Reynard had been under no illusions when he made his desperate escape from the expedition the previous night; the young vulpine had known he was as likely to die in flight as he was to make it safe and whole back to Arelat. Even so he had sustained himself with hope, running through the dark hours, relying on his ears and nose as much as his eyes to travel many miles through the forest as he followed the directions from the kindly humans who saved him.
By sunrise his exhaustion had forced him to a steady march, but he had pressed on. There were only a few passable trails down from the mountains into the lower reaches of the Bloodsucking Forest, but he had Arn’s word he was on one of them.
For that it was certainly not one well-traversed, even by monsters, as the thick undergrowth through which he struggled could attest.
The density of the jungle was a blessing in a sense however – it meant fewer and smaller monsters. But few was not none. Each errant foe he defeated left his arm and shoulder aching a little more, his borrowed armor weighing upon him a little heavier. Those he couldn’t manage alone forced him back to a run, such as when he encountered a lurking geopod.
By the time the sun was up the jungle was a riot of noise, birds calling and insects buzzing and chirping all about. Along with the noise, the air grew humid, thick mist coming with the light to leave Reynard drenched under his plate, with sweat as well as condensation.
Still he made himself to go on, but as the sun intensified through the cloying mist he found himself staggering, dizzy, his head throbbing.
Spotting a rocky outcrop bursting through the trees and undergrowth like a boil, the beastfolk boy clambered up, out of the humid jungle floor, and collapsed atop it. With shaking hands he removed his helmet and gasped for breath.
He knew he should be running, but it was all he could do to keep himself alert as he rested and caught his breath in the slightly cooler air.
Every sound made his racing heart skip a beat, but there was no sign of pursuers bursting into the small clearing around the outcrop.
When the throbbing in his head had subsided just enough he got to his feet, scanning ahead for some sign of his goal.
North was to his right, where the jungle fell away with the cliff to reveal the broad valley around whose head he was travelling, shrouded in mist.
His vantage point was too low to see anything ahead to the west through the forest canopy.
Climbing down he spotted something else however; a small pool on the far side of the rocky bulge, where rainwater gathered in a furrow in the stone. It was dirtied by leaves and detritus, a fetid odor hanging over the surface, but Reynard was suddenly, painfully aware of the dryness of his throat.
He wondered how long it had been since his last drink. It had certainly been before the Lastborn dragged him off the previous afternoon. The bruises still ached, but he took a certain satisfaction in knowing that if he was to die in the forest, at least it wouldn’t be on their terms.
But Reynard meant to live.
His sister and their grandparents were relying on him, on the money he sent home. They didn’t even know where the money came from – even if he could write he’d have been too embarrassed. After how they’d parted he didn’t know what to say to them.
Part of him hoped they knew – who else would be sending them coin via merchants travelling between Arelat and Bellwood? Another part hoped they had no idea, and had simply put behind them the troublesome boy who’d insisted on leaving home to make his fortune adventuring.
But even if they had forgotten him entirely, and none of them were waiting for him back in Arelat, Reynard wasn’t done living.
At the very least, if he was to die at the hands of the Lastborn he meant to take a few of his pursuers with him.
But to put up any fight at all he needed water. Trusting in his constitution he stole a few more moments from his flight to kneel and scoop the cleanest layers from the surface in his metal gauntlets, taking care not to stir up the sediment below or the unpleasant amphibians that wriggled within.
Still cool in the shadow of the rock, the water was better than wine in that moment, foul earthy taste and all. He wanted to drink more, to drain the pool, but that would certainly leave him retching and sick.
Instead he donned his sticky helmet and pressed his aching legs to service once more, treading his tortuous passage along the trail on blistered feet. The path had yet to curve south, but he had kept to the cliff as instructed, so it was surely just a matter of time. If he could only reach the river, he’d told himself, he would be through the worst of it, and would have more water than he could ever drink.
