Rise of the Serpent (Serpent's War Book 2) (8 page)

“Hail!” Namitus cried and held up a hand to greet them. “My name is Namran and I’ve come a long ways looking for you.”

The splisskin lowered their guard enough to glance at one another. Namitus counted eight of them, six armed for war. Of his own group, he knew he could count on himself and Gor in a fight. Corian, perhaps, if he kept his wits about him and used his bow. Allisandra was skilled enough to keep herself from being killed straight away, but in a battle with more than a single opponent he worried for her safety. Amra…Amra was on her way to learning how to fight, and even that was a step above the skill of Jillystria.

A brief exchange in their hissing language passed before one of them stepped forward. He bore no weapons but looked like he might be the largest one in the village. He stood almost as tall as the head of Namitus’s horse.

“What do you seek, soft-skin?” he asked in a hissing voice that sounded like it was dragged across hot sand.

“I’m—well, what I am isn’t important. You might find it silly. I’m seeking genuine splisskin artifacts. Clothing, armor, tools, weapons, and the like.”

The splisskin stared at him for a long moment. “Why do you wish to buy our things?”

Namitus sighed. “Don’t laugh, okay?”

“I don’t…laugh.”

Namitus grinned. “Great! Okay, I represent an acting troupe. A circus of sorts. I’m trying to put together a play featuring splisskin. I want it to be genuine, so my audience understands your remarkable people.”

The walking lizard stared at him for a length of time again. His tongue flicked out, tasting the air. “A play? What is a play?”

“Oh my,” Namitus said. “There is no easy way to explain this. Imagine children playing, only we’re adults. We pretend to be other people, and in this case other races. We tell a story by acting. That makes us actors.”

“A story? What story?”

“Well, in this case it’s the fall of Myskakroth,” Namitus said.

The snake man’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know of this?”

Namitus snapped his fingers. “You do know! Bah, they told me. But no, I wouldn’t believe them. Some of them, at least, had to have free hearts and the sense to do what was best for them. Don’t judge an entire people by the actions of a few. That they couldn’t all be like that!”

The splisskin tasted the air again. “Like what?” he hissed.

“Working with the Order of the Dragon, of course!” Namitus said.

The splisskin’s tongue flicked into the air. His scaly cheek drew up, resembling a snarl far more than a grin. “Yes, of course. Come. Come into the village and see what we might have to trade,” he hissed. He paused while he studied the others behind Namitus. “Is this your circus? Your actors?”

“It is,” Namitus said while urging his horse ahead into what was, he was certain, a trap.

“All of them?”

“Why yes. We’re small but very talented. Perhaps we could put on a demonstration for you? Work some entertainment into the bartering price.”

The splisskin sneered at him again. “Perhaps.”

Namitus glanced back and saw the others were staring at him. Matching expressions of surprise, shock, and concern were directed his way. Namitus smiled and turned back to see the other splisskin falling in behind them as they rode through the firmer ground of the splisskin village.

Namitus counted the huts as they rode. They were fashioned from fire-baked mud and clay and thatched with the tall grasses of the plains. Animal hides hung in the doorways of some of the huts, where others had wood and thatch doors. He’d counted half a dozen before they came to a larger round hut with two doors in it.

“In here,” the splisskin gestured. “Come, look at our things.”

Namitus turned to Amra. “Wait here,” he whispered before he slid off the horse and landed on the ground.

Amra grabbed his shoulder as he started to turn. “No!” she hissed. She glanced around. “You can’t leave me out here.”

Namitus pressed his lips together.

“Come. All come,” the speaker for the splisskin said again. “Test our things, make sure they fit.”

Namitus let out his breath in a controlled sigh. He smiled and turned. “Of course! No sense in getting something we can’t use.”

“Nam—”

Namitus waved to Corian, stopping him from speaking. “Come, Lythian, I’m sure they’ll have something to fit your scrawny hide.”

Corian started and scowled back at him. He slid off his horse and grabbed his belt, adjusting it and loosening his knife in its sheathe. The elf turned to take his sister’s hand and help her dismount before moving after Allisandra and Gor and joining them.

Namitus offered his hand to Amra. “You get your wish, fair maiden,” he said while staring at her with what he hoped was a stern gaze.

She smiled back and dropped off the horse to stand beside him. She offered a curtsy and followed him into the gloomy hut.

“Can’t see a damn thing,” Gor muttered as they filed into the dark hut. The only light filtered in through the two doors they’d seen and a third on the far side of the round hut.

