Vanity's Brood - Lisa Smedman [76]
"The Se'sehen," Porvar breathed. "Ss'yin'tia'saminass is under attack."
"That's good," Arvin said. "In the confusion, you can escape."
Porvar gave him a level stare. "Not without my son."
"He's in the pit, isn't he?"
Porvar nodded.
Arvin struggled with his conscience. He'd retrieved the second half of the Circled Serpent-the only sane thing to do was shift into the form of a flying snake and get out. Now Karrell was counting on him. Arvin's own children would die if he failed to save them. Porvar was a stranger, trying to hold Arvin to a promise he couldn't afford to keep.
"Please," Porvar begged.
His whisper was all but lost in the crashing that surrounded them. Dozens of the giant lizards were thundering through the jungle toward the center of Ss'yin'tia'saminass.
Arvin sighed. "Which way is the pit?"
Porvar grinned, revealing a jagged set of teeth. "This way."
They hurried through the jungle, moving at right angles to the attack. More than once they had to stop and hide from other Se'sehen, also mounted on lizards. Eventually, the jungle opened up, and Arvin could see the cistern just ahead. He heard cries coming from inside it: the halflings. One of them was dead, impaled on the needle-like spikes. His face, level with the rim of the cistern, had turned a faint blue and was so swollen it was impossible to see his eyes.
Porvar stared, transfixed, at the corpse. "Poison," he croaked.
"Is your son good at climbing?" Arvin asked. The half-lizard startled, then nodded.
"Tell the halflings to bo ready to catch a rope."
Without wasting any more words, Arvin uncoiled the braided leather cord he'd fastened around his waist and began to climb a nearby bee. When he was high enough to look down into the pit, he tied one end of the cord to a tree branch and tossed the other down into the cistern, shouting its command word as he did so. The trollgut rope expanded, more than doubling in length. One of the halflings caught the other end.
"Is there something you can tie it to?" Arvin shouted.
The halflings looked around then shook their heads. The floor of the cistern was rough with broken stone, but none of the chunks was large enough to serve as an anchor for the rope. Arvin was just about to break the unpleasant news that one of them would have to hold it while the others climbed out when another of the enormous lizards hurtled toward them through the jungle. It smashed through the trees mere paces away from Arvin, sending the tree he was in whipping back and forth, and skirted the cistern, the yuan-ti on its back clinging grimly to its saddle. Arvin clung equally grimly to a branch with his one good hand.
As the giant lizard thundered away, Arvin heard a cheer go up from the halflings below. Glancing down, he saw that the lizard had knocked over a tree, which had fallen into the pit. Its trunk formed a ramp up to the rim. Already the halflings were scrambling up, Porvar's son in the lead. The half-lizard moved forward to embrace him, but the boy shrank back, frightened. Then, visibly screwing up his courage, he hugged his father. Porvar looked up at Arvin, waved his thanks, then hurried away with the others into the jungle.
"Nine lives," Arvin whispered.
He added a silent prayer that Tymora keep sending the halflings luck. To escape in the middle of a full-scale assault, they would need it.
Arvin, fortunately, would be out of there as soon as he could morph into a flying snake.
He cut the new growth from his trollgut rope and looped what remained over his shoulder. Then he started to draw energy up through his navel and into his chest. Only then did he think to touch his chest and make certain the lower half of the Circled Serpent was still there.
It wasn't. It must have fallen when the lizard brushed the tree.
A chill ran through him. His heart stopped racing a moment later, however, when he spotted it on the ground near the base of the tree. Aborting his manifestation, he scrambled down to grab it. He secured the Circled Serpent back inside