SPIRIT WALKER

Chapter 8: Judgement Day (part 1 of 2)

At dusk, a crowd of perhaps two hundred humans mixed with another three hundred Neanderthals gathered in and around the Moon Dance Inn, each person eager to hear of the blue man's doings. Phylomon calmly sat inside to dine, the wild Dryad at his side, while the inn filled to overflowing. The townsfolk were amazed to see such a pair sitting on the familiar weathered oak stools of the inn.

Scandal himself bustled back and forth between the common room and his kitchen, offering Phylomon course after course of his finest fare—honey muffins with salmon berries, lamb ribs barbecued in plum sauce, buttered eel, squash and pine nuts under a blanket of fine white cheese, a baked bread pudding covered in a layer of blackberry tart.

When he could no longer stand it, one townsman called out to Phylomon, "What are you doing here?"

"He's eating pudding!" Scandal said protectively, not wanting the locals to bother his celebrity.

Phylomon glanced up from his plate. Even from his stool, he could gaze out over the crowd. He measured his words. "I was in Wellen's Eyes a few weeks ago and heard that the serpent hatch had failed, so I came to investigate."

"Ayaah, it failed," Scandal said, "and it will fail again next year. There's not a single serpent at the nesting grounds at Haystack Rock. I've got some men, and we're heading for Craal in a week to catch some hatchlings, bring them back here, and stock them in the bay."

"Alive?" Phylomon asked. He felt unsure if the idea was brilliant or simply just as ludicrous as it sounded. "You hope to catch them alive?"

"They wouldn't be any benefit to us dead," Scandal answered. "I know it can be done. Why, when I was young, I met a chef out of Greenstone. He had a recipe for serpent—young serpent in chestnuts and red peppers, with an apricot-brandy glaze. The Crawlies catch serpents in the Seven Ogre and transport them by wagon three hundred miles to Greenstone, and send them out by ship all across the Craal."

"Yes," Phylomon said, "many fishermen at Seven Ogre go out for the serpent catch." He looked down at the table and his eyes became unfocused, remembering those distant lands. "But you plan to haul the serpents much farther. Can they even survive, I wonder. . . ."

Scandal said, "I figure we can take a few boys over the mountains, fill up my beer keg with serpents, head down to Denai, buy us a small boat, and sail the cargo to Castle Rock. With the serpents nesting, we wouldn't dare try to get the boat through the Straits of Zerai, but we can ship them overland to Bashevgo, along with our boat, and then put the boat back in the water. We'll have a three-man crew at Bashevgo building a barge big enough to house the serpents—since they'll be hitting a growth spurt—and then we can sail the serpents home."

Phylomon considered. "That sounds like a fanciful plan on the surface of it, but the serpents do make it to Greenstone. Still, I expect some attrition in the harvest. How many serpents do you think you can catch?"

"I figure, that if we get there early, we can bring in the little ones—three footers. I could hold a hundred of them in the barrel. By the time we reach Bashevgo ten days later, they'll be six footers, and by the time we get them on a barge and ship them home, they'll be fifteen to twenty feet long."

"A hundred serpents to patrol this coast is not many," Phylomon said. "By spring they'll only be eighty footers. I'd prefer that you brought back a thousand."

"What?" Scandal said. "Ten mastodons? Ten wagons?"

"But even with only one wagon, it will be hard to get in and out of Craal unnoticed," Phylomon said. "You underestimate the Blade Kin." Phylomon became silent for a moment, and no one said a word.