Gor called a warning over his shoulder before the hallway opened into another one. He turned and kept moving, catching a splisskin that was carrying a metal platter by surprise. Gor’s axe smashed the platter from his hands into the floor. That cleared the path for the warriors chain link clad shoulder to send the splisskin crashing into the wall.
Gor kept going as the snake man bounced off the stone wall and staggered to keep his balance. Allie caught him as he twisted, sliding her sword into his belly and up under his ribs. She ripped it free, spraying a line of blood and fluids across the hallway, and sidestepped the falling splisskin. She swung her sword, flinging the dying splisskin’s viscera from her blade as she rushed after Gor.
“Guard room ahead,” Gor warned.
Allie panted, too out of breath to acknowledge him. Her heart was hammering against her ribs almost as though it was trying to get away from her and go hide somewhere safe. She sucked in a deep breath and felt the pressure in her chest calm her, even if only for a moment.
She looked down at her sword and felt her eyes drawn to the yellow flower on the hilt. The blade was glowing and basking her and the hallway in the green light but the flower shone through. Why was it glowing like it did? Namitus thought it had to do with fear, but when she’d seen Lariki, she’d been almost as frightened as she had when she’d seen that dragon in the swamp. It hadn’t been glowing then, but now it was.
“Ready?”
Allie jerked her head up and saw Gor was standing next to a door at the end of the hallway. She’d slowed to a walk without realizing it. She shook her head, pushing her thoughts aside. She focused on Gor, the door, and whatever might lie beyond it. She adjusted her grip on her sword and nodded. The green radiance grew brighter.
Gor snarled and reared back to plant his heel in the door. Wood cracked and the door shuddered, but it held. He drew back and hit it again with his heel, sending the door swinging on its hinges and broken splinters of wood flying through the room. Four splisskin were leaping to their feet from a table set with plates and half-eaten meals.
Gor swung his axe around from the side and let it go, slamming the flying weapon into two of the snake men. They staggered under the impact and the one on the right tripped over his chair and fell down.
Allie slid under Gor’s outstretched arms and slashed her sword across the splisskin closest to the door on her way past him. He hissed and arched his back in pain. Allie lunged forward, driving the point of her glowing talwar into the belly of snake man on the left side of the table. She retracted, rising from the lunge and drawing her sword back in a circular slash that hewed into the thigh of the first splisskin she’d already injured.
Allie kept spinning, throwing herself around in a circle that brought her around the flank of the leftmost splisskin. She watched Gor smash his fist into the side of the head of the splisskin she’d wounded twice. She lost track of them as she rotated. Her sword leapt out, moving in a smooth strike that made perfect sense to her even though she’d never practiced or imagined anything like it before. Her blade slid under the splisskin’s raised arm and went up into the hollow under the snake man’s mouth.
She pulled the blade free as her foe collapsed to the ground to twitch and die on the floor. She turned, blade up at the ready, and saw Gor picking his axe up. The other two splisskin lay on the ground, one with his skull cracked open and another hissing out his final pants from smashed ribs.
Allie nodded. “I’m getting good at this.”
Gor swung the door shut behind them and pulled the table against it to block it. He looked at her and nodded. “You learn fast,” he said.
Allie held her sword up. “I think it’s whatever Thork did to this.”
Gor shrugged. “If it helps, don’t complain.”
“I’m not.”
Gor turned to grab a ring of keys hanging from a peg on the wall. He held them up. “These will open the cells.”
“Then let’s go,” she said.
Gor hesitated. “Allie, there’s a chance...”
“A chance of what?”
Gor sighed. “We might find him, but you might not like what you find.”
“What?”
“Last time we came here—me, your dad, and the elf—we opened some cells and found things inside that you don’t want to see.”
Allie glanced at the gore splattered across the room. “Worse than this?”
“It is if it’s somebody you know who’s been lying there for a few months.”
Her eyes widened and the sword at her side dimmed. She clamped her lips shut and shook her head. “If that’s what I find, then at least I know.”
“Allie...”
She shook her head. “No. I need this. I think he’s alive; I really do. But if I’m wrong, then I know.”
“And if we don’t find him?”
She hesitated and then nodded again. “Then I know he never made it here.”
Gor sighed. “Well, if you’re sure.”
“I am.”
He turned to the door into the dungeons and used one of the keys to unlock it. He pushed it open and scowled at the stink that oozed out of the open passage. Mold, rot, and death waited in the depths of the dark tunnel. The green glow from Allie’s sword combined with the stench to send a shiver down Gor’s back.
He grunted and pushed into it. Allie needed answers and he’d made a vow to never abandon a friend again.
Chapter 19
“This doesn’t look good,” Gor said after they looked through the window in the last cell door.
“It’s empty,” Allie said.
“Right, we didn’t find him.”
“What about the other wing?” Allie asked.
“The other…those aren’t cells.”
“No, that’s where they took us and tortured us.”
Gor shook his head. “He wouldn’t be there.”
“Gor, please!”
He sighed. “You’re not going to like what’s in those rooms.”
“I know. I was there, remember?”
