Where Serpents Strike (Children of the Falls Vol. 1) (67 page)

Somewhere from the castle she heard the
shouts of guards.

Her heart erupted in panic—they were coming
to finish her off.

She saw a round stone culvert jutting out
from under the road through which trickled a tiny stream. Scarlett
pulled herself toward it, pushing through the tall grass and over
the slippery moss. She climbed inside the slimy culvert and curled
up against the chilly stone. Hugging her shaking knees to her chest
she sat there in the cool, damp culvert, shivering from pain,
shivering from cold, and fearing the moment the guards found
her.

Voices encroached overhead. Two of them. She
could hear the crunching of gravel beneath boots.

“Check over there,” one of them said.

One pair of boots sauntered off.

A moment later, Scarlett flinched when a
second pair of boots dropped down on the grass in front of her.
They were black and polished, the boots of an interior castle guard
properly regaled for the wedding ceremony.

The boots swiveled to face Scarlett, and an
ox-sized man crouched into view.

“Are you all right, Little Red?”

A mere whisper of morning light drizzled
through the desert fog. In cold and eerie silence an exhausted
Brayden Falls stumbled over wind swept sand dunes and sharp rocks,
struggling to keep up with their mysterious rescuer. Since their
successful escape from the clutches of the Thalmian guards, the man
had not stopped to rest once. He hadn’t even slowed. He had said
little, and given them nothing except his name: Yori.

He was a lean depiction of well-formed
muscle and agility, clad in dark, close-fitting gray leather, a
tight hood and a ratty old cloak. An ominous metal faceplate pulled
down from the folds of his hood and covered his whole face except
for a slit across his eyes. His sleeveless leather torso exposed
arms of sinewy muscle, his right sleeved in an intricate network of
black tattoos.

Brayden wasn’t the only one struggling to
keep up with him. Behind him he heard the labored breathing of his
stepbrother, the twins Preston and Ashton, the Efferousian native
Taighfinn, and his cousin Clint, who was still inebriated from the
wine of Proditous’ generous party.

All day and well into the night they hurried
over barren mounds of sand and through deep crags of dry gray
stone.

Yori led them into a damp ravine, along the
edge of a shallow river, to a rocky ford, then upstream for a time
until they came to where a clear creek, gurgling down from the
northern ridge, joined the flow. It was there that, at last, he
came to a stop.

“We don’t have much time,” he said. “Take
rest and water while you can.”

The boys fell to their knees in worship of
the trickling creek. With the moon high overhead providing just
enough light to see, the exhausted travelers drank and cooled their
aching feet.

On his knees before the brook, Brayden gazed
down into the rippling shadows of his reflection. His sand-dusted
face looked pale and sorrowful, and his brown mop of hair was a
tangled mess. He was tired and cold, and it showed. He had nothing
to cover himself with for warmth or protection other than the
clothes on his back.

“Give me your knife,” he heard Nash say.

“It’s back in Thalmia,” answered
Preston.

“Even the one you usually keep in your
boots?”

“These aren’t my boots,” Preston said. “This
isn’t my shirt either. Proditous gave me these. He gave them to all
of us.” The young man looked at Brayden. “They had us surrender
everything. That swine betrayed us all.”

Brayden looked back at his reflection as a
new wave of hopelessness washed over him. He shut his eyes, trying
to block out the pained wails of Khalous echoing through the
corridors of his mind.

Broderick came and stood next to him. He
drove the tip of his sword into the ground and leaned over it to
rest. “Are you all right?”

Brayden’s chest tightened. “No.” Then it
tightened some more, swelled with a hot ire burning deep within
him.

“You want to kill them as badly as I
do?”

Looking at his brother, Brayden saw in
Broderick’s eyes the same murderous rage he felt in his heart, the
same thirst for vengeance. “We will. Not yet, but we will.”

“I am with you,” Broderick said. They were
words Brayden never expected to hear from his brother, comforting
words that gave him confidence and fueled the fire rising within
him.

He set a hand on Broderick’s shoulder in
appreciation.

Broderick nodded toward Yori and asked,
“What about him? Do you think he’ll help us?”

