* * * * *
Varek and Maldred woke to find themselves in the pen, hands tightly tied behind their backs. The stench radiating from their gaunt companions, coupled with the odor from the waste on the ground, was nearly overwhelming.
“Pigs, I was hoping you’d come,” Riki exclaimed. “But I wanted you to rescue me, not join me. Where’s Dhamon?”
The spawn and human servants were still chanting, softly now, however, like swarms of gnats. The hissing of the thousands of snakes that writhed on the village grounds added to the incessant, enveloping buzz. Suddenly the crowd parted, aligning itself like soldiery and forming two lines facing each other, shoulder to shoulder.
“A corridor of flesh,” Maldred observed.
“Nura Bint-Drax comes!” a young human woman shouted.
Immediately the spawn and humans dropped to their knees and hunched their shoulders in submissive fashion. One by one they tipped their chins towards their chests, averting each other’s eyes, as a child with copper-colored hair walked between them. Her tiny fingers brushed the tops of spawn and human heads alike, touching each as if blessing them. When she reached the end of the gauntlet, she turned to face them, clapped her hands, and nodded as they rose in unison. All the while, the throng softly chanted: “Nura, Nura, Nura Bint-Drax.”
“She’s just a babe,” Riki whispered.
Maldred growled at the sight of the child. “She is far more than she appears. She is a sorceress,” he said in a hush. “One far more powerful than any I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
A barrel-chested spawn easily ten feet tall was walking towards the strange child now, dragging the unconscious body of Dhamon Grimwulf by the hair.
Rikali gasped, and Maldred growled louder. Varek was only half watching the spectacle. He was busy working on the ropes that tied his hands. He had backed up to one of the pen posts and was rubbing furiously.
The spawn reverently approached Nura and lifted Dhamon in the air so that his toes dangled just above the ground—a trophy for the child to admire. Dhamon looked dead, but after a moment Maldred could tell that his friend’s chest was rising and falling. The child said something. At least Maldred could see her lips move, but her voice was too soft and his own heart was pounding too loudly, and the damned chanting and hissing continued to fill the air, so he missed the words.
Riki edged forward. “Mal… Mal, what do you think she’s…”
“…going to do with you?” the child finished, whirling to face the pen. She carefully picked her way through the snake carpet to edge closer to them.
The half-elf’s eyes grew wide, astonished that the child had overheard her whispered words.
“It is an interesting question, elf. Just what is Nura Bint-Drax going to do with all of you?”
The child tilted her head and her cherubic face took on an innocent appearance as she neared the pen. The barrel-chested spawn followed, still holding Dhamon. Nura looked over each of the demihumans and the ogres in the pen, eyeing them up and down like livestock. Then she raised her free hand and pointed to four elves who were clustered together. “Aldor. Them. Now.”
The spawn who’d been holding Dhamon unceremoniously dropped him onto a bunch of snakes and stepped forward, separating the elves she had indicated and lifting each out of the pen. She nodded to the creature, and one by one it broke their necks and tossed them in a pile. Snakes swarmed over them, biting at their arms and faces.
“Why? Why did you do that? They did nothing!” Varek shouted. He paused his work on his ropes.
“Why?” he repeated.
“They were old,” Nura said offhandedly. “They looked too weak for what I have planned.”
“Weak only because you aren’t feeding us!” an emboldened dwarf shouted. “You’re starving us!
You had no call to kill them!”
“What about him?” Maldred said, indicating Dhamon.
The child turned to the spawn called Aldor, who again grabbed Dhamon and pulled him up, digging its claws deep in his arm. Nura pointed to Dhamon’s leg, where his torn trousers revealed the large scale on his thigh, and the smaller ones rimming it. She stared at Maldred.
“What did you do to him?” Rikali shrieked.
“Pity that this is not my doing,” Nura said evenly, turning to Riki. She studied her reflection in the large scale for several moments and brushed at an errant curl. “The scales make this man unique. A curiosity.”
“You’re a curiosity, too,” Maldred growled. “Just who are you?”
“I am Nura Bint-Drax,” she answered. “Aldor, if you would.”
The spawn tossed Dhamon into the pen. Maldred quickly moved to his friend’s side, gently jostling him with a foot in an effort to wake him up. The big thief said nothing, but his gaze darted between Dhamon and Nura.
The child talked softly to Aldor, then backed away from the pen. The fingers of her free hand twirled in the air like the legs of a spider.
A silvery web took shape in her palm, growing larger with each passing moment until it was nearly as big as herself. Tiny black motes appeared and skittered up and down the magical threads, moving faster and faster, becoming a blur.
“Pigs, but I don’t like this,” Rikali whispered. “I don’t like this. Not any of this.”
“I’m free,” Varek whispered. It was true, Maldred noted with a glance. The young man had managed to cut his ropes.
Varek positioned himself amidst the throng of demihumans so the spawn guards couldn’t see his hands, and he began to work on Riki’s ropes. Soon she was free, too.
“Varek, I’ve two small blades,” Maldred whispered, “hidden in my belt.”
Varek was quick to retrieve them, concealing them in his palms and working on the big man’s bonds now. A pair of dwarves pressed close, one mouthing, “Me next.” Varek complied, then tugged Riki toward the back of the pen.
Nura continued her enchantment, her voice rising in pitch and taking on a musical quality. Suddenly she extended her hand, and the magical spiderweb she’d been crafting flew at the pen. It billowed and blanketed Dhamon and Maldred, and then the dwarves and the others. They felt as if hundreds of insects were swarming over their skins, robbing them of movement. In the same instant a calmness washed over them. Varek found himself relaxing. All thoughts of escape, his concern for Riki, faded from importance. He dropped the small blades. “Nura. Nura. Nura.” He took up the soft chant.
At the front of the pen Dhamon had managed to regain consciousness and now stood at Maldred’s side. Both men dully watched Nura, who was in the midst of a second enchantment. One of the human servants bowed to the child and passed her a pale wooden bowl. The child’s voice changed in pitch, and her undecipherable words quickened. The spawn called Aldor brandished a knife and took the bowl from Nura. The bowl was oddly blackened now, as if it had been thrust into a fire. With a low snarl, the big spawn started toward the chained sivak.
“I can’t move,” Maldred said. “Not an inch.”
“My feet feel like lead,” Dhamon agreed. He kept his eyes on Nura. “They say you create spawn from the blood of true draconians,” he mused, “but it takes an elaborate spell. It takes a dragon overlord to cast that spell, to give up a bit of its essence. There isn’t a dragon, let alone an overlord, within miles of this village. The scale on my leg would have told me if one was nearby. I don’t like the looks of this.”
The spawn called Aldor made a deep cut in the sivak’s chest, holding the bowl close so blood drained into it. The sivak could do nothing to fight the spawn. When the blood slowed to a trickle and the bowl was full, the spawn returned to Nura’s side, brushing aside the vipers as it went. The child’s eyes had rolled back up into her head, showing only whites shaded by rapidly fluttering lids. Her voice was different now, faster, louder, no longer sounding like a child, but like an adult. The tone was seductive.