. I’m your mysterious employer, Anok. A gift of one last adventure for the fabulous Ravens.”

  “That, and an arrow into the captain’s neck?”

  “As I said, Anok, one last adventure . . .”

  Anok heard voices up the alley behind them.

  “Let us through, Dejal. They’re coming!”

  “Indeed, and there are more at the end of the street behind me. Give me the Scale. I’ll show you a hiding place and lead the others away.”

  Anok turned and boldly reached down between the barbarian woman’s breasts, grabbing the Scale. She gasped, but he was too fast. He turned back to Dejal, the cool metal of the Scale against his hand, and hesitated.

  He’d known Dejal for years, since his first days as an orphan on the streets. They had faced death back-to-back dozens of times. And he was strangely shocked to realize that Dejal didn’t trust him and equally aware that he no longer trusted Dejal.

  What was this Scale? Why was it so valuable? And who would Dejal be willing to kill for it? Anok did not know why it would be so important to anyone but him. His own reasons were purely personal—on so he’d thought.

  He gripped the medallion tightly in his hand until its thin edges cut into his fingers. He felt a tingle, like the warning shock just before lightning strikes. There could be no doubt that this was an object of mystic power, a fact that made him even less eager to be rid of it.

  “I don’t have a choice, do I?”

  “No, you don’t.”

  Although it galled Anok, he handed the medallion through to Dejal, who slid it inside his robe. There was a thoughtful pause, before Dejal stepped out of view. Anok heard him fumbling with the lock, then the metal bolt was pulled back. He hesitated before fully withdrawing the bolt, looking past Anok. “Should we kill the barbarian woman? It would be easier to cover your escape if I could produce at least one fresh corpse.”

  Behind him, Anok heard Fallon smoothly draw her sword.

  “Fallon and I have an arrangement. And if I were you, I’d favor watching how you use say ‘barbarian,’ if you value your extremities. You’ll show us both the hiding place.”

  Dejal sighed and pulled the bolt the rest of the way. “Very well, then. Follow me.”

  Fallon glanced at Dejal as she passed him, her sword high between them. “Say it,” she said, “but say it with respect!”

  Dejal led them to the end of what Anok knew was a dead-end street and down a narrow alleyway. After a dozen steps, it widened into a courtyard surrounded by low, arched, doorways almost too small for a man. “Bread ovens,” Dejal explained. “Climb inside this one.”

  Anok hesitated.

  Dejal chuckled. “What? You think I’d bake you for my breakfast? Get in.”

  Anok practically had to crawl to pass through the low archway, and the interior was nearly dark, except for a circle of sky he could see through the chimney above. The floor of the oven was thick stone, still the slightest bit warm from the day’s baking and covered with a residue of some kind of coarsely ground meal. At the back of the oven it became slightly warmer, and he felt for the stone grate leading down to the firebox under the oven.

  Fallon crawled in behind him.

  He saw Dejal’s face dimly as he leaned down and peered through the door. “I’m going to roll the cover stone in place, then I’ll lead the others away from here. If you value your lives, you won’t try to follow me or leave here before dawn.”

  Anok didn’t like the sound of any of it, but they had little choice. Any attempt to fight their way out would be suicide. He could only hope that Dejal had no hidden reason not to keep his word.

  The round cover stone, set in a slot in the stone just outside the door, began to roll into place. It was quite heavy. Just as the light from the door had almost disappeared, the stone stopped. Dejal’s face appeared just for a moment, then he tossed something inside. It landed on the floor with a muffled rattle. “Payment as agreed, and more,” he said. “I recovered the gems the pirate dropped. They’re yours. This Scale of Set will secure my position in the temple and is worth far more than the price paid”—he chuckled—“in my father’s money.” He hesitated. “That thing I mentioned earlier? Last chance.”

  “You have my answer.”

  He frowned. “Farewell then, Anok. I am Raven no more.”

  Then the stone rolled the rest of the way. Anok put his back against the wall of the oven and slid down it to sit on the floor. He heard Fallon sit down next to him.

  They said nothing for a long time, quietly listening for sounds of pursuit or discovery. They heard a group of acolytes, perhaps the ones who had originally pursued them, their voices growing closer. Then they moved away, and
the two fugitives heard nothing, save the sniffing and whine of wild dogs searching the streets for scraps, and the distant screams of those wretched souls captured for temple sacrifice.

