The Sword Of Angels (Gollancz S.F.) (61 page)

‘Lukien, look . . .’

Lukien looked but saw nothing. ‘Where?’

‘There, all the way down the beach.’ Jahan pointed. ‘By the fallen trees. Do you see?’

The trees had collapsed and rotted into the sand. Lukien had seen them earlier, when they’d first arrived. He focused on them now, struggling to see. A movement caught his eye, a slow undulating of flesh. Colourful hides caught the moonlight. Then, a single great hood emerged, raising up from the dead trees as the rass wound toward the river.

‘Fate almighty,’ Lukien gasped. ‘Look at the size of it.’

Jahan’s face was all beaming glee. He raised his head for a better look, almost completely coming out of his hiding place. ‘He’s far away. He won’t smell us from here.’

Following his lead, Lukien emerged out of the rocks, clutching his katath and wetting his lips with his tongue. The rass moved silently, oblivious to them, its stout body pushing aside the sand. Its giant head came up, reflecting the moonlight in its glassy eyes. The tongue flicked out to taste the moist air. The coiled designs along its hood glistened blood-red against its greenish hide. And just as it lowered its head, another appeared. Lukien held his breath. Jahan let out a sound of exaltation.

‘Beautiful . . .’

To Lukien, the rass were monstrous. He froze, not with fear but with revulsion, awed as the big rass led its cousin to the river.

‘Two of them,’ he whispered. ‘I can’t fight two.’

Jahan lifted himself out of the hiding place. Like a little boy chasing butterflies he inched along the sand. Lukien followed without knowing why, but then reached out to slow Jahan’s approach.

‘Wait,’ he snapped. ‘Not too close.’

‘They want water, Lukien, not us. Probably a male and female. Mates.’

‘Oh, gods, I don’t need to see
that.’

The larger rass – the male – reached the river first, surveying the bank in protection of its female, whose colourful body was only slightly smaller but speckled with spots of black and yellow. The enormous serpents at last settled to drink, slipping into the river and almost disappearing in the mud. Doubts overtook Lukien as he watched them. There was no way he could take on two of them, even with the amulet to keep him alive. And they were mates . . .

‘Jahan,’ he whispered. ‘Wait.’

But Jahan still moved toward them, tip-toeing quietly along the sand.
Infatuated by the creatures, he paid no heed to Lukien’s cautions, finally coming to a stop ten feet away. He turned with a smile to urge Lukien out.

‘It’s safe, Lukien,’ he assured with a wave. ‘Come.’

Shadows danced along the beach, blackening the sand. Lukien’s one eye barely saw the darkness gathering to Jahan’s side. At first he thought it merely one more tree, rising up unnaturally from the others. Lukien turned casually toward it and saw its spreading hood. He gaped, staring at it, confused even as the maw opened and the sabre-like fangs filled its reptilian face. It’s eyes seized on Jahan.

‘Lukien?’ Jahan was smiling. ‘Come with me.’

Time snapped forward. Jahan was speaking as the fangs appeared. Lukien opened his mouth to shout a warning as the rass came down, striking Jahan like a hammer with its enormous head and sending him sprawling. Lukien screamed, jumping toward him, but the rass had seen him now, using its tail to whip him back. The blow blackened Lukien’s vision. He was falling, spinning backward, dropping the katath and scrambling for footing. He looked up from the sand and saw Jahan’s frozen body, paralyzed by the poisonous strike. Dazed, Lukien staggered to his feet, ready to rush the snake. The rass ignored him, and with inhuman speed took Jahan in its mouth and slithered back into the trees.

‘No!’

Lukien sped after it, dodging tree limbs as he fought to follow the racing rass. Already he had lost it. It simply disappeared, swallowed by the darkness. Lukien kept on, screaming as he bumbled past the branches, his face struck by the sharp limbs. Moonlight sifted through the canopy, and for a moment he thought he caught a glimpse of the beast, but it was only a vine swinging in the wind. He looked around desperately, unsure which way to go. Suddenly everything looked like a serpent.

‘Jahan!’

His cry tore through the forest, unanswered.

Sick with grief, Lukien dropped slowly to his knees. Jahan was gone.

True to his promise, Master Niharn waited the day for Lukien and Jahan to return. Aboard the feruka, he whiled away the time talking to his old friend, Thaget, the captain of the vessel and playing card games in the hot sun. When night fell, the two old comrades spent the evening drinking and swapping tales, and by morning they were ready to sail home.

But Lukien did not return that first morning. And Niharn continued to wait. Thaget set his sailors to the many tasks of the boat, and as they day wore on the sun baked the deck and turned the beach where they were moored the colour of burnt glass. Master Niharn spied the forest, hopeful that Lukien and the quiet villager would emerge at any moment.

But they did not.

