Bastian Everly's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

The cold in the barracks grew teeth. Bastian's nine sleepers did not stir, but the shadows above them coiled. He climbed off the old stone floor and gripped his spear. The silver veins in the shaft glowed, brighter than any lamp. Whatever watched him wanted the spear, or the boy who dared to carry it. A sound filled the barracks like stone dragged over stone. The rafters bent. Down from the dark poured a serpent longer than the hall, its scales green as deep water. A crown of white bone rode its skull. One yellow eye fixed on Bastian, and the eye was older than the building around them. "War god's whelp," the serpent said. Its voice shook dust from the walls. "You wear a goddess's gift. You have not earned it." It slid closer. Its tongue tasted the air near his face. "I have swallowed a hundred godlings who thought a bright weapon made them gods." Bastian's men slept on, wrapped in the serpent's spell. He was alone with it. Run, and the serpent would name him a coward before every god. Then no man would ever follow him. He set his feet instead. His arms shook, but he raised the spear level with the yellow eye. "Then test me," Bastian said. "Not them. Me." The serpent struck. Bastian dropped and rolled across the cold floor. Fangs cracked the stone where he had stood. He came up and drove the spear at the great neck. The silver point bit through scale. The serpent screamed and thrashed, and its tail flung Bastian into the wall. His ribs flared with pain. But the spear stayed buried, and dark blood ran down the shaft. The serpent went still. It could have crushed him. It chose not to. The yellow eye studied him with something new. "You did not run," it said. "Others ran." It pulled back, and the point slid free. The wound closed over as if the god had merely allowed the cut. "I will not kill you today," the serpent said. "I will watch. Build your warband, boy. Win it with your own hands, and I may kneel among those who follow you. Fail, and I will eat you and your nine." The bone crown dipped once. Then the great body poured back into the rafters and was gone. Warmth returned. The nine woke, blinking, unaware. Bastian stood bleeding and could not stop shaking. He had faced a god and lived. But he had not won peace. He had won a judge. He pressed a hand to his cracked ribs and looked at his sleeping men. Nine was not enough. The serpent would count them. Every god now waited to see if the war god's son could turn nine followers into an army worth a throne. Bastian wiped the blood from his spear. At dawn, he would go find more.