A smile of savage satisfaction crept up the woman’s lips and she nodded. Oh yes, fool! she seemed to gloat.
For the log or cylinder was not smooth. It was scaled in serried rows and those plate-sized scales pulsed opalescent. It was alive and it was easily of great enough girth to swallow the entire ship.
Slowly, step by step, she eased her way to K’azz’s side. They had all gathered around him. Gwynn’s white hair now stood up as if in utter fright and he carried his staff readied in both hands. Lor-sinn had thrown off her robes and now stood in a thin white silk blouse, the sleeves pushed up her arms. Her Warren was raised, for Shimmer could make out the aura of cobalt mage-fire dancing about her hands and in her eyes. Cole, Turgal and Amatt had ranged themselves before K’azz. Turgal had readied his broad infantryman’s shield. Amatt held his two-handed blade, sheathed, in one hand.
‘What is it?’ Shimmer asked of Gwynn.
‘It is a Worm of the Earth,’ he answered grimly. ‘A scion of D’rek.’
‘Older than D’rek,’ K’azz answered as if distracted, gazing over the river.
Gwynn frowned at this and eyed his commander as if troubled. Shimmer resolved to question the mage later as to why — should there be a later for any of them. For here was a foe before which even they, Avowed of the Crimson Guard, were helpless.
Nagal urged Rutana forward. Clutching at the mass of amulets that clacked and swung from her neck, she gingerly crossed the littered deck. The Serpent’s foredeck couldn’t really be called a forecastle in that it was quite low, rising less than Shimmer’s height. It narrowed to a long steeply raked bowsprit. Past this, Shimmer caught movement far upriver: a swelling bulge sweeping the waters as of something immense beneath shifting sluggishly. A sudden bizarre thought struck her then and she almost laughed aloud at its insanity. How long was this beast and did it follow the entire course of the river — or did the course of the river follow it?
Nagal, his long hair hanging free down nearly to his waist, grasped Rutana’s wrist and lowered her out over the side of the Serpent. The Avowed crowded the side as he did so. Shimmer could not speak for her fellow Guards, but she felt a sort of shamefaced embarrassment that this woman should be the one to have to act on their behalf. That, and enormous relief.
Leaning far out and showing almost inhuman strength, Nagal gingerly lowered the sinewy woman into the water until she came to rest upon the back of the colossal beast. Up to her waist in the waters she bent over, hands extended. She murmured and whispered as she rubbed the beast’s back.
Shimmer shared an awed glance with Lor-sinn who blew out a breath, suitably impressed. K’azz’s angular, bony face revealed only a calm detachment, as if he were merely a disinterested observer and none of this had any bearing upon them.
After a time Shimmer noted another of the unaccountably large waves disturb the surface of the river. It wove up and down towards them until it reached their position and Shimmer caught her breath as the monstrous girth shifted, rolling, and taking Rutana with it. She disappeared into the murky rust-hued waves. Shimmer looked to Nagal, but the man did not appear dismayed; rather, he scanned the waters as if confident of her reappearance.
A grating and scraping shook the decking beneath their feet. The Serpent shuddered. Shimmer imagined shield-sized scales gouging wood as they shifted. The bow fell, rocking, and it was apparent to her that the ship had sunk far lower in the water than before. They now had no more freeboard above the waves than the length of her arm.
A splash sounded followed by a gasp and there was Rutana. She threw back her head, her thick mane of kinky hair tossing spray. She swam for the Serpent. Nagal reached out again and they clasped wrists and he lifted her up on to the deck. She stood in her sodden layered dresses, water pouring from her. She lifted her chin to them as if in defiance. Her lips were tightly clenched, utterly colourless.
K’azz inclined his head as if to say, well done.
She tossed her hair again, her eyes flashing, and Shimmer’s disquiet grew. For the witch’s eyes had shone a golden yellow at that instant, and it seemed to her that the pupils were slit like those of a serpent as well.
‘And what was that?’ Shimmer asked, her voice hoarse with disuse.
The wiry woman shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘You could call it a guardian, I suppose. Some say they are drawn here by our mistress. Or perhaps they have merely been driven out of all other regions.’
Like you, Shimmer suddenly realized. Like these creatures, you and Nagal are worshippers of Ardata and no more human than they. You don’t want us, you said. Why do you resent K’azz? Is it because he is human? Are you afraid of losing your goddess, Rutana?
The woman clamped her lips tight once again, as if regretting even these few words. A shudder took her bony frame, perhaps from the cold, and she lifted her pointed chin upriver. ‘We are close now.’ She turned away.
Shimmer looked to her Avowed brethren. Cole blew out a breath as if to say, thank the gods! Amatt drew off his great helm revealing his scarred cheeks and ragged beard. He sent a scowl to the waters. Turgal likewise began unbuckling his rusted armour. The cerulean flickerings of Lor-sinn’s Warren energies died away and the woman sat heavily on a hatch-cover as if her legs could no longer support her weight. K’azz had already turned away and now stood facing the waters once more, his sinewy hands clasped behind his back. Gwynn met Shimmer’s gaze; somehow the man appeared even more unfriendly and gloomy than usual. She gestured him to her. He raised a snowy brow then came to her side.
‘Yes?’
She turned away to face the passing waters and reaching jungle branches. Shapes undulated just below the murky waves alongside the vessel. From their spiked back-ridges she knew them as giant sturgeon. ‘Good eating, those,’ she said, motioning to the fish.
The mage pursed his lips, his eyes questioning. ‘So I have heard.’
Shimmer tried to recall her last meal, failed. She spoke as if distracted. ‘You say you never came to the interior?’
He straightened, nodding. ‘Yes.’
‘You heard no rumours? No hints of what we might be facing?’
The older mage’s lips drew up as if the questioning amused him. ‘I heard many rumours.’
‘What were your duties, then, during the time you were here?’
‘As I said. We were in the south. Skinner ordered a port city built.’
‘So it was his plan to open the country to trade and travel?’
‘Yes … Eventually.’
‘Eventually?’
He shrugged his rounded shoulders. ‘The coast is a treacherous swamp. There are no suitable quarries. The fever of chilling-sweats is rampant — people died in droves. These beast Soletaken raided us, dragging men and women into the jungle. We lost many workers and constantly had to raid the villages to procure more.’
Shimmer stared despite herself. She had no idea Skinner’s rule had been that terrible. ‘I didn’t know,’ she breathed.
The old mage winced, hunching even more. ‘I’m not proud of it.’
‘You refused to return.’
‘Yes. I couldn’t go back.’
She then asked, swiftly, in an effort to catch an unguarded reaction, ‘What is it about K’azz that makes you uneasy?’ The man blinked, surprised. His gaze skittered aside. Too guarded, this one. Serves me right for trying to get the drop on a mage.