Where Serpents Strike (Children of the Falls Vol. 1) (23 page)

“A clever hiding place,” the old man
remarked. “Thank the gods you weren’t down below.”

The old woman rocked in her chair, her head
in her hands, mumbling something incoherent.

Lia and the old man helped Khile back into
the bedroom where he lay down on the bed. She elevated his broken
leg with a pillow.

The old man left the room, closing the door
behind him.

“So?” she asked, waiting.

“You can stop looking at me like that. I’m
not a black viper, but I almost was.”

She smiled. “I knew it. I knew you were one
of them.”

“I’m
not
one of them,” he said again.
“They recruited me, but after just three days in their training
camp I decided Orkrash was not a high king I could serve. What he
does to them–the training…” Khile paused. “Those soldiers, they
aren’t men. Their minds have been damaged to serve the will of the
high king. These people on Efferous talk about Edhen being a place
of evil? Well, they’re right. Orkrash Mahl is a man unlike any I
have ever seen.” His voice grew soft toward the end, and his eyes
distant, almost scared. “I left the camp before they could
rearrange my mind into blindly serving him.”

“Is that why they arrested you?”

“No,” he said.

“Then why were you—”

“I’m not going to talk about why.”

“But that’s where you learned to fight,
isn’t it? In their camp?”

He shook his head. “I learned to fight in
many different places.”

Lia started pacing next to the bed with
growing excitement. “Very well. Then here is what I propose.”

Khile huffed. “Oh, this should be good.”

“You owe me.”

He clapped. “Yep. That was good. That was
very good. Better than I was expecting actually.”

“I saved your life. You’d be drowned or
rotting on a beach with a broken leg if it weren’t for me. So
here’s what I want. I want you to—”

“Hold on. You saved
my
life? Let’s
not forget about the time I rescued you from Komor Raven, or the
time I saved you on the pier. You’d be a prisoner of the Black
King’s army if it weren’t for me.”

Lia crossed her arms and set her jaw,
refusing to allow him to believe that he had done more for her than
she had for him. “I paddled you to shore. You’re a grown man. I’m
ten. I found herbs to feed us, set your broken leg, went and got
help. I’ve saved your life about twenty times already.”

“Yes, and had we hid in the floor, like you
wanted to, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”

Inwardly she winced. He had her there. She
huffed in aggravation and put her hands on her hips.

Khile waved his hand dismissively. “All
right. It doesn’t matter. Just–what do you propose?”

“You’re going to teach me how to kill The
Raven.”

Khile chortled.

“He took everything from me,” Lia fumed. “He
took everything from everyone I know. He needs to pay for what he’s
done. Even if it takes me the rest of my life I’m going to kill
him, and you’re going to show me how.”

Khile rubbed his eyes with his hands and
sighed. “You don’t know what you’re asking,” he said. “And you
don’t know who Komor Raven is. He is a man who likes violence like
most people like food. You know why he always insists on attacking
with the flanking army during a siege? He gets more opportunity to
kill innocent citizens, which guarantees him more bloodshed. Komor
will cut you in a thousand different places just to watch you bleed
and scream.”

“I don’t care,” Lia blurted.

“I do!” Khile shot back. “I’m not teaching
Lia Falls, a lady of Aberdour, how to kill the most dangerous man
on Edhen.”

“So I’m a princess again?”

“You’re a spoiled little kid who doesn’t
like to be told no.”

Infuriated, Lia smacked him in the splint,
then pivoted on her heels and stomped out of the room, cutting off
the sound of his agonized groans with a slam of the bedroom
door.

She knew it was against the old man’s wishes
to go outside, but she didn’t care. The house had suddenly become
too stifling to contain her.

She ripped open the cottage door and stormed
across the yard where she kicked a red and brown chicken and
started pacing. With her head in her hands she seethed with anger,
hating Khile for his insults and yet knowing deep down that he was
right.

But inside of her clawed a beast aching for
vengeance. The animal had awoken the day Aberdour was attacked, the
moment she saw Komor Raven butcher Thomas and Abigail Blackwater.
The beast was hungry for the Raven’s blood. Lia knew that killing
him was all that would satisfy it.

