The Fanged Crown Page 5

  “How bad can it be?” Harp said, mostly to himself. “We’ll cut through, and maybe the way will get clearer as we get to higher ground.”

  “There’s higher ground?” Verran asked.

  “It’s hard to see from here, but there are mountains inland,” Boult said. “If we’d sailed from the north instead of the east, you would have been able to see the lay of the land.”

  Boult pulled out his short sword, and the other men followed his example. But it was Harp who took the first swing at the vines, quickly hacking a man-sized hole and stepping into the humid darkness. The foliage was thick above his head, blocking out most of the sunshine, with just the occasional patch of sky showing through the leaves.

  “Stay close,” Harp said over his shoulder.

  The dull whack of his blade against the woody stalks and the rustle of leaves made talking to the other men difficult. The vines seemed to twist out of the way of his blade and regroup after each stroke. The farther Harp moved into the thicket, the slower he moved. The branches scratched his face, and he stumbled on the uneven ground. He couldn’t help but think of Liel and wondered how anyone could make a home in a place as inhospitable as the jungles of Chult.

  Harp remembered Liel standing in a grove of ash trees on Gwynneth Isle, shortly after they’d escaped the Marderward. Although Liel had healed his injuries and fever, Harp had still been weak, and the short walk to the grove had sapped most of his newfound energy. Leaning against a tree to catch his breath, he’d watched Liel turn in slow circles staring up at the leaves, while the shifting pattern of light and shadow played across her face. She’d turned to smile at him. Her green eyes seemed to glow in the gathering twilight, and there was a pink tinge on her cheeks.

  “The forest makes me powerful,” she said.

  There was no arrogance or pride in her words, and for an instant he envied her. Liel could convert the very structures of nature into magic, while he was bound by his mortality, his commonplace mind, and his workman’s hands. But his envy vanished, and he felt awe that the beautiful creature could have cast her eyes on him and liked what she saw. The memory of Liel gave him hope that she might have survived her time in Chult. Who knew how the wildness of the jungle would affect Liel? It might keep her safe and cast her mind places he couldn’t imagine.

  “There has to be an opening soon,” Harp said over his shoulder as he hacked through a snarl of sticky vines that reminded him of spiderwebs. “It can’t be so thick all the way to the colony.”

  When Boult didn’t answer, he turned around, but the rest of his crew was nowhere to be seen. He couldn’t see the beach, and the passageway that he’d cut through the underbrush seemed to have reverted to its original state. Surrounded by a tangle of plants, Harp suddenly felt disoriented. He tried to listen for the ocean, but he couldn’t hear the crashing of the waves through the dense plants. Harp resumed his hacking, moving slowly back to the beach—he hoped—but without making much progress. If his boyhood forest was a cathedral, the Chultan forest was a demon’s playground.

  The air around him was hot and close, and he felt dizzy as if he had been working without water in the hot sun for hours. He realized he had no sense of how long he’d been alone in the thicket. The sunlight world of sand and crashing waves was long gone as Harp struggled against the stranglehold of plants.

  “Boult!” he shouted, surprised at how little his voice carried. He might have been yelling from inside a closet for all the sound he made. “Kitto!”

  He attacked the vines with renewed vigor. They’d all left the beach at the same time. Surely they couldn’t have gotten too far apart, not when they were all fighting through the same twisted undergrowth. Harp saw a beam of light flash across the ground. Bending down, he saw an opening at knee height. He sheathed his sword and scrambled on his hands and knees into a low, narrow passage through the thicket.

  As he crawled along the ground, he felt his hands squish into something soft. The ground beneath his fingers was slick with white fungal growth. He crawled faster, sinking deeper into the thick mat of mold, the putrid smell of decay making him gag. A netting of black moss hung from the branches above him, tangling around his face and neck. Harp felt panic rising in his chest. It would be a miserable place to die.

  Up ahead, he saw a clearing in the thicket. He lunged forward and tumbled into the open, pausing to wipe the slime from his hands on the leaves on the ground.

