We had been hired by contract for a job out near Bohem. I had been elected to lead since it was home ground. The winter had thawed, and spring took its place. A town named Czen in the southeastern octet had been attacked and the locals were certain a serpent was filling its belly after a long winter nap. This wasn’t unusual, regardless of the species attacks usually increased after the thaw which is why locals rarely travel solo. Which was what made the situation unusual. It was attacking groups of people, the largest being four woodcutters.
There hadn’t been any survivors of the attacks and no remains had been found, so it was consuming everything. I doubted that a giant Damba snake had traveled that far north so whatever it was, it was big and hungry.
The situation in Czen had put me off. The people had taken to travelling in packs and wearing checkered clothing that would distort the vision of what was hunting them. Natural precautions. Dogs were a mainstay of the region with so many serpents in the area, but inside the town I hadn’t heard one errant bark. I was no fool, whatever scaled hellion had crawled out of the earth had eaten the primary alert system first, it was smart too.
For ten years to that point, I had hunted serpents of every size across the land. I had even taken part in the hunt for the rogue salamander named Vitrius far to the south. A great beast it was too. Seven full talons engaged him with many venerable frost-hairs among the ranks. In the end only six survived after the beast fell and I had just been lucky. So, I tell you this now that I had earned my scars but what we were hunting in Boem was spooking me.
For six days my talon of nine joined by a conscripted knight and his two squires roamed the forest outside Czen. It was a tail dragger. Whether it was built low to the ground, or it just had a fat tail I wasn’t sure at the time. The tracks in the dirt were distorted. It had legs and feet so a lizard for sure.
It was on the sixth night while the campfire still burned bright, and we had been tending to our gear. One of knight’s squires, a young man named Onry left to empty his bowels. We were all off our guard. Regardless of the species, serpents were big, and they made a lot of noise when they moved. We were certain we would hear it coming. The night dragged on, and we became aware the squire was not returning.
We grabbed burning branches from the fire and followed his path into the dark. We called his name and heard nothing back. Weapons raised, we moved through the dark and the brush. It was the second squire that tripped and as one we turned to face whatever threat awaited us. The squire stood up and quietly declared he was alright. We lowered our makeshift torches to the ground. No wonder he tripped. The earth had been completely churned out like the soil of a farmer’s plot.
Certain of Onry’s fate we headed back to camp. We posted lookouts so as not to be taken off guard. The knight and his remaining squire alongside Chaplain, our resident priest said prayers for Onry’s soul and swore oaths of vengeance. I decided to consult Mags, our magician. She was younger than me but had proven her worth many times before. She had disassembled her spell rod before we left but in the short time since we returned had put it back together. She loaded a spell cartridge into its cylinder as I approached, and she held it firmly in her hands aiming into the darkness beyond the fire’s light.
“This one not normal,” she said as I stepped closer.
She continued, “It got soft feet. The boy got too close, and it ate in silence. It could have killed all of us. But it be ignoring us. It thinks we are not a threat to it.”
“Are you afraid?” I asked.
“Very.”
“Should we flee and come back with more?”
She rubbed her thumb against old scars on her trigger finger.
“We cannot. This one smart. It leave before we return. We kill it now. We will never get another chance. We must not.”
“If its unafraid, and its close, then it won’t run or hide. We will catch it soon.”
“Aye.”
“It’s probably safe to sleep then.”
“Aye,” she repeated, but her grip on her spell rod only tightened.
We found the beast the next morning. We were moving in a wide formation. One of the members on the left wing made the bird call and we all closed in on him. The ground was slightly sloped but the sparsely growing alder trees made it stable. Through the foliage ahead we could see emerald scales glistening. We moved as one through the woods towards our quarry.
The line of trees ended, and a clearing lay ahead. We each chose a tree to squat behind as we glanced into the clearing. It is only now that I can recall what a pristine spot the beast had chosen to roost was. A wide clearing with a rocky outcrop that overlooked the area for miles. It could even see the town of Czen.
It is a rare experience to see something so beautiful yet so terrifying. Emerald green scales adorned a lithe serpentine body. It roosted at the top of the rocky outcrop where wild tendrils of its crest drifted in the morning breeze. A legend in the flesh posing like in all the story books, an emerald vine-back.
It was not the biggest serpent I had ever seen, far from it. But for a Basiliska Cristatus it was huge. I counted each of its eight legs to confirm its identity, definitely a basilisk. The mysteries of our quarry were blown away in an instant. Sometimes called Fae Dragons, or Elven Drakes, the legends and rumors of emerald vine-backs were inversely proportional to the number of sightings, which was practically never.
Whatever beliefs I held about our capability or personal preservation were shouts lost on the morning breeze as I silently peeked at the creature from my hiding spot behind an ash trunk. Fortune and fame all wrapped up in a brilliant emerald package. I wasn’t alone in my musings. I gave the hand signals and the others skirted around the tree line carrying barbed spears. Crossbows were loaded and Mags readied her rod to snipe the beast from behind.