From somewhere deep in the forest, a
creature roared.

Lia’s furious pacing came to an abrupt halt
and her blood went cold. She’d never heard such a sound before,
like a bear, except scratchy and hollow, and much bigger.

“Yup, that be Kette,” the old man said from
behind Lia.

“What is it?” she asked.

“A mountain troll. Don’t worry your
knickers. She won’t leave the woods. Kette rather likes the
shades.”

“You’ve named it?”

“Mm-hmm. That’s what they call it around
here.” He put an arm around Lia and steered her back toward the
cottage. “You must stay inside, little lady.”

In her mind Lia recalled the strange
footprints she’d seen on the hills near the coast, massive prints,
some like stubby hands and others like cloven hooves. She wondered
if those were the markings of old Kette.

Lia returned to the bedroom where Khile was
rubbing the knee of his broken leg.

“What was that sound?” he asked.

“Never mind,” she said, strolling up to the
bed. “If you won’t teach me then I’ll do it myself.” She crossed
her arms. “I’ll find my own way back to Edhen, and I’ll hunt Komor
any way I can find, and if anything happens to me my blood will be
on your hands because I asked for your help and you said no.”

Khile shook his head in disapproval. “What
about your family? What about your brothers and your sisters. Don’t
you want to find them?”

And just like that she felt the rock she’d
been standing on crumble out from underneath her. The fire that had
been burning in her chest went dim and a new want began to ache in
her heart. Of course she wanted to see her siblings again. She
missed her family. When she considered this, all of her feelings
became a jumbled mess heaped in a pile of revenge and loneliness,
hate and longing, fear and anger.

But the beast was still hungry.

“Very much,” she said. Then she locked here
eyes on Khile, “but I want Komor dead even more.”

Khile sighed and closed his eyes, shaking
his head. “Very well. Come here.”

Stifling her conflicted emotions, Lia walked
up to Khile’s bedside.

“Hold out your hands. Palms down,” he
instructed.

She obeyed.

Quicker than a cat’s reflexes Khile slapped
both of her hands on the back of the wrists.

“Ouch!” she cried.

“Your hands are soft,” he said. “Girl hands,
refined by your gentle castle life. You want me to train you?
You’ll need tougher hands. Starting today you will help the old man
and the old woman bring in water. You will chop wood. You will
shovel their stables. No gloves. This is the only way I can help
you right now. When my leg heals, I’ll teach you more, but until
then this is your job.” He pointed to her hands. “Got it?”

Lia nodded, and she was delighted.

He lifted his bow, trailing the tip of his
arrow just ahead of the partridge. He listened to its wings
pounding against its chest in a maddening attempt to escape its
doom.

In his mind’s eye, Broderick Falls pictured,
not a beautiful brown and cream speckled stone partridge like the
one drifting skyward before his gaze, but a soldier of the Black
King. When he let go the string, the arrow found its mark. The bird
spiraled to the ground, an arrow lodged in its chest below the fold
of its right wing.

Broderick didn’t know why, but visualizing
his prey as his enemy improved his accuracy.

“Good aim!” Brayden said, as he stood up
from his hiding spot. “I thought you hated bow hunting.”

Broderick shrugged. He feared admitting that
it was growing on him would mean confessing why. He preferred to
keep his darker fantasies to himself for now.

He retrieved his trophy from a soft ground
of old pine needles and moss. The dead bird looked different from
the partridges they had back in Aberdour, smaller, browner, and
with a short crest on the top of its chicken-like head.

“Well, you’ve certainly helped give us a
feast tonight, little brother.”

Broderick hated the way Brayden had become
so optimistic. Ever since their arrival on Efferous he had become
more assertive, more task oriented than he had ever been before.
Broderick knew it wouldn’t last. He knew that after a few weeks his
quiet, introverted older brother would draw back into himself and
remain the coward he had always been.

“Do you think it will taste much different?”
Brayden asked.

“I don’t know why it would,” Broderick
answered.

“Probably not nearly as good as mother’s
stew.”

This drew a small smile from Broderick. “I
liked it when she made it real thick, with some honey.”