  “Harp!” Cenhar called with relief. The old warrior stood at the edge of the clearing, his axe raised high above his shoulder. His long, gray hair was matted with leaves. Cenhar’s massive biceps twitched as he gripped the handle tightly, and his eyes darted wildly as he scanned the undergrowth with unnerving concentration.

  “What’s wrong?” Harp asked. Usually Cenhar was as steady as a boulder, but Harp wouldn’t be surprised if the jungle had spooked even the veteran warrior. “I heard something,” Cenhar said.

  “Animal?” Harp noticed that his sword’s sheath was coated in white slime. Crouching down to wipe it off, Harp sensed movement behind him. He spun around, but nothing was there.

  “Did you see that?” he asked.

  “No, but I hear something over there,” Cenhar said. He used the edge of his axe’s blade to part the leaves and peer into the bushes.

  “Let’s get back,” Harp said. “We need to find the others and regroup on the beach.”

  “Yeah—” Cenhar began. Something long and narrow snapped out of the undergrowth, cracked through the air, and retreated into the thicket with a hissing sound. Cenhar sidestepped out of the way and moved to join Harp in the center of the clearing.

  “What in the Hells was that?” Cenhar said. “A whip?”

  “I think it was a vine,” Harp replied. The leaves on the ground began rustling as if a multitude of snakes were slithering toward their feet.

  “Since when do vines move?” Cenhar shouted as the two men leaped away from the mysterious onslaught. A mass of dark green tendrils rose out of the loam. They undulated back and forth rhythmically before lashing simultaneously across the clearing. Harp and Cenhar scrambled away as the vines snapped against the ground.

  “Welcome to the jungle,” Harp said, pulling a flask with a cloudy orange liquid off his belt and flinging it at the vines. The bottle smashed, splattering the tendrils with acid, and making them drop to the ground and retreat out of sight under the fallen leaves. Cenhar and Harp moved to run, but the vines snapped into the air again. Cenhar dropped to the ground, yanking Harp down as the vines lashed over their heads. They clambered to their feet and plunged into the underbrush. Beside him, Cenhar gasped in pain. But when Harp paused to see what had happened, Cenhar shoved him to keep moving.

  “Kitto!” Harp yelled. “Boult, you bastard! Answer!”

  He heard Boult shouting at him, but the dwarf’s voice sounded muffled and distant. Harp’s skin itched. He looked down and saw small dark shapes swarming over his hands and legs. He yelped and tried to brush them off, but the swarm clung. He and Cenhar blundered in the general direction of Boult’s voice. They stumbled out of the vegetation and onto the beach, as thousands of tiny insects swarmed over their clothes.

  Wincing in pain, Cenhar stumbled and nearly fell, but Harp half-carried him down to the ocean waves where they frantically scrubbed off the creatures, some of which were already burrowing into their skin. Harp yanked off his shirt and scrubbed his face and the back of his neck. As they cleaned off the last of the insects, Cenhar groaned in pain. Harp helped him back ashore, and the old man collapsed on the beach.

  “What happened?” Boult asked as he loosened the shoulder straps on Cenhar’s leather chestplate. The warrior took ragged breaths between his gritted teeth. A green vine had wound tightly around his upper arm; hooked burrs curled deep into the inflamed tissue.

  “It jumped on him,” Harp said.

  “The vine jumped on him?” Boult repeated, “I don’t like that sound of that.”

  “How long were we in the
re?” Harp asked.

  “Not very long,” Boult replied. “But we all came out onto the beach in different places.”

  Harp pulled his dagger out of his boot and began to slice through the vine, sparking cries of pain from Cenhar.

  “Damn,” Harp said, sheathing his dagger. “We have to get him back to the ship. Help me lift him.”

  But when they tried to pick Cenhar up, his body went rigid, and he seemed to stop breathing.

  “Poison?” Boult asked.

  “His lips are blue,” Harp said. “We have to move.”

  Verran laid his hand on Harp’s shoulder. “Let me try,” he said, but he looked terrified.

  “Try what?” Harp asked suspiciously. But he moved away so Verran could kneel beside Cenhar.

