Then Taita felt a bony spike drive deep into his thigh, and shouted again with pain. He knew what had wounded him: on each side of its genital vent, on the underside of its stubby tail, the python carried a pair
of viciously hooked claws. They were used to hold the body of its mate while it plunged its long corkscrew penis into her vent and spurted into her womb. With those hooks it also gripped its prey. They acted as a fulcrum for the coils, magnifying their strength. Desperately Taita tried to tear his leg free. But the hooks were buried in his flesh, and the first slippery coil whipped round his body.
'Meren!' Taita cried again. But his voice was weaker, and the next coil enfolded him, crushing his chest. He tried to call again but the air was forced from his lungs in a rush and his ribs buckled.
Suddenly Meren appeared at the opening of the tent. For a moment he paused to take in the full import of the monstrous heaving of the serpent's dappled body. Then he leapt forward, reaching over his shoulder to draw his sword from the sheath that hung down his back. He dared not strike at the python's head for he risked injuring Taita, so he took two dancing steps to one side to alter the angle of his attack. The python's darting head was still hammering at the bodies of its victims, but its stubby tail was held erect as it drove its hooks deeper into Taita's leg. With a flick of the blade Meren hacked off the exposed portion of the snake's tail above the hooks, a section as long as Taita's leg and as thick as his thigh.
The python lashed the top half of its body as high as the tent roof.
Its mouth gaped wide and its wolfish fangs gleamed as it towered above Meren. Its head wove from side to side as it watched him with its remaining eye. But the blow had severed its spinal column, and anchored it. Meren faced it with his sword lifted high. The snake swung forward and struck at his face, but Meren was ready for it. His blade whispered through the air, and the bright edge snicked cleanly through the snake's neck. The head fell clear, and the jaws snapped spasmodically as the headless carcass continued to twist. Meren kicked his way through the undulating coils and seized Taita's arm, blood spurting from the fang punctures in his wrist. He lifted Taita high above his head and carried him out of the tent.
'Demeter! You must rescue Demeter!' Taita panted. Meren ran back and hacked at the headless beast, trying to cut his way through to where Demeter lay. The other servants were at last aroused by the uproar and came running. The bravest followed Meren into the tent where they dragged the snake aside and freed Demeter. He was unconscious and bleeding copiously from the wounds in his shoulder.
Ignoring his own injuries, Taita went to work on him immediately.
The old man's chest was bruised, and covered with contusions. When
Taita palpated his ribs he found that at least two were cracked but his first concern was to staunch the bleeding of the shoulder wound. The pain brought Demeter round, and Taita sought to distract him as he cauterized the bites with the point of Meren's dagger heated in the flames of the brazier that burnt in a corner of the tent.
'The bite of the serpent is not venomous. That, at least, is fortunate,'
he told Demeter.
'Perhaps the only thing that is.' Demeter's voice was tight with pain.
'That was no natural creature, Taita. It was sent from out of the void.'
Taita was unable to find a convincing argument to the contrary, but he did not wish to encourage the old man's gloom. 'Come, old friend,' he said. 'Nothing is so bad that brooding cannot make it worse.
We are both alive. The snake might have been natural, rather than a device of Eos.'
'Have you ever heard of such a creature in Egypt before now?' Demeter asked.
'I have seen them in the lands to the south.' Taita sidestepped the question.
'Far to the south?'
'Yes, indeed,' Taita admitted. 'Beyond the Indus river in Asia, and south of where the Nile divides into two streams.'
'Always in the deep forests?' Demeter persisted. 'Never in these arid deserts? Never so massive in size?'
'As you say.' Taita capitulated.
'It was sent to kill me, not you. She does not want you dead — not yet,' Demeter said, with finality.
Taita continued his examination in silence. He was relieved to find that none of the major bones in Demeter's body were broken. He bathed the shoulder with a distillation of wine, covered the bites with a healing salve and bandaged them with strips of linen. Only then could he attend to his own injuries.
Once he had bound up his wrist, he helped Demeter to his feet and supported him as they limped out of the tent to where Meren had laid out the carcass of the gigantic python. They measured its length at fifteen full paces, without the head and the tail section; and even Meren's muscular arms were unable to encompass its girth at the thickest point.
The muscles beneath the magnificently patterned skin were still twitching and trembling, although it had been dead for some time.
Taita prodded the severed head with the tip of his staff, then prised
open the mouth. 'It is able to unhook the hinges of its jaws so that its mouth can open wide enough to swallow a large man with ease.'
Meren's handsome features reflected disgust. 'A foul and unholy creature. Demeter speaks truly. This is a monster from the void. I will burn the carcass to ashes.'
'You will do no such thing,' Taita told him firmly. 'The fat of such a supernatural creature has potent magical properties. If, as seems most likely, it has been conjured up by the witch, we might be able it to turn it back on her.'
'If you do not know where to find her,' Meren pointed out, 'how can you send it back to her?'
'It is her creation, a part of her. As if it were a homing pigeon, we can send it to seek her out,' Demeter explained.
Meren fidgeted uncomfortably. Even though he had been companion to the magus all these years, mysteries such as this puzzled and dismayed him.
Taita took pity on him and clasped his upper arm in a friendly grip.
'Once again I am in your debt. Without you, Demeter and I might, at this very moment, be within the gut of this creature.'
Meren's anxious expression changed to one of gratification. 'Tell me, then, what you wish me to do with it.' He kicked the twitching carcass, '
which was rolling itself slowly into a great ball.
'We are injured. It may be some days before we can gather our powers to work the magic. Take this offal to a place where it will not be eaten by vultures or jackals,' Taita told him. 'Later we will skin it and boil down its fat.'
Although he tried, Meren was unable to load the python on to the back of one of the camels. The animal was terrified by the stench of the carcass, and bucked, bawled and jibbed. In the end Meren and five strong men dragged it down to the horse lines and piled rocks over it to protect it from the hyenas and other scavengers.
When Meren returned he found the magi sitting on the floor of the tent, facing each other. They had linked hands to combine their powers and cast a spell of protection and concealment round the encampment.
When they had completed the intricate ceremony, Taita gave Demeter a draught of red sheppen, and soon the old man sagged into a drugged sleep.
'Leave us now, good Meren. Take your rest but stay within call,'
Taita said, as he sat down beside Demeter to watch over him. But his
own body betrayed him and dropped into the dark oblivion of sleep. He woke again to find Meren shaking his injured arm insistently. He sat up, groggy with sleep, and snarled. 'What ails you? Have you lost all sense and reason?'