A Dragon's Ascension - Ed Greenwood [125]
Berries spilled out of the basket on Briona's arm, but she cared not. To be caught here nigh the altar would be their deaths.
Not for the first time, Narneth wondered angrily why, in all the Vale, the Snake-lovers had to choose the very best rindolberry patch for their altar. Not that he minded watching ladies bare themselves and dance about it, mind-but seeing them grow scales and snake-heads and fang each other brought on the shivers.
Worse than mat-they'd stopped using the drum. Its slow beat chilled the heart, to be sure, but gave clear warning the Snake-lovers were coming. Now they were just suddenly-there, some of them slithering along like gigantic snakes with human arms. Most of them were still people-people with slit eyes and a few scales and fangs and forked tongues, yes, but people. There were a few, though… well, more than a few, who had snake-heads all the time, or tails, or both. They gave Narneth nightmares-and just seeing them from afar set Briona to screaming.
"Quiet "he hissed, catching up to her. "Y'want them to come after us?"
Together he and Briona crawled on to where they could crouch under a tangle of thorny vines, where the rindol lay looped and draped thickly over dead trees. Narneth chose the best gap to peer out of, and Briona just laid herself down, panting like a forge bellows.
They were coming. Snake-heads suddenly slid into view, regarding the world expressionlessly with forked tongues flicking. Six-no, seven full serpents, with half serpents walking behind. A dozen, or more.
Two of the lightly scaled ones carried a terrified village lass-one of the Alhand girls, the one who worked at the mill-tied to a pole slung between them. They'd torn away most of her clothes, and her wrists and ankles were bound over the pole with-curling, angry snakes! Other snakes lashed her throat to the pole, and another was jammed into her mouth, tail first, so she couldn't do more than moan. Her eyes were wide with terror-and Narneth shivered and sank down as low as he could as the Snake-lovers carried her past.
They were going to make her into one of them-or more likely, sacrifice her!
Yes. The ones to be made priestesses did their own walking, while priests whipped them with living snakes; this one must be a sacrifice.
She'd be laid on the altar while they hissed prayers and set one poisonous snake after another on her. She'd be bitten until she went mad and died, foaming at the mouth and with her skin gone purple-and then they'd roast her over their spit, and feast.
Narneth had watched such deaths before, though he never stayed long. Afterward, the Serpent-priests always spread out through the forest, to hunt.
"What's happening?" Briona whispered, trembling. Narneth put a stern finger to his lips and crawled a little way along under the vines, to where he could see the altar.
Serpent-priests were busy around the fire, lighting kindling above the cold coals of their last feast. Narneth watched them with fear and hatred coiling together in his belly, feeling increasingly sick, and then it happened.
One moment the priests were strutting or slithering about with their usual cold arrogance-and the next moment they went mad. The two carrying the girl dropped her and went for each other, biting and clawing at each other bare-handed, while one of the almost-snakes ahead of them drew itself up and started hammering itself against the ground, its head thudding down repeatedly before another snarling priest slammed into it, dashing its brains out against the stone altar. He was promptly bent over the altar himself by another priest armed with a knife made of snakes' fangs and stabbed repeatedly until his kickings and screams grew feeble. Other serpents bit at each other in a frenzy, or threw their coils around everything in sight, trying to crush and throttle.