  Verran held his hands over Cenhar’s chest and began to chant under his breath. As his trembling fingers moved through the air, the barbed plant began to twist and writhe around Cenhar’s arm. The warrior cried out, and Harp moved to stop Verran, but Boult stayed Harp with a hand on his shoulder. The dwarf pointed to the vine, which began smoking as if it were burning from the inside out. With a hissing sound, it blackened and dropped to the sand. Small puncture wounds remained in Cenhar’s arm, but the redness vanished, and Cenhar flexed his huge gnarled hand with a look of relief.

  Boult helped Cenhar sit up, and both of them stared at Verran, who looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole and hide.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” he said defensively. “I saved you.”

  “Uh, thanks.” Cenhar swayed on his feet, and Harp thought the behemoth of a man was going to faint back onto the sand.

  “We didn’t know you were a sorcerer,” Boult said to Verran.

  “I’m not. I got rid of the vines, that’s it.” Verran jutted out his chin defiantly.

  “You used magic!” Boult said.

  “You should have told us,” Harp said.

  “I’m not … It doesn’t matter,” Verran said shakily.

  “Magic always matters,” Boult insisted.

  “It’s complicated,” Verran said, kicking at the sand beneath his boots. “And private.”

  “If you want to be on the crew, you have to be honest with us,” Boult continued angrily.

  “Really?” Verran said. “Does that just apply to me? The captain can keep whatever secrets he wants?”

  “What do you mean?” Harp asked.

  “You have a massive secret. Not even a secret. It’s all over you.”

  “What do you want to know, Verran?” Harp asked quietly.

  “How’d you get the scars?” Verran demanded.

  When he saw how the other men reacted to the question, Verran lost his adolescent bravado. “They’re all over your body. I even saw them on your feet. You get those kind of scars from a demon pact.”

  “There are ways to get scars like mine,” Harp said quietly, “that make a demon pact look like a stroll down the dock. I’m no warlock.”

  “What then?

  “It’s a long story I promise to tell you another time,” Harp said, “but now… .” Harp stood up and brushed the sand off his knees. He caught Verran’s eye and held it. “Where did you learn about demon pacts, Verran?”

  Verran looked away from Harp and rubbed his eyes with his fists. “I don’t know anything,” he insisted. Harp could tell he was lying—and doing it badly.

  “I’m not angry,” Harp said. “Whatever your story is, you’ve clearly got skills we need. Besides, you wouldn’t believe what Boult told me earlier.”

  Boult coughed, and Harp continued, “Men are entitled to their secrets, sure. But when it affects the safety of your crew, it’s time to put it in the open.”

  “My father … was a warlock,” Verran said and stopped. Harp noticed the tears forming in the boy’s eyes and decided the topic should be discussed with fewer people around.

  “Good enough,” Harp said, raising his hand. He turned to talk to Cenhar. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I been dragged through all Nine Hells … No offense to you, Verran,” Cenhar said.

  “Can you row the skiff back to the ship?” Harp asked.

  “I don’t need to go back.”

  “You’re ill,” Harp said firmly.

  “My arm’s all right,” Cenhar said. He waggled his fingers as if to prove that everything worked. “But I don’t want to—”

  “Sleep on the ship,” Harp insisted. “Tell Llywellan what happened. He’ll keep an eye on you.”

  “What if you have trouble?”

  “We’re going to find the colony. We’ll come back to the ship and figure out our strategy together. No time for trouble.”

  For a moment, Cenhar looked like he wanted to argue. Changing his mind he said, “Aye, captain.”

  “Kitto, Boult, help him get the boat on the water.”

  When the three men had moved away, Harp turned back to Verran.

  “Your father was a warlock?” Harp prompted.

  “Not at first. I loved my father, but he was … easy to persuade. He began studying with a man who had traveled everywhere searching for lost magics and artifacts. My father idolized him.”

  “A sorcerer?” Harp asked.

  Verran gave a non-commital shrug. “He was very charismatic, and his followers were utterly devoted to him. I’d never met someone who was so … strong-willed. Just a few words could convince you of things that, as I look back on it, made no sense.”

  “You knew the man?”