There would be safety in the river too. With no horses, any pursuers would only match his pace, and the waters would obscure all trace of his passing. Even if they could somehow pick up his trail the expedition would never chase him beyond the waters – they too would be taking their lives in their hands by spreading so far out through the deadly forest.
Adrenaline fought fatigue as the morning lengthened, but still Reynard found no trace of the promised fresh water and his assured salvation. The headaches were back, with greater intensity, and each step felt unsteady as dizziness swelled and ebbed with every movement.
But even if he’d been fresh and rested he wouldn’t have known the tell-tale signs of the goloth nest.
He saw only the surprising, yet welcome opening of the narrow trail into a wider path. The floor was relatively clear; mostly grass, small bushes and rotting pieces broken off the trees. There was a strange, shimmering veil of white fronds pinning back the branches that would have intruded on the space.
It was only as he followed the conveniently cleared road through the jungle deeper that he grew more worried about its nature – the sounds of birds were growing distant and the trees all about were layered with the same strange, sticky material that held back the undergrowth. It adhered to his gauntlet when he tentatively poked it, and as he pulled back his hand it sent a twang through surprisingly taut fibers.
More of the fibers constricted, layers and cables sliding against each other, and behind him folds of the silky substance emerged from the cover of the leaves, contracting and folding shut to seal the path.
At once he struck at the threads with his axe, but without good purchase the curved head slipped off and the fibers recoiled with a springy strength that was quite startling. Another attempt almost tugged the weapon from his hand as the head slipped sideways and nearly stuck fast.
With how sticky yet strong the fibers were he had no hope of breaking through the barrier with his simple, unenchanted axe or his backup dagger. Any attempt to use his hands could only entangle him.
“Arva take me,” he cursed under his already-strained breath.
The trap had to be the work of monsters, smart ones. How could the scouts have missed something like this?
A voice at the back of his mind reminded him of the unlikelihood of his safe return to Faron.
Perhaps this was it. Perhaps this would be where he died.
Pushing himself once more, he started running despite the pain, following the path available.
Ahead the eerie silk promenade branched, but one of the paths pulled shut as he drew near, forcing him to divert away from the cliff-top, towards the south. At each intersection more webs pulled closed, herding him back towards the mountains he wanted to escape and the cluster of taller, denser trees away from the cliff edge, now immediately ahead.
He couldn’t let himself be corralled like an animal, into the jaws of whatever monstrosity lurked at the centre of the maze.
Gasping for breath as he was, he sped up.
The air was dense, cloudy with fog that made the webs glitter with moisture, but under that hung a musky, acid scent that burnt his sensitive nose with each dragging breath.
His keen eyes picked out something ahead, a shadow shifting almost imperceptibly in the undergrowth, a massive body with too many moving parts looming behind the walls of silk.
Coming to another fork and another closing aperture in the webs, he saw that he was about to be forced right into the arms of the thing. He beat his burning legs harder still against the razorgrass and earth beneath, leaping over fallen branches and rotting bits of log.
The distance was too far, he wasn’t going to make it – the threads would close around him just as he reached them.
His axe-head bit into a log without his pace slowing, and with a yell of pain and exertion he hauled it up. Muscles in his back and shoulder seared in pain, but he ignored the warnings from his body, swinging the hulk of rotting wood ahead of him.
The hollow trunk slammed into the webbing, rupturing in a shower of earth and bugs, forcing it back and coating the sticky strands, letting the fox just barely tumble through the gap!
On the far side he struggled back to his feet and set off again, while the creature at his back hissed and chattered angrily at the foiling of its trap. It seemed unprepared to operate the apertures of this new passage - he was already through the next before it even started to move.
Now the silken paths were to his advantage – the monster couldn’t chase him without breaking through its own carefully built walls.
The lack of pursuit suggested it preferred to simply let him leave and await an easier target.
Reynard’s lungs were on fire and his head was spinning, but still he made himself run on, away from the predator and the deadly maze.
