But Oba was strong. Nothing ever escaped him.

Straining with the effort, he dragged the twisting, turning, writhing body up onto higher, drier ground. He grunted as he lifted the heavy beast. Holding it aloft, screaming with fury, Oba ran forward. With a mighty lunge, he drove his knife into a tree, pinning the snake there with the blade through its lower jaw and roof of its mouth, like a long, third fang.

The snake's yellow eyes watched, helpless, as Oba drew another knife from his boot. He wanted to see the life go out of those wicked yellow eyes as they watched him.

Oba made a slit in the pale underbody, in the fold between rows of scales. Not a long slit. Not a slit that would kill. Just a slit big enough for his hand.

Oba grinned. "Are you ready?" he asked the thing. It watched, unable to do anything else.

Oba pushed his sleeve up his arm as far as he could, then wormed his hand in through the slit. It was a tight fit, but he wriggled his hand, then his wrist, then his arm into the living body, farther and farther as the snake whipped side to side, not just in its futile effort to escape, but now in agony. With a knee, Oba pinned the body to the trunk of the tree and with a foot held down the thrashing tail.

For Oba, the world seemed to vanish around him as he felt what it was like to be a snake. He imagined he was becoming the animal, in its living body, feeling its skin around his own as he pushed his arm in. He felt its warm wet insides compressed around his flesh. He slithered his hand in deeper. He had to stand closer, so that he could get his arm down in farther, until his eyes were only inches from the snake's.

Looking into those eyes, he was wildly exhilarated at seeing not just brutal pain, but the most marvelous terror.

Oba felt his destination pulsing through the slippery viscera. Then, he found it-the living heart. It beat furiously in his hand, throbbing and jumping. As they gazed deeply into each other's eyes, Oba squeezed with his powerful fingers. In a thick, warm, wet gush, the heart burst. The snake thrashed with the sudden, wild strength of death. But as Oba held the quivering burst heart, each of the snake's movements became progressively more labored, more sluggish, until with one last rolling flip of its tail, it went still.

The whole time, Oba stared into the yellow eyes, until he knew they were dead. It wasn't the same as watching a person die, because it lacked that singular connection of human identity-there were no complex human thoughts with which he could relate-but it was still thrilling to see death enter the living.

He was liking the swamp better all the time.

Victorious and blood-soaked, Oba squatted at the water's edge, washing himself and his knives clean. The entire encounter had been unexpected, rousing, and satisfying, although he had to admit that it was nowhere near as exciting with a snake as it was with a woman. With a woman, there was the thrill of sex added in to the experience, the thrill of having more than his hand inside her as death entered her, too, to share her body with him.

There could be no greater intimacy than that. It was sacred.

The dark water was turned red by the time Oba had finished. The color made him think of Jennsen's red hair.

As he straightened, he checked to make sure he had all his belongings and hadn't lost anything in the struggle. He patted his pocket for the reassuring presence of his hard-eamed wealth.

His money purse wasn't there.

In cold panic, he thrust his hand in his pocket, but the purse was gone. He realized that he had to have lost it in the water while struggling with the snake. He kept the purse on the end of a thong he tied to a belt loop so as to be sure it was safe and couldn't be accidentally lost. He didn't see how it was possible, but the knot in the leather thong must have come loose in the struggle.

He turned a scowl on the dead thing slumped in a heap at the base of the tree. In a screaming rage, Oba lifted the snake by the throat and pounded the lifeless head against the tree until the scales started sloughing off.

Panting and drained from the effort, Oba finally halted. He let the bloody mass slip to the ground. Despondent, he decided he would have to dive back into the water and search for his missing money. Before he did, he made one last despairing check of his pocket. Looking closer, he saw, then, that leather thong he kept tied to his belt loop was still there. It hadn't come undone, after all. He pulled the short length of leather out in his fingers.

It had been cut.

Oba turned, looking back the way he had come. Clovis.

Clovis was always pushing up close, yammering away, like a pesky fly buzzing around him. When Oba had bought the horses, Clovis had seen the money purse.

With a growl, Oba glared back through the swamp. A light rain had begun to fall, making but a whisper against the living canopy of leaves. The drops felt cool on his heated face.

He would kill the little thief. Slowly.

Clovis would no doubt feign innocence. He would beg to be searched to prove he didn't have the missing money purse. Oba figured the man would likely have buried the money somewhere, intending to come back later and retrieve it.

Oba would make him confess. There was no doubt in his mind about that. Clovis thought he was clever, but he had not met the likes of Oba Rahl before.

Striking out back though the swamp to wring the hawker's neck, Oba didn't get far before he stopped. No. It had taken him a good long time to get this far. He had to be close to Althea's by now. He couldn't let his anger rule him. He had to think. He was smart. Smarter than his mother, smarter than Lathea the sorceress, and smarter than a scrawny little thief. He would act out of deliberate intent, not out of blind anger.

He could deal with Clovis when he was finished with Althea.

In a dark mood, Oba started out again toward the sorceress.