The figure of the splisskin chieftain stood ahead of them and gestured at some chests gathered around a pole in the middle of the room. He watched them enter while pointing at the chests, waiting until the last one cleared the doorway.

“Here,” he said. “Come closer.”

Shapes filled the three doorways, blocking more of the light. Namitus ignored them and moved towards the speaker. He smiled and turned, pretending to focus on the chests while his hand slipped into a pouch. He extended his other hand and hesitated. “May I?”

The snake hissed something that might have been, “Take them.” The sounds of splisskin rushing into the hut made him believe that was what he said, but in a different language.

“Close your eyes!” Namitus shouted as his hand snapped out of his pouch and threw a handful of powder into the speaker’s face. He shouted a word of power he’d learned from Kar, igniting the powder into a brilliant flash that caused the splisskin in the room to hiss in shock. Namitus heard all three women who came with him cry out as well.

Namitus counted to three and blinked his eyes open. The light was gone and the room was filled with shadow thanks to the doors that had been shut behind the ambushing splisskin. His elven blood helped his eyes pick out the shapes and enough details in the dark to let him pick his first target. “Fight or fall down,” Namitus shouted to his friends.

The splisskin, if they understood him, flailed in the dark as they tried to adapt to the bright flash he’d caused.

Namitus slammed the hilt of his scimitar into the speaker’s face, dropping him to the floor with the crunch of broken teeth. He spun and slashed at the nearest splisskin that had come in the back door of the hut.

Gor bellowed behind him. Namitus wondered if it was the sound of him being hurt, or him hurting someone. It was followed by the wet thwack of steel striking flesh. A very guttural and very human laugh reassured him that Gor was on the winning side of the axe.

Namitus cut the arm off a second splisskin and shaved a significant portion off the side of his head in the same stroke. It was his last effortless kill; the splisskin were recovering and turning towards the companions who still stood.

The rogue swatted the sword of a splisskin into the path of another, tangling them up long enough for him to draw his dagger and slip it between the snake man’s ribs. He twisted and pulled it out, tearing scales and flesh and dropping the splisskin to the ground. With his opponent out of the way, he swung his sword into the second splisskin’s throat. Blood sprayed from the deep gash, racing to the ground against the splisskin’s knees as he fell and tried to stem the flow of his lifeblood.

A woman screamed behind him, drawing Namitus to spin and look. A splisskin grabbed Jillystria by the hair, picking her up from the ground. He raised his talwar to strike her down. The snake man stiffened and twisted. He let out a snarling hiss as he twisted and staggered to the side, struggling to stay on his feet after the damage his leg had taken from the blade that had struck him.

Allisandra scrambled from her knees to her feet. She kept her sword in front of her and deflected a weak attack from the snake man. She swung her sword back and forth, falling into a shifting pattern that made the splisskin hesitate and try, but fail, to drive his sword through her defenses.

It only took Namitus a moment to realize she couldn’t see clear enough to take the offensive. Instead, she was buying time and tying up an attacker. He nodded and twirled around another splisskin that thrust his curved sword at him. Namitus drove the weapon down by scratching the scaly attacker on the forearm with his dagger. That left him the opening he needed to cleave the splisskin’s head in half from his chin to the top of his head.

Namitus danced away, blocking new attacks, and watched Corian wrench his dragon tooth dagger free of the splisskin that Allisandra had injured. Satisfied that the threat had been dealt with, he twisted again and leapt back to avoid a fresh sword thrust. He kicked out, driving the arm and the sword up into the thatch roof. He slashed across and left the splisskin lying in a pool of his own entrails.

“Gor,” Namitus cried. “The post! Hack it down!”

Gor squeezed his large fingers around the face of the splisskin that move to closed to him. He used his great size and strength to slam the two-legged reptile down. Gor’s knees met his chin, snapping his neck back and cracking bone and tooth alike loud enough to echo in the small hut. The splisskin fell and twitched as his broken neck tried to make sense of what had just happened.

The warrior turned back and grabbed the shaft of his double-edged axe. He had to wrench it out of the body of a fallen snake man and then turned and swung it into the center post. The first strike hit with the crack of falling timber. Namitus winced and thrust his scimitar into the belly of another splisskin. The curve of the blade helped to guide it under his ribs and into his chest, finishing the creature for all times.

“To me!” Namitus cried as he lunged towards a doorway. “Follow my voice!”

The splisskin took his message to heart and rushed for him. Corian fell on the snakeman from behind while Gor hewed at the support post one massive blow at a time. Allisandra tried to help but did little aside from injuring and distracting the splisskin trying to reach Corian or Namitus. In the end, she finally managed to cut into one of her scaly targets by hacking where his shoulder met his neck. He fell and let her open up a path for Amra and Jillystria to rush over behind Namitus.