Brayden looked at the Kriegellian warrior.
It occurred to him that Yori had not given them his last name, a
sign, perhaps, that he did not have one. He was a true outcast of
Krebberfall, a man without a family, without a place to belong. His
tattoos also told much of his story—an experienced warrior, a
mystic, a man not even a fool would trifle with.

Nash approached Yori, still looking
ridiculous in the colorful gold and bejeweled attire that Proditous
had given him. “How did you do all that anyway? The way you killed
those vipers. You were like a ghost. How did—”

“No time for questions,” Yori intoned.

Brayden sidled up next to Nash. He glared at
the dark blue eyes of the tattooed warrior that he saw looking out
through the slit in the silver faceplate. “I think we have time for
one question. Who are you?”

Yori lifted the mask and lowered his hood,
exposing the long patch of hair that ran down the center of his
head into a braided ponytail. “I’m a friend of Tenri’s.”

“Tenri? No friend of that traitor is a
friend of ours,” Broderick snapped. He lifted his sword and aimed
it at Yori.

“The betrayal of your captain was not the
fault of Tenri,” Yori said. “Tenri is an honorable man, but like
many from Edhen he is hiding, afraid to go against anyone who
serves the Black King out of fear for his own life. He did not
betray you, but those above him did once they found out who you
are.”

“This whole country hates us,” Nash
groaned.

“On the contrary, there are many on Efferous
who sympathize with the refugees of Edhen, but they live in fear of
their leaders who live in fear of the Black King.
Do locus dubi
veevay
. Have you heard of this?”

Brayden and the others shook their
heads.

“It is what the people here call your
homeland: the place where evil lives. Your Black King is poison,
and the people fear—”

“He is not our king,” Brayden said. “The day
we see his head on a spike can’t come soon enough.”

“Then I think I can help you.”

“How?”

Dogs howled and barked in the distance.

“They caught up to us already?”

“Caught up?” Yori said. “No. They never left
our heels.” He pulled his hood back up and said, “Time to
leave.”

“No!” Broderick said. “This is senseless. We
need to fight them.”

“Agreed,” Nash said.

“For what they did to Khalous,” Broderick
said.

“And Stoneman,” Preston added.

“We fight.”

Yori shook his head. “Without proper
weapons, no armor, and you’re all exhausted, undernourished and
parched, you don’t stand a chance.”

“I don’t care!” Broderick shouted. “They’re
going to pay for what they—”

“Pay they will,” Yori said. “But not now. We
need to—”

“No,” Brayden said. He stepped between
Broderick and Nash and approached Yori, his fists tightening. “We
need to do this. We need to fight them.”

The boys became silent, their eyes fixed
upon Brayden. He caught a glimpse of his brother from the corner of
his eyes smiling and nodding his head.

Clint staggered to his feet, holding a short
sword he lifted from a black viper. “Most sensible thing I’ve ever
heard you say, cousin.”

Yori’s eyes flitted to each boy, coming to
rest on Brayden. “This is foolishness.”

“You just said they’ve been right on our
heels for two days,” Brayden said. “If we can’t lose them, then we
kill them.”

Yori was silent for a moment. Then he asked,
“Is this the will of all of you?”

The boys stood before him, jaws set, eyes
blazing, dirty fists and dingy weapons at the ready.

The tattooed warrior gave a nod of his head.
“Then follow me. There is one place where we might have the
advantage.”

He took off into the darkness.

Despite the burning muscles in his legs and
the painful blisters on his feet, Brayden pursued him. A newfound
eagerness bounced in his step, fueled by anger an adrenaline.

Yori’s pace accelerated. He sprinted through
the night across large flat swaths of dried mud, hurrying to get to
somewhere but he never said where. He ascended up onto a hillside
then followed a ridgeline east.

It wasn’t until a wall of dark rock blotted
out the stars to his left that Brayden realized they were ascending
into the mountains on a narrow path.

At long last Yori came to a stop. He
instructed the boys to rest, and then darted up onto a boulder to
peer down into the sandy valley they had left behind.

“Is everyone here?” Nash groaned as he lay
on his back puffing light gray wisps of breath into the frigid
night air. “Clint?”

“Here,” came a weak voice.

