Rattleskin Redoubt picea

Finally, it seemed, he had enough of strangling the thing. In a quick, brutal motion, he held its head between his teeth. The twist of his snout killed it, but the rip of flesh separating from sinew and bone was visceral. Wrenching outwards, Aquillius severed the head of the snake, and tossed it across the way. It lay lolling in the sun, venom pooling beneath it as it thrashed in death throes, unknowing that its spirit was gone.

Aquillius shook blood and venom from between his toes, spat it from his mouth. There was no joy in killing a weak thing for sport. It had accepted death.

They always did.

Baleful eye watching the thrash of the head as the body lay limp beneath him, he turned to his father.

The Tuktu. He parroted in confirmation. He reached down to pluck the scaled body from the ground. No meat should go to waste. If it was inedible, he’d feed it to one of the birds that always seemed to be around.

When do we leave? He said around the snake.