Early morning, it was sunning itself to warm up, the cool air would make it sluggish. Mags would fire off her first spell and reload. If it didn’t fall with the first shot, we’d charge in and harass it until her next. Long spears would keep it at bay, basilisks have a nasty bite, even if you didn’t die from it, the toxins would paralyze you, and you’d die unable to take another breath.
I chopped my hand in the air, Mags fired her rod. A series of runes along the rod lit up culminating at the tip where a blue orb formed. It reached critical mass, and the bolt flew through the air. To this day I am not sure what primordial instincts guided it, but the beast coiled its snaking neck and the bolt passed through the coil hitting nothing.
We didn’t wait, we charged the beast hoping to distract and waylay it. The basilisk didn’t wait either. In the time it took for us to reach its perch it coiled itself tightly then launched itself with unforeseen agility. I was only several feet away as I watched the monstrosity catapult through the air towards Mags squad. The sound of battle came a split second later. Trained as we were we immediately shifted our charge to surround the beast.
Two of my men were already dead when I arrived, crushed or split in twain. A running battle began as the creature snaked through the trees. It was then I realized it was chasing Mags as she darted left and right through the woods trying desperately to shake the monster. The nine of us desperately tried to keep up while jabbing intermittently. It was the knight who managed a solid hit first. He threw his spear, and it struck the beast square between its legs. The basilisk screamed as its blood sprayed across the ground. It doubled back on itself and lunged at the knight catching him in its jaws and silently crushing him. His remaining squire yelled a heart wrenching cry and charged the beast but missed as it recoiled.
Eight of us remained, four on either side. It lunged at us like a snake with its jaws, its tail swiped at us. We managed to dodge its strikes but were growing tired and only the knight had drawn any blood. We needed to hold out, Mags was already setting up somewhere out of sight. Fatigue finally betrayed us. First one man on my left was swept off his feet by the tail, before anyone could help him it lashed out again crushing him from above. Another failed to dodge the creature’s vicious bites and fell to the earth missing his legs.
There was a pause after the second man fell. We had instinctively fallen back well out of range of its strikes. It breathed heavily in the morning air as its blood flowed from its wound and pooled beneath. The initial rush we felt at the beginning of battle was fading and we all breathed raggedly. The sound of rocks falling came from behind and from the corner of my eye I spied Mags taking aim. I threw myself to the side as the bolt whizzed past and struck the creature square in the neck. Streaks of blue energy arced over its body, and it roared in pain. The beast collapsed sending up a cloud of soil into the air.
I breathed a sigh of relief but kept my spear at the ready. The creature was down but I wasn’t certain it was dead. The cloud dispersed in the wind and a low rumbling from the earth filled me with dread. The beast stood up again and shook itself in a wave that started at its head and traveled the length of its body and knocked the spear loose. It arched its back as it dug its claws into the dirt, and I remember now how much they looked like the roots of young saplings.
I remember now too, the look in its eyes as it stared at us with its head bowed low to the ground. Never before had I seen such rage, it was hurt, and it was mad. I braced myself for death and its inevitable charge. It lunged, but stopped short of me and the massive hell spawn spun its body around. Everything seemed to move so slowly at that moment. I watched as its tail unfurled as it spun. I watched the scales flash as the tail lashed out in an arc around me. I turned in that moment watching Mags’ face as she realized what her fate was. That horrible crack of thunder as the tip of its tail struck her body like a whip and I watched my friend explode into bloody rivulets.
Mags’ spell rod struck the ground and time flowed as it should once more. The shock of events passed quickly for all of us. I drew my sword and holding it above my head I cried out to the Gods and to my ancestors, death and glory was all that awaited me, and I asked them to bear witness to my deeds. I threw caution to the wind as I charged the basilisk.
My remaining men followed suit, we were all rage fueled in that moment. Hacking and slashing and stabbing like madmen we meant to club the beast to death as much as anything. If our weapons broke, we would have started beating it with our fists. Two more of my men fell to the creature as it lashed out at us, but we would not be cowed. As the second man fell I leapt at my foe grabbing hold of a stray fringe of its crest I held firm and jabbed and I stabbed again and again and finally thrust my blade into its baleful eye.
I lurched and screamed so horrendously that we were all taken aback and woken from our bloodlust. I fell to the earth in a heap and the breath was forced from my body. The creature ran screeching into the forest snaking this way and that through the trees faster than I had ever seen any serpent move.
We recovered ourselves. Of the twelve members of my original talon, three remained and the squire of the fallen knight. We followed the basilisk’s blood trail hoping it had bled out but determined to see it felled. No such luck, after three days its tracks just vanished.
“That is why we are called the Emerald Talon boy, in remembrance of the beast that felled so many of our friends,” I said.
The child of the village looked from me to Chaplain and then to the young man wearing the tabard of a fallen knight. The boy was visibly shaken. I have no doubt we made for an intimidating sight between our armor and weapons and the accumulation of scars we had amassed.
“That is also why we are here in your village,” I said grabbing his attention once more.
“Now, where did you see this One-Eyed Vine-back?”
Good story, the dialogue could be more of the time, but otherwise pretty good.