If Psamag was a dead man, he hadn’t realised it. He stumbled into the room, roaring, and flung Csorwe at the nearest wall. The hilt of the dagger was slippery with blood and sweat, and it slipped from her hand like a fish as she landed. She jerked out a hand, but shock and terror numbed her reflexes, and the dagger clattered on the tiles before bouncing away across the floor of the General’s bedroom.
Psamag strode toward her, and turned her over with the toe of his boot. His steps seemed slower than before, unless she was imagining it. Please, she prayed. Unspoken and Unspeakable One—please—
Her eyes and mouth were full of blood, but she felt the concussion as Psamag’s body slammed into the floor. By some miracle he fell backward, away from her.
For some time—hours, perhaps—Csorwe just lay there, next to the General’s enormous corpse. She knew she needed to get up. Someone was going to come looking for the General, sooner or later, and then she would be dead. She heard steps and voices, far away and distorted, as the fortress began to wake up. Her mind was fogged and dizzy, and she wanted nothing more than to lie very still and wait for the pain to end or be ended.
At one point, she remembered why she had come here, and managed to get up onto her elbows to search Psamag’s body for the jet pendant. There was no sign of it. She crawled under the bed, and slowly faded into unconsciousness.
When she woke, someone was searching Psamag’s room, discreetly but methodically. Csorwe bit her lip to stop herself calling out for help, but one of her upper teeth sank into the socket of her missing tusk, and she made a noise like a wounded animal. The footsteps stopped.
“Well, well,” said a voice, and a hand worked its way under her shoulder. Someone picked her up and set her on Psamag’s bed.
It was Big Morga, the second-in-command, huge and fearsome as a warship in the closeness of the chamber. Csorwe could only groan.
“Ugly little thing, for one of the boss’s. Young, too.” Morga made a faintly disgusted noise. “You killed him?”
Csorwe was too dazed to process the implications of any of this. She must have made some motion that looked like nodding. Morga’s eyes were bloodshot with exhaustion but she looked delighted to see Csorwe, and Csorwe did not think she had seen a more terrifying expression in her life.
“Well, you’ve made my life a lot easier, so I’m sorry about what I’m going to have to do to you. They’ll be baying for blood downstairs.” Delight gave way to a carnivorous look of satisfaction. “Jawbone, come and bring her down.”
Jawbone was one of Psamag’s revenants. Clearly, he recognised Morga as his new commander. Jawbone hoisted Csorwe over his shoulder, and she bit down on a scream as her broken arm bent at an awkward angle. The pain obliterated all else as the revenant carried her downstairs. When it faded she allowed herself a moment’s surrender to bleak humiliation. Pinioned to the beam in Psamag’s quarters, she had clung to her purpose. She had been able to fight. Now there was nothing she could do to resist.
At last she was dropped with a yelp on some hard surface. Crockery clattered around her, and another white-hot lance of pain drove up through her arm.
With difficulty, Csorwe looked up, and the glassy eyes of a hundred mounted heads stared back at her. She was lying where she had been dropped, on her back like a dying woodlouse, on the table in Psamag’s dining hall. Cutlery and shattered plates all around her. The officers stood around the table looking down at her.
“The traitor, as I promised you,” said Morga. She grabbed Csorwe’s hair, wrenching her head up. Csorwe winced, trying to focus on the faces of the officers who surrounded her. “This is the spy. She killed the General. She’s been here for weeks, and none of you noticed her.”
Csorwe just lay there, looking up at them blearily, too weak to struggle.
“And who do you think was paying her?” said Morga, hauling Csorwe half upright. She held the point of a dagger to Csorwe’s forehead. Pressed it down, puncturing the skin. “Who envied our place?” She dragged the blade. Blood ran in burning streams down Csorwe’s face. “Who is it that’s envied Psamag since we started?” She slashed downward, cutting Csorwe’s face open from cheek to chin. The carelessness was more startling than the pain. Morga looked around at the table with a mirthless grimace. “You notice who’s missing from our table today. Looks like Talasseres has gone back to his uncle.”
Muttering went around the table. Csorwe couldn’t distinguish one looming face from another.
“We’ll hunt Olthaaros down, you hear me?” said Morga. “He’ll die for this. But in the meantime, what do we do with traitors?”
“The snake pit,” said one of the officers, as though it was obvious. “The sand-wife.” The others realised this was the right answer almost at once, and the cries of approbation turned quickly to a chant. Sand-wife, sand-wife, sand-wife, punctuated with the stamping of feet and the pounding of fists on the table.
Morga smiled. “This piece of shit sent our friend Tenocwe to die in her place. It’s time to make it fair.”
Jawbone plucked Csorwe from the table by the scruff of her neck as if she were no more than a stray dog. Vomit rose in the back of her throat and she swallowed hard, futile as it seemed to resist another humiliation among so many. Fear smothered all other suffering as Jawbone strode toward the pit. Atharaisse’s ivory coils were heaped in the dust below. Csorwe had no hope that she would show mercy twice.
The great intricate head rose above the lip of the pit, and Atharaisse’s voice sounded, with a hiss like the wind that scoured the plains. It was some time before the company realised she was laughing.
“This is the sweetness of our longevity,” she said. “Between rust and rot, time devours all enemies. Endurance is all. But we see thou hast a morsel for us.”
Morga nodded and Jawbone strode toward the pit. Csorwe’s fear dissolved. Of all the monsters she had met, Atharaisse was the most honourable, and her weapon the most merciful. No slow death on the rack, no dissolution in the presence of the Unspoken One, but a venom that destroyed with swift kindness.
Jawbone held her out, like a falconer offering his glove, and Atharaisse plucked her free. And then she was raised above the company, dangling, as the glassy eyes of dead things wheeled before her.
“Have no fear, hatchling,” said Atharaisse, soft in the aching interior of Csorwe’s skull. “Thou hast shed the blood of the tyrant. Thy courage is worthy to be honoured, and I honour thee.”
The dirt floor of the pit swooped down to meet her as Atharaisse slid back down into the pit, snapping her jaws in imitation of feeding. Morga made some more remarks, and the company returned to a kind of uneasy merriment, as Csorwe was held safe in a curl of smooth white scales.
There were shallow tunnels woven in the stone around the pit, and here Atharaisse left Csorwe to rest, slumped in the dust by a still pool of water. For days, it seemed, she slept, and drifted in dreams. In these visions she saw Echentyr alive again. Stars wheeled above the great city. All the windows were illuminated, and beneath them a parade of serpents moved, their jewel-bright scales glinting under garlands of flowers. A gaze of understanding fell upon her. She was perceived, and she remained whole.
When she woke she drank from the pool, and washed as best she could, flaking crusts of dried blood from her face. Every part of her body was in agony, as though her limbs were competing to see which could hurt more.