Scitheronslithered away from the feeding pit, hands bloodied with the remnants of the pre-dawn sacrifice. The segments of his lower body, a serpent’s tail the thickness of a tree trunk, compressed and expanded, propelling him along the worn path through the ruined temples of the settlement, a forgotten outpost that was once the thriving heart of his sect. The stench of the anathema’s pit still clung to Scitheron’s forked tongue, no matter how fiercely he flickered it, and he thought, not for the first time, that the community would be best served by sending down a sacrifice liberally laced with poison some morning, to put everyone in the settlement out of the anathema’s misery, and allow them to relocate to one of the serpentfolk settlements rumored to thrive in the deeper jungle.

But such thoughts were blasphemy. Scitheron’s people worshiped the god Zehir, and though much diminished, his cult still cared for the last of Zehir’s chosen ones, the anathema who writhed, multiform and mad, in the pit overseen by Scitheron and the other remaining priests. The yuan-ti deeper in the jungle were devotees of the old god Sseth, the fools. Scitheron would rather die a true believer of Zehir than go over to their ancient, withered faith.

The malison guards at the entry to the main settlement nodded as he approached, their rusty scimitars hanging uselessly at their belts. Both had proud heads of serpents, but one had two legs like an ape, something that reminded Scitheron of the other task he had to carry out that night. There are so few of us now, he thought, it seems wrong to kill a potential warrior for Zehir while she’s still a babe, but it is the low priest’s will.

“How does the god fare this night?” the two-legged guard said.

Scitheron made the sign of the fangs. “The anathema is not a god. His kind were kings and emperors once, before the madness …” He shook his head. “The anathema is well. Quiet. I fed him three skinned apes, and he seemed sated. That should appease him until the sun rises over the horizon.”