The Fanged Crown

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

1 Flamerule, the Year of the Ageless One

(1479 DR)

Chult

Two shadows moved quietly through the unquiet jungle. A torrent of rain had fallen as the sun was setting, and a humid fog laid heavily on the hot night air. The figures moved carefully, disappearing into a strand of brush or behind a large root whenever a branch shook above them or they heard the sounds of large feet padding across the jungle floor. When they reached the edge of a clearing, one held back while the other scuttled across the open ground, moving as silently as a spider traversing a leaf.

The moon broke through the canopy, casting silver light on the young male dwarf who had entered the clearing. The dwarf known as Zo froze, the way a deer might if caught in a place it hadn’t meant to be spotted. Zo pulled his hood over his long dark hair to obscure his face. He wore a leather breastplate under his thin black cloak, a crossbow slung across his back, and a sheath belted at his waist.

A tenday before, Zo’s chieftain father had been killed in a skirmish with the Scaly Ones, and Zo had taken the mantle of leader, even though he was too young to be married and still went by his childhood nickname. “Zo” meant “happy” in that particular dialect of the Chultan dwarves-or Dwarves of the Domain, as they called themselves.

When the moon disappeared behind a cloud, Zo made a low noise that resembled the call of a hawk. At the sound, another dwarf-an older female dressed in layers of colorfully embroidered cloth-scurried into the clearing. The elder dwarf, called Majida by her tribe, ducked into a thicket of crimson flowers that brushed against her bare hands and feet without irritation. After checking the clearing one last time, Zo followed her into the floral-scented undergrowth. The dwarves were so used to the crimson nettles that they could easily navigate the tangled thickets while most creatures had to walk around or suffer painful rashes. The two dwarves crouched down and stared at the high mudthorn walls in the clearing in front of them.

“Did they build the walls to keep something out or something in?” Majida asked. “Stupid humans. Don’t they know about the Jumpers?”

Shorter than their northern kin, the tribe of Chultan dwarves were small enough to avoid the big predators, clever enough to avoid the traps and barbs of the jungle, and humble enough to be happy in their Domain, an extensive network of grottos and caverns. The dwarves avoided cities and other trappings of civilized life, but they were hardly feral, and would have had objections with anyone who described them as such. The Domain dwarves had a written language and a long memory, particularly about the savagery of the Scaly Ones and their abominations that still roamed the jungle thousands of years after the sarrukh had vanished. The serpent-abominations retained all of the cruelty and none of the finesse of their makers.

“Are you sure about this?” Zo whispered.

Majida glanced at him, surprised that her chief had expressed doubt. Majida had read the signs, and they had been obvious-or at least as obvious as anything in the realm of prognostication could be. She had discussed that with Zo and the tribal leaders-several times. Zo was like an infant when it came to leadership, but Majida was in her autumn years and had been shaman since before Zo’s father was born. Her spell wouldn’t be difficult, but the rest of the plan depended on Zo and his dwindling band of warriors. If Zo couldn’t handle it, the whole plan would fall apart.

“I’m sure,” Majida assured him. “Besides, we don’t have a choice. We’ve lost three more in the past tenday.”

“We’ll fight harder.”

Majida sighed. Typical male, thinking all the answers came from how he handled his sword.

“We’ve endured many things,” she said. “But he is a particularly bad man, Zo. We have to stop him before he goes any further.”

“How do you know they are any different than the others?” Zo asked.

“I only need to be sure about one.”

Zo jutted out his chin. “I want to think about other plans.”

Zo began to speak, but Majida touched his forehead in silent warning moments before a green-scaled jaculi slid out of the gloom. They waited in silence as it slithered by, the sickly glow of its eyes scanning the underbrush for prey. It paused just outside their thicket, the sound of its hissing breath uncomfortably close.

From where Majida was crouched in the underbrush, she could see that it was an exceptionally large snake, and she had no interest in tangling with it. The clever jaculi were much faster than either she or Zo, so there was no point in trying to run from it. It would simply overtake them, immobilize them, and eat them while they were still alive. The jungle had thousands of gruesome deaths to offer, but being slowly digested by a jaculi was one of the worst ways to die that Majida could think of.

