Where Serpents Strike (Children of the Falls Vol. 1) (45 page)

Panyos emerged from another room wiping
flour from his hands on a dingy towel. He was handsome enough, with
that tan Efferousian skin and dark hair. He was of average build,
doughy around the middle, but with warm honey colored eyes that
Merek was sure had charmed many women.

It was the look in those eyes that made
Merek’s inner warning flags rise high.

Awlin lit up. “Panyos, I’d like you to meet
my brother, Merek.”

Panyos looked worried, his smile
disingenuous. Though Merek could tell he was trying hard to put on
a convincing air, there were enough tells in his mannerisms to
indicate that something was wrong.

Awlin didn’t notice. How could she? She was
lost in own little world, grinning from ear to ear as she continued
introductions.

Panyos wiped his brow and interrupted her
spiel. “W–would you mind waiting here a moment? I have, uh, several
loaves in the oven. I’ll be right back.” He breezed out of the
room.

“Isn’t he wonderful?” Awlin asked.

Unsure of who else might be listening, Merek
responded loud enough for them to hear, “Indeed he is.” At the same
time he took Awlin by the arm and steered her toward the exit.

“What are you—”

“He’s handsome and certainly doing well for
himself.”

He pressed a finger to his lips and felt her
arm tense in his grip.

“Oh, this looks delicious!”

Peering through the windows, Merek scanned
the plaza for enemy soldiers.

“If anything happens,” he whispered into her
ear, “I want you to run.”

Merek set his hand on the door latch.

“What is it?” she whispered back.

“I’m not—”

The black viper moved between the rows of
bread shelves with almost perfect silence. Had it not been for the
sun glinting off his blade and casting a reflection of distorted
light on the wall, Merek never would’ve seen him coming. He spun
around, caught the man’s strike by the wrist, and plowed him back
into a table full of pastries.

“Run, Awlin! Run!” Merek shouted.

She threw open the door and took off, back
down the street the way they had come.

Merek wrestled with the soldier for several
moments until he managed to knock the short sword from his grip.
The weapon clattered against shelves and loaves of bread until it
hit the floor. Merek dove for it, snatched it up, spun, and tore
the blade through the soldier’s throat, stopping him mid-lunge and
spraying the bakery floor in a shower of blood.

Merek moved toward the door. He caught a
glimpse of Panyos standing by the counter, tears in his eyes. “I’m
so sorry,” he said. “They came to me. They–they wanted her. They
knew who she was. I–I–I didn’t want to, but they made me—”

Another black viper shoved past Panyos. “Out
of the way!” There were two more behind him. “Stop in the name of
the high king!”

Merek dashed from the building out into the
plaza. He shoved past merchants and noblemen, throwing himself into
the thickest part of the crowd he could find.

Behind him came the angry shouts of his
pursuers. They rallied the city guards who proceeded to join the
chase.

Wanting to lead the soldiers away from
Awlin, Merek turned east. He sprinted through Velia’s winding
roads, working his way toward the northern gate.

Trumpets sounded. More guards picked up the
chase.

“It’s him! It’s him!” yelled one of the
soldiers. “In the name of the high king, I order you to cease!”

Merek jumped up onto a barrel, vaulted onto
an empty wagon seat, and then sprung for the lip of an open second
story window. He pulled himself inside. The barb of a crossbow bolt
jammed into the window frame, missing his head by a finger’s
breadth. He tumbled into the room, disturbing a nursing mother and
her infant. The woman screamed at the intrusion as Merek sprinted
out into the hallway where he raced down the stairs, through a
backdoor, and along a series of alleyways and side streets. He
hoped his antics would’ve thrown off his pursuers, but by the time
he found his way back onto the main road they noticed him from
afar.

The soldiers began shouting in Efferousian,
“
Criminal! Criminal!
” which served to alert the native
guards.

Merek retreated from the road and huffed it
back down the alley.

He flinched when he saw a spear swing out
from around the corner, but it came too quick to avoid. The wooden
end of the weapon struck him in the side of the face, and knocked
him out.