He scowled. “Yeah, but—”
“They cut and stabbed me,” Allie said. “They burned me and even gouged out my eyeballs. I told them everything I knew, but they kept asking. They kept hurting. I made things up to tell them so they would stop, but they didn’t.”
Gor winced and shook his head. “You didn’t deserve nothing like that.”
Allie shrugged. “They hurt me so much I stopped telling them anything. It didn’t matter. They did it for fun. Practice, maybe? I don’t know. I wanted to die, but they kept healing me. It taught me something about myself. Maybe about anyone.”
“What’s that?”
“When you’re hurt that bad, you want to give up. You try to, even. But they wouldn’t let me. And then when they’d heal me so that I hurt but wasn’t crippled and about to die—when I felt like that, I wanted to live again. I found reasons to fight again. Between feeling alive and knowing Jilly would be there to talk to me, I wanted to live again. At least until the next time they hurt me.”
Gor shook his head. “And you want to go back to those rooms?”
“I need to,” she said. The light from her blade stayed strong.
“Let’s go,” Gor grunted and started back up the hall to the other tunnel that led into the mountainside.
Allie followed behind him and clenched her stomach muscles tight as they entered the hallway she’d learned to dread. The difference was this time she was armed and her escort was her friend. A man sworn to protect her and help her, not a group of splisskin that jeered and tormented her.
Gor glanced back at her a few times, prompting her to give him a strained smile in return. He shook his head and trudged on until he reached the first of the torture chambers. He stopped and looked at her, making sure.
She nodded.
Gor put his handle on the door and lifted it. He swung the door open to a sight that made Gor and Allie both gasp. Someone—either a man or a woman, they couldn’t
tell—hung from chains that dangled from a pulley in the ceiling. The chains weren’t wrapped around the victim’s wrist; they ended in man-sized bear traps that drove spikes through the person’s palms. Blood ran down the victim’s arms to their naked torso, where they were hidden by the long, snarly brown and gray hair.
The victim’s head hung low, proving that either they’d passed out or had passed on. Before they could guess which, a hiss drew their attention to a splisskin with a scar across the scales of his left cheek.
“You!” Allie shrieked. Her sword flickered, the glow diminishing for a few seconds and letting the fire in the brazier full of coals serve as the light source of the room.
The lapse only lasted a second. The glow returned with the force of the sun breaking the horizon in the morning. Green light painted the walls in a putrid hue that spoke of what evils the room had witnessed. Allie pushed Gor out of the way and screamed as she charged the splisskin inquisitor.
His eyes narrowed and then he hissed at her and reached for a poker thrust into the brazier. She caught the poker with her sword as he lifted it free and flipped it up in the air, disarming him. Allie’s sword arced up and around, clearing his head and then cutting down and shearing his arm off above his wrist.
The torturer screamed and reached for the stump of his arm. Allie ignored him and stepped aside as the poker clattered to the floor beside her. She stepped in close and smashed the metal scales on her forearm into his face, stunning him and leaving him reeling.
“Wouldn’t want that to bleed too much,” Allie snarled at the splisskin. She grabbed his arm and yanked him over to the brazier. The splisskin staggered, too shocked to defend himself. Allie jammed his severed arm into the burning coals and staggered back as he stiffened and howled.
Allie stared at the splisskin man that had tortured her countless times, leaving her for dead save for the priest that would bring her back. She shook the memories away and stared at the sword in her hand. The glow was fading until she realized she held the power now, not him. She wrestled the fear into anger and watched the blade grow brighter with her fury.
Allie scooped up the poker with the red-hot tip and slapped the splisskin on the side of the head with the flat of her blade. He jerked and twisted around. His good arm stretched out for her, but never reached her.
Allie jammed the glowing poker into his chest and pushed him back into the brazier. He fell against it and knocked it over, spreading the coals across the damp stone. The torturer writhed on top of them, trying to escape but unable to get away from the iron in his chest.
“It burnssss, yessss?” Allie hissed, repeating a phrase she’d heard him use many times on her.
He gasped and clawed at the poker until his hand fell limp and collapsed onto the cooling coals beside him. Allie stared down at him until Gor cleared his throat, reminding her that she wasn’t alone. She jerked her head up and stared at him.
“Feel better?”
Allie looked down at the dead man and opened her mouth. No words came to her. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I stopped him. He won’t hurt anyone ever again. That’s a good thing.”
“He hurt you though, right?” Gor asked. “A lot.”
She nodded. “Just because somebody hurts me doesn’t mean I need to hurt them back.”
“The way you went after this guy says it does.”
Allie shrugged. “This was special. And he was evil.”
Gor grunted and turned to the person hanging with his toes a few inches above the ground. His body was covered in scars and burns. Blood still dripped from wounds inflicted earlier. “Too late for this poor bastard,” he said.
Allie frowned and shook her head. “Is it even a man? He’s skin and bones and hair. Let him down, at least.”
Gor nodded and moved to the wheel that had been used to crank the prisoner up. He unlocked it and let it down slowly. The man collapsed with a groan that made Allie stiffen.
“He’s alive!” she hissed.
