Where Serpents Strike (Children of the Falls Vol. 1) (68 page)

“Now might be a good time,” Preston said as
two more soldiers drew near.

“No, not yet,” Brayden said. “We need them
closer together.”

Yori jumped out ahead of Brayden, putting
him two steps from the next black viper in line. The viper drew
back his blade and swung for Yori’s throat, but the Kriegellian
warrior wasn’t there. When he reappeared behind his enemy he ripped
his sword up the man’s back.

He put two more black vipers in the grave
before returning to his place alongside Brayden, Preston, and
Ty.

“They’re gathering into formation,” he
said.

Brayden squinted into the darkness and saw
the soldiers of the high king slowing their advance. They merged
into a four-man line with spear tips glinting forward, creating a
lethal plow at the head of the group. Inch by inch they moved
forward along the narrow mountainside pass toward their cornered
prey.

“Calm yourselves,” Brayden said. “Wait.”

The marching feet of the soldiers drew
closer. Brayden could discern the sounds of metal weapons and heavy
armor jangling against buckles and straps. He noticed, with no
small amount of fear, that there were more than thirty.

“Wait.”

One of the vipers thrust an armored fist
into the air. He gave a sharp command to stop. He walked toward
Brayden, his wide shoulders capped with spiked silver plates from
which swung a black cape bordered with a thick white stripe. A
blood stained helmet in the shape of a stag skull adorned his
head.

He lifted the face plate. It was Lord
Marshal William Rushwater.

Brayden’s lip snarled.

“Brave little warriors,” the lord marshal
said. “Stupid little warriors, thinking you can fight us here as
poorly armored as you are. I bring an offer from the lord of
Thalmia, one that ensures your survival providing you swear
allegiance to—”

“NOW!” Brayden shouted.

Clint, Broderick, and Nash rushed from their
hiding spots within the mountain’s cracks and slammed into the
packed unit of stationary soldiers. They pushed with as much
aggression as Brayden knew they would, toppling their enemies over
the edge and into the dark abyss. Screams filled the night and
faded as the soldiers spilled onto the jagged rocks far below.

Brayden, Preston, Ty, and Yori tore into the
black vipers at the head of the line. With the ranks of the high
king’s men so tight together the soldiers had no room to
maneuver.

The lord marshal looked just as furious as
he did insulted, an expression Brayden wiped off his face with a
swipe of his sword. The man dropped to his knees, clutching at the
void where his cheeks and nose used to be.

Brayden tossed his sword to Preston and
picked up the marshal’s, a shiny, well-balanced blade with a line
of freshly sharpened steel glistening along the edges. The weapon
tore through three other black vipers with ease, spilling the
contents of their bodies in thick, syrupy sprays of blood.

War consumed the narrow mountain ledge.
Metal against metal, fist against flesh. Swords struck bone and
tore through ligaments and veins, sewing a tapestry of gore and
gristle that darkened the earth with red liquid. Men hollered in
pain, then in terror as they plunged off the beaten path, their
armor clattering onto the rocks in an ugly discordant mess.

Brayden felt his energy flaring in ways he’d
never experienced before. His adrenaline spiked, fueling his
strength, pressing him into his enemies with a vigor he found
thrilling. He set loose years of pent up rage, let every swing of
his sword be for all the injustice the Black King had
inflicted.

A spear sailed toward him and missed,
bounced off the rocky ground, and then hissed as wood and steel
slide across stone. He took a sword’s edge to his shoulder, but
fought to ignore the pain and dispensed his rage into the gut of
his opponent with the full length of his sword. Once the hilt of
his weapon could go no further he tore it free, and then brought it
down onto the back of his opponent’s neck—one hack, two hacks,
three hacks, and then the head tore free.

Brayden saw Yori to his right, then to his
left, then in front of him behind a cluster of enemies. The
mysterious warrior fought like a demon, vanishing from the present
world into another and reappearing elsewhere, delivering death
everywhere he went.

He glimpsed Broderick fighting like a
madman, even with a crushed and bloody nose.

“Get down!” Nash shouted.

Brayden ducked as a battleaxe swung over his
head. He spun, plowing his sword into the black viper’s thigh as
Nash descended upon the man’s back, thrusting through the soldier’s
neck a blade that punched out of his chest.

