Which slid onto the sand of the cavern like a runnel of dark blood, scaled from its gaping mouth to the darkness in which its body was still hidden, serpent king, snake lord, mighty monster, thick through as Mitigan’s body, and all around it, its children, its kindred, the small ones of its kind, striped and mottled and jewel-marked, sinuous and horrid.
“Out,” cried Mitigan, something very like panic in his voice. “Out!”
They stumbled to their feet and ran, out and away, Saluez supported on either side by Lutha and Snark, Leely running beside his mother. Mitigan’s voice shouted battle cries while Leelson and Jiacare urged him to run. They did run, with snakes all around them, striking from crevices, dropping from holes, slithering across their feet as they struggled on, bruising themselves on the jutting rocks, scraping themselves on the rough stones until they came out under the sky. Leelson erupted from the rock pile, dragging the ex-king behind him. He had thought to bring one of the survival packs with him, and a lamp.
“Mitigan?” cried Snark.
“Coming,” said Leelson, dragging the ex-king toward us. “Here, Jiacare’s been bitten!” Lutha stood stupidly, not realizing what he wanted.
“Leely,” Leelson cried. “Come see the bite.”
The ex-king pulled up a trouser leg, displaying puncture wounds that seeped a yellowish ichor. The flesh around the wounds was green. “I fell on it,” he said. “I don’t think it meant to bite … ”
Leely ran to him, hugged the bitten leg, effectively tripping the ex-king, so that he fell heavily and was unable to get up. Leely kissed the bites, then hugged the ex-king once more.
“Jiacare Lostre, ex-King of Kamir,” cried Leely. “Poor Jiacare!”
“Can you walk on it?” demanded Leelson, heaving Jiacare to his feet.
“If I have to.” He stood up, took one experimental step, and groaned.
“Mitigan!” demanded Snark once more.
“He’s either coming or he’s dead,” grated Leelson.
“Where are we going?” Jiacare smiled as he asked the question, a thin, fatalistic smile.
“Wherever we’re allowed to go,” Leelson muttered.
Mitigan appeared at the entrance to the rockfall, staggering toward the others. His face and arms were covered with bites. “Hard to kill,” he muttered. “Oh, they’re hard to kill.”
He fell. Leely looked at his wounds, then at Leelson. “Dananana,” he said, uninterested.
Leelson thrust his fingers into Leely’s mouth, then rubbed the wet fingers onto Mitigan’s wounds. The assassin gasped, as though in sudden agony.
“Mitigan Mitigan of the Asenagi,” Leely said in a tone of disapproval. “Mitigan fought the snakes.”
Where Mitigan had emerged from the rocks was now a darker shadow. They stared at it, trying to find in it the coils of a serpent, the twining shape of the snake. It wasn’t a snake. Something deep inside them told them that. Snakes to flush them out, but something else to drive them.
Eyes reflected the light from the lamp Leelson carried. A wavering howl split the air.
“Wolves,” Lutha breathed. “It’s wolves.” How many times had she seen them, recreated in story, remembered in myth? How many times?
As though answering to their name, lithe forms spewed from the rock pile. Some of them loped up the slope toward the camp, others made a line to the north. The way was open south or west, but in no other direction. They were not all wolves. Some of them were other things, shamblers, gigglers, mutterers, throat growlers.
Mitigan stumbled to his feet. He and the ex-king staggered up the slope, the rest following. As they went the bitten men gained strength. They crested the ridge, walking almost normally, then stopped. Across the narrow valley the wolves had made a line barring the way to the south. The only open way was the valley, the crescent of gravel that was the beach. They were being forced toward the sea.
“Make a stand,” muttered Mitigan. “Get into one of the storm caverns and make a stand.”
“No,” said Leelson. “Let’s just go along for the moment. See what’s intended.”
Lutha stared blindly into the dark. Even Leely could not live in this place without food, without shelter. What was intended was eradication. What was intended was that no one of them should return to Alliance to tell men what they knew.