“Damn it,” Nash whispered.

“Oh, shut up!” Clint fired back.

Brayden smirked, glad to see the boys had
not lost their sense of humor. He could tell that the thought of
killing black vipers had invigorated them.

He walked over to the boulder and gazed up
at Yori. “What do you see?”

“Torches,” the warrior replied. “They are on
the move.” He hopped down. “On your feet. Battle draws near.”

“How many?” Broderick asked.

“Twenty torches. Probably thirty men or
more.”

“We should move further up the trail,”
Brayden said. “It looks like it narrows just ahead. We’ll draw them
into tighter quarters. Force them to come at us slowly.”

“The cliff does more than just narrow,
Master Brayden,” Yori said. “It cuts across the path.”

“A dead end?” Nash said. “This is the place
you thought we would have an advantage—a dead end?”

“But we’ll have the element of surprise,”
Brayden said, trying to remain optimistic.

“How so?” Nash asked.

“They don’t know how far ahead we are. If we
can surprise them, we might catch them off guard.”

“Some of us should stay behind,” Preston
said, “attack them from the rear. We’ll drive at them from
two—”

“No,” Brayden said. “We all attack from the
left. Push them over the edge.”

“Let the rocks kill the scum,” Clint said,
grinning. “Second most sensible thing I’ve ever heard you say.”

Brayden eyed each one of them. They looked
horrible—sweaty, ragged, downtrodden—but they had been hewn from
the aftermath of war, trained to take the blows and keep on
hitting. They were boys who were suddenly becoming men, and he
admired them for their tenacity in the face of fear, weariness, and
death.

“We get bloody,” Brayden said.

“Bloody bloody,” Broderick replied.

“What does this mean?” Yori asked. “Is this
a saying from your homeland?”

Nash picked up a rock and tossed it in his
palm. “It means we’re tired of getting pissed on by the Black King
and his broods.”

The barking of dogs echoed up the nighttime
path

“It’s time,” Yori said, unsheathing his
sword.

He hurried on ahead to where the wall of
rock curved in front of the path and spilled over the edge. A
vertical drop into darkness and certain death lay below.

Brayden selected Broderick, Nash, and Clint
to hide themselves within the narrow crevices of the rock wall. He
knew that when he gave the signal they would fight with more
aggression than Preston or Ty, who were far more elegant and
balanced fighters.

The ferocious yapping of the dogs drew
nearer. They had the scent of their prey, and they knew they were
close. They scurried over the ridgeline like crazed beasts and when
they caught sight of their quarry their pace quickened.

“Leave them to me,” Yori said. He closed his
eyes and lifted his fist to his lips. “Forgive me, my friends,” he
whispered.

The dogs charged toward the boys, two of
them, violent teeth exposed under raised lips, mouths swashing
hungry white foam.

Yori vanished. He reappeared a moment later
next to one of the dogs and with a violent kick he plowed its front
shoulders into its companion, sending both beasts yelping and
toppling over the ledge. Their high-pitched cries echoed like
ghostly wails into the night.

“A wizard?” Preston whispered.

“Kriegellian magic,” Brayden said.

Yori walked back to them, his face troubled.
“That was not honorable,” he lamented.

“No, but it was necessary,” Brayden
said.

“And amazing!” Ty said. “You could be
fighting all them enemies for us.”

“I hate to disappoint you,” Yori said. “A
dozen men I can handle on my own, fifteen at my best and in ideal
conditions, but not thirty.”

Brayden saw a glimmer of moonlight reflect
off a silver helmet a little ways down the trail. “They’re coming!”
he said. “Wait for my signal.”

The moonlight carved jagged shadows along
the cliff wall, and illuminated the ridge path in a dull gray
light. He could see the black vipers cutting dark shadows along the
rock, their silver armor and weapons reflecting in the light from
the moon

“How’s your aim, Ty?” Brayden asked.

The dark-haired Efferousian skipped ahead,
yanking back his arm and lurching forward, sending a stone the size
of his fist hurling at the closest soldier. The stone plowed into
his face and sent him toppling to the path in a cloud of gray
dust.

“I always hits them well, sir,” Ty said.