The First watched Verda and Roth slither into the distance. He would have to avoid them. Snakes could taste the very air, and they would sense him unless he masked his scent among rotting things. Luckily, there were plenty of rotting things in this rampant forest.
The First slid from his hideout and followed Kamahl at a distance. The man might have been raising an army, but the First would turn that army to his own purposes. As he stalked, his smile was like a dagger across his face.
CHAPTER EIGHT: BUYING THE SWAMP
Huge black shapes moved across the vaporous swamp. They seemed giant water striders, their long abdomens dragging over the surface and their rodlike legs patiently plying the muck. The shapes weren't spiders but barges, loaded gunwale to gunwale with murmurous beasts. Long poles rhythmically reached down, found the bottom, shoved along slowly, and rose dripping. Hundreds of barges wove among low islets, down crocodile channels, and toward a broad central island.
Phage stood at the prow of the first vessel, her command ship. The barge was loaded with cut stone for the new colony-no livestock or slaves, who might die from her touch. Wary of their mistress, the five pole men gave her a wide berth. They remembered what had happened to the sixth.
Eyes narrowing, Phage peered through the mist. It was as thick and white as milk, curdling along still channels. Ahead lay open water, and beyond it appeared a low, grassy headland.
She pointed, her black silk sleeve cutting a stark silhouette against the fog. "There." The word was spoken quietly, but it was undoubtedly a command.
The pole men responded, hauling, positioning, pushing. The barge turned slightly and drove toward the shore.
Phage knew that land. She had seen it in the vapor of the First's dream. It looked no different here and now. Before her lay the island primeval, as it had looked since it arose from the swamp. In her mind, though, she saw the island transformed: the grounds of a new coliseum. It would draw the whole world. These waterways would throng with pleasure craft. Those archipelagos would bear a string of bridges, which would in turn bear wagons and carriages and foot traffic. The very skies would throng with griffons and winged steeds.
Phage saw it all. Her mind traded equally in memories and visions. The coliseum already existed, for the First willed it. While Phage lived, the dream coliseum was real.
As the barge approached the shore, a veil of mist slid gently back. It revealed, at the height of the island, a small, stockaded village. This had not been part of the dream. The land had been virginal, ready for exploitation. Phage stared at the stockade of woven boughs, the low huts beyond, the sod roofs, the fire holes that trickled smoke, the small figures in the crude watchtowers.
She drew a breath. The village did not exist. As far as the First was concerned, it was not there. It was no more impediment than the tender grass.
The barge landed. To stem, men leaned on their poles. To fore, men dropped anchor and slid the gangplank.
With her eyes fixed on the village, Phage descended the gangplank. She set foot on spongy ground-mud covered in long grass. The touch of her feet blackened the blades. She would leave burned-out footprints all the way up the hill. It didn't matter. Soon this would be a beach of white sand above a clear-water lagoon. The First had sent a whole arsenal of flesh eaters to scour the muck and cleanse the waters. That was work for another day. Today Phage would be the flesh eater.
As more barges bumped ashore, Phage strode up the muddy swale. Behind her, grass curled and dissolved.
Ahead lay long gray logs. One shifted, eyes rolling open and gazing gravely at her. Crocodiles-a dozen of them.
She did not slow her pace.
With a series of snorts, the crocodiles shifted. Sinking their claws into mud, the beasts dragged scaly bellies across the grass. Most of the reptiles scuttled toward the water. One snapper, though, larger and meaner, stood its ground. It raised itself on lizard legs and lifted a head full of wicked teeth. It lay directly in Phage's path, between barge and village.
Phage strode on.
The crocodile took a step back. It snapped massive jaws.
Phage walked on as if to climb down its throat.
The crocodile obliged, opening wide.
Phage stomped down on its lower jaw and drove her knee into its pallet. The beast bit, four teeth piercing her thigh just above the knee. Flesh tore loose and fell away, but not Phage's flesh.
The reptile's pallet had rotted to bone. Its gums blackened and dissolved, and its teeth dropped from their sockets. The crocodile tried to bite, but the jaw muscles were gone. It flapped in agony. The line of rot moved up the creature's head and consumed its vitals.
Phage kicked with her free leg, shattering the jawbones. She pulled free and plucked the teeth from her thigh. They were as brittle as chalk. Casting them aside, she stepped onto the convulsing back of the creature. Darkness spread in rings from her feet, and the little life that remained in the corpse quivered to nothing.
Phage climbed, her first few steps trembling from the tooth wounds, but they quickly closed and healed. She advanced on the village.
Behind its stockade, warriors gathered. They had seen what she did to the crocodile. They saw too the hundreds of barges converging, the work crews offloading, and the black-armored Cabal enforcers that followed Phage. There was no mistaking the intent of these arrivals.
Phage halted a stone's throw from the gates. In her slim black bodysuit, she was only one quarter the size of the brutes that sidled up behind her. They wore dark suits under dark capes, with hoods pulled up over jutting brows. Though no weapons showed in their meaty hands, these were warriors.
The villagers did not look at the thugs but only at Phage.
She called to them. "In the name of the patriarch of the Cabal, I command all who dwell within this village to come forth."
They did not. They mattered behind their stockade of twisted boughs.
Quietly, Phage said, "How many of you drink?"
It took a moment for the Cabal enforcers to answer. One coughed into his hand. "Never on duty, ma'am."
"How many of you have a flask?" she pressed, adding, "Don't lie."
"All of us, ma'am. Standard issue. We've got to study up for barrel raids." The whole time he spoke, the man kept his eyes on the stockade ahead. "You want a drink?"
"It has to be more than whiskey. A hundred proof or above."
The thug smiled. "I've got a hundred fifty-one proof. Karl has his own brew, near two hundred. The other two, I don't know."
One of the others offered, "It'll put hair on your chest." He reached into his waistcoat. As if by habit, he drew out a hand crossbow, loaded and cocked. Returning it to its holster, he produced a large glass flask, three-quarters full of a clear liquid.
"It's not for putting hair on my chest," replied Phage, "but for burning hair off others'." She took the flask and uncorked it.
Ripping the cuff from one of her sleeves, she stuffed it down, wicklike, through the mouth of the flask. "The rest of you, pull out yours too. Get them ready."
They did, some producing multiple flasks.
All the while, the villagers watched. At last, they answered Phage's summons. "What happens to us if we come out?"
Phage hefted the incendiary in her hand. "If you come out now, you will live to join this building effort."
"What building effort?"
"Your village stands on the site of the new coliseum, which will be the new center of the world. You may join us in building the coliseum, or you may join the foundation stones of the coliseum."
Silence answered at first. Then came a voice of outrage. "You want us to leave our village to be destroyed by you, and become your slaves and build your coliseum?"
"Or die," said Phage. 'That is the other option."
Voices debated beyond the stockade.
Phage said to the thugs. "Do any of you smoke?"