The Viper's Fangs (Book 2) (21 page)

5

When Angus rejoined the group, he kept quiet about what had
happened. It didn’t really concern them, did it? They weren’t the object of the
spell. Besides, he wasn’t even sure he understood what had happened well enough
to explain it to someone else. Instead, as he passed Ortis he said, “We need to
find shelter quickly. That storm is going to be a bad one.”

Ortis nodded. “We’re looking for something, but it isn’t
promising. This part of the plateau seems pretty barren, except for the pine
trees. We’ll probably have to shelter in among them for the night. The branches
will serve as a good windbreak and keep most of the snow out. We’ll have to cut
a few off to get in among them, but a tree trunk will serve as a good support
for the tent we bought at Dagremon’s.”

Angus nodded and them moved closer to Giorge and brought the
magic back into focus.

“Whoa!” he shouted, bringing the group to a hasty stop.

“What is it?” Ortis demanded from just behind him.

Angus ignored him for a long moment. The energy swarming
over Giorge’s torso had coalesced into a single wide strand that stretched out
ahead of them. What could it be doing? What was up there? If it were like the
other attacks, it would be simple to deal with, but with such a powerful stream
of energy, it had to be something different, but
what
?

“Stay here,” he told Giorge as he hurried ahead to Hobart.
“Come with me,” he said as he came abreast of him. “There’s something up ahead,
and we need to see what it is.” He barely turned as he called, “Ortis?” But it
was unnecessary. Two of Ortis were already falling into line behind them.

“What is it?” Hobart demanded, his voice grim, strained,
determined.

“Something bad,” Angus said. “
All
of the magic is
reaching out for something, and I don’t know what it is or what it means. If we
can find out where it leads,” he paused. The stream went through a tree and
when he rounded the other side, it disappeared into the ground. He pulled on
the reins and brought Gretchen to a sliding halt.

When the others joined him, he frowned and pointed at the
ground. “Whatever it is, it’s down there.”

“In the ground?” Ortis clarified.

“Yes,” Angus said. “It has to be something big, or—” he
shook his head “—a sizeable army of small things.”

“Well,” Hobart said, his tone clipped and his words flowing
rapidly. “At least it’s in a clearing. We’ll have some room to maneuver. Guide
us to where it is, and we’ll set up flanking positions. Ortis can shoot arrows
from there—” he pointed to the left, then the right “—and there. Angus, you can
go behind it and prepare your spells. We’ll use Giorge as a decoy; it will
follow him, and we’ll use that weakness to our tactical advantage.”

Angus nodded and rode in a wide berth around the spot where
the magic was stretching into the ground. He gestured as he went, giving Hobart
and Ortis an indication of the area in question, and then turned Gretchen
around and dismounted. Hobart dismounted and stepped rapidly forward, using his
broadsword to probe the ground in front of him until he met almost no
resistance. He quickly circled the area and when he finished, he called out,
“There’s a hole about six feet wide. I have no idea how deep it is, but there’s
something covering it. Matted pine needles, I think.”

A large creature, then? More than one? Is this it? The
one that will kill Giorge? And then us?
Angus sighed and thought about
which spells he would cast. Lava Geyser would work if the creature could be
kept in one place long enough. If he knew when it would come up from the
ground, he would cast that, but he didn’t know and would have to wait and see.
Firewhip would do little harm to a large creature; he had designed it to kill the
rats in Blackhaven Tower.

Angus frowned.
He
had designed that spell? He didn’t
remember doing that. Did he? But he
knew
it was true. He
had
designed
that spell, but when? It certainly wasn’t during the last year of his
apprenticeship.

Lamplight would be pointless. Even if he could attach it to
the eyes of the creature—or creatures—it wouldn’t matter. The magic would drive
it unerringly to Giorge. Besides, it would already have tunnel vision, and that
would make it easier for them to kill it. Them?

