The Viper's Fangs (Book 2) (18 page)

16

After four days of travel, Angus was exhausted. He stared into
the fire, letting his thoughts roam freely without paying much attention to
them. Why did he care if the fishmen were at the Lake of Scales? Why did he
want Hellsbreath to know it? Tyr’s kingdom and his conquests didn’t really
matter to him, did they? As long as he didn’t get caught up in them, he didn’t
care one way or another. But he
was
caught up in them, wasn’t he? He had
joined The Banner of the Wounded Hand, and even though he didn’t feel as much a
part of it as he should, he did take his duty seriously, and one of their duties
was to report fishmen incursions. But Hobart was right; he didn’t have any hard
evidence. All he had was conjecture, speculation. Yes, it made sense to him,
but that didn’t matter if he couldn’t convince anyone else. And he couldn’t
convince anyone else if he didn’t have the hard evidence. And he couldn’t get
the hard evidence if he couldn’t convince Hobart to investigate the
possibility. And Hobart wouldn’t investigate the possibility because of
Giorge’s curse. So it was all Giorge’s fault, wasn’t it?

He sighed and looked over at Giorge, who was snoring, and
glanced once more at the strange magic enveloping him. It was a tedious chore,
and he hoped it would be over soon. He didn’t even care how it ended, either.
He should care, but he didn’t. He wasn’t even bothered by the fact that he
didn’t care. But he was puzzled by it. He had, after all, grown somewhat fond
of Giorge and his infectious personality, and he had even forgiven him for the
blunder that had nearly killed him. At least he thought he had, but now? No, he
didn’t have ill-feelings toward Giorge, not really; he just didn’t care. That
was it, wasn’t it? He didn’t care what happened to Giorge, but he did care about
how he was being affected by what happened to Giorge. Yes, that was it, and it
wasn’t fair to Giorge to hold the curse against him, was it?

Angus frowned and looked at Giorge again. He was sleeping
peacefully enough, but what haunted him wasn’t in his dreams. It must be a
waking nightmare for him—or
will be
; he hadn’t had much happen to him
yet. Fletchings, squirrels, goats, skunks—all of those were minor
inconveniences, all things considered. What was it the scroll had said?
A
plague of woe
. How long would that plague of minor inconveniences last?
What would be next? How bad would
that
be?

He frowned; he couldn’t remember the exact wording of the
scrolls, and he was certain it mattered. Maybe he should look at them again?
And this time, he should think about them instead of just reading them. He owed
Giorge that much, didn’t he? Maybe there was something more to the scrolls than
he had first thought? Maybe he had read them wrong? The spelling
was
atrocious….

Angus stood up and quietly walked to the pile of gear they
had stacked near the horses. The box was on top of it, and he picked it up. He
carried it back to the fire and opened it. The scroll tube was there, and it opened
easily when he turned the cap. The pouch was gone, of course; Giorge had it
again, and there was no reason to take it from him; it would only return to
him, anyway. But the scrolls were still there, and he slid them onto his palm.

He opened the first one and held it near the fire so he
could read it. Yes, it had said,
a plague of woe and ill-fortune done.
What
would that ill-fortune be? He focused in on the magic and shook his head. The
magic the scroll had possessed was still gone, still smothering Giorge. He
glanced at Giorge and sighed. One of the yellow-green blobs had broken free again.
It was stretching into the darkness as if it had found something. Again. The
plague of woe continues.

He set the scroll in the box and closed it. Then he called
softly to Ortis, who was patrolling the perimeter, and pointed where the stream
of energy was stretching off into the darkness. “It will come from that
direction,” he said.

Ortis nodded. His other two constituents roused themselves
and one of them woke Hobart.

Hobart was alert at once, and they gathered at the edge of
the campsite, weapons ready.

Angus walked over to Giorge and nudged him with his foot. “What?”
Giorge asked. But when he saw where Angus was looking, he sighed and asked,
“Again?”

Angus nodded.

“I hope it isn’t another skunk,” he said. “They may be easy
to kill, but they certainly don’t die without being noticed.”

“I don’t think it’s a skunk,” Angus said. Then loud enough
for the others to hear, he added, “It’s in the trees. Fairly high up by the
look of it.”