  Even as his eyes adjusted, it was too dark to see Fallon sitting next to him, except for a vague impression of movement when she shifted position. He could smell her, though, her sweat, the coppery smell of the fresh blood that covered them both. The hearth was cooling in the night chill, and he could even feel the heat of her body where it was close to his. Despite the danger, his blood raced, and not at all from fear.

  He heard her unstrap her sword and put it on the floor near at hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, removed his as well. It did little to ease the distrust between them. Sitting, their weapons were actually easier to draw.

  Fallon finally broke the silence. “I have heard tales, that the morning after Festival in Khemi the sewers are so gorged with blood it streams far out to sea. But I never believed such foolishness. There isn’t that much blood in a body, or that many bodies in all the city.”

  “I have seen it, with my own eyes. I don’t know how it can be, but it is. Some say there is dark magic at work. Some say vast caravans of virgins are brought in across the desert on moonless nights to be sacrificed at Festival. Some say the followers of Set have a magic potion that can make people bleed like fountains and prolong their deaths, or to turn the entire body, flesh and bone, into blood. I can only say that many die. If you’d stayed on the streets, your captain and crew would have been dead anyway.”

  She sniffed in contempt. “As if I care for their fates. They were bad pirates and worse companions. I’m well rid of them.”

  “Your loyalty is touching.”

  “A pirate’s loyalty is earned, not given by duty. They did nothing to earn mine. I was going to take my share of the booty and go my own way. There are many wild tales of Stygia, why not see if any of them are true?”

  “Too many are, I fear, as you’d soon have discovered.”

  She laughed. “A Cimmerian fears no man, devil or monster. We live for battle.”

  “Is that so? Because you’ll find all three are common enough here, sometimes all in one body. If you have any sense at all, you’ll sign with the first crew that will have you and never come back.”

  “Then why do you stay? You have Stygian blood, but I sense you are no Stygian.”

  He hesitated to answer. Or did he even have an answer? “I am my father’s son, and he was an Aquilonian trader. But this cursed place is the only home I have ever known, and it is where he died. I can say only that I have unfinished business here, though even I am not sure what it is.”

  “Revenge?”

  “Once I would have relished it, but my father preached against it.”

  “A wise man, then. Unless there is treasure in it, what good is revenge?”

  “I’d feel safer then, if we didn’t have these jewels here.”

  She laughed. “I’ve been thinking about those.”

  Unconsciously, his right hand moved toward one of his swords. “Thinking what?”

  “That they are mine by right. The trinket was delivered, and the rest of the crew is dead or run away.”

  “It was delivered because I hunted you down and found it.”

  “Your fellow, the acolyte, double-crossed us and killed our captain.” There was anger in her voice. Not desperate, but the dire, warning anger of a growling animal. “What was I to do then?”

  He hesitated. “I would have done the same.”

  “The jewels are mine, then.”

  He considered. He would have paid those jewels for the Scale anyway, and she did not know of the others jewels hidden in his tunic or those he had already distributed among his fellows. Anok’s reputation for fairness, often at his own expense, was legend on the streets of Odji, and part of the reason the Ravens’ services had always been in demand.

  But neither was he known as a fool. Hadn’t the woman forsaken any right to the payment when she had deserted her crewmates? And would she cut his throat anyway the moment he nodded off, no matter what he offered her?

  “You can have half.”

  She laughed derisively. “Half? Why should I settle for half?”

  “Because it’s more than nothing, which is what I should give you.”

  She was silent for a while. “That was a fair bag of gems, enough to keep me in drink and luxury for some time. Any more, and I might go soft and lose my fighting edge. Where would I be then?”

  “Half.”

  “I’ll consider it.”

  Again, she was silent for a while. Outside, he could hear the dogs fighting over some scrap, or at least, he hoped that was all it was.

  He heard Fallon making a noise. She seemed to be adjusting her garments. “The night will be long,” she said, “and cold.”