He frowned. The magic was a single stream, and it seemed to
be going
deep
underground. And then it did something completely
unexpected: the tail followed it underground and disappeared completely. The
magic had severed itself from Giorge! Why? What did it mean? “Be ready!” he
cried. “It may not be after Giorge this time!” It probably would be, but just
in case, they needed to be ready, needed to be more alert.
Something
was
different,
very
different, and that
always
meant something
significant where magic was concerned. But what about curses? What would these
changes mean to a curse?

Then Hobart jumped forward and slashed downward with his
broadsword. “Snake!” he yelled, taking a small step back, his eyes fixed on the
snow in front of him. A moment later, he stabbed at another one. Then he began methodically
slicing off the heads of snakes as they sluggishly poked up through the snow.
He had killed at least a dozen of them before they quit coming up, and then
waited another minute or two before he backed away and began to relax.

“Is that it?” Ortis asked Angus.

Angus frowned. How could he answer them? The magic had
disappeared down the hole the snakes had come from, but the magic hadn’t
followed them out. Had the curse run its course? Was this the last of the
plague of woe? It could be, but he didn’t think so. “I don’t know,” he said.

Then Giorge and Ortis rode into the clearing, and Angus turned
to look at Giorge. There was no yellow-green magic enveloping him
at all
.
It was all gone. Did that mean the curse was over? Or—

Snakelike tendrils of yellow-green magic.
His eyes
grew wide, and he looked at the hole Hobart had marked in the snow.
One
large stream
—

“No!” He called. “That isn’t it! Get away from that hole!
There’s—”

But it was too late. Snow and pine needles exploded outward
in all directions as the head of a humongous snake erupted from the hole and
began testing the air with its massive forked tongue. Its white scales glowed
yellow-green, and it was not the least bit sluggish in the cold weather.

Hobart scampered backward, lost his balance, and fell. The
snake turned its sky blue eyes toward him and opened its mouth, the jaws
snapping loudly as they dislodged themselves from the joint and stretched wide
apart. It reared back—

Arrows struck its scales and bounced off.

Angus grabbed one of the few strands of flame near him and
made a quick series of knots. He would have liked to have made more of them—a
long chain would be best—but there was no time. He needed to distract the
snake; killing it would come later. He hurled the knots at the snake, and as
each one came undone, it set free a small, explosive burst of fire that flared to
life for a few seconds and then quickly fizzled out. But it was enough to cause
damage when it struck, and a few of them found their mark against the
snow-white scales of the gigantic snake. It hissed sharply and jerked its head
back, shaking it as if it were a dog trying to rid itself of water after a
brief swim.

More arrows bounced off the scales, but one of them lodged
between two scales and buried itself to the fletching. Angus backed rapidly
away, and as he did so, he grasped at the strands he would need to cast the
more complicated, more powerful spell.
If
the snake allowed him to do
it. “Keep it in the clearing near its hole!” he shouted as he began the complex
weaving of Lava Geyser. If the snake stayed in the area long enough….

Steam was still rising from its scales as it rolled around
on the snow. And then it saw Giorge.

Giorge saw it seeing him and urged Millie to a trot around
the perimeter of the clearing.

Angus brought the dull crimson thread to him, wrapped it
around his left fingertips, around his left wrist, and held it firmly in place.

The snake followed Giorge with its eyes for several seconds
and then pulled more of its body out of its hole. As it did so, Hobart rushed
forward and slashed at the emerging underbelly with his broadsword, making a
long, deep cut in its side. It howled and whirled around, its mouth open—

But Ortis was ready, and two arrows shot into the gaping
maw. They struck home, and the snake snapped its jaws shut and shook its head.

Angus made a knot, another, drew in a strand of earth magic,
another of sky, and began weaving them together….

Hobart slashed again and quickly retreated.

Giorge shouted and waved his hands, then disappeared behind
another tree.

The snake’s head snapped toward Giorge, its sky blue eyes
wide—

It was a complex, time-consuming spell. Each knot had to be
precise; each strand had to be meticulously threaded into them; each link had
to be carefully secured to the one before it….

An arrow brushed off the scales next to one of the eyes, and
another thudded into the snake’s nostril.