He ducked a second time when the body of a
black viper sailed over his head and into the nothingness beyond, a
mere toy hurled by Clint who threw himself weaponless into the
fray. With nothing but his anger and his bare fists, he latched
onto the enemy like a bear in the wild, hungry and desperate and
joyfully furious.

On the narrow ridgeline, the number of black
vipers meant nothing. Unable to coordinate any kind of attack, they
had no choice but to fall before the enraged warriors of
Aberdour.

“Stop!” came the tired voice of one of the
soldiers.

Brayden whipped around to find a viper
holding Nash from behind, his arm locked around the young man’s
throat. Nash looked spent, his face a mess of sweat and blood, his
bright embellished clothes stained and torn. The soldier pressed a
knife to his cheek, just under his left eye.

“Piss off, swine,” Nash said, even as the
soldier’s grip around his throat tightened.

“I’ll rip his eye out!” the viper snarled.
“So all of you stop or I’ll cut his face wide open, I swear
it!”

“Kill him, Brayden,” Nash cut in. “Rip his
head off!”

“Silence!” the viper shouted.

Brayden strode toward the soldier, clutching
his sword, debating on whether he’d slide the blade through his
neck or his ribs. He knew Nash was about to lose an eye, but that
didn’t matter. This battle needed to be won. After too many years
of losing, it was time for the enemy to suffer a blow.

“I mean it,” the soldier said, shaking.
“I’ll do it!”

“Go on then, you decrepit lag!” Nash
shouted. “Do it! Do it!”

Brayden started running toward them.

The viper drove the knife into Nash’s eye
and tore the bloody orb free from its socket. Nash wailed and fell,
clutching his face as Brayden’s sword swiped up through the
soldier’s wrist, taking his hand. A backward slash cut through the
man’s innards, and an elbow to the side of his head drove him
toward the cliff’s edge. The viper stumbled to his knees, coughing
and screaming in wide-eyed horror at his missing limb.

“S–stop,” he murmured, his face dissolving
into a rheumy mess. “Please. Have mer—”

Brayden crushed his heel into the side of
the man’s head, plowing him off the ledge and into the blackness
beyond.

Rage burned in his chest as he wheeled
around to face the remaining vipers. There were six of them, six
pairs of eyes gaping at him in wonder, confusion, and fear. Behind
him he heard the footfalls of his companions gathering. Yori and
Preston and Clint and Broderick. They stood at his back, ready for
whatever came next.

Raising his sword, Brayden leveled it at the
closest soldier. “Go,” he said. “Go and tell your high king that
the sons of Aberdour are coming for him. The children of the Falls
want their homeland back. We will bring war. We will bring death.
We will bring Edhen to its knees until your king surrenders or we
paint the throne with his blood.”

Quivering, the vipers retreated off the
mountain’s ledge.

Brayden lowered his sword. As it sank to his
side, he felt the drain of battle overcome him. His shoulders
slouched. His lungs gasped. The pain of a thousand tiny wounds
sparked like embers in his brain.

“Graceless,” Yori said. He knelt to examine
Nash. “You lot fight like brawlers, and without honor.”

Brayden’s brows drew down in consternation.
“Without honor? These swine got what they deserved.”

“Perhaps.”

Nash sat up against the rock cliff,
clutching his face. His teeth were clamped tight as was the lid of
his remaining eye.

Yori unpacked a long bandage from a pouch on
his satchel and wrapped it around Nash’s head. “You must keep it
clean.” He looked at Preston, who was kneeling by his brother’s
side. “Start a fire.”

Brayden helped Yori lift Nash to his feet.
Together they escorted him up the path to the inward curve of the
cliff’s wall.

Ty was waiting there, a broken arrow
protruding from his shoulder. Once a fire was going Yori helped the
young Efferousian remove the bolt. Then he sealed the flesh with
the tip of a hot blade.

Broderick had removed his shirt and was
nursing a knife wound in his ribs. The cut wasn’t deep, but it did
need to be sealed.

“It is feeling good, yes?” Ty said as
Broderick grit his teeth through the pain of Yori’s hot knife.

“You know what’d make me feel good right
now?” said Nash. He had been lying on his back so still that
Brayden thought he had passed out. “A woman, and not some girl of
the marrying kind. One of those whore girls, like the kind at
Gilly’s House. You know the place, right—on the borders of southern
Aberdour?”