“Through the door!” Namitus cried. He kicked back and drove it upen, spilling the midday light into the hut.

The women bolted through it and drew up short outside. Allisandra stood in front of them, sword held in front of her in a defensive pose while she blinked her eyes to adjust to the sudden light.

“Corian! You too!” Namitus demanded. “Gor, as soon as it’s ready to fall, get over here.”

Corian hesitated and then abandoned the warrior. He ran past Namitus and leapt through the doorway, escaping the trap and the half-dozen unharmed splisskin still inside. Gor hacked another divot of wood free of the pole before a splisskin thrust his sword into the man’s hip.

Gor bellowed and spun, catching the splisskin across the face with the back of his hand. The snake man went down and then cried out as Gor stomped on his chest and crushed his ribs. The warrior swung his axe around, causing two of the splisskin to leap back from him. He lumbered after Corian and joined Namitus near the door.

“It’s ready,” he growled.

“Then go,” Namitus said. “I’ll take care of it.”

“How?”

“Go!” the rogue barked over his shoulder while blocking a sword. He turned back to the splisskin that he’d just parried and drove his dagger into the splisskin’s wrist point-first. He slammed it into the clay wall and let go. “Hold that for me,” he told the hissing splisskin.

“Namitus!” Amra cried from outside of the hut.

“Coming,” Namitus shouted. He used his free hand to dig through his pouch and pull out a glass bauble. He twisted enough to toss it underhand towards the post. The moment he saw the throw was true, he turned back to the door. He misjudged the timing and tried to make a leap to freedom, but wasn’t quick enough.

The bauble hit and broke open. The alchemical mixture was exposed to air and burst into a tiny but powerful fireball. The force of the blast snapped the pole and helped propel Namitus through the open doorway and straight into Gor’s back.

The roof collapsed behind them, burying the splisskin, alive and dead, inside the hut.

Chapter 7

Namitus rolled up onto his hands and knees and jerked when he heard the sound of steel striking steel. He leapt to his feet and turned to see a throng of splisskin surrounding them. Gor roared beside him, distracting him and earning a glance.

The big warrior finished extracting one of the light-throwing spears the splisskin used from his shoulder. He swung it into the hide of a splisskin that was drawing back his sword to stab him and broke the spear in half. The splisskin collapsed, stunned by the impact, and then squealed as Gor drove the broken end into his back and pinned him to the ground.

“Saints,” Namitus muttered at Gor’s savage ferocity. He turned back in time to throw himself to the side and dodge another hurled javelin.

A bowstring thrummed behind him, letting him know that Corian had brought his bow into play. Reassured by his unlikely team, he took three staggered steps towards the nearest splisskin and kicked the walking snake in the inside of his knee while he blocked the man’s sword.

The splisskin staggered from the unexpected kick, leaving Namitus the opening he needed to slip around his flank and drive his sword into his ribs. He twisted around, using his blade to pivot the mortally wounded splisskin, and wrenched his sword free to send the splisskin crashing into the next rank of snake men.

Namitus stood, his shoulders heaving as he breathed, and pivoted back and forth, looking for his next target. The splisskin were pulling back, though less than a dozen remained. Only three were armed. Namitus drew himself up and held up both his free hand and the hand with the bloody sword in it. “Throw down your weapons and surrender!”

One of the splisskin collapsed with a woosh of air and crunch of snapping bones. Gor pulled his axe out of the dead man’s shoulder and held it at the ready. Two armed splisskin remained…and then there was one as Corian’s bow twanged and sent a feathered shaft into the face of another one.

“Enough!” Namitus shouted. “You attacked us! Surrender or I swear by Saint Jarook I will see that every one of you is hunted down and butchered!”

The remaining armed splisskin looked to his fallen kin and then up at Namitus. His jaws parted, baring sharp teeth designed for rending meat. He hissed and raised his sword in defiance. Corian’s arrow slammed into his chest near his shoulder and tore through his soft scales to shatter against the side of a hut behind him.

The splisskin was pulled back by the impact but he recovered and charged forward. He raised his sword to defend against the double-edged axe swinging towards him. It was a futile gesture: Gor’s axe smashed his sword back into his cheek and then parted flesh and bone in his chest.

The other splisskin hissed and scratched air before starting towards them.

Namitus scowled at their savage devotion. “Kill them,” he growled. “Kill them all!”