He didn’t dare relax until he saw the edge of the silk pathways up ahead, giving way to an ordinary forest trail once more, silk-less black and green tree-trunks lining the way. There he stopped, chest heaving under his breastplate, and fumbled with the straps to remove his helmet.
Once it was off he took a deep inhalation, one of many he sorely needed to recover from the exertion. The forest was spinning and his vision had blurred, but the excruciating process of recovering his breath eased both maladies.
He spent no more time than he had to however, replacing his helmet despite the nauseating heat inside his armor, and making himself move again. Another monster could appear at any time.
Disorientated though he was, the sun told him that he was facing south once more. The trail went west, but he couldn’t see the cliff-top any more.
Best then that he lose himself in the trees for a while. The thick dark trunks ahead would keep back anything larger than he was, and he might also regain the cliff-top path that way.
Reynard had just started towards the trees, still fumbling with the awkward buckles of his helmet, when he froze.
There was a burning musk in his nose, thicker than ever. It was slight enough that a human might not have noticed it, but to Reynard it screamed danger.
He was already moving when one of the trees slammed down towards him, the vulpine adventurer leaping to one side. He ducked behind a green tree as two more of the black ones uprooted themselves to lunge at him, bending and twisting unnaturally as roots like claws grasped for him, tearing out chunks of bark and trunk from his temporary shelter.
He sprinted from the cover of the rapidly topping shield, risking only a moment’s glance over his shoulder at his attacker. He wished he hadn’t.
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The thing stood twenty feet tall on far too many limbs, like a ball of colossal spiders tied together. Segmented, armored appendages wrapped and tangled around a hidden core, leaving visible only a glistening cluster of glassy eyes, and a long, tapering spear-like proboscis. Others of the limbs were fully extended, half a dozen supporting the monster on its clawed feet, four more grabbing and slashing towards him, mowing down branches and small trees that got in the way.
Exhaustion forgotten, Reynard ran as though The Stalker, Arva himself were at his heels.
Claws scraped his shoulder and almost hurled him off his feet. He heard metal groaning, then felt heat, tempered by cold air rushing in as the shoulder-plate was ripped away.
Another leg curved towards him as he staggered and kept sprinting. He met it with his axe, the head cracking the thick, hairy armor and lodging itself in the creature’s extremity, thick black globs of blood welling up from the wound.
The monster hissed angrily, tearing the leg back, his axe going with it.
A blow he never saw coming tore the helmet off his head and left one of his ears ripped and bleeding. He barely noticed the pain.
All Reynard felt was the pounding in his head and the searing fire in his chest as his lungs screamed a desperate eulogy to oxygen.
Still he ran, as blood slicked his boots and he stumbled over bushes.
He weaved between a cluster of bloodfruit trees. The obstacle bought him precious moments, even the monster not daring to barge past the cursed plants, but gigantic as it was, it was on his heels again in moments.
His head was splitting and his chest aflame.
He couldn’t outpace it. He couldn’t escape.
The river, he thought desperately.
Arn told him to find the river.
If only he could reach it… he’d be safe there….
Hazy eyes clouded by dark spots picked out something blue ahead of him through the trees.
He could have laughed, had there been the slightest breath left in him. Instead he clung to consciousness as he hauled himself towards the light expanse ahead.
All at once his legs felt wonderfully light, as though he were running on air. His whole body was light in fact, and the terrible heat had lessened.
He must be floating in the cool water as it carried him away from that awful place and the horrific monsters that hunted the hills.
The treetops below disabused him of that notion with a series of splintering crunches, followed by a slam that emptied that last dregs from his lungs.
He lay there in a senseless daze for what felt like hours.
By the time he was sensed again he pulled himself up against a tree, expecting the veil of night overhead, yet by the light and place of the sun he guessed he’d been out for mere minutes.
Behind, the cliff towered over him, but the monsters showed no sign of descending the sheer side to pursue him. Ahead the jungle went on, sloping slightly as the valley stretched out towards the South.
He tried to stand, but gasped in pain and collapsed as his leg gave out under the weight.