Zo was trembling beside her, and Majida could sense the fear cresting in him. Soon he would bolt and run like the child he was. She laid a restraining hand on his shoulder and pressed her finger to her lips. She whispered a few words, and an indistinct form appeared in the palm of her hand. At first it was just a circle of blue light. But soon there was an outline of a wing, and she felt the distinctive feel of feathers against her hand. Smiling faintly, Majida hunched her shoulders over the glow and held it close to her chest. When she felt the little body grow warm, she opened her hand to reveal a perfect white bird with a crown of golden feathers.

Majida slipped a dagger out of the sheath she wore strapped to her upper arm. Holding the trembling bird tightly in one hand, she pushed the tip of the dagger into the skin just under its wing. When she pulled the knife out, blood flowed down the bird’s breast and stained its white feathers. Majida held the bird up, and it fluttered from her, out of the thicket, and directly past the jaculi, who caught the obvious scent of blood. An injured bird was easy prey, and the snake followed the bird away from the nettle thicket back into the gloom. As soon as it was out of sight, Majida felt Zo relax beside her.

“Poor bird,” she said sadly.

“You can make another,” Zo told her.

Majida wanted to chide Zo for such a statement-as if the bird were no more important than a hood or a new breastplate-but she held her tongue.

“Let’s go around to the southern wall,” she whispered. But when she moved, Zo caught her elbow.

“Do we have to go tonight?” he asked. “Why can’t we wait and see what happens tomorrow?”

“They’re vulnerable for an attack. They might as well cut their own throats. That’s how safe they are in there.”

“You said they weren’t going anywhere until morning,” Zo reminded her.

“So I did. Which means tonight is the perfect time to sit here and weigh our options,” she said sarcastically.

Zo looked at her with a hurt expression. “I can’t tell if you’re serious or not.”

Immediately Majida felt bad. She liked Zo well enough. When his father died, their tribal customs had thrust leadership on him, even though there were other dwarves more qualified to lead than he. Majida thought that he would be a good leader in a few years, if he lived that long and was smart enough to learn from his mistakes. The dwarves of the Domain were particularly shortsighted when it came to embracing talent and recognizing the accidental nature of a person’s birth. At different points during her long life, Majida’s tribe had considered her a miscreant, a seditionist, and a rescuer. Several times, she had thought her tribe would exile her from the Domain, except she was the best healer and caster the tribe had ever produced.

“There are two ways the conflict can end: We can be picked off one by one until the Domain is empty. Or we can move.”

“Move?”

“Find a new Domain.”

“Where would we go?” Zo asked. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

By the look on his face, Majida knew he was imaging some green and verdant land just waiting for them. Majida had meant the last option as a farce, something that would bring him back to his senses, but he was actually considering it. Most of the dwarves of the Domain hadn’t strayed far from the hidden caverns they called home, and Majida was one of the few to have traveled extensively outside of Chult.

“They don’t want our kind anywhere else,” she said firmly. “This is where we belong.”

Zo scrubbed his stubby hands across his face. “All right. I’m putting my trust in you. What do you need me to do?”

“Follow me.”

The sun hadn’t broken the treeline when Boult woke up, but he could see well enough in the dim light to know that Harp and Liel were not in the room. And by the snoring coming from opposite sides of the room, he was sure that both boys were still sound asleep. Keeping an eye on the door, Boult began a systematic search of every inch of wall, floor, and ceiling. Shaking his head in disgust at the shoddy craftsmanship of the hut, Boult ran his fingers along the timbers at the base of the roof and poked at the seams between the boards on the walls.

On one side of the room was a chest filled with clothes. Boult slid it away from the wall and saw a cracked floorboard. Using his grubby fingernails to pry up the broken piece of wood, Boult saw that a small box had been nailed under the planks. He pried it open and pulled out a rolled-up parchment. A circle of red wax had sealed the parchment before being broken, and Boult took special care to examine it. He held the parchment to the light, examining the waxy ridges of the seal.

“An otter? Or maybe a weasel?” he murmured to himself.

Boult unrolled the parchment and held it up to the dusky light coming through the uncovered window. After reading the parchment several times, he put it back into the small box under the planks, replaced the chest, and headed outside.

