Rise of the Serpent (Serpent's War Book 2)

by Jason Halstead

  Namitus saved his energy and raised his sword before charging into the edge of the splisskin ringing the surviving mercenaries. Corian was at his side, protecting his flank and lashing out with his wicked dagger. For a moment, it almost seemed like victory might be possible.

  Then the splisskin recovered and struck back.

  Chapter 20

  “Dad!”

  Gildor blinked and shook his head. Spit mixed with blood ran from the corner of his mouth. He struggled to try to sit up but his arms wouldn’t obey him. He flopped onto the stone like a fish out of water.

  “No,” he moaned. His voice was slurred as he mumbled, “Another trick.”

  “Not a trick,” Allie whispered. “I’m here. I—we—came to stop this. And to see if I could find you.”

  Gildor stared at her and then turned to look at Gor. He squinted as he studied the large warrior. “Who’s this?” he asked, his voice so dry it was painful to listen to.

  “Dad, this is Gor,” Allie said. “He came with you and Corian when you rescued me.”

  Gildor blinked again. “Gor…”

  Gor knelt down beside him. “You saved me, Gildor,” he said. “I was drunk and poor, but you lifted me up and gave me a chance no one else would. You made me promise to protect her. I did.”

  Gildor’s eyes widened. He stiffened and reached out, his hand smearing blood on Gor’s arm. “You brought her back!”

  “No!” Allie insisted. “I brought him back. I came back here with Corian and Gor and someone else. Someone special.”

  “What?”

  Gor looked at her, his brow furrowed. “Lariki or Namitus?”

  Gildor’s gaze flicked across the stone floor. “Lariki…”

  “I meant Namitus,” Allie said. “He’s a knight! On Saint Astra’s honor, he is a knight of Altonia, a new kingdom in the north formed by Alto, the champion of the Kelgryn who came to Shazamir and defeated the king.”

  He shook his head. “Lariki?”

  Allie nodded, trying to guess what her beaten father wanted to know. “Lariki is the captain of a mercenary company, the Vultures. And she’s more; she is a half-dragon. She is the one spoken of in the elven prophecy.”

  Gildor shook his head and then jerked his gaze up to hers again. He trembled and blinked back tears. “Allie? Allisandra?”

  Allie’s heart lurched in her chest. She reached out to her father’s blood- and dirt-stained face. “I’m here, Dad. Oh saints, what have they done to you?”

  “Prove it,” he said. “Prove you’re my daughter.”

  Allie swallowed and chewed on her lip. How could she prove it to him? She glanced around and then held up her sword. “This! Look, it has the engraving on the hilt that you and Grandpa chose for me. The desert rose, like you used to call me.”

  He looked at the colorful rose and then his eyes took in the rest of the now-magical blade.

  Allie frowned. “Thork, a shaman, enchanted it. He put the magic of Saint Jarook in it. It helps me fight better and the blade glows when I’m afraid.”

  Gor grunted and shook his head. “I been watching. When you get scared, it stops.”

  “No, I’m still afraid, but it’s when I’m moving and doing something…” Allie trailed off as she considered the sword and her actions. She gasped and said, “It’s when I control my fear it glows!”

  Gor grunted. “That makes sense.”

  Allie glanced back at her father. “What else can I tell you? Of how I never wanted to fight but you made me learn? How I wanted to explore the world and be more than just a peasant wife? Remember me talking about the warrior women from the north I’d heard of, Patrina and Aleena? Maybe now I can meet them! Namitus knows them! He says Patrina—she’s a queen now—is like his sister. Oh, and Corian and Jillystria? Well, Jilly is Namitus’s grandmother. Corian is—”

  Gildor waved a hand to stop her. “Enough,” he croaked. “I believe you.”

  Allie’s eyes widened. “You do?”

  Gildor nodded. “You shouldn’t have come back.”

  “I had to,” Allie insisted. She pulled her waterskin from her hip and held it to Gildor’s lips.

  He tried to drink from it but after a few swallows he grimaced and shook his head. Gildor shifted his gaze to Gor. “Get her out of here. Protect her.”

