With a sigh, the procurer examined his belongings. They held no delights unfamiliar to him, but 'twas something to do until darkness came-and all the slaying and similar fun began.
"I seem to have been crouching behind bushes and trees forever," Fang-brother Khavan complained in a whisper.
Scaled Master Arthroon gave him precisely the cold and withering sort of look he'd expected. "When the Great Serpent comes, those who've been unwilling to do what's needful will be those considered expendable. You'd do well to remember that, Fangbrother."
Khavan nodded and flexed his cramping, protesting legs by extending one in a slow, soundless parody of a dancer's deep kick, and then drawing it back and doing the same with the other. The pain lessened but little.
They were crouching in the deep gloom of a thornvine-filled thicket behind Bowshun, on the edge of a little clearing where Aranglar the Weaver and his wife Thaelae split and stacked their firewood, kept their privy, and tossed things that had rotted. The happy couple were in the clearing now, but decidedly not engaged in any of the activities they customarily used it for.
Instead, they were trying to kill each other.
Grunts and shrieks of effort, triumph, and pain mingled with the crashings of their bodies rolling in underbrush, dead leaves, and formerly tidy piles of kindling.
Kicking, punching, and gouging, Thaelae and Aranglar tore at each other's hair, tried to smother each other, attempted stranglings, butted each other like enraged bulls, and even tried to batter each other's limbs and heads against handy trees-while ignoring a handy ax buried in Aranglar's chopping block. Gasping and shuddering, they snarled and spat, wild-eyed, and literally raked and tore with their fingers at each other.
Fangbrother Khavan winced, more than a little sickened-and well aware that Arthroon was watching him. The weaver and his wife were streaming blood from dozens of places, now, and Thaelae had just gouged out one of Aranglar's eyes with hideous ease.
Khavan set his teeth, gorge rising, and risked a look at his superior. The Scaled Master was smiling, obviously amused at Khavan's discomfort.
"Come, Brother Softguts," he purred. "We've seen enough of this particular plague affliction. There's someone else I want a look at. Keep low and quiet unless you'd like to lose your eyes too."
Skulking around the fray, the two priests scuttled hurriedly back to Aranglar's cottage.
"Why the rush?" Khavan gasped. Arthroon's reply was to throw himself flat behind moss-covered rocks, catch hold of the Fangbrother's leg with cruel force, and drag his fellow priest down to join him.
"Three people live in yon hovel, not just the loving pair we've been watching," he murmured, ignoring Khavan's gasps of pain. "That gives us a good chance of seeing a different plague effect than mindlessly seeking to slay, taking hold of the third person. Right about… now."
The ramshackle back door facing them banged open, and an old man lurched out, his wrinkled and unshaven face twisted in pain. He retched, clutched at his ribs, bent over, and spewed what looked like a very large meal onto the ground, groaning like a woman astonished by the pains of her first hard labor. Then he stumbled off down the narrow track that led to the stream and the deeper forest beyond.
"Who-?" Khavan asked, more in an attempt to appear alert and interested than out of any true interest.
"Thaelae's aging father," Arthroon replied, rising like a hunter stalking a beast of which he must be wary-and yet get very close to, to make his kill. "Follow quietly. 'Twould be very unwise to let him see or hear us, if my suspicions are correct."
Like wary ghosts they drifted along the trail from tree to tree, keeping to dappled shadows well behind the old man-who was staggering along feebly, bent over like a man on the verge of collapse, but groaning with ever greater vigor.
Anon those groans become rougher and deeper, until they were almost growls. Khavan gave Arthroon a "what now?" look, but the Scaled Master merely smiled and continued his patiently stealthy pursuit.
The Fangbrother took care that his resulting sigh was silent. He was shaking his head and hastening to catch up with Arthroon-and yet do so silently-when the Scaled Master held up a hand to indicate that Khavan should halt.
The old man was still wandering along the forest track, growling like a beast, but now he was tearing at his clothing. As Khavan peered, he could see hair-reddish-brown, profuse hair, not sparse gray and white-cloaking the man's hands and neck. More of it could be seen wherever clothing had been torn away-and "torn" was exactly the right word: the old man's fingers seemed to be lengthening into claws! That stooped, frail body was growing taller, broadening to split its well-worn tunic…
Khavan took a careful step back, but Arthroon whirled and gave him such a glare that the Fangbrother froze, trembling, and remained in that quivering hesitancy even when the old man-or rather, the thing that the old man had become-stopped in its amblings, sniffed, raised its head to sniff again, and then turned with a roar to confront the two priests.
That weathered old face was gone, replaced by something with great long-fanged jaws and a snout. The body below it resembled some sort of long-tailed bear, its only traces of humanity being a few rags of tunic and the flopping remnants of boots it still wore.
It strode forward slowly and menacingly, stalking the Serpent-clergy. " 'Tis gathering itself to charge," the Scaled Master observed, as calmly as if he'd been identifying a flower in which he had no particular interest. Khavan eyed it, gulped, and more than agreed.
Hurriedly he cast a spell, almost stumbling over the incantation in his haste to get it out. Khavan's hands tingled, his fingers went numb-and the air around them shimmered.
As if his casting had been a signal, the bear-creature charged at them, howling and snorting horribly. It swung those gnarled, long-clawed arms forward and back as it came.
Khavan retreated another step, swallowing hard. Was his spell not working? Why hadn't…?
And then the shimmering before him collapsed into sudden dark, solid clarity. A shield of hissing, snapping snakes was abruptly hanging in the air, coiling and writhing around each other, biting at the air, and slithering along on nothing but emptiness.
The serpents formed a floating wall in front of both priests, most of their jaws reaching for the onrushing bear-beast. Forked tongues flickered and baleful eyes glowered; a fearsome sight even to their creator.
Khavan gasped in relief as he backed hastily away, trying to calm himself enough to recall the incantation for his "lance of acid" spell-in case this bear-beast burst through his conjured serpents, and he found himself facing those long-taloned claws directly.
Arthroon merely nodded in satisfaction as the monster thundered up to him and reared to awesome height, pawing the air. The snakes hissed in unison, and it recoiled from them and then froze, wavering and hardly daring to wave a paw at the floating, writhing mass.
The snakes arched and lunged, seeking to reach this creature that loomed so close to them… and yet was just beyond the reach of their fangs. It roared at them, eyes wild-then turned on its haunches with a long, slobbering snarl, and plunged off the trail into the trees.