“Like you know anything about Gilly’s
House,” Clint remarked, rubbing a bruised shoulder.

Nash didn’t seem to hear him. “Just a smooth
skinned, long-haired, long-legged, warm… I don’t know. An
experienced girl, you know.”

Preston rolled his eyes. “How romantic.”

Yori sat down cross-legged and wiped the
sweat from his brow. “Where I come from we seek to honor our
women.”

“How?” Preston asked.

Yori took a moment to think, and then a rare
smile crossed his face as though he had just remembered an old
joke. “In Krebberfall, often times after battle men’s thoughts turn
to those they love most. We talk about our women, praise them, try
to outdo the other men with tales of our wives’ greatest
deeds.”

“Did you have a woman?” Broderick asked.

Yori nodded. “Yes.” His expression grew sad.
“Once.”

“What happened?” Brayden asked.

But all he said was, “She was taken from
me.”

For a moment no sounds disturbed the small
camp except the snapping and popping of wood as it burned.

Ty’s tender voice cut through the night. “We
should be honoring him. Khalous.”

“We will,” Broderick said. “When we take the
throne from the Black King.”

Mention of Khalous brought a wave of heat up
from Brayden’s stomach. He swallowed back his grief, but not before
a single tear escaped his eye.

“What did you mean that we fought without
honor?” he asked.

“You fight with anger,” Yori said. “You
think this gives you strength, but it only serves to make you
weak.”

“These bastards deserved everything we threw
at them,” Broderick said.

“When an enemy asks for mercy, he deserves
nothing less.”

“Did they show mercy to Khalous when they
severed his limbs?” Brayden asked. “Did they show mercy to my
father and mother, or anyone anywhere on Eden?”

“In battle there is little that separates us
from our enemies,” Yori said, “but our capacity for mercy is one of
them.”

Brayden looked down into the fire, not sure
if he agreed with the warrior’s comments on mercy. He had enjoyed
killing the black vipers, and his only regret so far was that he
hadn’t killed more.

“In truth,” Yori said, “you all fought
bravely. You have my respect. I will recommend to our leader that
you be trained as Kriegellian warriors.”

“Really? You’re going to train us?” Preston
asked.

“No, I said I would recommend that you be
trained, but the decision lies with the leerah.”

“The who?”

“Our teacher.”

“Why?” Brayden asked. “Why are you helping
us?”

“To honor the wishes of my friend Tenri,
along with those of your captain.” He paused, then added, “And your
father.”

Yori’s words struck Brayden’s heart like a
dagger and sent the blood rushing to his ears. He felt a wave of
heat rising to his face and his eyes widened.

“You knew my father?”

Broderick sat up a little straighter.

Yori nodded. “And your grandfather. The
Falls have always been good men.”

“How did you know them?” Brayden asked,
drawing closer.

Yori looked away. His mouth opened to
respond, but then he paused in careful thought. “That is a tale you
will hear soon enough, but not from me.” He uncrossed his legs and
stood. “Rest, my friends. We have a long journey ahead of us.”

Brayden remained awake for a long time,
watching the boys drift off to sleep and listening to the soothing
sounds of their slow and easy breathing.

For him, sleep would not come. He sat on the
ground, his arms hugging his knees, until the first gray light of
dawn tinted the eastern sky.

Astonished that he had forgotten, Brayden
reached under the collar of his dirty tunic and withdrew the
necklace Khalous had given him. The thing looked old, the bone
charm worn smooth from years of wear. It was small, about the size
of a finger bone, hollow, and tied to a braided leather strap. He
turned it around in the firelight, trying to figure out what
significance this keepsake had for his family.

Brayden sat up when he noticed that the bone
wasn’t hollow at all. Leaning closer to the firelight he saw what
looked like a tiny piece of paper rolled up and tucked inside. With
eager fingers, his heart shivering, he tried to pull the paper
free, but he couldn’t get a grip on it. He shook it, hoping to
dislodge it, but the paper had been rolled inside the bone for so
long that the two were almost a part of each other. Using a small
stick he managed to push the note through the hole. He unfurled the
tiny piece of parchment, revealing two small sentences written in
his father’s handwriting.