When the pain subsided enough that he dared move again he gingerly turned himself over onto his back to examine himself. His right shin-plate was caved in by an impact, the metal digging painfully into his skin underneath, and the limb rested at a slight but entirely unhealthy angle below that point.
Reynard punched the earth under him, cursing under his breath. His plans, his hopes of escape, seemed to be evaporating with the mists the sun was burning away.
He could take the piece off and try to splint the break in his leg, but he was no healer and he was still days away from Faron, limited to limping and in no shape to fight more monsters.
But he couldn’t just sit there. If he stayed put he was dead several times over; to pursuers, to monsters, and to starvation and thirst.
Prying open the metal covering his shin proved harder than expected – one of the buckles was crushed and twisted by the same impacts that had injured him. Working his dagger into the metal he pulled, straining until the damaged catch snapped and the whole shin-guard popped open.
Reynard screamed as the jagged metal was torn from his wound, but he kept going. There was still dark blood welling up from the wound. Using his dagger he cut the spare shirt from his pack into strips and bound the injury as tight as he could manage without throwing up.
The pain was overwhelming enough that for several minutes he simply lay there, propped up against a tree, panting and sweating.
He was about to start cutting wood for a splint when he heard something moving towards him though the forest.
The adventurer knew he’d been making a lot of noise, but he’d been unable to help it.
Keen ears picked out slithering sounds… perhaps a thangael? With their uncanny ability to sense living things there was no eluding their notice.
If he met one of the amphibious hunting serpents under normal circumstances he might have fared well enough, but now all he could do was try to drag himself into the cover of the nearest bush and pray it was something else. Anything else.
Moving also made more noise, but it was better than sitting out in plain sight.
Whatever it was, it also wasn’t alone. At the sounds neared he could distinguish three creatures in total now. That suggested they weren’t normally reclusive thangael.
Reynard was a newcomer to the forest however, and had no idea what else might make such sounds.
He had just managed to haul his bad leg into the cover of a bush when the interlopers emerged from the trees ahead.
They were far more dangerous than a trio of thangaels.
Three naga sat before him, wrapped in dark cloaks, resting upon the gleaming scales of their powerful tails. Each was armed with a spear and wearing a backpack.
Too late, Reynard realized that sentient foes such as these would have all the evidence they needed to find his hiding place – the discarded armor piece and the bent needlegrass leading to the bush were difficult to miss.
But perhaps there was still some hope. In his near-delirium of pain and exhaustion, he dimly recalled rumors he’d heard while working in Bellwood, of adventurers back home in Arelat who had taken jobs from the Naga.
They were proud, powerful monsters, but perhaps they could be reasoned with?
It was his last, desperate hope.
As the trio slithered towards him he raised his hands, parting the undergrowth and waiving both arms in the air.
“I surrender! I’m hurt an’ lost an’ I’m givin’ up! Don’t stab me, I’ll be your prisoner or whatever you want.”
The naga seemed bemused by his words, which he repeated in Arelatense as well as Hronan. They gave no reply.
What they did do was lift him out of the bushes, a single naga easily hefting him with one hand on the rim of his breastplate, ignoring his defensive attempt to grab at the intruding wrist and holding him up for the group to inspect. He winced as his dangling leg throbbed, but held back his complaints at the rough treatment.
As his hung in the air they exchanged words he couldn’t understand in a foreign, sibilant tongue.
“Listen, I’m just an adventurer, I’m not an enemy! If you help me get outta here I’ll, er, I’ll pay you? You want gold? I mean I guess I got none, but I can work for you an’ earn it?”
The hooded, athletic lead naga spat a dismissive utterance and lowered the fox in his grip.
“Okay not gold! But I can do somethin’ else, whatever you need! Please don’t eat me…,” he trailed off, his tone barely more than a whimper.
The leader passed him over to one of the others, a sleeker figure lacking a hood that he supposed might be a female.
She slung him roughly over her shoulder like a second backpack, Reynard wailing as he slipped and struggled to hold on.
