The tiger lunged.
Hama sat, his legs crossed under him and his back against a tree. He dared go no closer, not if the yaqubi had who-knew-how-many of those little lizards lurking in the trees. He was close enough that he could charge the camp quick enough.
The first drops of rain, fat and falling hard, began striking the forest canopy. The leaves provided a barrier-so far-but they struck with enough force to be heard over the wind.
Any time, now.
Hama rose to a crouch and drew his knife.
The patter of the rain came stronger, and drops began to reach the ground. Something about the drops sounded… wrong. Just off slightly. The wind had been skittering through the leaves all evening, but Hama swore the sound had changed, just slightly.
As Hama stepped round the bole of the tree, something struck his hand. He ignored it, thinking it was only a raindrop, but when another struck his forehead, he brushed it aside.
Something bit his finger, and he hissed. Reflex took over. He flapped his hand and in half a heartbeat, felt tiny legs lose contact with his skin.
Lightning flashed over the mountain. In the flicker, Hama could see the wind-tossed boughs, stirred by the storm. But he'd been wrong about the raindrops. The rain had not yet come. Other things were dropping from the trees. Some were no larger than his thumbnail, but some were larger than his hand. A hundred or more shadows moved along the forest floor-moved against the wind. The nearest were only a few feet away.
Hama looked up. The last of the lightning died, and in the instant before complete darkness surrounded him, Hama saw dozens of spiders crawling around the tree. Crawling right for him.
Thunder shook the ground as the first of the spiders crawled over his boots.
Hama turned to run, but on the dark hillside his haste betrayed him. Three steps and his feet went out from under him. He fell into a bush thick with new spring leaves. His heart hammered in his chest, and his breath was coming in quick gasps. In the brush he could not tell the difference between the leaves, branches, and hundreds of tiny legs crawling over him.
Hama screamed.?
Sauk heard the first wave of rain washing over the valley. Fitful at first, it gained strength with each gust of wind.
Most of his attention was fixed on the tiny glow of campfire twinkling in the valley below him, but a small sliver of his mind was with the tiger-every beat of her heart, every breath and careful, considered movement. He could not see what she saw or hear what she heard, but his mind registered her reactions to sight, sound, even smell.
Lightning lit the mountain along the western sky. Thunder followed, and with it came the torrent, like a wave washing over a shore.
He told the tiger, Soon…
Lizard!'It came through not in a word, but in the awareness that one of the little creatures had found her. Kill it! he told the tiger.
He felt her lunge. Then a scream-a man's scream, but not on the opposite hillside where Taaki waited. This came from off to Sauk's right. A shriek of utter terror.
"Damn!"
Sauk would kill whoever it was. Break his neck with his bare hands. Hama, by the sound of it. The fool had just ruined their element of surprise. The yaqubi were a skittish lot, and they might well be gone before the assassins even hit the valley.
The rain came harder, rattling the leaves overhead, but Sauk's sharp ears caught something else. Even over the sound of the wind-tossed trees and falling rain, Sauk heard a skittering like… tiny feet. Or claws. Hundreds of them.
Sauk turned his back on the valley and looked up the hillside. His half-orc eyes could see far better in the dark than any human's. He could see the forest floor moving.
Lightning cracked the sky over the valley, and in the sudden harsh light Sauk saw that he was about to be overtaken by a tide of hundreds-hundreds of thousands-of spiders.
"Damn you, Berun," he said. "Damn you, you clever-"
And then the spiders were on him.
The storm washed over the foothills of the Khopet-Dag. Wind and rain pummeled the forest while lightning lashed from cloud to cloud overhead, and thunder followed all. The thick canopy of the forest caught the rain and funneled it downward in thousands of tiny waterfalls so that by the time the fury of the storm had passed, and the rain settled in for a long, steady deluge, all the forest floor was a muddy, sodden mess.
It took Berun longer than he'd hoped to find Sauk. The little starstone he held gave off only a faint glow, and the storm had washed away any sign of the half-orc's trail. If only Perch could keep the tiger busy a little longer, this just might work.
Sauk lay in the mud at the bole of a tree. The spiders were gone. The effects of Berun's spell were long spent, and the spiders had either drowned or taken refuge from the storm wherever they could find it.
The half-orc was doubled over and shivering. The tree's thick, waxy leaves kept the worst of the rain off him. In the dim silver glow of his starstone, Berun could see dozens of swollen bites across Sauk's exposed skin. His eyes were squeezed shut, and tiny convulsions rippled through his muscles.
Berun touched Sauk's temple with the back of his hand. The half-orc burned with fever. At the touch, Sauk's eyes fluttered open. He tried to snarl, but it turned into a tooth-chattering grimace.
"D-d-damn you," Sauk rasped.
"Damn me later," said Berun. "Right now, I only want what's mine."
He opened the pouch at Sauk's belt and rummaged through it. It wasn't there.
"Where is it, Sauk?"
"Puh-p-piss on you." Sauk grimaced and doubled over further as a stronger convulsion hit him.
"Don't worry," said Berun. "The venom from most of those spiders isn't fatal. Not even from so many. Not for a big, strong hunter like you. Now where is it?"
Berun set the starstone on the ground, grabbed the collar of Sauk's tunic, and ripped. Several necklaces hung round the half-orc's neck. Some bore symbols of his faith, others were trophies of past kills, and the brass chain seemed plain jewelry. But around one particularly fine leather thong was what Berun was searching for: Erael'len.
Sauk tried to bat Berun's hands away, but he was fever weak, and Berun ignored him. He eased Sauk's head up, pulled off the necklace, dropped it over his own head, and tucked the talisman under his shirt.
"Th-this is-s-sn't… over," said Sauk.
"I know," said Berun. "Listen to me, Sauk. Your plan is too risky. If you think you can sneak me in under the Old Man's nose, you've grown soft. He's using you to get to me. You're only going to get us all killed. If it were just me, I might let you try, but I won't let you pull the boy into this. I'll help. My way. But only after I see Lewan safely away."
Sauk growled something unintelligible.
"Leave the boy out of this," said Berun. "Let me handle this my way. I'll get my master out of the Fortress and take care of the Old Man. My way. But if you come at the boy again, Sauk, I swear I'll kill you."
"Muh-m-m-" Sauk gasped, then said, "Mai karash! Oath breaker!"
Berun retrieved his starstone and looked down on the half-orc who had once been his closest friend. Lightning flashed, painting the half-orc's face in sharp contrast.
"Kheil swore brotherhood to you until death," Berun said. "He kept his oath. I owe you nothing."
Thunder shook the world around them, and before it faded, Berun left the half-orc lying in the mud.
Chapter Eleven
Lewan laid his hand against the bole of the tree, dead from a lightning strike in a long-ago storm. His hand trembled like an old man's.
It had taken him much longer to find the tree than he'd hoped. Running at night, through the storm, even with the small starstone to light his way, Lewan had been forced to go the long way round the hill. The way he and his master usually took up the southwestern face had been far too slick-mud running down in tiny rivulets over the slick rocks. Desperate to be away from the assassins, he'd tried two different ascents and fallen both times. The second time, a broken branch had opened a wicked gash along his right arm, almost from wrist to elbow, and he'd bled most of the way to the tree.