Stepping around Harp and Liel, Boult trotted down the stairs. He stopped mid-step when he noticed something on the trunk of the nearest tree. Glancing back over his shoulder at the sleeping figures intertwined on the porch, Boult inspected the ground between his feet and the tree. Besides a few rotting goldenfruit buzzing with flies and some patches of scrubby grass, the ground revealed nothing interesting.

Boult moved closer to the trunk where three runes had been seared into the bark. The marks were still fresh-a wisp of smoke hung in the air as if the bark still smoldered under the mystical mark. Boult stood in front of the trunk for a long time as he analyzed every nuance of the scorched lines. Slowly, he made a circuit around the house and found runes on trees every few feet around the hut. Behind the house, where the vegetation was thicker, it took him longer to locate the runes, but they were there. When he was done, he paused for a moment, watching as the streams of sunlight angled across the tops of the trees and flooded the grove with rose-tinted light.

Boult lit his pipe. He made a slow walk around the perimeter of the fence, chewing on his pipestem and standing for an overly long time in front of the goat pens. Then he returned to the front of house and sat on one of the logs around the cold fire pit. Boult puffed on his pipe, turning his griffon-head tamper around in his hands. When he saw Harp stir, he tamped out the pipe and secured it in his pouch.

“You look terrible,” Boult said as Harp sat down across from him on a log.

“Thanks,” Harp said, resting his head on his hands. “Kit and Verran still inside?”

“Yes,” Boult said, taking a closer look at Harp. “Didn’t get much sleep, did you?”

Harp shook his head.

“She did a number on you and not in the good way.”

“Shut it, Boult,” Harp said in a low voice.

“What did she do? Guilt you for ever daring to touch her precious body?”

“I’m not having that conversation with you.”

“Women. They’re right in it with you, and then they change their minds, and somehow you’re a monster.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Wasn’t that the gist of the conversation? How could you treat me like a such a whore?”

“Were you listening?”

“I didn’t have to. I just imagined what she would say to get you to look like that.”

“I should have done things differently.”

“Maybe so. But not with that girl.”

“Watch yourself, Boult. I still care about her.”

Boult looked over his shoulder at the porch where Liel was just sitting up, her long hair tousled and her dress falling off her shoulder. She saw them looking at her and straightened her clothes. Then she pulled on her boots and came to sit beside Harp.

“If you’re going to show us those ruins, we should leave soon,” Boult said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his legs. “Before the sun gets too hot.”

“Maybe we should just go to the ship,” Liel said after a moment.

“You don’t want to go to the ruins?” Boult asked.

“Maybe you could take me home,” Liel said.

“We can do that,” Harp said with relief. “If that’s what you want, I think that’s the best plan.”

“I don’t know,” Boult said. “I’d like to see the ruins.”

“You don’t care about the damn ruins,” Harp said.

“I’ve seen that disease you talked about last night, Liel,” Boult said, abruptly changing the subject.

“Which disease?” Liel asked with confusion.

“The one that swells up the tongue and chokes its victim,” Boult reminded her. “You didn’t have time to heal him?”

“No, he died within moments,” Liel said.

“You’ve seen a lot of people die in the jungle,” Boult said.

“I’d rather freeze to death in a snowfield than spend another day here,” Liel said.

“What about Cardew?” Boult asked. “Yesterday you said you wanted to get proof of what he’d been doing.”

“She’s changed her mind,” Harp said irritably. “And just wants to go home.”

“Where do you think Cardew got the map?” Boult continued, ignoring Harp’s obvious frustration.

“The one with the sites marked on it?” Liel said. “Queen Anais must have given it to him.”

“But why would she issue a writ for a colony? Why not just send down mercenaries to search the ruins?”

“To keep up appearances? To satisfy her accomplices? How should I know? I wasn’t privy to those discussions.”

“Accomplices. That’s an interesting word.”

“The queen has interests that she keeps well hidden,” Liel said in a monotonous voice. It sounded like she was reading a line of text from a book.

“Is that so? You learned a bit while in Cardew’s keeping, then?”

“Boult,” Harp warned.

