James West - Crown of the Setting Sun

The serpent slapped down and slithered near. Leitos spun away, and his foot rolled on a loose stone. He fought for balance, but fell onto his back. He immediately began kicking against the ground, propelling himself backward, and flinging grit into the adder’s face, driving it aside. It seemed that the snake was retreating, then it abruptly coiled and struck.

Everything was moving so fast, but Leitos could see all with startling clarity. The serpent flew at him, its hooked fangs jutting from gaping, puffy white jaws. As it soared at his unprotected face, its scales formed a delicate yellowish gray pattern that glinted in the sunlight.

At the last possible moment, Leitos flung up a hand. By chance alone, his fingers clamped down on the snake’s body, just below its head. Too stunned to consider his luck, he jumped to his feet as the adder began wrapping around his arm. The creature was twice the thickness of his wrist, and incredibly strong. His fingers went numb under the building pressure, and the brief thrill at capturing his prey turned to apprehension. If he did not dispatch the reptile quickly, his grip would fail, leaving the serpent free to sink its fangs into him. His end would come slowly, painfully.

Leitos rushed to the serpent’s lair, where the ground was littered with stones. Holding the creature’s weight at arm’s length was no easy task, but Leitos suffered through the weakening of his muscles, ensuring that the serpent remained well clear of his face. In his haste, he lost his footing and slammed to his knees, nearly losing hold of the snake in a frantic bid to keep from pitching to his side.

Gasping and sweating, he pressed the snake’s head against the closest boulder, while his opposite hand retrieved an egg-shaped stone. His first wild swing collided with his wrist, and he bit back a howl. Furious now, his second, third, and fourth blow crushed the adder’s skull to a pulp. The serpent wrapped tighter around his forearm, but it was dead.

Waiting for the creature to accept its demise, he settled back on his heels, shaking as exhilaration waned and his heartbeat slowed. On rare occasions, he and Adham had secretly caught serpents or lizards or rats and, well out of the slavemasters’ sight, had prepared forbidden meals. Adham often stated that meat tasted better when cooked and spiced, but the closest slaves came to fire was its light, when the slavemasters burned camel dung of an evening.

Leitos unwrapped the snake from his arm and set it aside. Even in death, it writhed back and forth. He hunted until he found a prominent lip of stone jutting off one of the boulders. Using the same rock he had used on the adder, he smashed the stony protrusion. Sandstone crunched and flew. He stopped after he had a collection of shards littering the ground at his feet. Kneeling, he picked through the sharpest bits until he found one as long as his hand and somewhat knife-shaped, then sharpened the crude blade against the curve of a boulder.

While he worked, he searched the desert. The only prominent landmark was a long, knobbed ridge of reddish sandstone far to the west. Other outcrops reared up, all stubby and offering little reliable shade. Of Alon’mahk’lar , there was no sign.

After dragging the makeshift knife back and forth over the boulder, the roughness began to smooth, providing an edge of sorts. Most importantly, he created a sharp tip. After a few more licks, Leitos strode to the serpent and went to work. He considered his grandfather’s cautionary words, making sure the cut was well down from the head in order to avoid the snake’s venom sacs. His knife was sharp for stone, but not really sharp at all, so he sawed and hacked, until he could rip off the head and toss it away. Next, he dug the tip into the adder’s belly, making a gruesome mess of things, but managing to gut the serpent.

Tucking the stone knife into his loincloth, Leitos ducked into the shade the adder had been using, but found it far too narrow for him. He draped the serpent over the boulder, then set to digging with his hands until he carved out a suitable burrow. Once satisfied, Leitos took up the snake and crawled inside.

Out of the sunlight, his skin tingled with relief, and the sand was delightfully cool under his folded legs. Using his teeth, he dug into the pinkish-white meat, tearing away stringy mouthfuls. The taste of blood was good and wetted his tongue, but the meat was full of thin bones, forcing him to eat slowly. Every bite renewed his strength a little more. He still wanted water, and as every hour passed, it became all the more important to find some. Come nightfall, he planned to move west again, and hopefully locate a hidden spring, or maybe a dry streambed in which he could dig down until finding a seep-something the Alon’mahk’lar forced slaves to do. He refused to fully consider that he might never taste water again.

After finishing his meal, Leitos peeked out of his burrow. The same vulture wheeled in great, slow circles far above. He flung the snakeskin out into the sunlight, then scooted deep into his shelter. He reclined on his side, head resting on his arm. He lay there a long time, breathing easy and resting.

Between one moment and the next, the extent of the day’s trials fell on him. The sounds of begging men surrendering to pitiless slavemasters rose up in his mind, and he heard the dreadful wet clangs of edged steel cleaving flesh from bone, the guttural snarls issuing from the slavemasters as they crushed the hopeless uprising. The appalling outcome of Adham’s act fell heavily on Leitos, evoking a strangled sob full of grief and resentment. Why, grandfather? Why did you stand against our masters? You ruined everything!

Never again would he share the cool of the night with his grandfather, feel Adham’s hand upon his brow, or take comfort from his low, rumbling voice. Adham had doomed himself, the other slaves, and even his own grandson. The result of his insurrection had destroyed the life that the Faceless One had provided his sworn enemies. At the mine, there was always food, water, and shelter-perhaps not as much as one wanted, but enough to live. As long as slaves served without complaint or defiance, the Alon’mahk’lar mostly left them alone.

That last thought rang hollow, but Leitos denied the truth that the slavemasters made sport of the chained at every opportunity. Instead, he nurtured his resentment, clinging to the idea that his life, difficult and uncertain as it had been at times, had become an ongoing nightmare of thirst and suffering in the face of Adham’s revolt. His only consolation was that if he found no water, his misery would end within two or three days.

Trying not to think what the morrow would bring, he scrubbed the back of his hand across his damp eyes, sighed deeply, and curled into a protective ball. With all his heart, he hoped that when he awoke he would find himself back in his cell, and that all he had experienced since Adham challenged their masters was but a horrible dream. Regrettably his thirst, the taste of drying blood on his lips, and the ache in his cracked feet, proclaimed the truth. His foolish hopes died quickly and quietly.

When Leitos’s eyes opened, the day’s overpowering brightness had dwindled to a ruddy afterglow. Outside his burrow, a mangy jackal growled and snapped at a trio of vultures. Befuddled by sleep and intense thirst, it took a moment for Leitos to realize the carrion eaters fought over the snakeskin he had discarded. He watched until he succumbed once more to sleep….

Seemingly moments later, his eyes flared wide to find that night had stretched its cloak of darkness over the land. Despite the apparent tranquility, his heart fluttered, and he was panting for want of breath. He waited, still as stone, not daring to blink. Something had dragged him out of a sound sleep, and whatever it was had filled him with alarm. Chewing his bottom lip, he waited.