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A snake slithered over his hand, cold and sue flickered ceaselessly, probing his skin with a stinging touch A second, and third and fourth, followed; he felt a dozen ordarts of their forked tongues as they investigated him Adica whimpered softly He had never seen her truly scared before Yet when a snake touched the skrolin ar wildly, and at once the blind snakes scattered, leaving therabbed Adica by the arm, and they dashed after the hounds just as a volley of arrows and thrown spears clattered into the cavern, accoht rose as the phoenix woke fully, screaers yanked Adica into the safety of the far passage, tugging her into an alcove cut into the rock The glare of the beast’s uncanny feathers made the stone walls shudder, and where Alain crouched at thethe others with his body, he could pick out every least sparkling granule in the ancient walls carved so long ago from the stone The hiss of its breath steamed on his calves It trumpeted frustration

An instant later, shouts of alar Cursed Ones, eht The phoenix truain Cries shattered everywhere

"Where the phoenix nests, there can be no attack," said Two Fingers cryptically, hard to hear over the panic that had broken out a their pursuers

It was terrible to hear and worse, in a hen the screaht fled, as the phoenix pursued the pursuers down the tunnel

After a while, when all they could hear was a steady hissing undertone, Two Fingers relit the torch Alain ventured uneasily into the cavern, only to find its surface boiling like water All the snakes had tu sea There was no way across except to wade through the her injured eye "I think I ers "This is very bad"

"I have an idea" Alain slipped off his arht all the torches, one for each of you, and walk closely behind me I’ll clear a path"

So they went, he in the lead and Adica iht behind and Laoina--brave Laoina!--bringing up the rear The snakes writhed away fro theh their ranks Slender tongues flickered, tasting the air The hissing of the agitated snakes rose in volume to become like a flood’s roar Behind, the others thrust and thrust again with the torches, cutting swathes of fire to keep the snakes away Smoke hazed the cavern

The boldest of their pursuers had been caught by the phoenix’s first attack Falling, gut ripped open, he had succu everywhere and swelling most horribly from their poison He was a difficult obstacle to cross, because he was already beginning to stink

Not quickly enough the far tunnel opened before the after Two Fingers almost swiped him with his torch as theas she took in a lungful of pitchy sit

"Watch out!" cried Laoina, behind him

His heel hit a soft obstacle He sturotesque embrace of a

"Hei!" cried Laoina, stepping up next to hiroped for the haft of his staff, fallen over his knees His other hand slipped on so cool and wet as he tried to push himself up

A snake had found shelter in the opened chest cavity of the dead man It curled free, out of the spu to get purchase on the bloody ground

Bit

Unspeakable pain lanced up his stricken arm

Laoina tossed the torch to land at Alain’s feet Snakes writhed away fro the snakeit off the point and back into the darkness of the cavern

Alain scra his staff They retreated hastily, brought up short at the narrow cleft, where their coruesomely-torn corpses

"The snake has bitten hirabbed Alain’s hand at the wrist An ugly red swelling had already begun to deform the hand "For this I have no cure," he said mournfully