Karrell, however, wasn’t listening. She crouched beside the woman, touching her arm.
The naga glanced down at her and parted its jaws. Arvin distracted it a third time.
“Hurry up,” Arvin gritted under his breath. “Finish the spell.”
The naga recovered—more quickly than before. Arvin distracted it a fourth time.
Karrell still hadn’t completed her spell.
The naga loomed above her, hissing furiously. It was almost as if the monster realized it was being hit with psionics—and blamed the attacks on the woman who was crouched on the overturned boat, within easy striking distance.
Arvin tried to distract the naga a fifth time. Nothing happened. The energy stored in his muladhara had run dry. “Leave her!” he shouted at Karrell. She ignored him.
“Where…” a faint voice asked, “… is it?”
Arvin glanced around. The elf was kneeling on the rocks behind him, his head drooping.
“Give me your hand,” Arvin said. “I’ll show you.” He grabbed the elf’s hand and aimed it at the spot where the naga was. “There,” he said. “About….”
Seeing that Karrell was also in a direct line with the elf’s hand, he hesitated. If he judged the distance or angle incorrectly, she would die.
The naga bared its venomous fangs. Its eyes were locked on Karrell.
“One hundred and seventeen paces away!” Arvin urged. “Quick! Cast your spell.”
The elf’s lips drew together in a determined line. He pointed at the sky with his free hand and chanted the words of his spell. Guided by Arvin’s hand, his arm swept down—
The naga lunged forward; Karrell jerked to one side. The naga reared back, preparing to lash out at Karrell a second time—
The lightning bolt struck. This time, the aim was true. The bolt lanced into the naga’s head, exploding it. This time it was bits of skull and brain that splashed down into the water, rather than splinters of wood. The suddenly headless naga swayed back and forth for a moment longer then crumpled into the water. It disappeared from sight, leaving behind ripples that sloshed against the overturned boat, staining the river red.
The elf turned his head, listening. “Did I—”
“Yes,” Arvin answered. “It’s dead.” Dropping the elf’s hand, he dived into the water and swam rapidly toward Karrell. She was hunched over the injured woman, unmoving. But as he crawled up onto the hull, he saw Karrell straighten. Her movements seemed steady enough.
“Thank the gods it missed you,” he started to say. “For a moment there, I thought—” As he climbed up onto the hull, his eyes fell on her trouser leg and the twin puncture marks in it. A dark stain surrounded each puncture: blood.
Karrell glanced at the wound. “Yes. It bit me. But the wound is small.” As she turned back to comfort the injured woman, Arvin saw her wince.
“But the venom?” he asked. “Why didn’t it kill you?”
“My magic halted it.”
Her hands, Arvin noticed, were bare. She’d yanked off her gloves to lay hands on the injured woman. Arvin saw now what had caused the bulge under her glove—a wide gold ring, set with a large turquoise stone, on the little finger of her right hand. It was probably the source of the magic that shielded her thoughts.
“You’re a cleric?” Arvin guessed.
Karrell nodded. She reached for her gloves and began pulling them on.
“Of what god?” Arvin continued.
“You will not have heard of him, this far north. He is a god of the jungle.”
“Your wound is still bleeding,” he told her. “We’ve got to staunch the blood.” He reached for her leg.
“No,” Karrell said sharply.
Arvin drew his hands back. “No need to take offense,” he told her.
“I can heal it myself.” She laid a palm over the punctures and chanted a brief spell in a language Arvin had never heard before—her native tongue, he guessed. The words were crisp and short, as abbreviated and staccato as her accent.
The riverboat creaked, listing slightly as it settled deeper into the river. Glancing down at the water, Arvin saw a dark-skinned body, surrounded by a stain of red, tangled in the submerged rigging. That explained where the captain had gone. The body of the husband floated nearby. The man’s head had suffered the same fate as the naga’s; it had ruptured like a smashed melon. Pinkish chunks floated in the river next to it.
Karrell, wisely, had turned the wife’s head away from the gruesome sight.
The boat shifted, releasing a bubble of air half the size of a wagon. Arvin was forced to grab the keel as the boat tilted still further. “It’s going to sink,” he told Karrell. He glanced down at the injured woman. “Let’s get her to the island.”
The wife had fallen silent now; she stared straight ahead with dull eyes. Together, Arvin and Karrell eased her into the water and dragged her between them as they swam back to the island where the guard and elf waited.
Karrell immediately went to the elf, despite the guard’s protests that he was “freezing to death” and in need of one of her warming spells. Kneeling beside the elf, she cast a healing spell. Arvin, meanwhile, stared at the riverboat. Its bow rose slowly into the air at an angle, and it sank, borne down by the weight of its cargo.
The injured woman sat up and stared at the spot where it had gone down, crying. Karrell’s spell had saved her life, but the woman’s heart was still wounded. “My husband,” she keened. “Why…?”
Karrell, meanwhile, cast a warming spell on the hook-nosed guard. Instead of thanking her, he spat. “So many dead—and for what? A few lousy ingots of iron.”
The elf turned toward him. “The barony needs steel; that iron would have forged new shields, armor, and weapons to keep Chondath at bay.” He turned blind eyes toward the water. “Did the boat sink? Was the cargo lost?”
“All but this pack, here,” the guard muttered, giving Arvin’s pack a kick. The pack rolled over, spilling a length of trollgut rope. Horrified, Arvin realized that the main flap had been torn. Had his dorje fallen out during his swim to the island?
The guard frowned. “That’s a strange-looking rope.”
Arvin hurried to his pack and began rummaging inside it, searching frantically for the dorje. He breathed a sigh of relief as his fingers brushed against the cloth-wrapped length of crystal.
“What I don’t understand is what the naga was doing this far north,” the guard continued, turning back to the elf. “Nagas never come north of the barrier. And why did it attack? We did nothing to provoke it.”
“Yes, we did,” Karrell said softly. “We crushed her nest.”
The guard snapped his fingers. “That snag,” he said. “The one we grazed.”
Karrell nodded. “She had laid her eggs in its roots.”
Startled, Arvin looked up at Karrell. He’d seen the “rock” in the snag—but Karrell hadn’t. “How did you know that?”
“I asked her.”
“That was the spell you cast?” he asked, incredulous. Karrell shrugged. “I thought I could talk to her. But she was too angry.”
Arvin shook his head. “You can’t reason with a gods-cursed serpent,” he told her. He gestured at the weapon that still hung from her belt. “Next time, use your club.”
Karrell’s face darkened, but before she could snap back at him, Arvin turned to the elf. “What now?” he asked. He wanted to pull the dorje out of his pack and check it, but not in front of the others. “Do we wait here for the next riverboat?”
“There won’t be another until tomorrow morning,” the elf said. “But I can air walk back. With a magical wind to push me, I’ll be swift.”
Arvin stared at the elf’s unfocused eyes. “How will you find your way back?”
“Hulv will guide me,” the elf said, gesturing in the general direction of the hook-nosed guard. “I can cast the spell on him, as well.”