It was night when Cobra’s eyes blinked open. Above her, in the golden torchlit ceiling of her bedroom, she could see the strangely elongated reflection of her supine body cushioned by down pillows with soft fur covers. She explored her nose and lips with cold fingertips, found blood, and looked at it. Her eyes were startled, cold, as if her brain had turned to ice.
She pushed herself onto an elbow, and glanced around. A silver tray stood on a nightstand beside her bed. On it was a silver pitcher and cup, and a silver bowl steaming with chicken broth. Behind the stand her alchemist, Schraak, and his two assistants, kneeled in patient attendance. Beyond them the head of the giant snake was upended. Its tangled and twisted body nearly filled the room. Smoke still filtered out of the interior stairway.
The room trembled and Cobra sat up, startled. Across the room, past a curve of the snake’s motionless body, silver columns were down. She pushed herself off the bed, and stumbled beyond the toppled columns to a large hole dug into the wall of the tunnel beyond. Guards, stripped to scaly waists, were digging. She turned to her alchemist.
Schraak rose and said gently, “We are preparing a fitting burial for your beloved sentry… in the holy fire pits.”
Cobra glared at them fiercely. “Madness! Cut him apart, and take him down in pieces. There is no time for tunnels.” She dismissed the subject with a wave of her hand, and demanded, “How long have I been unconscious?”
Schraak cowered. “This is the second night you’ve slept. You were nearly buried in the tunnel under fallen rock, so we thought it wise to let you rest.”
She pressed her finger against her brow. “Tell them to stop digging immediately and remove this sickening stench.”
Schraak motioned to his assistants, and they, bowing, hurried off.
She turned to Schraak. “Where are you holding the Barbarian?”
Schraak shifted uneasily. “He… he’s escaped.”
“What?” Involuntarily her body changed color and texture. The scales turned crystalline, and snowy white cracks appeared in them as if she were turning to ice.
Schraak stammered inarticulately, then blurted, “Everyone ran. We… we thought the mountain was going to explode.”
“Fool!” she hissed. “Have you never heard the anger of our god before. Are you incapable of thought? He stole the helmet.”
Schraak gasped.
She snarled, started pacing with a cold stiffness, and from deep in the mountain came a roar. She shuddered. “It is no wonder he still rages.” She turned hard on Schraak. “What time is it?”
“Morning comes within an hour, perhaps two.”
A cruel line lifted a corner of her mouth; it stayed in her cheek as she spoke. “He won’t dare travel at night. That means he won’t reach Noga Swamp until tomorrow morning.” The line pushed a malevolent smile into one cheek, and with rising excitement she whispered, “Alert the swamp. Before daylight every servant who dwells there must know the Dark One has stolen the Master’s helmet and must be stopped. And tell them, when they catch him, he is to be eaten alive… finger by finger.”
“But there’s only one, two hours at most. We’ll never…”
“Send water snakes by the underground river,” she said with authority. “We will follow the same way and arrive in time to watch the ants feed on his rotting scraps.”
Schraak bowed, and hurried down into the interior staircase.
Cobra watched him, then turned to see his assistants reappear with five guards. Holding axes in their sweating hands, they contemplated the body of the monster like butchers faced with quartering a steer with their fingernails.
Cobra hissed contemptuously, “Start with the head.”
They bowed and started to hack at the neck. Cobra watched the blood spurt until it had painted the guards red, then reached for her still-warm chicken broth. She lifted the silver bowl to her dry lips and drank. Her nostrils flinched at the smell and taste of the potion. When she could see the silver of the bottom of the bowl, the rose tint had returned to her translucent cheeks.