“You said he discovered the parchment with the portal spell in the ruins?”

“I have no idea where he found it,” Liel said. She looked perplexed, but there was no anger in her voice. It was same thing Harp had noticed when they were talking the night before. It was as if all her emotions had been extricated from her body. Harp remembered wishing there was a way to do that in the months after he got out of prison. He had wanted to hollow out his insides so that he was just a shell without any painful memories or recollections of joy.

“But you said it was ancient magic,” Boult continued.

“That’s what I thought,” Liel explained.

“I don’t understand why he dragged you to Chult when he could have hired a sorcerer the same way he hired the mercenaries.”

“Why does it matter?” Harp said, suddenly feeling more alert. Boult was being annoying, and the direction of his questions was unnerving.

“Appearances,” Liel repeated. “Cardew will do everything to keep up appearances.”

“Were the mercenaries killed?” Boult asked

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Cardew came back from the ruins alone.”

“Do you think he used the portal?” Boult was firing questions so rapidly that Liel barely had time to answer. Harp couldn’t help wonder why Liel kept answering them, why she didn’t tell Boult to shut his mouth. But she was so compliant. That was another part of her personality that had not been there during their time in the Moonshae Isles. The Liel he had known was anything but compliant.

“I think so.”

“How did you find the cavern with the machine?” Boult asked.

“I was getting water from the river.”

“There are closer watering holes to the camp than that one,” Boult pointed out.

“I’ve been looking all over the jungle.”

“For ruins?” Boult asked.

“For whatever Cardew has been planning,” Liel said. “Had Cardew been to Chult before?”

“No. Yes. I’m not sure.”

“But you’re his wife. How could you not know?”

“He would go away sometimes,” Liel explained. “I thought he was at Anais’s court, but he could have been anywhere.”

“Even running around the jungle? Constructing machines that operate using skin and blood?”

Liel’s eyes widened, and Harp laid a hand on her arm. “Stop it, Boult,” he warned. “She doesn’t know all the answers.”

“Are you sure, Harp?”

“What are you getting at? Because you are starting to-”

“Here’s what I know,” Boult interrupted. “I know that Cardew didn’t build the machine or the cages. He probably didn’t even know about them.”

“You don’t know that,” Harp said, staring at the dwarf. “Do you?”

“I think whoever sent Cardew to Chult has been here for a while, making things, collecting things, generally doing bad things in the jungle,” Boult continued. “What do you think about that theory, Liel?”

“That might be true,” Liel said slowly.

“Who do you think that is?” Boult asked.

“Queen Anais,” she said promptly.

“What does Queen Anais want with ancient magic?”

“I don’t know.”

“Speculate,” Boult ordered brusquely.

“The Torque is very powerful,” Liel said. “The queen wants the Torque.”

“What Torque?” Harp asked.

Liel’s coppery skin grew pale. “Torque?”

“You didn’t mention that last night,” Harp said.

“Didn’t I?”

“What did Cardew say about a torque?” Harp asked.

Boult piped up before Liel answered. “Liel, Harp got a nasty sting from some bastard flower. Do you think you could heal him?”

“It’s nothing,” Harp said, annoyed that Boult had distracted Liel from answering his question.

“When we go to the ruins, we should be as strong as possible. What do you think, Liel?”

“I think he’ll heal on his own,” Liel murmured, looking at the ground.

“So, what about the cups?” Boult asked.

“What cups?”

“And the food on the plates?” Boult continued.

“Stop asking me questions,” Liel said in a low, tense voice. For the first time in the conversation, there was an unmasked warning in her tone. But that didn’t stop Boult. From the smirk on the dwarf’s face, Harp knew that getting a rise out of her was what Boult had wanted all along.

“Have you even been in the dining hall? Cardew left almost a tenday ago. I’d think you might have cleared out the rotting meat before the maggots moved in. Except you’re the maggot, aren’t you?”

“Boult!” Harp said.

“And no one used the portal spell, Liel. I found it in the house.”

“Give it to me,” she ordered, glaring at the dwarf.