“Trees?” Giorge repeated. “Not another squirrel.”

“No,” Angus said a short while later. “I think it may be
flying.”

“Flying?” Giorge repeated, crouching and looking upward.

Ortis lifted his bows and scanned the night sky. Almost a
minute went by with the only sounds the crackle of the fire and Ned’s snores.
Then he let fly an arrow at a barely visible brown blur. Two more arrows followed,
and the bird tumbled to the ground in a heap. Even with an arrow through its
wing, it hobbled toward Giorge, hooting and screeching as the magic snapped at the
base of its dark brown tail feathers.

Giorge threw one of his knives, and the bird rolled
backward, kicking its talons up into the air until it righted itself again. He
sighed and threw a second knife as another arrow from Ortis finished it off. Angus
walked up to it to make sure it was dead, and the yellow-green tendril was already
dissipating as he nudged the bird with his foot. When it was completely gone,
he bent down to remove the arrows and knives.

It had been this way for four nights, but the worst they had
faced thus far was a mountain cat that nearly caught them by surprise when it tried
to pounce on Giorge from a tree. But Millie had saved him; she had lurched
forward unexpectedly and broken into a quick run. Giorge had tried to hang onto
the reins, but he had slipped from the saddle and fallen to the ground, landing
awkwardly on his left arm. It was still cradled in a sling, and would be for a
week or two, according to Ortis. “Not broken,” he had said, “but badly
twisted.” At least the gashes from the fletching’s beak had healed enough for
him to use his right arm. The mountain cat hadn’t cared; it leapt toward him,
heedless of Hobart and Leslie bearing down on it. It ignored Hobart and his
broadsword and rushed straight for Giorge. But its hunger for Giorge was what
saved Giorge. It was so consumed with its prey, it didn’t even notice the
broadsword slashing down at it until it was too late. There was no need for a
second strike.

After that, Angus had kept careful watch over Giorge. He had
gotten very little sleep in the process, but it had made it much easier to deal
with the animals. Since he had begun checking him, not one of them had gotten
close enough to Giorge or any of the others to do any damage.

Angus silently handed the arrows to Ortis and tossed the
knives easily back to Giorge. He checked to make sure there were no other
tendrils floating free, and then picked up the bird by its legs and carried it
to the fire. He tossed it down on its back and frowned. The bird—an owl—was a
beautiful creature, and its feathers were a lovely shade of brown, one that
reminded him of earth magic found mainly in sandstone, and in the light of the
fire, the face of the owl was ringed with a dark orange mask. The black beak
dangled open at the base of a V-shaped darker patch of feathers that widened as
it stretched upward from it. One of the eyes was partly open, and Angus stared
at the flame flickering on it for a long moment before he knelt down and pried
the lid the rest of the way up.

The iris was round and orange.

Fyngar had said the plains folk had owl-like eyes….

Angus let the lid fall back into place and sat back on his
heels. Ortis had cat-like eyes
with orange irises.
Had Fyngar meant
that? Could it be that he wasn’t talking about the
shape
of the eyes?
Could it be that Fyngar was referring to their color, instead? Had he been
right all along? Was the Triad really just a remnant of the plains folk? He had
come from the north—

From north of the Death Swamps. Where the fishmen may have
gone. But they were—

Ortis
was
a plains folk, wasn’t he? How could Angus
find out for sure? Ask him? And what if he is one? What would that matter?
Would it change anything? Would it add to the puzzle he was constructing from
fragments of information that only seemed to him to be related to each other?
Ortis
claimed
to be a Triad, but that wasn’t true, was it? He was a
plains folk. His ancestors were massacred by King Urm a thousand years ago,
burned alive as he set the plains afire. If he was descended from the
survivors, there would have to be others, wouldn’t there? How many?

They reproduced by—

“Angus?” Giorge asked from beside him. “Are you all right?”

Angus blinked, took a breath, and looked up at Giorge.
“Yes,” he said. “Just tired. I haven’t had much sleep these past few days, and
it’s starting to wear me down.” It wouldn’t be so bad if he could use the
mantra, but he couldn’t. He needed to keep checking the magic enveloping Giorge,
and it kept breaking up the rhythm of his mantra and giving him a headache.

