Lisa Smedman - Venom’s Taste

Spurred on by fear, Arvin crawled away as quickly as he could. Behind him, he heard bones cracking as the mound tried to force its bulk into the narrow corridor. As he retreated, the sounds of the creature slapping itself against the walls fell farther and farther behind-it couldn’t fit into so small a corridor, Tymora be praised.

Up ahead, around a curve of the tunnel, Arvin could hear a scuffing noise and the rasp of a scabbard dragging on brick. He caught sight of the woman he’d just saved as she was crawling past the body of the old sailor. Leaving it behind, she rounded the bend in the corridor. In another moment she would reach its end.

“Wait!” Arvin shouted as he eased his way past the corpse, loath to touch it. “You’re going to fall into-”

A splash told him his warning was too late. Reaching the end of the corridor himself, he looked down into the tunnel and saw the woman thrashing about in the sewage, her long hair plastered to her body. “I’m up here,” he called out, reaching down to her. “Take hold of my hand.” She startled at the sound of his voice, but accepted his hand readily enough when he grabbed hers and used it to lever herself up into a standing position. The sewage turned out to be no more than knee-deep.

She let go of his hand and clawed away the wet hair that was plastered to her face then spat several times, a disgusted expression on her face. Then she fumbled at the pouch on her belt, lifting its flap and tipping sewer water out of it. From out of the pouch, she pulled a small metal flask, its sides ridged like the rattles of a snake-the same kind of flask the Pox had used to force-feed Arvin plague-tainted water. She ran her fingers across the top of it, checking the cork that sealed it.

“Where did you get that?” Arvin asked.

His tone must have been sharper than he’d intended. The woman squinted up in his general direction, a wary look in her eyes. She took a step back, her free hand brushing her scabbard-she stiffened as she found it empty. “Who are you?” she asked, suspicion thickening her voice.

Arvin summoned up a smile, even though she couldn’t see it. He needed to keep her talking. She might have seen other cultists-or even Naulg. A warm prickling began at the base of his scalp. “I’m a friend,” he told her. “I followed you and Urus. I thought you could use some help.”

Arvin saw her head tilt as if she were listening to something-a good sign. An instant later, her expression softened. “Thank the gods you came after us,” she gasped. “I told Gonthril that sending just two of us was a bad idea, but he wouldn’t listen.” She tucked the flask back into her pouch and tied it shut.

“I’m glad I found you in time,” Arvin said. Seeing her wet clothes clinging to her almost hipless body and noting that the belt that held her scabbard was much too large for her, he revised his estimate of her age to late teens. She was awfully young to be adventuring down in the sewers. Even with a chaperone.

“I’m glad you found us, too,” she said. Then she shuddered. “Poor Urus. That thing …”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Arvin said. “Have you?”

“No. Whatever it was, I think the cleric was on his way to feed it,” the woman said, a grimace on her face. “If I hadn’t had my father’s sword…” She shuddered again then stared blindly up in Arvin’s general direction. “Have we met?” she asked. “Or are you in a different arm of the Secession?”

Arvin made a mental note of the word-it sounded like the name of an organization, but it was one he’d never heard of before. “We haven’t met,” he answered honestly. “My name’s Arvin.”

“I’m Kayla.” She glanced around, squinting as she tried to penetrate the absolute darkness. “I can’t see anything-can you?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Then you can help me find my way out of these gods-cursed sewers. I need to get back to Gonthril and make my report. He’ll be glad to hear we were right about the clerics being down here.”

“Good work,” Arvin said, playing along. Gonthril was, presumably, the leader of whatever group this woman belonged to, and he seemed to be interested in the Pox-interested enough to send people into the sewers to search for them. Why was anyone’s guess.

“Gonthril asked me to keep an eye out for someone while I was down here,” Arvin told Kayla. “A dark-haired man whose eyebrows join above his nose. Have you seen him?”

“Who is he?”

“Someone who might be able to help us,” Arvin said, keeping his answer deliberately vague.

Kayla shook her head. “I haven’t seen him.”

“How long have you been down here?”

“Since Sunset. We tried to enter the sewers earlier, but the militia were everywhere.”

Arvin nodded. She’d been in the sewers quite some time, then. “Did you see any other clerics besides the one with the basket?”

“No.”

“How did you know where to find him?”

“We didn’t,” Kayla said. “It was just Tymora’s luck. We were snooping around in the sewers-we’d seen one of Talona’s clerics come down here earlier. When we spotted the opening that led to the hidden corridor, we decided to follow it.”

“I see,” Arvin said, disappointed. Though Kayla had been forthcoming, she hadn’t told him anything about the cultists that he didn’t already know. Perhaps others in her organization would know more.

One thing was bothering Arvin. “That second fellow-the old sailor-why did Urus shoot him?”

The mention of her companion’s name started the woman’s lip trembling. “He attacked us.”

Arvin frowned. “Are you sure the old man wasn’t just trying to escape-to get by you?”

Kayla shook her head. “He was with the cleric. When Urus and I surprised them in the chamber, the cleric shouted at the old man to attack us and started casting a spell. I was able to stop him before his prayer was complete, but the old man managed to bite my arm before Urus could shoot him. He ran off while Urus was reloading… and that thing showed up.”

Arvin frowned. “The old man bit you?” he said.

“You don’t believe me?” Kayla shoved up her sleeve. “Look.”

Arvin stared at the crescent-shaped bite mark on her wrist.

“His bite was venomous,” Kayla continued. “He must have been yuan-ti-one that could pass for human in lantern light. If it weren’t for this, I’d be dead.” She touched something that hung from a silver chain around her neck-a pendant made from a black gem. That it was ensorcelled to ward off poison, Arvin had no doubt. But had the old man’s bite truly been poisonous?

He gave the bite on her wrist a closer scrutiny. The wound lacked the distinctive puncture marks that hollow, venom-filled fangs would leave. “The old man was diseased, you mean,” he corrected.

Kayla shook her head. “It wasn’t disease-the effects were too quick. As soon as his teeth broke the skin, my entire arm felt as though it were on fire.”

Arvin nodded, losing interest. The real question was whether the old sailor had joined Talona’s cult or been magically compelled by the cleric to attack. Whichever it was, he must have been one of the two men Zelia had spied earlier on the stone island. She’d assumed that both were cultists even though only one was wearing robes. The old man obviously hadn’t been acting like a prisoner-and he certainly hadn’t been bound.

“We should get moving,” Kayla said.

Arvin nodded. “Is there an exit nearby?”

Kayla found the wall of the tunnel by touch and ran her palm up it to locate the edge of the corridor in which Arvin crouched. Then she pointed up the sewage tunnel, away from the chamber with the stone island. “That way. There’s a shaft that gives access to the street, about four hundred paces up the tunnel. It’s at the base of the next spillway.”