He didn’t feel the impact of the stone
ground when he fell, but he did when he woke up later that
afternoon, slumped over the back of a horse, his face throbbing.
His mouth was gagged and his hands were clasped in front of him.
Beams of sunlight stabbed through the trees overhead while the
satisfied chatter of soldiers could be heard behind him. Merek’s
eyes flitted shut as unconsciousness took him again.

At least Awlin was safe.

Merek awoke when one of the soldiers yanked
him down from the horse. He slid off his belly and landed in a heap
on hard packed soil. He groaned as he rose to his knees and looked
around him. The apple trees. The cottage. The sound of the
trickling brook out back.

He was home.

His heart lurched as he tried to figure out
how the soldiers had found this place.

The front door to the cottage opened, and
the sight that greeted him made his insides twist and his blood
boil.

“Merek, I’m so sorry,” Awlin said, her voice
quivering.

A viper followed her outside and pushed her
onto her knees in front of the house. He bunched his left hand up
in her beautiful blonde hair and yanked her head back. With his
other hand he placed a knife against her throat. She wimpered at
the touch of the sharp metal, her eyes red and moist, her cheeks
bruised, dried blood around her nose. They had roughed her up
already.

“I’m so sorry,” she said again. “They made
me–they made me tell them. They made me bring them here.”

Merek started to stand when someone slammed
a heavy fist into his shoulder. He grimaced as he was forced back
down onto his knees.

A grim-faced viper sauntered around to
confront Merek, his hands clasped casually behind him. He was
strikingly tall, lean, but with decades of war etched onto his
grizzled face. He was no mere soldier either. The black cape
hanging from his shoulders was edged with a white stripe—a
marshal.

Merek swallowed back his fear as he realized
this commanding officer had the power of judge and executioner.

“Untaxed property on the land of the herus,”
he said as though he were reading the food items on a menu.
“Fugitive from Edhen. Wanted murderer. Thief. Traitor. Coward. Your
list of offenses never ends, does it, Merek Viator?”

Adrenaline, pain, and unadulterated fear had
sent Merek’s hands shaking. He looked at Awlin, his mind reaching
for ways to free her from their predicament and finding nothing.
Whatever price it cost to get her safe, he would pay it—even if it
meant his life.

The marshal knelt, looking tired and
indifferent and in no mood for discussion. “One of two things is
going to happen here today,” he began in a bored voice. “One, you
tell us what we want to know, and then you will die, but she will
live. Two, you refuse to tell us what we want to know, in which
case you both will die.” He looked back at Awlin. “Though first we
might take her back to camp and have some fun.”

The man holding Awlin by the hair smiled
wickedly.

“She weighs, what, ninety, one hundred
pounds? And four or five pounds of that is nothing but pure
tit.”

Merek’s jaw clenched, his hands straining
against his bonds.

“Now where are the gemstones that you stole
from your high king?” The marshal spoke as though he were talking
to a child, clearly and carefully, leaving no room for
misinterpretation.

Merek answered without a moment’s
hesitation. “They’re in the house, under the floorboard by the fire
place. You’ll find a box there.”

The marshal gestured toward one of the four
other soldiers behind Merek. The man stomped into the crude
cottage. Merek listened to him bang aside the kitchen table and
chairs before he hacked through the floorboards and found the
secret hiding place. He returned a moment later with a small wooden
box, which he delivered to his commander.

“There are only two here,” the marshal said
after he flipped open the hinged lid. “I was told that you had
stolen six.”

“Yes, yes. There were six pieces, but I used
four of them to purchase my sister’s freedom.”

The marshal seemed pleased by his answer.
“He tells the truth,” he said, looking around at his men. “Good
man. Good man. Of course, we already knew this. We found the
nobleman who sold you your sister a long time ago. Unfortunately,
he only had one of the gems. This means one of two things: either
he was lying, or you are.”

“I’m not lying,” Merek blurted. “I don’t
know where the rest of them are. Please, let her go. I’ve given you
what I have. Release her. Take me. I beg you.”

