[b]Giriel![/b]

Uusha flinches away like a wild animal. For a moment, her breath is panicked. She isn’t used to being touched like that. Not any more. She rides that panic like a wild horse, however, and while she moves in such a way that she [i]could[/i] backhand you, she doesn’t. She could have, her animal heart wanted to— but Uusha of the Holly is not an animal. She is a knight. And she is in control.

The more important thing is that you derailed her train of thought just long enough. If she wasn’t suddenly focused on you, she might have noticed the cresting wave in time.

Not all of them are demon snakes, horned and brass-scaled. Just some of them, hissing their snake-songs, commanders of the host. Every other snake is a more regular, ordinary snake, green or yellow or black, red or purple or mottled brown. But this is the Flower Kingdoms, and some of those snakes are as big as horses; some of those snakes are venomous enough to wilt grass where they breathe; some are descended from spirits, heavy and mossy and earthen, stone-eyed or rain-slick; and they are a river that has burst its banks, and will drag you down beneath the waves, and bury you underneath their bulk.

Behold, the Serpentine Hunt, led by the Messengers of the King, and you the prey. 

Uusha performs an incredibly impressive vertical leap and swings herself into the branches of a tree to get a better vantage point, but that leaves the rest of you high and dry. Some of her retinue breaks, screaming, panicked into the jungle— doubtless playing right into Ven’s hands.

***

[b]Han![/b]

This would be a very bad time to find out you have herpetophobia.

***

[b]Piripiri![/b]

Oh by the wandering stars it’s more snakes. Azazuka jerks her ankles up and screams as the tide thunders towards you, likely because of her last experience with demon snakes.

***

[b]Fengye![/b]

This was a fortress, but (for a time) a secret one. These stables were not used by raiders on their foreign mountain ponies, but by outlanders here to meet with the cannibal-cult who raised these walls. The rotten wooden sheds have long been in the shadow of a horrible place, and it has seeped into them.

On first inspection, there’s nothing here— but if that were the case, why would the hair on the back of your neck stand on end when you gaze into the depths of the stables? Then, and even Kalaya Na can see [i]this[/i], two pale lights wink into view, and a horse emerges from the stables to challenge you.

No.

The shape of a horse emerges to challenges you. There is nothing there except for the marsh-lights, one to either side of the head. It consists of the motion that a horse would make, if it were agitated, if it were one of King Salamedes’ fabled flesh-eating horses.

This is one of the [i]Hlungta[/i], the Horses of the Children of Adorjan. Its presence suggests that Ven may have called up something that cannot easily be put down. Something that is dangerous, incredibly so, even more than the horse (which might take one of your arms off).

Here, then, is the danger and the opportunity: the [i]Hlungta[/i] will maul you if not placated, and you risk attracting terrible attention if you choose to ride it; but there is no finer mount from here to Chiaroscuro, and perhaps you want to be a doomed distraction for the sake of Kalaya-[i]phraya[/i].

***

[b]Kalaya![/b]

There’s something there that makes your eyes kinda hurt when you try to look directly at it, because they’re telling you that there’s nothing there but also, it’s moving, and there are two pale lights higher than your head, and you can hear it breathing, wet and hoarse.

Why [i]don’t[/i] you break and run from this phantom?