Kerian slowed her pace to match Alhana’s, eager to hear the answer. Alhana glanced at her then took a deep breath before replying. “If we had stayed in settled country, Gathan Grayden would have found us, boxed us in, and slaughtered us all. The days of surprise are over. Every garrison in Qualinesti will be on the alert. There will be no more easy victories.”
“Then why are we here? Orexas has doubled the danger we face!”
Once more Alhana paused before speaking, weighing her words carefully. “We need allies. Nalaryn and his clan have gone into the mountains to find some. Until they rejoin us, we must elude the bandits and survive.”
The Bianost elves were baffled. What allies in the mountains? Did Alhana mean dwarves from Thorbardin?
“She means griffons. Those that dwell wild in the mountains,” said Porthios.
He had appeared in the mist below them. He held up a gloved hand. “We must proceed in silence now.” Bits of smelly vapor drifted over them. Several coughs were quickly smothered.
Kerian could hardly believe he intended to lead them through the Cleft. No one in current memory had entered it and returned to tell of what was found there. It was dank, poisonous, and cursed. There was bound to be a price for entering it. Certainly, they had little choice now, but Porthios should never have brought them to this pass. His cavalier acceptance of the risk for himself was one thing, but he was gambling with all their lives. Gilthas would not have done this. He would have found a way that didn’t endanger his people. Strange, whenever Kerian felt death coming closer, her thoughts invariably turned to her husband.
At Kerian’s insistence, the royal guards braced their bows, alert for whatever might come, and a band of twelve spear-armed Qualinesti was called forward. They would probe the boggy ground and test the footing. Although they looked unhappy, they didn’t challenge Porthios’s plan to enter the Cleft. Chathendor and the wounded Samar were as skeptical as they, but likewise raised no word of protest. Only Alhana seemed perfectly confident.
“Orexas will lead us through,” she told the nervous Qualinesti behind her. “Put your trust in him.”
Pale from her concussion, she moved forward without hesitation. Where she would go, Samar always would follow, and Chathendor had no intention of being left behind. If they were not completely reassured, the Bianost elves were moving.
Kerian’s precautions regarding the boggy ground proved well founded. One of the probing elves lost his spear when the moss he tested gave way. In moments, his eight-foot weapon was swallowed by a sinkhole. Everyone took note. The line of elves narrowed.
Porthios came to what looked like a length of decayed log. He stepped over it. The elf behind him prodded the log. It held, so he stepped on it. Immediately, it slid sideways, taking his foot out from under him. Those behind raised a smothered alarm when they saw him fall. The “log” on which he’d trod grew larger and larger as more of it emerged from the bog.
It was a serpent, but what a serpent! A four-foot wide triangular head, supported by a body thick as a large oak, reared up. Two yellow-green eyes stared at the horrified elves. As the serpent writhed, coils broke the surface all around them. It was a hundred feet long!
Bowstrings snapped. Half the arrows skipped off the monster’s heavy scales, but some punched through. The serpent stretched its mouth in a screeching hiss. Fangs as long as an elf’s arm glistened in the poisonous air, and a black tongue flickered out.
In the scramble to get away from the creature, several elves left the known path. They promptly came to grief as the mire trapped their feet. The serpent, arrows protruding all along its body, glided forward rapidly. With a lightning-fast movement, its head shot forward and seized an elf, sinking its terrible fangs into his ribs. Venom worked swiftly. When the serpent’s jaws opened seconds later, the elf was dead.
“Hit it in the mouth! In the mouth!” Samar shouted as the other mired elves were hauled to safety.
Arrows caromed off the scaly head. Then one Kagonesti archer coolly took aim while coils thrashed around him. He put a missile directly into the monster’s near eye. The serpent convulsed, beating its head on the ground. Guards rushed forward, swords drawn. Each blow was like striking a bronze statue. Their blades made no impression at all, and two elves died when the monster’s heavy, flailing coils crushed them.
Kerian snatched a spear from a nearby elf and ran at the head. Although her attack seemed reckless, she placed her feet carefully, avoiding sinkholes and the gummy loam. The snake’s convulsions had dislodged the arrow from its eye, but the orb was blind. Sensing Kerian’s approach despite that, it opened its mouth wide to bite its new enemy. She bored in, driving her spear into the white membrane on the roof of its gaping mouth. A fang raked down her chest. Something hot splashed on her thigh. Spurred to even greater effort, she twisted the head of the spear and was rewarded by the sound of serpent bones snapping.
The serpent was still strong enough to lift her clear off her feet when it raised its head. Flinging its head side to side, it shook her back and forth even as blood poured from its mouth. Four elves ran in beneath her and drove their spears into its body just behind its head. The monster’s head dropped, and its own weight drove the Qualinesti weapons through its body and out the other side.
Kerian let go the blood-drenched spear and hit the ground with a thump. She was shaking uncontrollably, certain she had been bitten, but at least the monster was dead.
“Don’t move!” Alhana knelt beside her. “You’re hurt!”
Amazingly, she was not. Her buckskin tunic was sliced from shoulder to waist, but her linen underclothes weren’t torn and the skin beneath was unbroken. The fang hadn’t penetrated. The strange sensation on her thigh was venom. Faintly greenish gold and odorless, the venom was thick, like curdled milk, and soaked her leg. Alhana caught her breath sharply at the sight.
“Do you have any wounds on your leg?” she whispered. Kerian shook her head. The slightest cut would have allowed the poison in, but again she had been spared.
Taking care not to touch the soaked portions, Kerian shucked her ruined clothing. Alhana was so relieved, she smiled—and blushed too—at Kerian’s utter lack of embarrassment. The former queen sent for new attire and a canteen of water.
Porthios appeared. He didn’t ask after Kerian’s health, and he ignored her state of undress. He did stop her from tossing away the buckskins, saying sharply, “Save the venom. It may be useful.”
Once more, Alhana’s presence caused Kerian to bite back the furious retort that rose to her lips.
With a roll of cotton bandage, Chathendor daubed at the venom. He put the poisoned cotton in a glass bottle and stoppered the bottle carefully. As a further precaution, he wrapped the bottle in two layers of leather and tied the whole bundle tightly.
An elf arrived with water and clothing. While Kerian dressed, Alhana left her and found Porthios standing over the corpse of the enormous serpent. In answer to her question, he identified it as a cottonmouth.
“But they grow no more than four feet long!” she protested.
“We are in an unnatural place. What was pest has become monster.”
On her feet again, Kerian saw four elves standing nearby, watching her. They were the ones who had finished off the monster. They were ordinary-looking fellows, scribes or artisans from Bianost. She thanked them and clasped their hands in turn.
“You are my troop now,” she said. “Stand by me, and I shall stand by you, always.”
All four seemed overwhelmed by the battle with the monster, but each nodded as she took his hand.
The elves quickly prepared to resume their march. The belongings of the dead were collected by Chathendor. The weapons were given to others, but the chamberlain tied personal items into tidy bundles. If the deceased had heirs, they would receive their kin’s effects.