his coughing fits, and he hacked and spit for a full minute before he could even summon speech.
"Yob!" he boomed, the rotunda's chamber echoing his anger out in great waves to the steps outside.
Yob, his eye warily on the entranced Krota, snapped to attention and raced back into the temple. "Yes, Overking?" he answered tentatively.
"Where are they? They have escaped! Were you asleep at your post again? They must have run right past you! I knew it-they smelled like trouble from the beginning! I will hunt them down and feed them to these writhing reptiles and make of their blood the supreme offering to my Lord Chelydrus. You brought them here-if you wish to live, you bring them back-dead!" he screeched, pounding his staff on the head of an unfortunate mamba, "Your daughter, who, by the way, I had seized as surety against your tribute report, just in case you came up short yet again, will now serve as my hostage until such a time as you come back with their bones."
Yob gulped and bowed, then dug in his claws as he leapt over the coils of vipers and back out of the temple after Og, Cheyne, and Claria. Rotapan was hard on his heels, shaking the staff and ranting about a laughing woman. Yob stopped short at the steps, an odd roar, seemingly from under his feet, shaking the building ever so slightly. Yob looked down, but forgot the noise immediately when he saw, in the soft sand at the bottom of the staircase, human footprints leading toward the inland sea, the only part of the temple's grounds that fronted no wall. For generations, the sea itself-and its raging whirlpool, the cauldron-had served to protect Rotapan's western front. He looked toward the wind-whipped water, meeting the prospect of the chase with utter chagrin.
He seemed to remember that ores cannot swim. That was just before he remembered Sister Krota.
Who had come out of her trance.
Yob saw only a tiny flick of her tail, heard the barest whisper of a warning, and then another strange, echoing