The splisskin were never without weapons, even without sword or spear they had clawed hands, feet, and a tail that a skilled warrior could use to trip and slap their foes. Neither Namitus nor a single one of his companions escaped the ensuing battle unscathed.

As the sounds of steel and screams wound down, Namitus finished delivering a merciful killing blow to a splisskin with a broken back. He studied the field and forced his eyes to keep moving instead of resting on the carnage. Amra, Allisandra, and Jillystria were standing, though they were breathing hard and had blood dirtying their flesh and clothes. Gor and Corian moved through the fallen, checking them for signs of life and ending them where needed.

Amra held her arm where blood ran down and dripped from her hand. She gulped for breath as tears slid down her cheeks. She whimpered and took a step towards Namitus. Her dagger slipped from her bloody fingers and made her stop to reach down and reclaim it.

Seeing her dagger reminded him of his own. And the hut they’d brought the ceiling down on. He turned and studied it, ensuring everything was as it should have been. He grunted and walked back to his companions.

“Is everyone all right?” Namitus asked. “Gor? I saw you struck a few times—how are you moving still?”

Gor shrugged. “They weren’t bad,” he mumbled. “I haven’t met a splisskin yet that could kill me, but I keep trying.”

Namitus nodded. “Be careful what you search for, my friend. Ladies, talk to me. Jillystria, are you hurt?”

She shook her head. “No…I…I stayed out of the way as much as I could.”

Namitus nodded. “Good, that keeps us from having to keep you safe. Amra, Allisandra?”

“Allie,” Allisandra said.

“Pardon?”

“You’ve been calling me Allisandra since you met me. Call me Allie. Please. We’ve fought together and, I think, proved our friendship. My friends call me Allie.”

Namitus bowed his head. “Of course. It warms my heart to call you a friend.”

“You said something,” Corian stated as he walked over to stand next to his sister.

“I do that. Too much, some say,” Namitus agreed. Amra walked next to him, her eyes glassy with tears and shock. She hugged him and buried her face into his shoulder. Namitus wrapped an arm around her, uncertain of what else to do.

The elf scowled and ignored their unplanned moment of intimacy. “Stop being dismissive. When you spoke to the splisskin swine, you said something I’ve heard before.”

“Oh? What was it?”

“When you spoke of not judging an entire people by the actions of a few,” the elf said. “I heard near the same words from Gildor, Allie’s father, before we raided Shathas.”

Namitus nodded. “It’s true. I learned that while dealing with the different types of people in the mountains. Many are considered monsters, but for a time under Queen Rosalyn they changed and became more civilized. Some remain changed, but they are few and outnumbered by their barbarous kin. Splisskin are the same, I expect.”

“These weren’t,” Gor pointed out.

Namitus frowned. “No, they weren’t. And we’re many days ride from where the Order was. That tells me something.”

“That all splisskin are like these, snakes in the grass?” Allie asked.

Namitus turned to look at her and snickered at her unintended joke. “Perhaps they are.”

Amra picked her head up and looked at Allie. “Snakes in the grass? Really? A joke?”

Allie pressed her lips together and nodded. “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to be funny.”

Amra saw her genuine expression and relaxed against Namitus. “I’m…I’m sorry. This was…horrible! How are you all handling this? It was so scary and violent and…and…by the saints, the smell? It’s horrible! Worse than a butcher’s shop.”

Namitus gave her a squeeze with one arm. “It is, but you learn what to focus on and what not to.”

“Saints! I hope not,” she muttered.

“Anyhow,” Corian snapped. “Now what do we do? Did we learn anything useful from them?”

Namitus frowned. “They knew of Myskakroth. They knew of the Order and have some sort of alliance or allegiance to it. That’s why I didn’t use real names, but tested them in other ways. I’d hoped to learn more. I still hope to learn more.”

“What? How?”

Namitus disengaged himself from Amra with a smile and walked around the side of the hut. He stopped at the rear door of the hut and stooped down to wipe the blood from his blade on the grass before sheathing it. “Here,” he said, pointing at the opening. “Gor, help me out. I left the chief sleeping near the edge. With any luck, he’s still alive enough to answer some questions.”

Gor grunted and hurried to join him. On his way, Corian asked, “What are you, Namitus? I don’t know of any warrior who has such tricks to use. Are you a wizard?”

Namitus stepped out of Gor’s way and shook his head. “Far from it! I’ve picked up a few little tricks along the way. Things that don’t require the painful and rigorous changes necessary to make a person a practitioner of the magical arts.”

“You seem to know a lot about it for not being a wizard,” the elf accused.