“Hey, careful! I’m injured!”
She looked over her shoulder and gave him an irritable hiss, showing off long, sharp fangs.
Reynard held his tongue after that.
At least they weren’t eating him. Yet.
He was under no delusions about his status however. He was their captive, and would be until they decided otherwise. Even if they healed his leg, he couldn’t escape a naga in the forest on the best day of his life.
Hopefully they would at least take him to someone who spoke his language before he died of thirst, blood loss or hunger. Or they got too hungry themselves.
He eventually found a position of relative comfort, most of his weight on the backpack under him, and settled in for what seemed likely to be a long trip.
That expectation was shattered however.
At first he’d assumed that his captors were taking him back to their village, but they had only been travelling for perhaps an hour when they started to see more naga.
First a few similar groups appeared through the dense, humid jungle, then the trees started to clear and soon they reached the river – an actual river this time – and with it the young adventurer saw the magnitude of the force he had encountered.
The throbbing in his shoulder and leg were forgotten as he took in the fearful sight.
At least a two dozen naga lined the far bank, drinking and filling waterskins and wood casks, while behind them dozens more slithered up the slopes with their own containers, moving under the cover of the trees towards the head of the valley. Needlegrass was pancaked under the weight of what he guessed were at least a hundred warriors, possibly more – in the shade of the forest the figures were impossible to count.
Reynard wondered if even Faron itself could repel a force of Naga this large. It seemed certain they couldn’t at the present. If they were attacked without warning, with many of the town guards and ranking adventurers away, they town would be doomed.
Yet they marched for the mountains, the towering and desolate peaks of the Cyclopean Bones to the South, not the fertile inland plains that stretched out to the north of the Bloodsucking Forest, or northwest to the Hronaram Gulf proper.
So stunned was he by the forces on display, that the vulpine didn’t notice his captors slithering right into the river to ford it. He started and gasped in pain as cold water hit his broken leg, but by the time it rose up to his shoulder the clear fresh flow had become quite soothing.
He lowered his lips to the surface and gulped down all he could, his parched throat unquenchable even when his belly was overflowing.
The sorely wanted lubrication seemed to lift a fog he hadn’t noticed settle over his mind.
He wondered how they could be at the river, when to his left he could still see the cliff continuing on without any hint of descending to meet the water.
The answer was clear as the rushing liquid about him, but where the water was sweet the realization was bitter.
Arn sent him to his death.
The human had lied about the trial, perhaps expecting the young fox to walk into the monster lair and die, or else wander lost, looking for a route that never existed.
Why, Reynard couldn’t be sure, but humans had seldom needed any reason in his experience.
For a moment he wondered if Lyanna had known too, but he shook off that unpleasant thought. She was his savior. She had taken a great risk to help him. That made no sense if she wished him ill – she could have simply slept through the night and seen him die in the morning.
Beyond that, Reynard couldn’t believe that everything she’d said to him was a lie.
Arn however… even Lyanna hadn’t trusted him at first, and he’d had a strange interest in the vulpine adventurer since early in the expedition.
For a fanciful moment he thought of vengeance, of somehow stealing away from the Naga and back to the expedition. But that was impossible - just as impossible as it was to warn Lyanna of the snake hiding at her side. Even if he could escape the Naga and find the expedition again, they’d probably kill him on sight.
Reynard was brought into the moment once more by the hissing sigh of an old, pink-scaled serpent with a sagging, gnarled serpentine hood, carrying a staff on which he leant wearily.
He was exchanging words with the fox’s captors, and as he did so a silvery, lithe younger naga slithered over with several more soldier types. The newcomer had a smaller hood, somewhere between the sleek necks of naga women and the full shrouds of the males, and beautiful blue patterns to their scales.
Commanded by the silver-blue snake the woman carrying him lifted him off her back and set him down on a rock at the bank of the river. She was a lot gentler than she’d been when she first took charge of him. All the same his leg ached at the movement.
