“We’ve had that talk already, son,” Gamarron said gently, and he slipped out the door. Tychus gasped, his hands going to his mouth in horror.
“Oh, he’ll be killed! Quick, back in the tunnel, all of you! That idiot, he’s ruined my fun! Are all of you humans so desperately stupid?”
Utter silence radiated from the hallway. “Not stupid, and not half so weak as you think,” said Renna with grim satisfaction.
Tychus listened to the silence in confusion. “Did they leave their posts?” he wondered. “They couldn’t have missed seeing him! No human comes into First Home, not ever. Even if they capture some poor sot and bring him back for torture, they don’t…” he trailed off in amazement as the door swung open.
Gamarron stood framed in the blue light, swathed in his blacks and each hand filled with the hair of a fallen Naga. Heaving with all his strength, the gnarled-oak savage pulled his victims through the door, limp tails trailing behind him. Renna hurried to the door to pull the slack coils of the fallen guards the last few meters through the opening and shut the door.
“What have you done?” Tychus whispered, horrified and fascinated. His eyes glittered as he looked at the dead guards. The one on the left had the haft of a spear jutting from her abdomen, and the other’s forehead dimpled inward on one side where Gamarron had crushed her skull. Tychus drifted over, hands stretched out over their bodies but not touching them. He inspected the skin around the broken spear handle, daring to touch the thin trail of blood that trickled from it with the tip of his forefinger. He pulled back with a sound of disgust, wiping his hand on the carpet.
He turned to Gamarron. “How did you do it?” the Naga whispered avidly. “No human is as strong as a Naga warrior. No one can defeat us.” Nira was baffled. Tychus didn’t seem angry or offended – their strange new companion was excited, verging on aroused.
“The strong who are sure of their strength are halfway to defeat,” said Gamarron. Kest grunted in disgust and turned away from him.
“This may just be the best day of my life,” the snake-man enthused, looking at his dead kin. “Let’s dump these milk snakes down my little tunnel so no one finds them.” He stopped suddenly and looked around at all of them as if seeing them for the first time. “Humans! Marvelous!”
Once the bodies were hidden, Tychus led them to the servant tunnels that honeycombed the First Tree, scouting ahead to find their next hiding spot and then signaling for them to follow after. The humans scurried from closet to nook, from air shaft to storeroom, with most of their time spent cramped together in too-small spaces interspersed with brief dashes full of free-form terror as they hoped not to be seen by either scullion slave or wandering stud. Tychus informed them in a whisper that he was intimately familiar with these back tunnels. The prideful, militant females didn’t like to be reminded of the studs’ presence until their baser urges struck, so males were restricted to the service hallways. He led them on with a festive air, drunk on his own sense of adventure and an impetuous sense of invincibility that only the truly idle can muster.
They raced upward through the tree, but as they came closer to the top, their pace slowed. More Naga occupied these halls, with occasional functionaries bearing papers or slaves wielding mops and rags. Tychus found them an empty meeting room to hide in and sallied forth repeatedly to map out a safe route. Each time he returned frustrated. “There are too many damned snakes in this tree,” he declared with pique as he burst through the door.
“It’s the middle of the night,” said Kest. “Don’t your people ever sleep?”
Tychus spread his hands apologetically. “Most of us would rather spend the night sleeping, but the military matrons think we ought to hunt at night and generally be more like snakes. It’s deucedly inconvenient when you’re trying to guide in a hostile infiltration.”
“Will there be less activity in the morning?” asked Gamarron.
“No,” Tychus frowned. “It’s busy now, but it’ll be worse when the sun rises. You’re in the First Home. All our people come here sooner or later.”
“Then we have to find a way,” Renna shrugged.
“We may actually have better luck in the main hallways at this point,” suggested Tychus. “There will be guards, but the old fellow here can take care of them. That will be fun! If we move quickly once he strikes, we might be able to outpace any alarm that gets raised.” Nira shuddered. The Naga sounded far too excited about watching Gamarron kill the females.
It was Guyrin who spoke up for once. “If all the pursuit is behind us and the only way out is down, then getting the Shard is only the beginning of our problems.”
The Naga gave him a placid smile. “Well, my fat little friend, mayhap you can work your little light-bending trick again. The likelihood that some meat-headed female will have a glass scry and be using it at this time of night is quite low.”
Guy blanched, and Nira grimaced. Her head was still loose on its moorings and throbbed painfully with any quick movement. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” she whispered, looking to Gamarron. “You saw how his nose bled. I nearly fainted just holding on to him. We could end up being exposed right in the middle of them all.”
“A risk we’ll have to take,” judged the old monk.
Of course we will, Nira thought sourly, but she simply massaged her temples and gave him a nod. Guyrin took a deep breath and let it out with a faint whimper. Kest gripped her shoulder in sympathy, and she managed to find