  “I am protecting her, but if we don’t stop these snakes, there won’t be anywhere safe on Kroth.”

  “They want someone like her,” Namitus said. “Half-blood. To lead them.”

  Allie’s eyes met Gor’s.

  He cursed and said, “We need to go! She expects payment for helping us, and I have yet to find my family vault.”

  “You think she’d turn on us?” Allie asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Vault?” Gildor asked.

  “This is Gor’s castle,” Allie said. “His family’s, at least. The splisskin took it from them a long time ago.”

  Gildor turned to stare at Gor, his eyes clear but no less confused.

  “It’s a long story,” Gor said.

  “Trust him, Dad. The rest of us do.”

  Gildor grunted and tried to draw his legs up beneath him. He winced and fell back on his side. He shook his head and stared at the ground. “Go,” he gasped. “Leave me.”

  Gor chuckled and rose to his feet. Allie watched him, her head shaking in disbelief. He couldn’t just leave her dad, could he?

  He couldn’t. Gor bent over and grabbed Gildor under the shoulders. He lifted the battered caravan guard like a scarecrow stuffed with straw. Gor slipped Gildor’s arm around his neck and asked, “Can you walk at all?”

  “Leave me!” Gildor rasped. He tried to cough but his breath was too shallow. After the fit passed, he hung limp in Gor’s grasp.

  Gor grunted. “All right then, I’ll carry you. Don’t worry, I bet your girl weighs more than you do these days.”

  Gildor struggled to breathe and fell limp in Gor’s arms. Gor grabbed Gildor’s tattered pants and held him steady until he could shift his grip and pick Gildor up into his arms. He turned to Allie. “Let’s go. Take the lead; I’ll guide you.”

  Allie stared at her father. “Is he…”

  “Passed out,” Gor said. He shook his head. “I won’t lie—he’s in bad shape. I’m no healer, but my bet would be against him waking up again.”

  Allie stared at the frail form of her father until Gor cleared his throat. She started and looked up at Gor. “He’ll make it. Which way?”

  “Out the door and to the right, deeper.”

  “Deeper? I’ve been down that hall. There’s nothing but more torture chambers.”

  “There’s more,” Gor told her. “What better place to hide a treasure vault than the dungeons?”

  “Guarded by your best men in a safer place for one,” Allie said and turned to head out the door. She paused at the doorway and looked both ways down the hall.

  “That vault fell decades ago. This one remains untouched.”

  “You think.”

  He frowned. “No, I hope. If they’ve found it, this is all for nothing. Go all the way to the end of the hall.”

  Allie led the way down the hall for several hundred feet. The light from the last burning sconces faded behind them, leaving only the glimmer from Allie’s sword. She came to a stop when the passage ended in a smooth stone wall a dozen feet beyond the last door.

  “I have to set him down,” Gor said.

  Allie’s breath caught in her throat as she watched Gor set her father on the damp stone floor. He looked so frail and weak. Almost pathetic, but she would never see him that way. He was strong—strong enough to raise a willful girl like her and teach her not only how to fight, but how to fight for what was right.

  “Where’s that damn seal,” Gor muttered.

  Allie twisted around and stared at him. She moved and lifted her sword, shedding its baleful green light on the wall. Gor grunted his thanks and kept passing his hand over the wall. Allie watched him but couldn’t see any dif
ference between one section of stone from the next.

  “I think it’s here,” he said and rapped his knuckles against the wall.

  “How can you tell? I don’t see anything.”

  “That’s why nobody knows it’s here,” Gor said. He reached back over his head to his axe head and grunted as he sliced his palm against the edge.

  Allie gasped and opened her mouth to ask him what he was doing when Gor pressed his bloody hand against the wall. A red glow flashed in the stone and spread to the entire end of the hallway. The glow was dull but still stood out against the dark stone. She turned and looked over her shoulder to make sure no one was coming.

  “Come on,” Gor hissed.