They spoke directly to Reynard for the first time since his capture, in a voice that carried strength tempered with kindness.
“You need healing, vulpine. I will summon someone.”
The pink older naga hissed something at the silver one in their own tongue, but they simply shook their head.
“Healing can wait, yes, I should say so, no vital wounds on this one,” the doddering man spoke in Hronan, tone ponderous, peering at Reynard through narrowed eyes.
“Other matters must come first. The affairs of the Naga people – I am certain you understand that, boy, that you cannot simply present yourself to us and expect things to all go your way. No no. You must cooperate. If you do it will be much the better for us all. We need not be enemies you see – my people have often hired your kind, adventurers, to see to our needs after all – and you vulpines are so much more dependable than the treacherous, scheming humans.”
“What you want from me?” Reynard asked, confused. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it. Just help me get home.”
The naga beamed, stroking the rim of his hood with his free hand.
“Yes, good, very cooperative. Keep that up and you’ll be home safe and in sound health in no time, boy. Now then, first of all we must know what your purpose here in the forest was, who you were here with, and naturally you will have to tell us where they are now.”
Reynard tensed, his tail bristling under his armor. He didn’t like the implication that came with that last question, even if the naga should have little reason to pick a fight with the expedition.
“Thanks, I’m real glad to hear it. But… uh… no offence, mister... naga… but what makes you think I was with anyone?”
“Why, would you have me believe that you came alone to this valley, many days from human lands, far outside the usual range of adventurers, yet brought with you nothing but a backpack and a dagger? No no, no games now, speak the truth, all of it, and you’ll have the healer. Hold back and we shall know it. Aged though I may be, I am a vizier of many decades, quite accustomed to the tell-tale signs of deception.”
Reynard gulped. Even if his former allies had turned on him, most with the expedition were innocent. Lyanna in particular. He didn’t want to put her in any danger.
But the vizier was insistent. Whatever a vizier was, he was leaving him little choice. Besides which, there was no reason to think that the Naga would do anything other than avoid a large force of adventurers higher up in the foothills. Especially if they knew how powerful a group they were.
Deadly through the Naga were, even a hundred of them would think twice taking on a thousand expert adventurers and mercenaries, led by the famed Jalera.
“Well I was with a party alright. Expedition they called it, lotta top human adventurers. Hundreds. Even got a diamond-ranker from the capital an’ a bunch of mercs. Hundreds of them too. Famous ones. Can’t imagine how much it all cost the Baron. He came too. Whole thing left Faron, uh… about a week ago now. After some rare monster that ran up into the foothills.”
“And where are they now?”
“Probably still east of us, but that was yesterday. They won’t be here long. They’re going between the mountains – mimic’s hiding out in the Cyclopean Bones.”
Reynard disliked the sharp glint in the otherwise clouded look of in interrogator at those words, but he wasn’t sure what it could mean. Unless… the Naga actually meant to intercept the intruders in the forest.
“And where exactly did you see them last, when you parted ways?”
The adventurer hesitated, eying his captors, suspicions growing.
He doubted a hundred naga could overwhelm the expedition, but he was no expert, and their exact numbers weren’t clear. They were certainly enough to do a great deal of damage.
“L-look, you really don’t wanna go looking for them, and I don’t either. Get in a scrap with that lot and you’re makin’ enemies of Bellwood too. An’ they got thousands of people. And… I… uh… separated from them last night. Can’t go back no more now….”
The vizier gave a sympathetic hiss.
“A sad tale, most sad indeed, to hear of your woes and see your sorry state. But come now, it’s a simple enough question I ask, isn’t it? Where are they now? They can’t be terribly close to you, why they abandoned you in the forest, all alone to die. Quite despicable behavior, but no more than I’ve come to expect from humans.”
Reynard’s lips pursed as he glared up at the pink-scaled man, fear overridden by resolve.
The naga gestured carelessly, and suddenly a spearhead was at the fox’s throat.
