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

by CW Thomas

  “Then shall we go into town today and take it to Balimous?”

  Merek sat down at the table. “No. Not ‘we.’ You.”

  Awlin froze. A moment later she cast a heart-broken look at him over her shoulder. Her green eyes, usually so alive, turned dark.

  “And while you’re doing that,” he continued, “I’m going to go meet this baker of yours.”

  A wide smile split across Awlin’s face. “Really?” Relief washed over her like a stream and her eyes sparkled again. “You were this close to having a pot of boiling oatmeal thrown at you.”

  “You’d throw hot oats in my face?”

  “For starters.” She flicked the spoon at him and a glob of warm, pasty breakfast meal hit him on the cheek.

  “Uh-oh. Someone’s in trouble,” Merek said. He jumped at her.

  She scooted around the table. “Don’t!”

  “Or what?”

  “Get away! No!”

  He chased her around the table, his fingers aimed for the sides of her ribs where he knew she was most ticklish.

  Merek had long missed her laugh.

  After breakfast they set out for Velia. Merek led the way, picking his own path through the woods so as to avoid any confrontation with other travelers or vipers of the high king.

  Velia was a sprawling town of affluent nobles and other well-to-do citizens built on the corners of three of the northern provinces of Efferous—Betharous, Danium, and Damium. The town had become an epicenter of commerce in the northern regions, and one of the most important cities in the empire.

  Merek took comfort in the fact that Velia, being so well traversed by people from so many different regions, would conceal him and Awlin well. They blended into the crowd as they walked along Velia’s numerous sloping streets that curved through multiple levels of beige stone buildings and pillared archways.

  “You remember what we discussed?” Merek asked.

  “Yes, yes,” Awlin said in clear annoyance.

  “Tell me again.”

  She exhaled in a puff. “If we need to separate I am to head west out of Velia and hide in one of three locations. When the sun has almost set I can return to the cottage, but I am not to approach unless you’re there to give me the signal.”

  “And do you remember the three locations?”

  She stopped and turned to face him. She seemed ready to burst, but after a momentary pause she calmed. Setting a hand against his cheek, she said, “Brother, I love you. I know what to do. Now please relax. You’re making me even more nervous than I already am.”

  He took a breath. “I just want you to be safe.”

  She gave his cheek a pat and continued down the street.

  “You’d do well to find yourself a woman, brother,” Awlin said as they entered a large round plaza paved with smooth sand colored stones. “It shouldn’t be hard with those honey brown eyes of yours. Do you still like your ladies in blue?”

  He shook his head. “The color of the dress doesn’t matter much, I suppose.”

  She waved her hand at him. “No, I know you like blue. Blue dresses, brown eyes, and brown hair. That’s always been your type. Give me some time. I’ll find you such a girl.”

  Panyos’ bakery sat at the south side of the plaza, on the corner of an adjoining street. A sign hung over its entryway in the shape of a loaf of bread adorned in a graceful Efferousian script.

  Awlin wiped her hands along the folds of her dress.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She offered a smile. “Mm-hmm.”

  As soon as Merek opened the door to the shop the delicious aroma of fresh bread and pastries rolled over him. He hadn’t smelled anything that good since his mother’s baking back on Edhen.

  The walls of the store shimmered with polished mahogany panels and ornamental trim. Fancy tables adorned with delectable samples of mouth-watering treats occupied the floor. Wooden shelves filled with wrapped loaves of bread gave Merek the immediate impression that Panyos was a man well versed in his craft, and if what Awlin had said about his success was true then he was making a good living from his work as well.

  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 st
airs, 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 fer
al 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.

  SCARLETT

  Scarlett Falls tensed when Lord Dagart Elle burst into the room, all truculence and power. He strode across the tiled floor of Tristian’s bedchamber in polished leather boots, dark slacks, and a rich maroon tunic that hung to his knees.

  Dagart jabbed an angry finger at Scarlett. “Out!”

  Scarlett set her embroidery on the padded wood chair and scuttled out of the room. Only once in three years had she failed to respond to Dagart’s orders as promptly as he liked and the side of her face had suffered for it. She had never made the same mistake again.