“Why don’t you use some magic and take it from me?” Boult taunted. He would have expected Harp to snap at that, but instead Harp seemed to taking a closer look at the slender elf sitting next to him, her body rigid with tension and her hands clenched into fists as they rested on her knees.

“Harp, she isn’t the Liel that you knew,” Boult said.

“And you’re going to listen to him, Amhar, the Killer of Children?” she said, turning her head sideways to address Harp. As her gaze drilled into him, he felt a chill go up his spine. She’d spoken in such a placid tone that it took a moment for the implication of her words to hit him. When it did, Harp leaped to his feet and backed away from her as if she’d spoken with the hiss of a forked tongue. Boult’s face darkened, and he looked at the elf with pure hatred.

“He’s been deceiving you all those years, Harp,” Liel continued in that flat voice. “If he’s innocent, why didn’t he tell you who he was? He’s in league with Queen Anais. They killed all those children to secure her power. There is no one to challenge her anymore. And once she gets her hands on the Torque, there will be no one to stop her.”

“I don’t even need to ask the question, but reassure me,” Boult asked. “Did you tell her about my past, Harp?”

“I did not,” Harp said quietly. He had felt beaten when he woke up that morning, but suddenly it felt like his body was being crushed under a heavy weight.

“Why the head games, Liel?” Boult demanded. “Why torture Harp with guilt?”

“You’ve kept your freedom so far, Amhar. But you’ll die a miserable death at the Vankila Slab, the way you already should have died.”

“If you know Vankila, then you knew where I was all along,” Harp said taking a ragged breath. “Did you know what they did to me at Vankila at the request of your husband? Did you know?”

Liel started to run, but Boult launched himself at her. He tackled her, knocking her off the log and onto the ground. He tried to pin her down with his body, but she slammed the palm of her hand into his face. He managed to turn his head just in time to avoid a broken nose, but when his weight shifted, she twisted out from under him. She tried to scramble to her feet, but Boult lunged at her again, pinning her down. Liel struggled ferociously, but the dwarf outweighed her, and he managed to catch her arms and hold them.

“Harp!” Boult said, straining with the effort of keeping Liel’s long limbs in check. “Grab her!”

Awoken by the sound of shouting, Kitto and Verran appeared on the porch, looking sleepy and confused. The boys stared wide-eyed when they saw Boult tussling with the elf while Harp looked on passively, as if he didn’t care about the scene that was playing out in front of him.

“Don’t leave the trees!” Boult yelled to the boys.

Before anyone could respond, there was a harsh, guttural noise from outside the compound and movement above the wall. Harp saw a silhouette framed against the blue sky as something leaped over the barrier and landed on the ground in front of the gate. The creature had a humanoid body covered in green and brown scales and the elongated head of a snake. Leather armor covered its muscled chest, and it held a jeweled sword in its clawed hand. A twist of gold shimmered around each of its ankles.

The yuan-ti-serpentfolk of Chult. A forked tongue flicked in and out of its wide mouth. The creature crouched down and swayed back and forth as it scoped the inside of the compound. With its red eyes focused on the cluster of people in front of the hut, it bared its long fangs and hissed loudly in an unfamiliar language. Liel and Boult were still wrestling on the ground, but Harp felt too exhausted by Liel’s treachery to move. It was as if he had grown roots, and even the imminent threat of an enemy attack couldn’t incite him to action.

“Help me,” Boult demanded angrily. Verran hurried down from the porch while Kitto dashed inside the hut to retrieve the sword that Harp had taken from the armory. Before Verran reached Boult, the compound’s gate began rattling as if it were being battered by a strong gale. The hinges creaked, and horizontal cracks branched across the door like lightning flashing across a stormy sky. The wood groaned. The planks snapped in half and fell to the mud.

When the dust cleared, more yuan-ti wearing leather armor and golden bands around their ankles stood in the wreckage. Behind them, three massive warriors crossed through the remains of the gate and entered the courtyard. Although they had human arms, these warriors were more snake than human and three times the size of a man. The warriors slithered on long, serpentine bodies around the wooden fragments of the door. Their dark scales glistened in the light, and their cloudy blue eyes protruded from their diamond-shaped skulls. Two carried long swords and wore plates of banded mail on their chests. The third gripped a jeweled metal staff and wore a row of glass vials and metal spikes looped across his chest.