Finally, as night fell on the second day, Niharn knew he had a decision to make. Rumblings among the sailors reached his ears, but Thaget kept them in line with his sharp tongue. Still, they were right to be concerned, and when at last Thaget came to Niharn the captain looked troubled. Niharn was still at the edge of the deck, leaning contemplatively over the shallow railing as he watched the forest for movement. Except for the lizards and crabs that crept along the bank, he saw nothing. Over his shoulder, he saw Thaget’s concerned face in the lamplight. The two hadn’t talked in hours, and now there seemed little to say. Niharn struggled against his own disbelief and the enormity of what he had done, bringing Lukien to Amchan.

‘He said he couldn’t die,’ the master whispered. He realized dreadfully how silly that sounded now. ‘I believed him.’

‘He has magic,’ said Thaget optimistically. ‘We’ve all heard of it.’

‘He could not be this late. Something has happened.’

Thaget didn’t argue, because the facts were so plain. Instead the feruka captain waited for his friend’s orders.

‘We have supplies for days, and fresh water from the river. We can stay, Niharn, if that’s what you want.’

‘The Eminence will know we are gone. She will guess that we have taken Lukien away.’

‘She won’t know we’ve come here, though.’

Niharn considered this. ‘No.’

There was so much to think about, and so little that made sense. He had agreed to take Lukien to Amchan to kill a rass, and that alone seemed like madness. Lukien was a stranger, and in many ways a rival. Why then did his heart ache now?

‘Your men want to leave,’ said Niharn. ‘They are afraid.’

‘I’m their captain,’ said Thaget. ‘They will stay.’

‘And you? Do you want to leave, Thaget?’

The captain of the boat reared back indignantly. ‘I’m not afraid, Niharn. I would not have come if I were.’

‘No,’ said Niharn with a grin. ‘I know. But they are very late, and they are strangers here. They do not know the things they should to survive out here.’

‘The man from the village – he seems to know.’

‘Yes,’ Niharn agreed. ‘He’s part savage, that one. And he has not come to fight a rass. But Lukien . . .’ The old man shook his head and sighed. ‘I do not think he can survive it.’

On the third night in Amchan, the rain returned.

Lukien, stripped to the waist and smeared with mud, stood outside the den of the rass, waiting with his katath, his Eye of God dangling at his naked chest. In the blackness he was invisible, smeared with earth so that his skin and hair were hidden. His eye glistened like an angry pearl. His toes dug into the loamy ground, bootless. His trousers, soaked with river water, clung to his muscled legs. Behind a single, broad-leafed fruit tree he stood, statue-still, his breathing calmly matching the wind. In the moonless night he could barely see the yawning cavern the rass called home, a craggy opening covered with slime and lichens. Lukien concentrated, summoning the power of the amulet, using its ruby light to warm himself. Though the rain fell cold, he did not shiver. His mud-caked body stood rigid.

For a day and a night he had tracked the rass, following the tell-tale drops of Jahan’s blood and studying every leaf and broken twig. The rass had moved like lightning, stealing away the dead Jahan, but its giant mass had left clues to trace. Slowly, painstakingly, Lukien had found its lair. After a dozen false starts, he came at last to the object of his vengeance.

And then he waited.

For more than a day he had gone without food, refusing to leave the lair of the beast to hunt for sustenance. Everything he had brought with him – save the katath – he had left at the beach where Jahan had been
killed, not wanting anything to slow or distract him. Refusing to reveal himself, he had stripped away most of his clothes and washed away his scent in the river, doing just as Jahan had taught him to avoid the snake’s sharp senses. His coat of mud kept the insects at bay. For food, he used thoughts of vengeance. Endlessly patient, Lukien watched the lair of the rass.

The night grew deeper. The rain slackened. Inside its home of rock the serpent did not stir. Satisfied from its human meal, it had no use to hunt. But did it need water? Lukien could only guess.

I am here for you, ugly one. Soon you will have to come out, and I will be waiting.

He had seen snakes in Liiria, little ones, swallowing whole eggs without ever stopping to chew as their mouths grotesquely dislocated. He imagined that’s how Jahan had been eaten, all at once and slowly.

You will not die so horribly. It will be quick for you, but you don’t deserve such mercy.

Jahan had always tried to convince him that the rass were noble. But to Lukien, they remained the most evil of creatures.

Jahan was noble.

Would he want such revenge? To Lukien the question hardly mattered. Revenge was for the living to decide.

Near dawn the rain finally ended. Lukien fought to keep awake. Looking up into the sky he saw the twilight stars struggling through the moving clouds. The leaves and grass began to glow beneath their light. He steeled himself, disappointed that the night had fled. It would be another day at least before his quarry emerged. The strength that had kept him erect so long began to ebb, making his eyelids heavy.

They come out at night . . .

His gaze dropped, and for a moment sleep edged across his mind.

No! Stay awake!

He took a breath.

But sit. Rest . . .

And then at last he heard a sound. It was unlike any other he had heard during his vigil near the cavern, a small, almost imperceptible scraping that tickled his ear. His heart began to race. His gaze widened and his jaw began to tighten. Crouching, he spied the hole of the serpent, and saw to his amazement the shadowy beast start to emerge. The head appeared, big and black, its dark eyes looking lifeless as they narrowed in the starlight. The cautious tongue came out to sniff the air, hissing as its forked muscles shook. The hood spread wide and the great beast rose up, surveying its domain.

