Page 37 of Craving Their Venom
The thought is a shard of ice in the cold furnace of my fury. Amara. Her name is a silent mantra, a single point of focus in the chaotic, hostile landscape. Every squelch of my boots in the mud, every rasp of my breath in the humid air, is a step closer to her.
Zahir moves at the head of our small party, a crimson behemoth of contained rage. He is not the berserker from my strategy room. He is a predator, his movements economical, his senses on a razor’s edge. He has channeled his fury into a lethal, focused point. Beside him, Mok, the old tracker, is a low, grizzled shadow, his snout to the ground, his forked tongue a constant,flickering thing, tasting the faint, lingering scent of the poison lilies on the wind. The Vipers, Jax and Jaro, flank us, their pale scales making them almost invisible in the gloom, their poisoned blades held low. They are death waiting to happen.
I am the mind. Zahir is the fist. And Kaelen, walking silently at my side, is the soul of this grim procession. The mystic’s face is reflective of serene focus, but I can feel the power radiating from him, a low, humming vibration that seems to push back against the oppressive weight of the swamp. He is our compass, our guide through the unseen currents of this blighted place.
“The trail is weak,” Mok grunts, his voice a dry rasp. “They are clever. They use the water to wash their scent.”
“They are not clever enough,” Zahir snarls, his golden eyes scanning the tangled mess of roots ahead.
“They do not need to be clever,” I say, my voice sounding cold. “They only need to be patient. This is their ground. They will have traps.”
My words are prophetic. Mok suddenly freezes, his hand held up in a sharp, silent command. He points with his chin to a section of the path ahead. It looks no different from the rest of the treacherous ground, a patch of vibrant green moss that seems almost inviting in the gloom.
“The earth is soft there,” the old tracker whispers. “The scent of fear is old, but it is there. Something died in that spot.”
Zahir’s hand tightens on the haft of his axe. His instinct is to charge, to smash through any obstacle. It is the flaw in his design.
“Wait,” I command, my voice a sharp hiss. I take a small, heavy stone from a pouch at my belt and toss it underhand. It lands on the patch of green moss with a soft, wet thud. For a moment, nothing happens. Then, the ground gives way. It does not just collapse; it dissolves, the moss and mud sinking into a churning, black pit of water. From the depths of the sinkhole,a mass of writhing, serpentine forms emerges.Nyoka. Vicious, purple-and-yellow swamp serpents, their fangs dripping with a venom that can paralyze a naga in seconds.
One of the Vipers, Jax, who was closest to the edge, loses his footing as the ground crumbles. He cries out, his arms flailing as he slides toward the pit of writhing death.
Before I can even process the threat, Zahir moves. He is a blur of crimson. He lunges forward, his massive hand shooting out to grab the back of Jax’s tunic, and hauls him back from the brink with a single, brutal heave. The Viper lands in a heap at his feet, gasping, his face pale with shock.
“Watch your footing,” Zahir growls, not even looking at the warrior he just saved. His eyes are fixed on the pit, a low, guttural snarl rumbling in his chest. He hates snakes. The irony is not lost on me.
“A crude trap,” I state, my gaze sweeping the area. “But effective.”
“It would have been more effective if your pet mystic had foreseen it,” Zahir retorts, his gaze flicking to Kaelen.
“I cannot see every pebble on the path, General,” Kaelen replies, his voice calm, but with an edge of steel. “I am guiding us to her heart, not holding your hand through the mud. Focus.”
Zahir’s jaw clenches, but he says nothing more. He knows the mystic is right. Our bickering is a luxury we cannot afford.
We find a way around the pit, the path narrowing to a treacherous causeway of slick, half-submerged stones. We are exposed here, a single file of targets moving through the open water. The attack, when it comes, is silent and swift.
It begins not with a war cry, but with a whisper. A softthwipfrom the tangled mangroves to our left. One of my Vipers, Jaro, grunts, a small, black-fletched dart suddenly sprouting from his shoulder. He stumbles, his hand flying to the wound.
“Poison!” he hisses, his face already beginning to pale.
And then, they are on us. They rise from the brackish water like swamp wraiths, their mottled green-brown scales a perfect camouflage in the gloom. Six of them. Tikzorcu warriors. They are smaller than my own men, leaner, built for the stealth and speed of their blighted homeland. They wield short, curved blades and blowguns, their movements fluid and serpentine.
Zahir roars, a sound of pure, cathartic fury, and meets their charge head-on. He is a whirlwind of crimson and steel, his massive axe a blur of motion. He is not a duelist; he is a force of nature. He cleaves one of the attackers in two with a single, brutal blow, the spray of blue blood a stark, shocking contrast to the black water.
I am not a berserker. I am a blade. I engage two of them, my own dagger a flicker of silver in the gloom. They are fast, their curved blades weaving a complex web of attacks. I do not meet their force with my own. I flow around it, my movements a cold, precise dance of death. I parry, I pivot, I create an opening where there was none. My blade darts out, severing the tendon in one’s leg, sending him screaming into the water. The other I dispatch with a clean, efficient thrust to the throat.
But it is Kaelen who turns the tide. He does not draw a weapon. He stands on a high stone, his hands outstretched, his eyes closed, a low, humming chant on his lips. And the world around us begins to warp.
The ground beneath the remaining attackers seems to turn to liquid mud, their footing becoming treacherous, their movements suddenly clumsy. Phantom images of more of our warriors flicker into existence at the edges of the fight, their silent forms drawing the panicked attention of our enemies. A thick, disorienting fog, smelling of ozone and starlight, rolls in, shroufing our movements, turning the clear battle into a chaotic, terrifying melee for them.
I see Zahir, a crimson demon in the mystic’s fog, his axe rising and falling with brutal, relentless efficiency. He is a hammer, and Kaelen has just shattered the anvil.
I see an opening. The leader of the ambush party, a larger naga with the tarnished silver ring on his hand, is momentarily distracted by a phantom image of Rhax charging at him from the flank. It is the only opening I will get.
I move. I am a shadow within Kaelen’s fog. I slip past the leader’s guard, my dagger held in a reverse grip. He turns, his eyes widening with surprise as he sees me, but it is too late. My blade plunges deep into the soft flesh beneath his jaw, severing his spine with a wet, grinding crunch. He collapses without a sound, his life extinguished before his body hits the water.
The fight is over as quickly as it began. The remaining Tikzorcu, their leader dead, break and flee back into the swamp, swallowed by the fog and the darkness.
We stand panting in the aftermath, the silence broken only by the lapping of the water and Jaro’s pained hisses as Kaelen works to draw the poison from his wound.
