Whisper of Venom

Nala twirled the staff faster and faster. Her voice rose until she was all but screaming. Then, on the final word of her chant, she whipped down the rod to rest in front of her with the butt exactly equidistant between her feet. Except for the constant boneless shifting, she stood motionless. Even to Balasar, who’d learned sword forms from some of the most exacting masters-at-arms in Tymanther, the instantaneous transition from frenzy to stillness was impressive.

Nala scrutinized the recent converts. Perhaps her gaze lingered on Balasar for an extra moment. More likely it was just his imagination.

“You’re ready,” she declared. “Arm them, Sir Patrin.”

The paladin with his deep blue surcoat and clinking beard of silver chains opened a wooden box and started handing out knives. Balasar felt a pang of dismay.

Which, he supposed, had its comical side. He’d fought a topaz dragon and its strange, formidable minions on the journey down from Chessenta. And he was worried about a pen full of pigs?

Well, yes. Because they were the enormous, savage variety sometimes called dire boars, and an unarmored knife fighter-no matter how skilled-would be at a substantial disadvantage. Especially in the somewhat cramped confines of the pen, where an animal could pin him against the fence.

Yet it was obvious the other neophytes didn’t share his trepidation. Shifting, they stared at the pen like they could hardly wait to start the slaughter.

Nala didn’t keep them waiting any longer than it took to distribute the dirks. “Begin!” she cried, and Balasar’s fellows rushed the pen. He saw little choice but to rush right along with them.

The rules said an initiate couldn’t attack until he was inside the pen. Balasar arguably cheated just a little by breathing frost at the nearest boar while still vaulting over the top of the fence.

Rime painted the pig’s snout white and, as he’d intended, encrusted its eyes. Too ferocious to balk or even flinch, the hump on its back as high as he was tall, the black beast charged him anyway. He sidestepped its slashing tusks and stabbed at its neck.

The knife penetrated, but failed to draw the arterial spurt he wanted. The accursed animal was moving too fast. Its bristle-covered hide was too thick, and there was too much fat and muscle underneath.

Elsewhere in the pen, gouts of fire leaped and lightning crackled. Carried on the breeze, a stray trace of poisonous vapor stung Balasar’s nose and filled his mouth with an acrid taste. His companions were using their breath weapons repeatedly, because unlike him, they could. After a dragonborn truly gave himself to Nala’s deity, the ability renewed itself more quickly.

The boar slammed into the fence. The heavy rails lurched and banged, and the spectators gasped and recoiled. But the barrier held. The pig spun, faster than such a massive, short-legged beast had any right to, and Balasar had to give ground before it. To scurry back toward the center of the pen.

He was horribly conscious of squeals and grunts, the thump and scrape of trotters on stone, and the smells of blood and burned flesh right behind him. But he couldn’t even glance around to see if a second boar was about to gore him. He didn’t dare take his eyes off the one that he knew for certain meant to kill him.

The frost had largely fallen away from its little red eyes. Which, evidently not frozen and blind, were glaring straight at him.

The boar surged forward. He dodged, and it compensated. He sidestepped again, and his foot slipped. Because, while the Market Floor was made of granite, the pigs had been in the pen long enough to start fouling it with muck.

Balasar floundered for balance and saw that he couldn’t avoid the hog. At best he might be able to avoid being sliced open by one of its tusks. As it charged into range, he planted his hand on top of its head and jumped.

It was nothing like the agile spring that had carried him over the fence. It heaved him above the tusks, but the boar’s bulk still slammed into him and bounced him off to the side.

He landed hard, and for a moment the world was just a jumble of lunging shapes and noises that didn’t mean anything. Then he remembered what had happened to him and knew the pig was already turning to attack him again.

It lunged, dipping its head to slice a target so low to the ground. Balasar twisted, somehow avoided the stroke, then snatched with his offhand. His fingers closed on one of the lower tusks. As long as he maintained his grip, the pig wouldn’t be able to gore him.

Unfortunately, it could wrench its head back and forth and up and down, trying to break his hold. The motion pounded him against the granite. Meanwhile, he repeatedly plunged his dirk into its throat and the underside of its jaw.

He felt his fingers slipping. Then, finally, blood spattered him and the stone in rhythmic gushes. The boar thrashed in a convulsion that flung him loose, charged, but collapsed a pace or two short of its target.

Balasar just wanted to lie still and gasp for breath. But with a fight raging all around him, that was a good way to get killed. He lifted his head and looked around.

Some of the other pigs were dead, and by and large those that were still active looked in worse shape than the cultists who seared them with repeated blasts of flame and vitriol. Balasar had just about decided he could sit out the rest of the fight when, from the corner of his eye, he saw a hog toss its head and slice a green-scaled dragonborn from thigh to shoulder.

Even as Balasar scrambled to his feet, it occurred to him that the injured fighter was a wyrm-worshiper and thus, in the truest sense, an enemy. Someone he himself might want to kill someday. But his instincts were stronger than that consideration. He charged the boar, meanwhile yelling as best he could in the hope that he could distract it from the foe sprawled helplessly before it.

The huge pig started to turn. Hoping the blade would pass unimpeded under bone and find some vital spot, Balasar thrust his point at the base of its jawline.

The boar exploded into a great thrashing spasm, and it was luck as much as Balasar’s nimbleness or battle sense that kept it from slashing him in the process. But it didn’t, and then it flopped over onto its side.

Still keeping an eye on it, he moved to check the wounded cultist. The son of a toad lay in a sizeable pool of his own blood, but at least he was breathing.

Balasar looked around. All the pigs had fallen and lay inert, mere ugly mounds of bristles and charred, bloody flesh, while Patrin was already trotting in his direction. The paladin evidently realized that if he used his healing powers quickly enough, he could save the maimed cultist.

Patrin kneeled down in the gore, murmured a prayer, summoned silvery light into his hands, and then applied them to the long gash in his fellow worshiper’s body. The magic worked exceptionally well. The wound closed completely, and the fellow dazedly raised his head.

When Patrin helped him to his feet, the cheers erupted, with only a scattering of holdouts among the crowd looking disgusted at everyone else’s reaction.

Balasar registered the acclaim with mixed emotions. He really didn’t want anyone applauding the Cadre for anything. But curse it, he’d fought well, and there was a part of him-no doubt the part the elders of Clan Daardendrien had always decried as frivolous, immature, and irresponsible-that simply wanted to wave and bow.

Then Nala came to the side of the pen, and her cool, appraising gaze reminded him he was playing a deadly serious game-and nowhere near wi

“You only used your breath once,” she said.

Balasar smiled. “My way was more sporting, and more fun.”

“He fought well,” Patrin said.

“Yes,” Nala said. “But I’m not sure I saw the god’s gift of fury augmenting his strength.”