The giant alligator, after thousands of years of service to the Lord of Death, was dead. It floated belly-up at the eastern edge of the Noga Swamp. Its massive head was moored in mud. It had obviously been used as a raft.
Beside the body were footprints through the mud, and into a stand of tall reeds, some parted and crushed by booted feet.
Rage distorted Cobra’s face under the glittering, silver magnificence of her skullcap. She swore bitterly, curses that her attendants noted as substantially more colorful than usual. They stood warily beside her on the road, fearing to comment on the disaster before them. Beyond the group, within the thousand shadows of the swamp, small reptilian eyes glittered and bodies trembled.
Cobra shuddered and hugged herself, muttering, “He will wish he had died here in the swamp. I promise it.”
She stepped off the road and followed the footprints toward the reeds. “You will wait here until I return.”
They bowed low in reply.
The footprints marked a path through the reeds and around the skulls marking Trail’s End, then vanished on hard earth. Instinctively she reached for her Glyder Snake, then remembered her pocket was empty and scowled. Down the trail she found shrubs and brush recently crushed by some bulky creature. Beyond them was a new trail of crushed undergrowth. Whoever made it had no fear of being tracked. She followed it anyway.