“Do you really mean to sacrifice your life for them? For humans who abandoned you? To spill your life’s blood here on soil foreign to you and your kind? To die, unknown and un-mourned by all? Well, I suppose young people of all species have their ideals to think on. You will do what you must. If it’s a heroic end you’re looking for we can oblige you, but what a waste it is….”
The naga was turning away.
The spearhead pushed against him, point splitting skin and drawing blood.
Resolve yielded to fear once more.
“Wait!” he gasped. “Please don’t kill me! I-I’ll tell you!”
The naga looked over his shoulder. The spearhead stopped, tip lodged in his flesh, painfully close to his jugular.
He was betraying people who trusted him. They thought he’d done so already of course, but this time it was real.
He thought of Arn, the human who had sent him to his death.
Of Jowe, who beat him until he sobbed and begged for mercy and confessed to whatever lies the man invented for him.
Of the Baron and his cadre, who consigned him to death without hearing a single word from his mouth.
“I’ll tell you where they are,” he whispered, tears rolling down his cheeks.
“Just… promise me… promise you won’t hurt the beastfolk with them. Or the adventurer Lyanna and her party…. Let them leave. They’re not your enemies.”
The pink naga beamed, stroking his hood happily.
“Agreed, naturally! Then it seems we have an accord, my young demi-human. You will tell us everything we wish to know, and in our gratitude and most gracious power we shall spare the lives you request. Naturally you shall need to tell us what distinguishing features these friends of yours have, but that will be a minor matter, first your answer. Where is this expedition of traitorous humans?”
The strength left Reynard’s body with his defiance. His mouth moved without thought, as though another speaker were operating it for him. Exhaustion and sorrow had crushed what little will remained to him.
Reynard told them everything.
If the naga noticed the pained expression on his face, he gave no indication. He simply smiled as he summoned someone to tend to Reynard’s broken leg.
When the questions were done and his leg treated the blue naga offered him another drink, which Reynard gladly accepted. They also had one of their guards heft him once more, as they set off again, moving up the valley.
He might have been able to walk had they healed him further, but the naga responsible had done as little as possible – setting the bone, cleansing and closing the cut – he left most of the regenerative work to the vulpine’s own body. That was probably better than having someone who had probably never even touched a humanoid leg before try to grow new bones inside one.
“Er, can I ask you a question?” he proposed tentatively, to the silvery naga slithering just ahead of his through the trees.
“It seems you can,” his captor nodded. “But I can’t promise I’ll answer.”
“Where are you taking me? I gotta get back to Arelat, and your lands meant to be that way too, so why go up into the mountains?”
They shook their head.
“Alright then… mind if I ask who you are? You seem like a big deal, got guards and stuff. So why you gotta do what that old guy Vizier says? Ain’t he just some assistant or something?”
“Indeed he is, but not to me. My name is Qamar, chief of my clan, but vizier Pyreza and I serve the same master. The Sultan of Scales, the ruler of all Naga.”
“Oh. Naga got kings and stuff? I thought you all lived in tribes or something. Well, good to meet you, Qamar. Thanks for… not killing me. You… think you can just let me go if you’re not gonna go North at all?”
Once more they shook their head, sadly.
“You are a captive now. I will not allow you to be harmed without reason, but it would be wise not to speak to anyone but me unless spoken to. The Sultan in particular is… not a man to displease. He united the fractured clans through sheer power and force of will, and tolerates no resistance.”
Reynard definitely didn’t like the sound of that.
“You sure I’m gonna meet him? No need to take me all that way to wherever his castle is. Never met a king or anything before, I wouldn’t even know what to do. I should just stay behind or I’ll make him mad.”
“But he will want to see you. Just stay quiet when you do, we will be there soon.”
“We’re going there right now? But… this is the mountains. What’s he doing up there?”
The vulpine’s confusion turned to horror as the small, 100 naga detachment with which he was travelling rejoined the main force of the army.
Thousands of naga moved through the trees, a column of scales stretching out in both directions.
They were heading east, towards the same mountain pass where the expedition camped.