Skinshifter Novel Excerpt #3: Don’t Get Bitten!
They were about to continue onto the cave tunnel that led toward the first chamber when Katja heard a scraping hiss come from within its depths. The werecat stopped dead in her tracks and hissed a warning to Lauraisha. A large serpent was slithering steadily toward them through the tunnel, just beyond the torch’s circle of light.
When she turned to find an escape down one of the other five tunnels connected to the chamber, Katja realized by sound and smell that a basel snake now occupied every tunnel save the one they had just exited. The werecat could kill a single one of these serpents without much difficulty, but not four. A fully grown basel could be as long as eight body-lengths and as foul-tempered as a cornered bear. Their fangs dripped paralyzing venom, so a single bite from their powerful jaws could still inflict ample pain or even death.
“Lauraisha, stay away from the tunnels and be on your guard!”
“What’s coming?”
Before Katja could answer, the triangular head of the first basel slipped into view. Its head was the size of her chest. Lauraisha screamed as it struck. Katja feinted left out of the path of its attack and swept unsheathed claws at the snake’s right opalescent eye. The creature shrieked as Katja’s middle claw found its mark. She pulled her paw free and blocked the snake’s clumsy lunge with her opposite forearm—dancing away from the greenish-gray head.
She spied the shadows of the second and third snakes out of the corner of her eye. They had reached the tunnel entrances simultaneously. She lunged under the first basel on its blind side just as it reared its head, and she struck at its neck glands with both paws. She felt jarring pain as her paws struck bone and staggered under the snake’s weight as it began to convulse. She laboriously pinned the twitching body against the wall with a small boulder and then jumped back into the fray.
“Lauraisha, they’re most vulnerable if you strike at the spine just behind their heads!”
The human had drawn her forearm-length dagger and stood waiting in a loose stance for one of the two snakes to lunge out of the tunnels. Katja went to Lauraisha, grabbed the torch from her hand, lit the wall sconce behind her, and then threw the torch at the nearest basel. It hit the monster full in the face. The serpent shook and ducked its head, leaving the human open to strike at the base of its skull. Lauraisha seized the opportunity and drove her knife through the bone—the resulting crack was nauseating.
Two serpents now lay dead, but the other two had entered the cave. Katja had engaged the third, but Lauraisha stood vulnerable to the fourth because her knife was still lodged solidly in the second snake’s skull. Katja realized with horror that the human had no weapon, but the werecat could do nothing to help her while she was still fighting this serpent.
“Weave! Dodge! Don’t get bit—”
Katja heard Lauraisha scream just as the werecat sidestepped a ferocious lunge-and-snap. She swiped at the snake’s scaly head—leaving faint gashes along its length—and rolled to her left while trying to see what had happened to her companion. A chill crawled the length of Katja’s spine. Lauraisha was nowhere in sight. The fourth basel had now turned its full attention to Katja and the other snake.
“Lauraisha!”
The serpents’ malevolent hisses were all that answered her.
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