“I’ve pestered Kar, our not-so-friendly wizard from our days of being in the Blades of Leander, at length. Get him talking about his one true passion, magic, and he’ll go on for hours, if not days.”

“What I saw didn’t seem like simple magic,” Corian disagreed.

“It was. Parlor tricks, much of it. Some powders and baubles filled with alchemical mixes. The only magic I used was a simple cantrip that set the powder aflame to create an intense flash of light.”

Corian frowned and then let the matter drop.

“Help me,” Gor grunted while he struggled to pick up the roof by one of the shaved trees used as beams.

Namitus squeezed in beside him and grabbed a cross brace. He heaved with Gor and they lifted it up to Gor’s height. Namitus winced at the strain in his fingers and shoulders and was about to call for more help when Gor spoke again.

“I’ll hold it—get under and pull him out.”

The rogue stepped back and dropped to his knees. He slid under and saw the shape of a body nearby. He scooted under and reached out, grabbing the simple leather harness the splisskin wore. He reversed course and tugged, pulling the splisskin back slowly. He kept tugging until he was able to get both hands under the chieftain’s shoulders and drag him out.

Gor let the roof drop and staggered back. He grunted and flexed his hands, working the blood back into them. He turned and looked at the pale splisskin. “He dead?”

Namitus leaned down and felt for a pulse. He frowned and held his hand in front of the chieftain’s face. After a moment, he nodded. “Knocked out is all, I think.”

“Or faking,” Gor said. “They do that sometimes. “Try to trick others into thinking they’re dead.”

The splisskin’s eyes snapped open, startling Namitus and making him jerk his hand back. “You will die! All of you…die!”

“Sooner or later,” Namitus agreed. “But later than you. Tell me about the Order.”

“What Order?”

Namitus opened his mouth to give the full name but he misjudged the defeated splisskin.

“The Order is gone. Fallen. Weak. Cowards,” he continued.

Namitus frowned. “Let’s try something else then,” he said. “What about half-bloods?”

The splisskin’s eyes narrowed and his tongue flicked out to taste the air. Namitus noted the darker red tint on the splisskin’s tongue. The falling ceiling had hurt him on the inside. That or he’d bitten his cheek or tongue.

“That meant something,” Namitus said. “I saw you react.”

He shook his head. “I know nothing. Only to take them if I find them.”

Namitus leaned close. “You failed,” he sneered at the splisskin. He lowered his voice and said, “Failed in every way, snake. I don’t know if the prophecy of a half-blood deciding the fate of the splisskin is true or not, but this half-blood just decided your fate.”

The chieftain stiffened and tried to rise up. One arm was swollen and misshapen, broken by the collapsing roof. His other helped him shift but his legs remained limp on the ground. Breath hissed through his lipless mouth.

Namitus nodded to Gor. “We’re finished.”

Gor picked up his axe that he’d left leaning against the wall of the hut. He lifted it and let it fall like a guillotine blade on the splisskin chieftain. Namitus watched the snake man’s head roll free and forced his hands to unclench.

“What was that about?” Corian asked.

Namitus turned and studied the elf for a moment. “You heard him,” he said. “He didn’t know anything, just that he had orders. If he had orders, you can bet every snake in this part of Kroth has the same orders.”

“You could have asked more,” Corian argued. “And what did you tell him at the end?”

“I told him he’d failed,” Namitus summarized.

“What about who gave him the orders? Who does he serve?” Corian asked.

Namitus shook his head. “We know that.”

“We do? I don’t think so. If you do, maybe you should share it. Instead of plunging us into an ambush and risking our lives for your own agenda.”

“Corian,” Jillystria said, trying to rein her brother in.

“No,” Corian argued. “We need to know this. It’s our lives at stake! He wasn’t there, saving you from the splisskin.”

Namitus drew himself up and faced the young-looking elf. “Look at what you’ve told me. This prophecy about half-bloods, your own trials, and the growing threat the splisskin pose. Now tie it into what I’ve told you. Our challenges with the Order of the Dragon and my own firsthand experience with the splisskin working for the Order. We know who they’re working for.”

“The Order? But he said they were cowards,” Allie said. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“No, that’s not who,” Namitus said. “Dragons created the Order. Dragons and the power-hungry fools who think they can exist on their level.”

“Dragons?” Allie breathed.

Namitus nodded. “There’s a rumored connection between splisskin and dragons. The truth, as I’ve heard it, is there’s no relation between the two. Apparently nobody told the splisskin, though.”

The companions stared at him, digesting his news. Amra spoke first. “So…now what?”

Namitus looked around at the carnage. “Search the village,” he said. “Tear it apart.”