Lukien slowly released his breath. In his hand the katath trembled. He rose, stretching himself tall to confront the creature.

‘Look here,’ he commanded.

The black eyes of the serpent snapped forward, fixing on him. Half naked and muddy, his hair slicked back against his head, Lukien raised the katath over his head.

‘You’re the one,’ he said. He had only seen the rass for an instant, yet now he recognized it immediately. ‘I have come for you, monster.’

What might have been disbelief flashed across the serpent’s features. It’s huge head bobbed backward and forward as it watched Lukien, searching for him with its terrible tongue. The amulet around Lukien’s neck flared to life, flooding his features with a rush of crimson. He stood fearlessly before the rass, staring into its hypnotic gaze.

‘A friend of mine is in your belly. I have come to avenge him. Don’t think me another easy meal, beast. I am damned. Nothing can kill me, not even you.’

His words echoed through the night. The creature swayed in confusion. It pulled the rest of its bulk from its lair, coiling its tail around itself like a spring. The hood pulsed with breath, spreading and contracting in easy movements. The lidless eyes kept watch on Lukien as it opened up its red, pulpy mouth. A great hiss issued forth.

‘You mean to scare me?’ Lukien sneered.

The rass reared back. Lukien knew a strike was imminent.

It came like a bolt, swift and silent. The coiled spring of the serpent’s body exploded forth, its head dashing for Lukien. Lukien dove. He hit the ground, somersaulting away as the mouth snapped closed. Surprised, the rass rose quickly, searching frantically as Lukien leapt to his feet. Seeing his chance, Lukien spun the katath overhead, slicing through the air and catching the beast just below its head. The blades of the weapon went through its hide, ripping through the scales. The rass hissed and jerked back. Lukien danced away. Coming around, he jabbed at the beast just as it tried to strike, this time smashing the twin blades into the creatures snout. The rass thrashed its head, dislodging the blades easily and tossing Lukien backward. It’s tree-trunk body shot skyward, towering over Lukien.

For a moment the two locked eyes. Lukien waited for the coming blow. The rass flexed its hood and opened its maw, showing its gleaming fangs. Dazzled by its fearsome face, Lukien saw the coiling tail too late. It stuck like a whip, smashing into his back and knocking him to the ground. He tried to desperately to avoid the rest of the body, but the snake worked itself around him, moving with such speed that Lukien lost sight of it. A moment later he felt the strong muscles suffocating him.

‘Gods!’

The tail lifted him bodily from the ground, bringing him face to face with the rass. Every fibre in him fought for breath, and remarkably he
held tightly to his katath, refusing to loose the weapon even as his hands went numb.

‘Amaraz, help me!’

A single blast of the serpent’s venom would paralyze him. But the spitting fangs were a second weapon for the beast, which instead used its powerful body to crush the life from Lukien. Lukien felt the pressure building in his chest and head, threatening to pop his skull. His fingers clawed around the katath.

‘Amaraz!’ he cried.

At once he felt the power of the Eye coursing through him. Amaraz answered his summons with a flood of raw strength. The pain ebbed, and soon Lukien could breathe again. To the great astonishment of the rass he looked into its black eyes and cursed.

‘Kill me!’ he cursed. ‘You stupid beast, kill me!’

The mouth opened, ready to spit. Lukien readied his katath. With all the strength Amaraz had given him, he jammed the katath into the soft flesh, cutting through the snout and severing the flicking tongue. A spurt of liquid struck his face, the venom from ruptured poison sacks. Lukien cried out, fighting the burning pain as he felt the muscles in his face go slack. His one eye blinked away the filth, holding firm to the katath as the rass uncoiled its massive body. With one last twist Lukien ripped apart its mouth before he hit the ground.

The earth struck him, blasting the air from his lungs. Looking up, he saw the bloodied rass thrashing in pain. Nearby he found the katath, reaching for it with his outstretched fingers. His face screamed with pain and his crushed ribs felt as though they were coming through his flesh. Lukien staggered to his feet, beating back the pain as he rushed against the rass. Katath in hand, he drove the blades into the monster’s gut, bringing it up with a shout and ripping open its hide. A flood of fluid erupted from its wound, splashing Lukien’s naked skin and soaking the ground. The rass rose up in one great cry, shooting skyward and stretching out its long body. Then it fell with a shudder to the ground, writhing and whipping Lukien backward. Dodging the beast, Lukien fell away and watched the creature die. The rass crept toward its lair, almost unable to move. With agonizing progress it reached the hole, about to hide its head within its safe recesses. Seeing this, Lukien stepped forward, looking straight into the snake’s shining eye.

‘Time to die,’ he whispered.

Raising the katath overhead, he brought it down hard against the serpent’s skull, driving it through the skin and skull. The creature tensed, opened its bleeding mouth, and collapsed.

Lukien staggered back, leaving his weapon inside the beast’s head. For a long moment he was silent. His face twitching with pain, he dropped to
his knees and wrapped his arms around his broken ribs. He would heal, he knew. Already the amulet worked its magic.