The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5)

The Gathering Storm (Crown of Stars #5) Page 270

An unholy cry rose from the east, a moaning that trembled through the clear night air. Meriam’s servants leaped to their feet, but the locals shouted hysterically one to the next and grabbed staves and axes. One man wept.

That moan chilled Zacharias until he shivered, and yet he broke out in a sweat, staring into the darkness. There was nothing to see. A scent drifted over them, borne by the wind: stinking carrion steeped with the sweetness of honey, so reeking and foul that he gagged.

The caretaker appeared from the shadows that half drowned the stones and hurried over to the blanket where Marcus and Meriam worked their equations. He called out to the others, and the locals rushed in a group to huddle within the stones, deathly quiet and obviously frightened.

“No light! No light!” The words came in recognizable Dariyan, and the rigid mask of terror that tightened the caretaker’s eyes could be understood in any language. “Go! Go!”

Too late Marcus pinched out the wick. Meriam’s servants ran to fetch her and carried her within the stone circle as Marcus and Zacharias hurried after. An awful grinding, slithering noise rose from the east.

“Where is Elene?” cried Meriam.

The old man shouted words Zacharias did not know as he lifted his staff above his head. Light sparked from the stone columns. Threads danced between stars and earth to form a shimmering fence woven around the columns, and by that light Zacharias saw, sliding in and out of the light’s verge just beyond the stones, a massive shadow writhing and twisting, first a woman and then a monstrous snake.

The men clustered behind him moaned in terror, crying out “Akreva! Akreva!” and cast themselves on the ground as though prostrating themselves before the Enemy.

“By God’s Name, Meriam, what is that creature?” demanded Marcus.

“Where is Elene?”

A figure darted forward from the hillside where it had strayed, but the hideous woman-snake slithered faster than any earth-bound creature could move and cut off Elene’s retreat. The girl was stuck beyond the safety of the encircling spell, easy prey for the monster as it closed. She raised her staff, but it was a frail stick with which to fend off death.

The choking sound of grief and horror that came from Meriam’s throat catapulted Zacharias into action. He would not stand by as he had when the Quman had attacked the party guarding Blessing outside the walls of Walburg. He would not run away.

Better to die than find himself a coward again.

He grabbed a staff out of the hands of a cowering servant and dashed past the glimmering net of the spell. The threads burned where they touched him; cloth blackened; his skin stung and turned white.

The monster reared up before the stunned girl, its tail lashing. Its scales were coated with a noxious substance that gave off a phosphorescent glow. Its tail bore a barbed stinger, and it whipped its tail forward, and struck. Elene darted sideways. The tail thunked into the ground. Dust spattered. The monster opened its mouth to trumpet its rage, a high, horrible scream echoed off the distant hills and vibrated the stones. The threads of light sparked and wavered. Behind their net of safety, men shrieked in terror.

Zacharias jumped forward and whacked the monster across the coils as hard as he could. It reared back, twisting to confront him. Its body was massive, as thick as a tree trunk and rippling with muscles, and it was shiny pale and so grotesque that he wanted to cry, or vomit. The stench brought tears to his eyes. The long snake body bloomed into a monstrosity, the grotesque semblance of a woman with round breasts and narrow face but so crudely formed that it seemed an ill-trained craftsman had botched the job.

Elene’s voice rang out. “Hear me, Misael, Charuel, Zamroch. Come to my call. I invoke you, Sabaoth, Misiael, Mioael. Prepare for me a sharp sword drawn in your right hands. Prepare for me seven radiant lights. Drive this evil creature from our midst!”

It struck.

He was slow, unlike the girl. The tip pierced his shoulder. He did not remember screaming. Suddenly he lay on the ground and a cold swift burning blew outward from the sting, turning his flesh to stone. He couldn’t move.

It stared down at him, its youthful face like that of a girl but lacking all intelligence and emotion. It clacked sharp teeth together and drew its tail back for a second strike.

How strange, staring upward, that time should move so slowly. The creature had hair, of a kind, but in that last instant he realized that it was not hair at all but a coiling mass of hissing snakes writhing around its face.

A falling star flashed in the heavens. A burst of fire exploded before his eyes, and its brightness shrouded his vision. The monster screamed in such agony that the sound of it might as well have turned every soul there to stone. He could not move but shivered convulsively as that tail was dragged across him, drawn by what force he did not know, nor could he see, nothing except those heavy gray coils pressing their weight into his chest, the tail dwindling until the white stinger floated before his eyes, a bead of venom dangling from the barbed tip, ready to fall into his mouth.