  Verran wiped his sleeve across his eyes. “Yes. My father used to take me to their gatherings, in the guts of a derelict building. I was always the youngest one there.” He looked up at Harp. “They said it made me special.”

  “You were a child, Verran,” Harp assured him. “You couldn’t have known any better.”

  “Some things are horrible no matter how old you are.”

  Harp took a deep breath. He and Verran had more in common than the boy thought.

  “The man offered my father a deal,” Verran said.

  “It’s one of the oldest stories,” Harp said grimly. “Men sell their freedom for power.”

  “And it worked,” Verran said bitterly. “My father became very powerful. But he also changed. He’d been so happy, so cheerful, and suddenly it was like something black replaced his heart.”

  “Spending too much time around death will do that to a man,” Harp agreed.

  Verran shook his head. “It was more than that. I saw scars on his hands one night. Scars just like you have, only they were fresh,” Verran continued. “My father was so proud of them. Whatever he’d done had been a major accomplishment. Mama got so angry. I’d never seen her like that. She saw marks on his back. There were five of them, all in a row. Like … silhouettes of a shape that’s just a little too far away to recognize. The night when he got those scars, one of the … silhouettes … took a new shape. It was finished.”

  “I don’t understand, Verran,” Harp said patiently. He knew the boy was trying his best to explain, but finding the right words to describe something evil was hard. Harp knew that as well as anyone.

  “It was the pact. My father was given power. And he was expected to do certain tasks, part of a larger plan that none of us understood.”

  “And one of those debts was paid that night?” Harp pressed.

  “Yes. My mother was clever. Once she saw the mark on his back, she knew what he had done. She took me away from him.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “A relation’s farm in Cormyr. Mama and I were both relieved to be away from him. We missed who he had been, but we were happy there,” Verran paused. “He found us a year later, after he’d had a change of heart. I’m amazed he found the strength to get away from them. But he couldn’t escape the demon at that point, just fight it. He was a broken man. He’d sit in the fields for hours staring at the sky.

  “I was in the village when … something came to the house and killed him and Mama. Our neighbor found me a
nd told me what happened. They smuggled me out of the province that very day. There’s no reason for it to be looking for me, but still I wonder. It’s why I joined the Crane.”

  Harp laid his hand on Verran’s shoulder. “None of us have an empty road behind us.”

  “No, I guess not,” Verran said, but he sounded unconvinced. He turned sharply as Boult and Kitto walked up to them. Behind them, Harp could see Cenhar rowing the skiff across the waves to the Crane.

  “Did you do the spell on the ship?” Boult asked abruptly. “The one that melted the captain?”

  Verran looked at his fingers. “I’m not sure.”

  “How could you not know?” Boult demanded.

  “It seems too powerful for me. Once we left home, my mother wouldn’t let me try spells anymore. She was too scared.”

  “And do you try spells now?” Harp inquired.

  “Sometimes,” Verran admitted. “And sometimes things just happen.”

  “Has anyone ever gotten hurt?” Harp asked.

  “You mean besides the dead captain?” Boult reminded him.

  “I’ve never hurt anyone … who didn’t deserve it,” Verran finished slowly.

  “That’s comforting,” Boult said sarcastically.

  “It’s been useful to us so far,” Harp pointed out. “Verran, I don’t supposed you have another useful spell that can locate the path?”

  Verran looked sheepish. “It’s over there.”

  “Did you just figure that out?” Harp asked.

  “Um, a little while back. Before Cenhar was attacked. I was on that side of the trees when you shouted,” Verran replied. “And there’s something else.”

  “I hope it’s a welcoming party,” Boult said.

  “No. I think there’s a body on the other side of the trees.”

  A mesh of woven branches hid the path. Without Verran’s luck, there was little chance they would have discovered it. And without the path, there was little chance they would have made it very far through the twisted undergrowth, fungus slicks, and flesh-eating vines.

  “You think it was Bootman’s crew who covered the path?” Harp asked Boult as they made their way down the narrow channel through the dense vegetation. It was more like a tunnel than a path, with leaves and branches intertwining over their heads. Without regular travel across the ground, the jungle would soon retake the unnatural highway that allowed intruders to enter its confines.