Giorge appeared again, and the snake twisted toward him—

Angus clung to the spell and yelled, “Back away!” as he
released the energy, sending it into the heart of the clearing, targeting the snake’s
hole. The snake was still only partway out of its hole, and he idly wondered
how long it was. It already had at least twenty-five feet of itself out, and
the girth had barely diminished!

Hobart aborted his approach for another slash and retreated with
his broadsword held out in front of him. His eyes never wavered from the snake
as he scampered to the edge of the clearing.

Ortis continued to shoot arrows, most of which glanced harmlessly
off the snake’s scales.

Then the spell began to take effect.

The magic of flame and earth and sky blended together and
magnified each other’s potency. The air sizzled and snapped. The snow melted so
quickly that steam filled the area near the snake’s hole. The ground curled up,
pulled along by the magic, heated by the flame. It began to melt, to bubble.
Then the sky reached down and lifted up large globs of the molten rock and jerked
them upward, one after another, rising high enough to reach the tops of the
trees. The first one struck the neck of the snake and exploded, spraying molten
lava over its scales. The second struck a bit higher. The third….

By the time the last one settled, the snake was writhing on
the ground, its scales charred, its burnt flesh exposed. One of its eyes had
exploded from the heat, but its other one was still probing the forest, seeking
out its prey, seeking out Giorge. It reared back—but only made it partway
before it flopped lazily forward again.

It slithering slowly toward the tree Giorge was hiding
behind.

Hobart moved cautiously to its blinded flank, and when it
flopped back down, he slashed out with his broadsword. The blade bit deep into
its back, and it thrashed about. He struck again, higher up as it flopped
weakly from side to side….

Then it was over.

The snake lay still.

The yellow-green magic dissipated and did not return to
Giorge.

Angus stared at the carnage he had caused, at the scattering
of flames where the lava had settled. They wouldn’t burn long with the
snow-cover, but he backed away anyway. It had worked, and that elated him and
troubled him. When he had left Voltari’s he hadn’t even known what the spell
would do, and now he had mastered it. But that wasn’t true, was it? It was
his
spell, one that he had designed, a modification of another spell that he had
learned from Voltari and no longer had. Why hadn’t Voltari given him the scroll
for
that
spell?

He frowned. How did he know that?

“Angus!” Hobart called from around a mouthful of gasped air.
He had just finished chopping off the snake’s head and was leaning heavily
against it. “Are there—” he gulped air “—any more of them?”

Angus frowned. Were there? How could he know? The magic on
this one was gone, but did that mean
all
of the magic was gone? Or was
there another gigantic snake down there, waiting for room to get out of the
hole? More than one? He tried to probe down below the ground, to see if there
was any yellow-green magic lurking down there, but he couldn’t see anything but
the normal range of browns for earth magic. He sighed and shook his head. “I
don’t think so,” he said. “I think it’s over for now.”

“Are you certain?” Ortis asked as two of his constituents
retrieved the arrows that could be salvaged.

Angus shook his head. “No. This attack wasn’t like the
others.”

“What do you mean?” Hobart demanded.

“Giorge?” Angus called. “Come over here.”

Giorge peeked out from behind a tree and grinned. “Anybody
hungry for snake meat? There’s plenty to go around!” Then he scurried up to the
clearing and asked, “What?”

Angus studied him for a long moment, and then slowly shook
his head. “I think,” he said, “this part of the curse might be over. The magic
that’s been enveloping you is gone.” No, not gone, Angus realized. There was
magic still there, but it was the deep green of the Viper’s Breath, and it was
centered on his chest. But there was no yellow-green streams swirling over his
chest.

Symptata’s crest
, he thought, but not in his voice.
He frowned and shook his head. “The snake,” he said. “That must have been what
it was looking for. It would be a fitting way for the curse to end, wouldn’t
it? Symptata’s family crest is a three-headed snake. Perhaps that’s what you
need to do? Kill three of these snakes? And until you do, it will keep
tormenting you until you die?” Could it really be that simple? It
sounded
plausible, but Angus didn’t really believe it. If this had been a three-headed
snake, then maybe….