Gor cursed and stumbled towards the fallen man. Allie beat him to it and knelt down next to him. She reached out and brushed his hair back from his face, anxious to see if the poor man was awake or if he’d—
“Son of a—”
Allie didn’t hear Gor’s curse. She stared into her father’s confused eyes until her own vision grew blurry with tears.
* * * *
“Is it bad?” Namitus asked the limping elf.
Corian pulled his hand off his hip and stared at the blood on his hand. He twisted his neck and arched his back to study the wound on his hip. “Stings, but a good wash and some stitches and I’ll be fine,” Corian judged. “Can’t believe I got cut in the arse.”
Namitus smirked and turned away from the side passage the splisskin had rushed out from. Both groups had been surprised, but Namitus and Corian reacted faster. “Let’s go. Their defenses are in place now. Too much longer and they’ll start sending out patrols to find us.”
“Yeah, I’d hate to make their jobs difficult,” Corian muttered.
Namitus raised an eyebrow and moved on. His leg felt sticky from the blood that ran from the wound in his side. The warmth and numbness in the wound had faded, leaving a dull ache and occasional sharp pain if he moved too much or too fast. Unfortunately for him, he was running and fighting constantly.
“Namitus!”
Namitus slowed and struggled to walk sideways. They were alone, save for the seven dead splisskin bodies scattered down the length of the hallway. “What?”
“Last time we were here, they had archers,” Corian said. “This time just spears. Why?”
Namitus opened and closed his mouth. “That does seem odd. I’m grateful, though; bowman would have ruined this assault before it began.”
“I could use some of their arrows, though,” Corian said.
Namitus smirked. “If it’s all the same, I’m going to continue hoping we avoid their archers. Now, let’s move. We’ve already taken too much time dealing with the stragglers.”
The two jogged down the hallway another forty feet before a single splisskin emerged from a side passage. He hissed and reached for the sword at his side. Namitus caught his blade and spun him around. Corian took the opening and plunged his dagger into the splisskin’s back. The elf ripped his dagger away and let the splisskin sag to the floor. The wound was fatal on its own; the fact that it would continue to bleed until the snake man’s heart beat its last only hastened his death.
Namitus nodded to the elf and spun around, wincing from the sharp pain in his side. He pushed through, fighting to ignore the injury. “Almost there,” he said to himself as much as Corian.
The hallway ended at a wide-open intersection. Namitus staggered to a stop and stared up and down the main hallway through the palace. “What the…are we too late?”
Corian studied the bodies of splisskin that littered the hallway. Blood and body parts, both internal and entire limbs and heads, decorated the walls and trampled carpet. Both men turned to look to their left, where the hall led deeper into the palace.
“How?” Corian whispered. “Lariki couldn’t have beaten us.”
A cry from behind them made them turn. More splisskin were rushing down the hall. Not a handful, but enough to fill the breadth of the eighteen-foot wide passage. “This is bad,” Namitus muttered.
“Back to back?” Corian asked.
“Don’t be a fool! There’s more than I can count!”
“What then? They’ve seen us!”
“Let’s find whoever tore these snake lovers apart,” Namitus said. “And hope that they’re friendly.”
Corian nodded and said, “Go!”
They ran. Namitus winced and gasped at the pain in his side, but it reminded him of something Garrick and Mordrim had once told him. Pain was a good thing. So long as he still felt hurt, he was alive. The elf pulled ahead of him and glanced back to see Namitus limping. Corian’s eyes dropped to his leg before he slowed his pace and fell back beside him.
“I am,” Corian said.
“Don’t worry about me. I can handle myself.”
Corian grinned. “I’ve spent decades at my sister’s side because no one else would. You think I’m going to abandon you? Jilly wouldn’t let me survive the day!”
Namitus snarled a grin and glanced back. The splisskin were getting closer. He turned back and pushed harder. The hallway opened into a large room less than fifty feet away. He could see figures milling about and, over the sound of his heart hammering in his ears and his breath rushing through his chest, he heard the sounds of battle.
They ran into the room and staggered to a halt. One of the Vultures was lying in the opening of the throne room, his cheek opened to the bone and a pool of blood beneath his body. The splisskin were tripping over another body that had a broken arm and a nearly severed leg as they struggled to reach the small group of mercenaries still standing.
“We’ve doomed us all,” Corian breathed.
Namitus shook his head and looked around. The splisskin behind them were fast approaching and the ones in front were beginning to take notice. A dais at the far edge of the room had a single throne on it, as well as a small table and a pedestal. A man wearing a robe stood and watched the battle unfold while a splisskin with a leather harness and a large curved sword stood beside him. Another splisskin was studying the battle and fidgeting with a talisman that hung from his neck that resembled a red eye with a black iris. It was a holy symbol of Kalkar, the patron saint of vengeance and hatred.
“Namitus?” Corian asked.
“Stand with the others,” Namitus said. There was no way to reach the people on the dais, even if they were obviously the leaders. He had some tricks left in his pouch, but not enough to get him halfway there. He was down to a single potion of Leander’s grace as well. He saved it, knowing once he used it, any further wounds would be his undoing. Now he wondered if he might never have the chance.
“All right,” Corian said. “We’ll make them pay dearly.”
Rise of the Serpent (Serpent's War Book 2) Page 18