  She spun back and saw Gor had picked up Gildor again and was walking into the glowing stone. Into and through. She gawked for a moment and then jerked in realization she was about to be left behind. She pushed herself forward and reached out. Her hands passed through the stone as though it was nothing more than a gritty mist.

  Allie stepped out and stumbled to avoid colliding with Gor and her father. She twisted and looked back in time to see the glow fade and the door return to solid stone. She turned again and held her sword up, shedding light over the chests, crates, and dust-covered racks that held suits of armor and weapons.

  “By the saints!” Allie breathed. “This is…I don’t know. What is this?”

  “My family’s legacy,” Gor said. He nodded towards a chest. “Open that.”

  Allie went to the unlocked chest and had to use her sword to break the rust that froze the hinges. She lifted the lid and stared down at the coins that were covered with the dust and grime of years spent underground. She jerked her head up to Gor. “All of these chests?”

  He nodded. “Empty your waterskin,” he said. “Fill it with pearls and gemstones. Coins too, if you can.”

  Allie removed the stopper from her waterskin and poured it out on the floor. She held it in her hand with her sword and reached down to plunge her fingers into the coins. They shifted and exposed shining metal beneath the grime. She frowned; the coins were too large. She remedied the problem by sawing the neck of her waterskin off.

  “Hurry,” Gor urged. “Check another chest.”

  Allie frowned and moved to the chest to the left of the first one she’d opened. The hinges squealed as she forced them open, yielding up its prize grudgingly. She gasped as she stared down at the dirty chest full of pearls.

  Allie dug through the chest, shifting the contents and verifying that they were indeed pearls. Some as large around as her thumb. She shoved them into her waterskin until it was bulging.

  “That’s enough,” Gor said. “You’ve got fifty pearls in there, easy. Nobody’s seen freshwater pearls like these in a hundred years. They’re worth three times her price.”

  “How do you have so many?” Allie wondered. The chest was still more than three-quarters full.

  “Secret grottos around the island,” Gor said. “This place has many mysteries and wonders to it. Things the splisskin don’t know about and would never appreciate.”

  “All right, let’s go then. Unless there’s something else?”

  Gor pointed to a stand with a suit of dust-covered mail on it. “Try that.”

  “We don’t have time for that,” Allie said.

  “Not the armor, just the shield.”

  Allie dropped her eyes to the round shield. It was dirty but looked to be solid. She tied the laces on the waterskin around the cut open neck to seal it and then tucked it into her belt. Allie walked to the rack and lifted the shield and looked it over. She blew on it and coughed at the dust that clouded the air.

  What was left behind was a wooden, round shield braced with a thick metal rim and ribs that looked like it had just come from the forge, not a dank vault. She slipped her fingers through straps and tightened them before lifting it up and nodding. “Fits good.”

  “It should,” he said. “Now we can go.”

  “Nothing here you can use?”

  Gor glanced at the treasures and sighed. He shook his head. “I don’t deserve any of them. You do.”

  “Oh! Um, okay,” Allie said.

  “Wait, check those other chests,” Gor said.

  “Why?”

  “Do it,” he snapped. “We don’t have much time.”

  Allie slipped the shield off her arm and worked on the other chests, popping them open one at a time until Gor grunted. She stared down into the small chest at several round tins. “What are these?”

  Gor ignored her question and instructed, “Open one.”

  Allie frowned but did as he asked, struggling to break the seal of dirt and years before she twisted the top of the tin off. A spicy smell rose from inside, reminding her of some of the groves of fruit trees they’d ridden through near Mira. It wasn’t one smell, but rather several mixed together with a musky undertone. Spoiled, maybe?

  Gor looked into the tin and nodded. He shifted Gildor in his arms and said, “Rub some of that on his hands.”

  “Some of…Gor, this has been down here for years. It might make him sick.”

  “Maybe, but he can’t get much worse.”

  Allie frowned and then dug her fingers into the tin. The surface was stiff but crumbled under her fingers. The creamy gel underneath was moist and smelled even stronger of spices and rich, moist earth. She drew her fingers out and stared at the goo on them. It felt gritty and slimy, but viscous enough she didn’t fear it dripping or running down her hand.