The marshal scratched his bristly chin as he
thought. “Two years ago, when I was ordered to come search for you
in this piss hole of a country, I would have considered your
begging plea.” He grabbed Merek’s chin and squeezed. “But you have
kept me here for two years, sweating my way through tribes of ugly
natives, lingering under the desert sun in this scorching armor,
searching for you, and when I finally find you, what do I discover?
You, living here quietly in the country without a care in the
world, unchecked, untaxed, like a very little king of a very little
kingdom. No, I’m sorry, Merek Viator, I am immune to your begging
pleas for mercy. You have made me considerably angry.”

Merek saw the blow coming, but he could do
nothing about it. The marshal’s studded fist hit him in the eye,
rattling his teeth and knocking him backward. Awlin protested
through thickening tears, struggling against the beefy fist that
refused to let go of her head.

When Merek righted himself he saw the
marshal strolling up to the cottage with a flaming torch. He
dragged it along the dried grass of the thatched roof before
kicking in the door and tossing the torch inside.

“It’s all right,” Merek mouthed to Awlin,
though he couldn’t deny his growing fear over the knife poised at
her throat. All it would take is one command from the marshal and
her life would be over. “It’s all right,” he repeated, even though
in his heart nothing felt right at all.

The cottage blazed while the marshal
strolled up to Awlin. He grabbed her by the hair and yanked her
toward him, eliciting a scream from her lips.

Merek jumped to his feet. “Wait, listen,” he
started to say, but two heavy hands grabbed him from behind and
held him in place.

“It just occurred to me,” the marshal said,
“there is actually a third way this can all end today.”

He took Awlin by the shoulders and wrestled
her toward the burning cottage. She fought him, crying in terror,
but powerless in the towering marshal’s brutish clutches. He threw
her inside the house and slammed the door shut behind her.

“NO!” Merek shouted.

He spun around and slammed his forehead into
the soldier at his back, crushing the man’s nose in a quick spurt
of red. The two other soldiers that had been waiting at Merek’s
back lunged at him, weapons drawn. Merek avoided one sword thrust,
and threw his bound hands around the soldier’s neck. He caught the
man in the mouth with the rope, and when he pivoted and flipped him
over his back, the soldier’s mouth ripped open wide and he crashed
to the ground gurgling screams over his flailing jaw.

Picking up the soldier’s sword, Merek dueled
with another until he had disarmed him and impaled him through the
throat.

Awlin’s cries reached Merek’s ears as she
pounded on the cottage walls.

The flames of their home were stretching
higher and higher into the air, almost drowning out the sounds of
her agony.

With tears in his eyes and hot rage in his
gut, Merek unleashed everything inside of him. He tore through two
more soldiers like a feral bear, hacking at limbs and thirsty for
blood.

Awlin screamed as she burned, “MEREK!”

The marshal drew his sword and sparred with
Merek a mere arm’s reach from the raging inferno.

He made a dash for the door, but the marshal
landed a kick to Merek’s side that sent him tumbling into the dirt.
He sprang up and attacked again, diving into the man with vicious
swings, thrusts, and hacks.

An arrow pierced Merek’s thigh and sent him
spinning to the ground. He realized that in his blind fury he had
neglected to check the location of the sixth soldier.

The marshal came down upon Merek with a
heavy overhead swing and a startling yell. Merek lunged at him,
releasing a savage war cry of his own. He lifted the captain into
the air and used him as a shield to charge the crossbowman.
Throwing the two vipers into each other Merek descended upon them
in a hail of strikes that churned their flesh into shredded
meat.

When they were both dead, Merek staggered to
his feet until the crossbow bolt jutting out of his thigh brought
him back down to the trampled grass.

“Awlin!” he called, as he half crawled, half
limped to the front of the cottage where the blaze assaulted his
face, singeing his hair and eyebrows. He reeled back.

“AWLIN!”

He reached for the door, but the flames were
too hot. The wood of the cottage groaned and shifted. Sparks stung
his eyes and he stumbled back.

When Merek realized his sister was no longer
screaming, he knew she was gone. He collapsed on his knees in an
anguished fit of sobs. He fell on his face and pounded the earth,
screamed and screamed until his throat went raw.

The sky had faded to a deep navy by the time
he moved again. The fire had eaten all it could of the cottage,
leaving nothing behind except charred bones and a smoking ruin of
memories.