“There’s a bed in there. Let her rest on it. Get her out of this heat. I doubt the snake woman will be back for a while, so we’ll stay in that hut and lick our wounds.”
“Is there something you can do for that?” Varek nodded at Dhamon’s legs. Dhamon’s pants were torn, showing his right thigh completely covered with tiny black scales, all radiating outward from the large dragon scale and shimmering in the sun. Some had traveled down his calf, looking like shiny black beads against his skin, and there were a smattering of scales on his the top of his foot and on his left leg. He didn’t answer. Instead, he took the small blade Riki had used on Nura and began furiously cutting at the scales.
“Are you sure you should…” Varek began. Dhamon’s fierce scowl caused him to swallow the question.
Dhamon cut away at the newer scales, digging out most of them and leaving behind raw wounds. He didn’t dare touch the large dragon scale, and his efforts at rooting out the couple of dozen left on his leg were too painful. After several minutes of frustration, he gave up. He took the gritty mixture he’d found and, grimacing, liberally applied it on his legs. He had to stop every few moments because it stung so badly. There were wounds on his chest, where he’d earlier dug out the scales with his fingers, and he put the mixture on these, too. When he was finished, he glanced back at the pen and Maldred.
The big thief had managed to shake off the remnants of Nura’s spell and was leaning against the slats of the pen for support. His muscular form sported a riot of gouges and cuts, and his clothes hung on him in bloodied strips.
Dhamon tossed the bag that contained the last of the gritty mixture to Varek. “You’ve some deep cuts on your back. Put some of this on them. Should help you heal, reduce the chance of infection. Then get Riki out of the sun.”
Dhamon rose and limped over to Maldred. He leaned against the railing next to the big man, staring at all the bodies. Scales and flesh and blood covered every inch of ground. He ground the ball of his foot into the mud. “I should feel sorry for them all,” he said, “but I don’t. I don’t feel anything.” He turned from the pen and almost bumped into the village spokesman, who had silently followed him.
“The black dragon will be most angry at what you’ve done. The black dragon and Nura Bint-Drax will—”
Dhamon slammed his hand into the man’s chest, shoving him out of the way. He walked to the hut Riki was in, kicking snakes out of his way as he went. He heard heavy footsteps behind him. Maldred followed him inside.
The acid-scarred Varek was dutifully sitting on the bed next to Rikali, who twitched in her sleep, her thin lips set in an uncharacteristic grimace. Varek’s cuts were covered with the gritty mixture.
“You’ve first watch, Mal,” Dhamon said. “All of us need some rest, but we’re going to do it in shifts. I don’t trust the villagers. Wake me after the sun’s down—earlier if there’s trouble.”
Without another word, Dhamon busied himself ripping up a cloak to fashion bandages for his leg and arms, then settled back against a large crate. Already he felt his wounds closing. His healing ability was another part of the curse, he knew, probably a by-product of the dragon-scale on his thigh. Though he was pleased to be mending quickly, he wanted nothing more than to be rid of the accursed scale.
“I need your mysterious healer, Mal,” he breathed. He closed his eyes and intended to go straight to sleep, but in his mind he saw Nura Bint-Drax writhing as a snake before him. He opened his eyes quickly.
He listened to Maldred and Varek quietly talking about the half-elf. He heard a few crates being moved, sensed Maldred taking up a spot at the entrance to the hut. He heard movement outside, several yards beyond the hut, and he heard the voices of a pair of villagers. Maldred shooed them away.
Sleep finally claimed Dhamon, his dreams filled with the visages of grotesque abominations and a snake woman with hypnotic eyes who was wrapping herself so tight around him he couldn’t breathe. All too soon, Maldred roused him, and it was his turn at watch.
Chapter Eleven
Ragh of Doom
Dhamon sat just outside the doorway to the hut, listening to Maldred and Varek snoring. The grating sound was impossible for him to shut out entirely. Riki was slumbering soundly, too, waking only once nearly an hour past. Rising up on her elbows she spotted Dhamon as he glanced over his shoulder, and without a word she lay down again, drifting back to sleep. He gazed out across the forlorn village, a long sword that once belonged to a Solamnic Knight in his lap. Had the Knight been one of the spawn he killed? Impossible to know. Several villagers were awake, although it was well past midnight. They’d been taking shifts on watch, too, four of them currently sitting near a small fire they’d built for light only, as the temperature was still dreadfully hot.
They were watching Dhamon intently.
He could hear their wary whispering, making out several of the words—Mistress Sable, Nura Bint-Drax, strangers. He listened more closely and found that he could hear them as clearly as if he were sitting in their midst. The spokesman was debating now what they should do with all of the bodies they had gathered into a pile—drag them into the swamp for the alligators to dispose of, or let them continue to rot here, reeking evidence for Sable to see in the event the overlord deigned to grace the village with her scaly presence? Despite the swarm of insects the corpses had already drawn, most of the villagers seemed to favor the latter option.
Dhamon knew he shouldn’t have been able to hear the villagers at all. They were too far away, their voices too low. The fire was crackling, the snakes that carpeted the village were hissing, and his companions only a few feet behind him were snoring. Though part of him marveled at his ability to pick out all these sounds, a greater part of him feared that it was all connected to the large scale on his leg. He wanted nothing more than to be normal again. The pop of something in the fire roused him from his musings. One of the villagers had tossed a too-damp log on the flames, and the wood hissed in protest.
He could hear other things, too, when he concentrated: the gentle rustling of leaves from trees that circled this village; a soft growling noise the sivak draconian made, perhaps its version of snoring, and the coo of a swamp bird.
He felt an insect crawling up his arm. It was a pearl-shaped orange beetle. Brushing it off, Dhamon glanced away from the fire and the villagers, craning his neck and peering south. His eyes probed the darkness, making out rotting corpses and, several yards from them, the sivak. The creature was curled around the base of the tree, as a dog might sleep. Dhamon shouldn’t have been able to see it this clearly. There was no moon tonight, and the shadows were thick. But he could even discern that the beast was squirming as if in the depths of a dream. What would it dream about? he wondered. No matter, there would be no more dreams for the sivak—or nightmares for that matter—after this night, once Maldred had his way. Maldred intended to slay it at first light to keep Nura Bint-Drax from using it to create more monstrosities.
Monstrosities like me, Dhamon thought. I feel less human with each passing week. He removed his bandages and glanced at the wounds on his legs and chest. They were healing exceptionally well. He wasn’t tired either, despite only catching a few hours of sleep after the ordeal he’d been through. His limbs no longer ached. He felt good.
His sense of smell was sharper than usual, causing him some discomfort. The cloying bittersweet stench from the rotting corpses mingled with the waste in the pen, the sweat from his companions and the villagers, the pools of dried and drying blood, and the stench of the swamp. Dhamon stood, careful not to wake the others—not because he was concerned about their wellbeing and their need for rest, but because he didn’t want to deal with them at the moment. Keeping a watchful eye on the villagers by the fire, he strode purposefully toward a hut several yards away, ducking inside and retrieving a crate. As the villagers stared and whispered, he unsheathed his long sword and pried the lid open, selected a bottle, and took a long pull from it. The wine filled his senses, the taste of the blackberries intense.