It can see using heat detectors as well as normal vision… unfair advantage, but neat. My mind was already beginning to race with new Creation possibilities when Ket pulled me back down to earth.
“Poor Cotton,” she moaned.
My sprite was perched on the edge of the wagon. Her wings drooped as she watched the clothiers attempt to revive their fallen fellow. The old man lay awkwardly where he’d fallen. Sweat covered his flushed face, and his eyelids fluttered but did not open. Blood soaked his neatly darned toga, spreading from the pair of puncture wounds in his shoulder.
Where’s Longshank?
I located the hunter quickly, and ordered him to take the scouts out and bring back as many different non-toxic leaves and plant samples as they could find. One of nature’s rules was generally that where there was harm there was also healing: stinging nettles grew in the same vicinity as soothing dock leaves; fire wasps made their nests in gellan trees, the sap of which neutralized the pain of their corrosive stings. Chances were good that we’d find an antidote to the viper’s venom somewhere nearby.
Soon enough, the scouts returned, Hindmarch proudly brandishing a sprig of verdroot. But no sooner had the nearest cook unlocked the recipe for a brew to counteract the viper’s venom when Ket announced sadly, “We’re too late. He’s dead.”
Gods damn it!
I had to force down a surge of unexpected rage. At first I was shocked because I thought myself angry at Cotton for dying. Then I realized I was angry at myself; at my lack of control.
Ket’s concern and reassurance flowed across our bond, which soothed me somewhat. I also took comfort in what Bekkit had said back in the Grotto. The exodus isn’t a rout. It’s a controlled relocation. I’m still in control.
We’d reached a patch of raised ground, high enough to be damp but not entirely waterlogged. I called a halt.
While the gnomes climbed down to stretch their cramped legs, I gazed around at the marshy expanse. There were hanging vines everywhere.
There’s no way this won’t happen again. We’ll have to go back. Find a way around.
Even as I thought the words, I realized how impossible it was. We barely had two weeks remaining. If we turned back now, we might never make it out of this damned forest before the timer ran out.
If we don’t turn back now, we might not make it out at all.
“We have to find another way around,” I grated.
“Or we could have the gnomes construct shelters for the carts,” offered Ket.
“Oh. Yeah. That would also work.”
I felt a little foolish for not thinking of that myself. We already had an abundance of hides and sticks; a moment’s Divine Inspiration conveyed the idea from Gneil to the builders, and within a couple of hours we had the prototype and the blueprint. I decided we’d remain camped until the following morning, allowing the builders time to erect snake shelters for every cart, and giving the gnomes time to bury and grieve for their dead elder. I made sure the warriors combed every inch of the rise for threats before setting up portahuts. When they were done, there was a pile of dead vipers.
I also had the scouts bring back as many of the verdroot leaves as they could find. The rest of the cooks gained the antidote recipe from assessing the leaves, and I set them to producing as much of it as they were able to store.
Of course, the cooks still had to provide food for the tribe, and we had a bountiful supply of ingredients at hand. Though the tree vipers and swamp asps were venomous, they were not poisonous.They were delicious, judging by the enthusiasm with which the gnomes devoured their snake-meat skewers a short while later. Benin grumbled louder than ever when I bullied him into conjuring flames in his palm for the gnomes to grill their meat, though the emberfox didn’t seem to mind being used for the same purpose. The little fox was like a four-legged charcoal brazier.
Our legless new nemeses came with a few unexpected perks. When one of the chefs harvested the venom from the snakes’ fangs, he unlocked the ‘apothecary’ vocation—as did Swift and Cheer, who managed to disappear a sizable number of the fangs for themselves, the reasons for which I preferred to remain ignorant.
Another upside was that my denizens soon found a use for the discarded snake skins. The clothiers seemed to take vengeful satisfaction in turning them into clothes. It was rather heartwarming to watch.
It was less heartwarming to see my scouts attired in the results the following morning. In addition to their atrocious mole-rat chest-pieces and mantles, all four of them and Longshank were decked out in snakeskin from the waist down. The scaly material had been skilfully assembled into matching high boots and tight trousers, perfectly tailored to each scout’s size.
Predictably, Benin burst out laughing, and there was really nothing I could say in their defense. But at least their legs and feet were now adequately protected from the dangerous ground-dwelling creatures.
Yet another upside of their new garb was that all four scouts soon unlocked the hunter vocation, since they met its prerequisite—to bring death to a creature while wearing the skin of its species—many times over. Aside from increasing the cap from 10 to 20 for skills like Tracking, the main advantage of a hunter was that they were able to manage a team of scouts.
Regrettably, I couldn’t really take advantage of this right now. Since I was currently unable to meet the criteria for assigning more scouts, I decided not to promote any of my current four to hunter just yet. If our journey had shown us anything so far it was that there was safety in numbers. The scouts were vital to the tribe’s continued survival;