  “His hands,” Gor reminded her.

  Allie sighed and turned to her father. Gor managed to hold one arm steady for her so she could rub the ointment on the back of his hand and then through his palms. She swallowed and looked away from the broken bone that was visible through one of the holes on his hand. She moved on to his other hand instead and went back to scoop more of the ointment out of the tin until it was empty.

  Allie put the tin back in the chest and turned back to see Gor watching her father’s hands. “Are you ready?” she asked.

  Gor grunted and nodded at Gildor’s hands. She looked down and forced herself to focus on them. They looked like they were moving. Not his fingers and hands, so much, but his skin was crawling. She gasped and jerked her sword up to shine the green light on his flesh. Her gasp died away as she witnessed the broken bones shifting and pulling together. The muscles and sinews reached out for each other and intertwined, bonding as though they’d never been broken. His skin smoothed and stretched, reattaching itself and hiding the still healing tissues inside.

  “Saints be praised!” Allie breathed.

  Gor nodded. “Healing ointments from the east that were traded in exchange for some of the treasures mined or caught beneath the mountains.”

  “Gor, he’s healed!” Allie cried. “He’s going to be okay?”

  Gor shook his head. “Only his hands,” he reminded her. “The ointment will fix simple flesh wounds, not the abuse he’s had deep inside.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “He’s better though, and that’s a start. A man who can survive this long…who knows?”

  “I do,” Allie said. “He’ll make it.”

  “Not if we don’t get out there and make sure we put an end to this.”

  Allie nodded and turned back to the wall. “How do we get out?”

  Gor walked to the wall and shifted Gildor so he could put his hand against it. The cut had healed and his blood had been absorbed by the stone, but the door glowed and let them pass through.

  “After you,” he said.

  Allie nodded. “To the guardroom and then where?”

  “I know a shortcut,” Gor said. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 21

  “Through there,” Gor said. He gestured at the archway off the small dining room. They could hear the muffled sound of steel against steel coming from the short hallway. “There’s a door at the end—that’s the court. I should put Gildor down here.”

  Allie studied her fath
er and opened her mouth. The light from lamps on the wall showed both the dirt on his skin and in his hair as well as how frail he looked. He was little more than skin and bones in Gor’s arms. He was in no condition to be in the fight they could hear going on, but putting him down risked leaving him out of their sight. Anything could happen.

  Before she could find the right words, a scream tore through the palace that turned more bestial than human. Allie froze in her place while the hair on her arms and neck rose. She trembled after the shriek ended and turned to stare at the hallway.

  “Lariki!” Gor hissed. “Go!”

  Allie moved before she realized her sword had gone out. She swallowed and forced a breath in her chest. Lariki scared her. She’d seen what the woman could do and she suspected that was only the beginning. She was a half-dragon: the nightmares were nearly endless.

  Allie hesitated at the door and then pushed it open. She held it open and stared at the carnage down the steps in the large hall. Two splisskin stood nearby on the raised floor she stood on. Next to them, on the far side, was the human who she remembered from her time in the swamp with the dragon.

  “Snake balls,” Gor hissed behind her as the splisskin on the raised floor turned to look at them.

  The splisskin with the massive scimitar held it up in the air with one arm and shouted, “Hold!”

  Allie remembered him from his time spent tormenting her. Thess, the man who claimed Shathas as his own. The wizard’s name was Rodwin, though she’d seen far less of him. Fasthus was the priest of Kalkar who had healed her and Jillsytria day after day.

  The fighting slowed as the snake men battling on the floor of the court heard and passed the word along. Allie strained and saw Lariki with two of her men still standing. Namitus and Corian were there as well, though both were bleeding from the wounds they’d taken.

  “What manner of being are you?” the splisskin leader asked.

  Lariki met his gaze and lifted her chin. “I am Lariki.”

  “You are splisskin?”

  She snorted. “My blood comes from a higher race.”

  The splisskin hissed and turned to Fasthus. “Is this the one?”