charm(less)

duodēcim

—— d u o d ē c i m ——

SNAKES WAS ONE way to describe them. Korey was thinking more along the lines of horned serpents. They were at least five feet long, pale sandy coloured scales with red streaks running along it's back, with long curved fangs protruding from their mouth. Each one had a different number of horns curling from it's head — either two large ram-like horns or four smaller horns in a crown formation. With growing dread, he slowly twisted as he counted how many of them were approaching. Four, six, ten, fifteen...eighteen. Eighteen giant snake monsters were slithering right towards them.

"Go on, monster encyclopaedia," Korey said, struggling to keep his voice steady. "What are these ones called? Snakes from hell? Horned vipers?"

Park scoffed. "Monsters would never have such derivative names. Cerastes," he said. "A single bite from them is enough to send someone spiralling into a delirium of madness that can only be remedied with ambrosia and nectar."

Korey released a shaky breath. "Oh, that's...yeah, that's reassuring. It can only be cured with the one thing we don't have."

"We don't have anything," Park reminded him. "Come on, we need to get off the bus."

"Have you lost your mind? Off the bus?" Korey choked on a disbelieving laugh and gripped the handle of his dagger so tightly his fingers ached. "Off the bus is where the snakes are!"

"They're Cerastes, not snakes. And off the bus gets the monsters away from the mortals."

"You said monsters don't show any interest in mortals," Korey said, almost accusatorially.

"They don't, but that doesn't mean they'll take special care not to harm them in their path of destruction. Monsters don't care about collateral damage." Park huffed a breath when Korey still didn't budge and reached out to grab his wrist, practically dragging him off the bus after him. He'd been doing that a lot recently and Korey was growing accustomed to the perpetually cool touch of his skin, how familiar it felt against Korey's. "Move it, pretty boy. We can't hide out on the bus forever."

"Pretty boy," Korey muttered under his breath. "Seriously?"

Outside, the sun had completely dipped behind the horizon and the sky was fading from a deep golden pink to a velvety dark blue. The spreading darkness was making it increasingly difficult for Korey to see what was going on around him and he practically leapt out of his skin when something brushed his leg, instinctively grabbing Park. It took him a panicked moment to realise it was just a bunny hopping along the undergrowth. Korey cleared his throat, mumbling an apology as he moved his hand away, only to watch as the bunny was suddenly snatched from the grass with a squeal by a long flicking tail.

"Holy shit." Korey backed up as a huge cerastes rose up in front of him, curling white horns seeming to glow in the darkness. "Holy — "

The cerastes jerked back as a black arrow shot through it's body and Korey turned just in time to see Park nock and fire another arrow in the same second, this one piercing the cerastes right through the eye. The monster burst into powdery yellow ash with a loud hiss and Park kept the bow raised, another arrow strung and ready to be fired at a second's notice.

"Get behind me," Park ordered, his keen gaze scanning their surroundings. "I don't care how good you might think you are with that dagger. You can't take these on."

Korey opened his mouth to say he wasn't about to disagree with that but another cerastes rose up, lunging with startling speed, and he probably would have had his throat ripped out if Park hadn't yanked him out of the way hard enough that he stumbled to the ground. Korey scrambled across the sand as Park shot it down and fired more arrows further into the grass, cursing himself for being so useless in this situation. It wasn't like with the Kraken were he could offer a distraction from a distance — these snakes were an up close and personal problem which Korey's dagger was fairly useless against.