Giorge sat down and put his right hand on the box. “Why did
you get this out?” he asked, opening it and picking up the scroll. He anchored
it around his left index finger and carefully unrolled it.

Angus sighed and brought the magic into focus again. It
wouldn’t be the first time a second attack happened almost immediately after
the first. Animals often prowled together, but did owls? Fortunately, there
weren’t any streams flowing from Giorge, and Angus sighed and nearly let the
magic slip away before he noticed something he hadn’t expected. The scroll
Giorge held was radiating magic again, the same yellow-green magic that was attracting
the animals to Giorge.

Angus sucked in a slow deep breath and held out his hand.
“Let me see that,” he said, his voice calm, alert. Giorge handed him the
scroll, and there was a brief, lingering image of yellow-green that quickly
disappeared when Giorge let go of the scroll.

“Strange,” Angus said. “Why would it do that?”

“Do what?” Giorge asked.

Angus turned to him and held out the scroll. “Here,” he
said. “Hold on to this for a moment.”

Giorge took the scroll, and within a few seconds, there was
a yellow-green glow permeating through parts of it. It was an image of some
sort, and Angus moved in beside Giorge to study it. “A map!” he cried.

“Where?” Giorge asked, staring at the scroll and turning it
toward the fire. He twisted it, turned it over, and studied it closely while
Angus hurried over to his backpack. When Angus returned with parchment, ink,
and quill, Giorge said. “I don’t see anything.”

“You wouldn’t,” Angus said. “It’s drawn in magic.”
How
it was drawn was beyond him, but there was definitely a fairly small, crudely
drawn map.

Giorge held the scroll out to him and said, “That’s your
department.”

Angus shook his head and carefully set the inkwell in a
small depression and unrolled the parchment on the ground. He weighted the
upper corners with the stilettos from his boots and used his knees for the
lower portion. He set the quill in its center and opened the inkwell. “Hold it
down here so I can see it,” he said, lifting the quill and dipping it into the
inkwell. “I want to make a copy of it.”

“I thought you said its magic was gone,” Giorge said.

Angus nodded. “It is. The magic isn’t coming from the scroll;
it’s coming from you.”

“Me?” Giorge asked. “The curse?”

Angus nodded. “When I first looked at the scroll, it had
magic embedded in it. But that magic isn’t there any longer; it’s in you. It’s
what’s making the animals attack. It never occurred to me that it could temporarily
return to the scroll when you touched it.”

“I see,” Giorge said. Then he laughed. “Not really,” he
said, “but that doesn’t matter.
You
can see it.”

Angus nodded and began sketching out the rough edges of the
map in case the magic faded. Then he added in details until he had drawn a
nearly exact duplicate of the map on the scroll. When he finished, he compared
the two maps and nodded to himself.

“Is that what’s on it?” Giorge asked, glancing at the scroll
again and shaking his head. “I never would have noticed it.” He frowned and
added, “I wonder if any of my ancestors saw it?” After a few seconds he
shrugged. “Probably not. They all died.”

Giorge looked behind Angus and asked, “Do you recognize it,
Ortis?”

Ortis, who had been quietly observing the exchange beside
Hobart, nodded. “I think so,” he said. “If you look at it from this side,” he
said, moving to Angus’s left and kneeling. “This could be the cliff where you
found it. If it is, then this path—” his finger traced a line parallel to the
cliff that ran for some distance before it turned away from the cliff and moved
east for an even greater distance before ending, “—would be our trail to here,
where it ends.”

“Why would it have our path on it?” Giorge asked. “Symptata
had to have drawn it centuries ago.”

Angus frowned. It was a good question. How could Symptata
have known about where they had gone? What route they would take? It wasn’t
possible—unless he was an exceptional diviner. More than exceptional. No, there
had to be a different explanation for it, and he thought he knew what it was.
“I don’t think it was Symptata who drew that,” Angus said. “I think it was you.
There is an easy way to find out.” He barely dipped his quill into his inkwell
and lifted it out again.

“Hold the scroll steady,” he said, leaning in closer to
Giorge. “I want to mark where that line ends right now. Then, in a day or two,
we can look again and compare it.”