Through the trees at Brayden’s back,
Broderick saw the tiny shape of Nairnah Kholoch moving toward them.
Her once cream-colored dress had become so dirty from weeks of
living in the wild that she looked almost like a part of her
surroundings.

Broderick groaned to himself as Nairnah
stepped out and greeted them, her tiny voice like the summer chirp
of a songbird.

Nairnah had taken an inexplicable interest
in Brayden over the last few weeks, and Broderick couldn’t figure
out why. She was ten years old, but small, looking closer to age
seven. He had asked Dana once why the young girl spent so much time
with Brayden, but his sister only smiled and looked away. Girls.
They were such odd creatures, puzzling to the mind of a
ten-year-old boy and not worth trying to figure out.

“Did you catch all those?” Nairnah asked,
looking in amazement at the collection of dead fowl hanging from
Brayden’s grasp.

“Three of them are mine. Two of them are
Broderick’s,” he answered.

“Do you need any help?”

Brayden handed Nairnah two of the dead birds
for her to carry. “Thank you, Nairnah.”

Broderick rolled his eyes, not caring if
they noticed. “I’m going to find Clint.” He hurried off.

Broderick sprinted over the uprising roots
of a dead tree and descended a crumbling slope of dirt and leaves
where he took off up a wooded ravine. He had always been a graceful
runner with a keen, almost innate sense of his surroundings. He
never tripped and he never got lost. His stepfather, Lord Kingsley
Falls, had once said that Broderick’s mind knew instinctively north
from south and east from west, which was the only compliment
Broderick could recall ever getting from the man.

He came upon his cousin, Clint Brackenrig,
whose once refined appearance had become soiled in recent weeks by
hard living. Clint didn’t seem to care, however, taking the dirt
and grime of life in the wild with a kind of recklessness that he
seemed all too comfortable with.

He stood with the point of a sword aimed at
the ground pressed into the nape of a rabbit’s neck. Broderick
slowed as he approached his cousin, noticing Clint’s sick grin, and
wondering what he found so fascinating about inflicting pain upon
animals.

“What are you doing?” Broderick asked.

“Look how it moves,” Clint said, not taking
his eyes from the animal.

The rabbit was still alive, but only just.
It appeared as though Clint had broken its rear legs, though how he
had even managed to catch it in the first place was a mystery.

“That’s gross,” Broderick said. “Just kill
it, Clint.”

Clint pushed a lock of oily black hair
behind his ear. “Watch its mouth when I press down.” He put a
little more weight on the blade, which made the rabbit’s eyes
tremble shut and its mouth open, like a yawn, except its tongue
went straight out, stiff as an arrow—disgusting. “I wonder if I’m
fast enough to cut its tongue off before it closes its mouth
again.”

Broderick forced out a laugh to hide his
discomfort. “Who cares? Just kill it and get it over with so we can
go back to camp and eat supper.”

Clint applied more weight to the blade,
driving it through the rabbit’s neck and into the ground.

“Where did you get the sword from anyway?”
Broderick asked.

“I took it from Pick.”

“I thought he told you to take his bow.”

“What are you, the weapon master? I’m older
than you by two years. You don’t tell me what to do.”

Broderick lifted his hands in mock
surrender. “I wasn’t.”

“Besides, your sister had his bow. What does
she need a bow for anyway?”

“She’s good. Got better aim than me or
Brayden.”

Clint huffed. “She’s a girl. How good could
she be?” He continued poking his sword through the dead rabbit’s
corpse, making Broderick’s stomach knot up.

Kneeling, he tried not to watch.

“What’s with you?” Clint asked.

“Nothing.”

“What? You going to sob over a stupid
rabbit?” Clint twisted the blade in the rabbit’s neck.

“No, I don’t care about that,” Broderick
said a mite too quick.

“Didn’t your father ever take you
hunting?”

“Ha! Let me put it this way. When he took
Brayden hunting he’d actually teach him how to hunt. When he took
me hunting, he’d let me watch.”

“So how did you get to be so good with a
bow?” Clint twisted the sword again and almost pulled the rabbit’s
head off.

“I taught myself.”

“I bet that impressed your father.”

Broderick shook his head. “Not one bit.”