  He was startled as some thrown object slapped into his chest. Leather. It took him a moment to figure out that it was her tunic. By then, another piece of leather hit him, and he more quickly guessed it was her loincloth. He wondered if it was a trick. If so, it was an interesting one. “This is a curious action for one who claims to be cold.”

  He heard her move in the darkness, but nothing that indicated she had picked up her sword. That didn’t mean she hadn’t taken a knife or dagger from her clothing as she undressed. He casually reached back and pulled his own dagger from where it was tucked in his belt, and held it behind his back.

  Then she moved closer, straddling his legs. He reached forward with his free hand, and encountered only bare, soft, flesh, slightly sticky with partially dried blood. Her nipple pressed hard against his palm, and, despite his caution, his body did not hesitate to respond.

  Her hands, both of them he noted, rubbed across his chest, pulling open his jerkin to find naked skin. “There are better ways to stay warm,” she said.

  “I thought we were still trying to decide if we were going to have to kill each other over these jewels.”

  “There’s time for that in the morning. As for now, can you tell me that all this danger and battle has not stirred your blood as it has mine?” She reached back until her right hand rested on his bare thigh, then slid upward, under his kilt. She laughed, huskily. “I see that it has.” She reached down to fumble with the belt holding his kilt.

  He softly laid down his dagger next to his sword and used the freed hand to help her. He could feel her breath against his ear, quick and ragged. “We’ve crossed swords in battle, and I found you a worthy adversary. Now I would test your mettle once again.”

  “And I yours,” he said, as she lifted herself enough to pull his kilt down around his knees, then settled back down on him.

  She took a deep breath, and let it out in a shuddering gasp.

  He hooked one arm around the back of her head, and pulled her lips hard against his as her hips began to move.

  The night might be long, but it was certainly no longer cold.

  4

  THE LIGHT OF a clear blue sky shining through the open chimney woke Anok, and he blinked against the glare.

  His first thought was to curse himself for having fallen asleep. His second was to wonder that he was still alive. His third was of the warm barbarian flesh pressed tightly against his own. Fallon spooned against his side, her dark hair soft against his chest. Without thinking he reached down and stroked it.

  Her eyes snapped open, wide and instantly searching for danger. She probably regretted falling asleep as much as he did. He wondered if she regretted anything else. She sat up, and he realized that, despite their night of passion, he was seeing her naked for the first time. She brushed a coating of meal, picked up from the floor, off her dusky skin. The powder had acted as a dry bath, removing most of the blood and sweat from the previous evening’s adventures.

  He was mesmerized by the sight of her, the graceful blending of hard and soft, angular and curved, those places no longer secret to him but until now unseen. He found himself wanting her again and knew it was
not likely to be.

  She noticed him watching her and seemed slightly disapproving. But she picked up her clothing and dressed casually, making no special effort to hide herself in the process. She clearly had no more modesty than a wild animal, but an all-too-human awareness of what power her nakedness had over others. Doubtless, in certain circumstances, she treated it as just another weapon, like a knife or a spear. The fact that he was still alive suggested that it would not be used so on this occasion.

  Beyond the cover stone, he could hear sounds from outside. Not screams, or chants, or packs of hungry dogs, but the mundane sounds of the street, people talking, carts and livestock, the sounds of tradesmen working.

  She looked at him as she strapped on her sword. “Half, you said? You’ve earned my respect, Anok of Ravens. For that reason alone, I’ll settle for your offer.”

  Anok recovered his tunic and kilt. His unsheathed dagger still sat in a corner near the wall. If she had noticed it, and he suspected that very little escaped her attention, she gave no sign.

  He dressed in silence, finally recovering his dagger and strapping on his two swords. Trying not to be too obvious about it, he checked his purse and hidden pockets. If anything was missing, he could not detect it. He dumped out the bag of gems out on the floor, counting out two even shares where she could see. She watched him intently, her eyes never leaving the gems. She trusts me, but only so far.

  Finally, he scooped up half and deposited them in his own purse. He tossed her the empty bag so she could collect the rest.

  She had just finished gathering her bounty when the cover stone rolled back.

  Anok turned and looked into the wide eyes of a Shemite baker-woman. Before he could speak, he reached into his purse and tossed her a silver coin. “Rent, for use of your oven for the night.” He glanced back at Fallon and grinned.