“Take your sword!” Kitto urged, pushing the hilt into Harp’s hand. Harp took it, but he let it hang loosely in his hand, the tip dragging in the dirt.

“Why aren’t they attacking?” Verran cried. He tried to help Boult pin Liel’s arms, but she struggled with renewed energy. The yuan-ti stopped when they reached the edge of the grove, prowling just outside the trees and talking in a mixture of hissing and clicking sounds.

“Someone cast a ward of protection,” Boult said, shoving his knee into Liel’s stomach just below her rib cage. She coughed at the impact and stopped fighting as she gasped for breath. “Look at the marks on the trees.”

“Who did it?” Verran asked.

“It’s Dwarven. That’s all I know. But as long as we stay inside the circle of protection, they can’t come into the grove.”

“We’re just going to sit and wait?” Verran cried. “I don’t like that plan.”

“We sit here until Harp gets his head together,” Boult said. “Get your head together, Harp. Now!”

“Please, let me go,” Liel cried. She was shaking from exertion. “You don’t know what they’ll do.”

“They’re your friends,” Boult growled, pressing his knee harder into her chest until Liel gasped in pain. “You told them we were here.”

“No!” Liel protested, pushing ineffectually against the dwarf’s leg. Boult lifted the pressure slightly so she could talk. “I hate the yuan-ti. They’re monsters.”

“Who’s your patron?” Boult demanded. “And stop blaming the poor queen.”

The yuan-ti left the edge of the grove and turned their attention to the common building. One of the smaller creatures jumped onto the roof and tried to light the straw with his flint and steel. But the straw was wet from the rainstorm the night before, and the sparks didn’t catch right away. Another creature leaped up onto the house and dumped oil from a waterskin onto the roof.

“They’re going to burn us out,” Verran said. “Will that work?”

“How should I know?” Boult said crossly, yanking Liel to her feet. A small flame flickered on one side of the roof, but with the oil soaking into the straw, the entire roof would burn soon. While Boult was distracted by the yuan-ti, Liel jerked away from him. Harp saw her slip a dagger from a sheath under her arm and thrust it at Boult. Knowing the dwarf might kill Liel for such an assault, Harp tried stop her, but the dagger sliced into his forearm. The blade split his skin just below the wrist, and Harp felt the warm blood soak down the sleeve of his shirt to his elbow.

When he saw the dagger clutched in the elf’s hand and blood running down Harp’s arm, Boult lunged for Liel. Harp stepped between them and blocked the dwarf with his shoulder. The impact of the dwarf’s weight sent Harp sprawling backward into Liel, and the two of them tumbled down the embankment into the main grounds of the compound.

When Harp and Liel rolled past the line of trees at the edge of the grove, Boult spun to check the trunk of the goldenfruit tree. Just as he feared, the runes were disappearing. The scorch marks faded from black to gray and then vanished, leaving no trace on the trunk. The ring of protection was broken.

At the bottom of the embankment, Liel landed on top of Harp, straddling him with her hands pressed against his bloody shirt. He stared up at her, waiting to see what she would do. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that the yuan-ti had left the smoldering common building and were closing on them quickly.

“Who are you?” he asked staring up into her sea green eyes.

“Not who you want me to be,” she whispered. She climbed off him and ran through the broken gate. Barely glancing at the elf as she disappeared into the jungle, the largest serpent warrior put his sword against Harp’s throat. Harp remained prone on the ground, not bothering to lift his hands to defend himself. The warrior pressed his sword closer and hissed some garbled syllables at the crewmates standing at the top of the embankment. His meaning was clear even if his words were not: Drop your weapons, or your friend gets gutted.

“We’ll make it,” Kitto murmured to Boult and Verran as they threw down their swords.

“Really?” Boult said, as the yuan-ti dragged Harp to his feet and tied his hands. “Because if I had to imagine what ‘the end’ would look like, it might look a lot like our situation.”

As they were being tied and gagged, the three crewmates watched their captain for a signal. But Harp did nothing. He’d found Liel and lost her in less than a day. It didn’t matter where they took him. He just didn’t care anymore.