Chapter 14
The hours felt like forever, but finally the landscape began to change.
Piles of boulders popped up all around us like pillars of some ancient civilization.
The bumpy forest floor changed to a gentle incline, and the trees became more shriveled.
I caught myself taking in more breaths as the air became just a little bit thinner and colder.
Cassian leaned close to my ear. “We’re almost there. Only another mile.”
I gritted my teeth and shut my eyes against the harsh light of day. My whole body was a quivering mass of cold sweat. I felt like I was about to slip away into a nightmare. Maybe I wasn’t too far off.
Niveus broke out of the trees and into a small clearing. Forest covered three sides, but the area opposite us was a massive wall of rubble. The stones had fallen from a mountaintop that rose behind the wall, the surface of which was dotted by countless little rock slides from ages past.
A little stream flowed down from the steep slope and wound its way into the woods on our left. Grass and tall reeds grew about its snaky banks, and flowers popped up here and there to add life to the area.
Not that it needed much. The place was alive with dozens of snakes.
My cold blood ran colder at the sight of all the slithery creatures.
There were cobras, adders, rattlers, bull snakes, and many others I didn’t recognize.
Countless species had colorful scales all over their bodies, nature’s way of saying ‘back off.’ That’s all I wanted to do, but my body was so weary and worn that I couldn’t do anything more than shudder.
“Stay on Niveus,” Cassian whispered to me before he slid down.
The largest of the cobra snakes, and indeed the largest of the serpents overall, slithered to the forefront and bowed his hooded head. “It is an honor to rub scales with you, Your Majesty.”
My jaw hit the ground. A talking snake. This world had talking snakes.
Cassian returned the gesture. “The honor is all mine, Lord Skafti.”
The snake’s green eyes flickered over Cassian. “What brings you here to my humble stones in such haste, and with such a look of dishevelment that I have never seen before on you?”
Cassian nodded at me. “My friend here is in dire need of your help. She has consumed the flesh of nethral.”
A chorus of hisses rang out from the slithery audience, and more than one recoiled from me.
The lord lifted his head, and the tip of his tail twitched. “I see. You wish for us to remove the disease?”
Cassian bowed his head. “That is exactly what I desire, Your Lordship.”
Skafti lifted the tip of his tail and rubbed it against the bottom of his long snout as he studied me. “You know as well as I, Your Highness, that such a task is not easy, and your friend here appears to be suffering the ill effects already.”
“She was forced to consume a great deal.”
His sharp eyes darted back to Cassian. “That will make the procedure more difficult and more dangerous. I will have to ask a high price of you, Your Majesty, in compensation for such a task.”
A wisp of a smile slipped onto Cassian’s lips. “How many scales do you desire?”
Skafti shrugged his backbone. “Oh, we would perhaps need four.”
The king lifted an eyebrow. “That is quite a high price.”
The snake used the tip of his tail to point at me. “Well, we would use one on your friend here. That would leave us with only three, and we have use for them against the nethral, as well. The hideous creatures have invaded our territory as of late.”
“What if I were to assure you the attacks will stop before a fortnight has passed?” Cassian offered.
Skafti lifted his snout. “That would be a blessing indeed, but we will not wait that long for payment, and during that time, we would be left with our only defense: to flee.” He slithered around Cassian and the horse, flicking his tongue in the air.
“It is humiliating to run from any beast, be they nethral or mortal. With your scales, we would have the protection we need to fend them off.” The snake stopped his slithery pacing in front of Niveus, where he bowed his head to Cassian.
“Until that fortnight arrives, of course.”
Cassian pursed his lips, but drew his sleeve up.
He brushed his other hand against his arm and retrieved four scales, which he held out to the snakes.
Skafti’s tail whipped to and fro as he nodded at a few of the adders.
Two of the white snakes slithered forward, and each took two scales in their fang-filled mouths.
Skafti slithered closer to the side of Niveus and caught my eye. “If the beautiful lady would come down, we will begin the process.”
“Will you be doing the procedure?” Cassian questioned him.
Skafti turned his head to a small adder. “I have one who is much more adept at drawing forth a great amount of nethral poison. Come forth, Svana.”
The tiny snake was barely two feet long and slithered over to us with her head bowed. “It would be my pleasure to help His Majesty’s friend. If you would come over here, I will begin the process.”
Oh God. I had to actually get near the things. My face must have shown my terror, because Cassian stretched out his arms to me. “I’ll remain by your side.”
I reluctantly slipped into his grasp, and he set me on my feet. He looped an arm around mine and leaned me against his side. I lowered my voice to a whisper. “That better mean you’ll help me bolt out of here…”
There was a twinkle in his eyes as he winked at me. “Should the need arise.”
Cassian helped me over to the small adder, who lay beside a boulder with a flat top.
Several of the other snakes dusted off the rock, and Cassian eased me onto my hard seat.
The sun bore directly down on me, and I shrank beneath its burning glare.
My skin itched, and my stomach grumbled, but not for the meat in Cassian’s pack.
No, I had a sneaking suspicion it hungered for another kind of food.
One more fleshy. Even the snake looked a little tasty to me as she slithered onto the rock, so she sat beside me.
I shrank away from the feel of her cold, scaly flesh against mine.
Svana leaned in and sniffed me before she wrinkled her snout. “You are quite poisoned, My Lady. I’m afraid I may have to make two puncture wounds.”
My eyes widened, and I whipped my head around to face Cassian. “Puncture wounds?”
“Of course,” Svana revealed as she curled her tail around my back. “We of the Whispering Scree have many centuries of experience inserting and removing poison from humans.”
A squeak came out of me, and my face contorted with horror. “Poison?”
“There’s no need to worry,” Svana assured me as she showed off her fang-filled grin. “I won’t be injecting you with my poison.”
“Cassian!” I shouted as I found the energy to leap up and into his arms. I grabbed hold of his shirt with both hands and stared up at him with wild eyes. “I don’t like this idea anymore!”
He grasped my upper arms and drew me to arm’s length, where he could look into my eyes. “There’s no other way.”
“But poison!” I protested.
A crooked smile curled onto his lips. “Svana is quite adept at drawing poison, as well. She’ll take good care of you.”
“But we must hurry,” Svana spoke up as she lifted her nostrils. “You smell very bad. I will have a hard time extracting the pestilence from you, and more so if we do not act quickly.”
Cassian moved me back to the rock and gently set me down. “You will be fine. I promise you, and have any of my promises led you astray?”
“There’s a first time for everything!” I answered before a yelp interrupted my protests.
Svana once again curled her body around me and raised her head so we were face to face. She bared her long, pristine-white fangs at me. “This will only hurt for a moment.”
“What will hurt-ah!”
Svana snapped at me so quickly that I could barely follow the movement. She buried her fangs deep into my neck, so deep that my whole body reverberated with the intrusion. Her body proved to be a useful binding, as she tightened herself around me and pinned me into place.
Then I felt it. The vacuum of her powerful jaws as they extracted the nethral poison from my body.
Something squished out of the border of the puncture wounds and ran down my side.
I dropped my gaze to the rock and watched two thin lines of the black liquid pool on the stone.
The darkness flowed together and wriggled about, like something thrashing against life and death.
Skafti dove into the action. He held one of the scales between his powerful teeth, and he struck the scale against the black blood like flint to stone.
The nethral juice shuddered, and some of it vanished, only to be replaced by more of what Svana extracted.
The process repeated itself, shrinking the scale even as the thin lines grew thinner.
The eventful night, the long ride, and now this extraction were too much for me. I lost consciousness.