The Halfling

Chapter 10

It was a most beautiful fall, the spiders felt, although they lost their meal. Seeing them descend into the deadly waters of the Klifting River satisfied them.

Until the snake-men caught them and hauled them away.

Snake-men, one might ask? But of course! The ones who wear glittering emeralds and jades for eyes, torsos like that of a man while the feet tightened into honeycomb scales and viny limbs. The snake-men of Arond, who rule the Kingdom In the River, as the Men of the East say.

Vigorously, their bodies lapped against the waters. They made faces at the spiders. They were natural enemies, as previously told, and the snake-men were much disgusted with the acidic saliva of those monsters as the spiders were of their slimy scales and their forked tongues.

They hissed and yowled but the spiders couldn't do anything. They did not rule the rushing river as the snake-men did, and they could only curse them in dismay.

With lithe bodies, the snake-men swam through the wide river as if it were a ford, their bodies glide-flying. When the staff of the boy and the old man seemed to fall, they at once leapt and caught it before it sank down the murky depths.

They stayed close to the Company as they were all very new to them. They crossed passengers from Midras Peak to Lorven Height, but they had never encountered sleeping companions. Of course, they were only interested in the younglings—the old man seemed to be of great renown and they did not wish to interfere with great forces.

They wore masks, those snake-men. Masks that glittered azure, silver and gold, masks that kept emeralds and jades inside small recesses. The slits of their eyes glowed an iridescent glow as the slanting rays of dawn fell upon them, their whipping bodies framed by the blackened cliffs.

The light touched the Company's faces. The snake-men peered at the two young children; they pitied them.

Their lips were gray sulfurs, cragged with the crags of a mountain or a cliff. Their faces were printed with creases, greater than ones they had seen in old peoples, whose backs were hunched and decrepit and gnarled like tree branches.

Even their feet were damaged! Which they felt most pity for, since feet-parts were very dear to snake-men that they try to minimize all damage done to it by the environment.

The cliff-faces on their right now fell, the scabrous ends sinking deeper and deeper into the roaring water. Then, a recess, a small slit quite invisible if you did not look for it. The snake-men slithered inside.

The cave was not a dank, damp cave for all intents and purposes. As soon as they crossed the threshold, lights glittered from a few feet—far enough not to be seen outside; near enough so that one wouldn't be bat-blind soon as he entered the cave.

These were torches hung on golden clasps, serenely lighting the bumpy walls and ceilings of the cave. The King himself had forged them so that their light did not die nor fade nor flicker.

Like shimmering crystals did their backs light up as they rode out the rest of river and now crawled on rock. They slid forward then, carrying the Company deeper into the cave.

Through rocks they swirled until they crossed the bridge towards Arond's realm, where snake-men rattled their tongues in greeting and craned their scaled necks to look at the boy and the staff.

Lanterns glowing blue and yellow hung about edifices and sculptures so large one might forget they were within a cavern. The smell was of rosemary and honeypuffle, small whiffs of poppy and sage here and there. Rattling and chattering filled the cave.

Now the one carrying the boy stopped one of the passing folks and hissed. The other hissed back, not bothering to speak in the Common Tongue.

"Have you ssseen the King," asked he who carried the boy, in the sibilant language of the snake-men of Arond.