Olra shook her head. “The fool,” she murmured.
Tuva grunted. “The big she-panther managed to break out by herself. She was stronger than she looked. Once the others were loose, they ran out of the storm, circled back around, and came after us.”
“The she-panther killed Risic,” Vlahna said. “He never saw his death coming.”
Olra nodded. She glanced at Ashok. “Only a mad beast or a starved one would have run back into that storm to hunt.”
“Maybe they were already tainted in some way,” Cree suggested. “Did Risic or anyone else notice anything strange when you captured them?”
Both Tuva and Vlahna shook their heads. “Everything was fine until the storm,” Tuva said.
“Then we have to accept that as the reason, or at least the trigger,” Ashok said. He exchanged a glance with Olra, who shrugged. He could tell she had her doubts, but she had no better explanation to offer.
“Thank you,” he said to Vlahna and Tuva.
Ashok left the tower with the brothers. Olra followed them down. They didn’t speak until they were outside.
“For the time being, I’m giving you Risic’s duties,” Olra told Ashok. “Think you can handle yourself?”
Ashok nodded. “I can do it,” he said, “as long as these two can watch the wall themselves for a few days?”
Skagi put a hand to his mouth in mock alarm. “You hear that, Brother? Ashok’s leaving us. What’ll we do? First it’s guard duty alone-what’s next? Sleeping alone? Bathing alone? How will we undo our breeches and piss without him?”
Cree nodded gravely. “I’ll aid you, Brother.”
Ashok stiffened, but then he saw the brothers’ easy grins, and he relaxed. They taunted him in jest.
“Tomorrow at the Monril bell, Ashok,” Olra said, ignoring the brothers. She left them to head in the direction of the beast training grounds and forges.
When she was out of earshot, Cree sobered and said, “There’s truth in those jests. With Risic’s duties and your own, you’ll be a Camborr in truth before long.”
“When that happens, you’ll need a new one of these,” Skagi said, lifting Ashok’s arm to expose the tattoo of leaping flames that extended from his forearm to his wrist. He’d gotten it for training the nightmare-and because he’d survived the maddening dreams the beast inflicted on its victims.
“I think it should be claws this time,” Cree said. “You took down the she-panther, after all.”
“He still hasn’t told the tale of how he did it,” Skagi muttered. “At least you can give us the bloody details, every rip and slash.”
“You’re right. I’m sorry,” Ashok said. “Truly.”
Cree nodded. Skagi clapped him on the shoulder. “Fine then, speak,” the big man said. “I’m not going to stand out here all day.”
“Guardians!”
The shout came from the training grounds. Ashok turned and saw Olra vault the paddock fence and take off at a dead sprint toward the nearby blacksmith forges. He and the brothers raced to catch up with her.
The forge huts spewed black smoke at the cavern ceiling. Thick clouds of it hung in the air like choking shadows. When they got near the closest hut, Ashok heard shouts and the clang of metal coming from within. At first, he attributed it to the normal sounds of forge work, but then Olra ran around the side of the building.
“Escaped from the pens,” she said, breathless. “Two shadow snakes. They came this way. We have to warn the forge masters.”
Cree and Skagi split off and ran to two of the other forges. Ashok yanked his chain off his belt and kicked in the door of the closest hut. A wall of heat struck him in the face. Olra darted in the room ahead of him, a barbed whip in her hand.
The air reeked of iron and smoke and made Ashok’s eyes water. To his right the forge fire blazed, and on his left were workbenches and tables. Some held swages and hammers, while others gleamed with finished swords, axes, and polearms.
The blacksmiths had already found one of the snakes. A shadar-kai man crouched near the weapon tables, and a woman stood silhouetted against the forge fire, her sweat-stained hair stuck to her face, fending off a two-headed black shape with a set of iron tongs.
The snake’s two heads struck and darted at the woman. Its thick, black-scaled body wove in and out of the shadows, movements too fast for even Ashok’s keen vision to follow. Ashok came forward and swung his chain in tight, deadly circles around his body. The links caught the forge light and drew the snake’s attention away from the woman. Tongues flicking, it slithered toward Ashok.
“That’s right,” Ashok said, his voice rough with the effort of holding himself back. “Come to me.” He wanted to send his spinning chain across the small space and cut the snake in two, but he held on to the impulse, letting it strengthen him. Vaguely, he was aware of Olra moving stealthily along the back wall of the hut toward the forge. The only sound he heard was that of his spikes slicing the air. He fell into a hypnotic rhythm, the chain spinning, spinning. He wouldn’t strike until the snake was well away from the woman.
Then he saw, to his left, the other blacksmith grab a dagger off the weapons table.
“Don’t!” Ashok shouted, but he was too late. The blacksmith hurled the weapon at the left head. Spinning in the forge light, the dagger missed and struck off the far wall, shattering the hypnotic spell Ashok had been weaving with his weapon.
In a fluid movement, the snake darted around and sank its fangs into the muscle of the woman’s arm. She uttered a strangled scream and shook her arm convulsively back and forth to try to tear the snake loose, but her movements only made the wound worse.
“Get the left head!” Olra shouted. She didn’t wait for Ashok to acknowledge the command but charged forward to get the attention of the right head. Her whip struck repeatedly at the snake’s skin, tearing away chunks of flesh.
The right head obligingly came around and struck out at Olra’s thigh. The Camborr knocked over a wood bench and deftly slid it between her and the snake. The right head hit the wood, tongue flicking between the slats, then just as quickly retreated. Olra kicked out against the bench and pushed the snake back before coming in overhand with her whip. This time the barbed strands barely missed an eye.
Ashok pulled his chain in and came up over a weapons bench toward the left head. The other blacksmith had picked up a second dagger off the table and prepared to hurl it. Ashok snatched it out of his hand as he ran past across the table.
“Get outside,” he told the man and threw the dagger.
The blade sank to the hilt in the snake’s flesh. Hissing, the snake released the woman’s arm. Dazed and poisoned by the snake’s fangs, the woman staggered back and slid to a sitting position against the wall.
Ashok brought his chain up. He didn’t want the snake to have time to decide to go after the blacksmith again. He struck the thick meat where the two heads became one, then whipped the chain back for another strike. Between his chain and Olra’s whip, they harried the beast so hard that it couldn’t decide which threat to defend against first. The heads jerked, twitched, and even snapped at each other in their frenzy.
Yet every time Ashok shifted position in an attempt to corral the snake and move it away from the injured blacksmith, the beast struck out viciously and forced Ashok to defend himself.
“The thing’s mad,” Olra said. She danced aside as the thick tail whipped at her flank. “Trying to kill itself.”
“Just like the panthers,” Ashok said. They would never be able to contain the snake. “We’ll have to kill it.”
“Finish it, then,” Olra said. Her scarred face soaked in sweat, mouth set in a grim line, she moved in for the kill.
It wasn’t the first time they’d had to put a beast down, but something about Olra’s manner was different. Aside from Uwan, she was the most restrained shadar-kai Ashok had ever known, but instead of her usual measured efficiency, she moved forward eagerly and attacked the snake with obvious pleasure.