The Viper's Fangs (Book 2) Read Free

King Dib
had been slow to respond; he left the villages to their own resources, which
were sparse at best. Most of those first attacks were massacres, bloody ones
the way Braden told them, with few survivors. The villages might have been
forgotten entirely if King Dib hadn’t been concerned with the taxes they owed….
    Angus frowned. That wasn’t a fact; that was an impression,
one he couldn’t justify. Yes, King Dib sent his tax collectors out with
soldiers to guard them, but he did that throughout the kingdom after every
harvest. It was just coincidental that they were the ones who found the
villages in ruins, since it was the only time King Dib sent anyone up to
The Borderlands. If there had been a larger population, a greater need for the
grain, or even a bit more foresight, King Dib probably would have sent patrols
into The Borderlands instead of accepting the losses of a handful of villages
each year. After all, the lost grain was relatively negligible—
    Facts. Not conjecture, no matter how well-supported it is.
King Dib did not send patrols into The Borderlands for two decades, but when he
did, they were largely unsuccessful. The fishmen just attacked villages that
weren’t being guarded. Then things changed. The population of the kingdom was
growing rapidly, and a new trade agreement had been reached with the Western
Kingdoms. He needed as much grain as he could get, and that meant he needed to
protect The Borderlands from the fishmen. He built forts along the edge of the
swamp and sent out frequent patrols between the villages. But only at harvest
time….
    The fishmen responded to the increased human presence with
fire. It happened during the early summer, long before the grain went to seed.
The fishmen made a broad incursion, one that ranged the length of The
Borderlands, and burned everything. Villages, fields, even the forts were
burned. The forts burned quickly, too; they had been hastily constructed from
wood and had thatch roofs. The way Braden described it the forts were
firestorms waiting to happen. But King Dib rebuilt them, this time with stone,
and manned the length of the border with spotters in tall towers that could
send warning of an incursion. It worked for a few years.
    Fact: That fire was a message, Angus was certain of it. But
of what kind? The most likely message was “Go away from here,” and that was
what Braden and the other scholars had concluded. But that didn’t sit well with
Angus. There was more in that message than an attempt to oust the human
settlements from The Borderlands. There was something symbolic about it,
something reminiscent of what King Urm had done to the Plains folk. If—
    There was a heavy thud on his door, and Angus looked over at
it. He didn’t recognize the knock, but something stirred in his mind. Despite
the heaviness of the hand on the door, something told him the one wielding that
hand was trying to be quiet. But the strength of the arm was too great for a
gentle rap, a soft summons. He rose slowly and approached the door with
caution, then almost laughed at himself. What— who —was there to be
frightened of in the Wizards’ School? He shook his head and opened the door.
    There was a large man—a half foot taller than himself, half
again his own weight—dressed in a navy blue tunic, dark brown breeches, soft
brown boots, and a fur-lined brown cape that nearly reached the floor. “Angus,”
the large man said, nodding to him. “I trust the winter has seen you well?”
    “Hobart?” Angus said, a bit uncertain. He had never seen
Hobart out of his armor, and this man, though towering over him and
well-muscled, looked too small to be Hobart. Had the armor distorted his size
that much? He lifted his gaze to the blunt edge of the chin and met the
walnut-colored eyes of his companion. “It has indeed,” he said. He smiled and
stepped aside, wondering at Hobart’s flowing yellow locks. They were draped so
precisely over the man’s shoulders and down