Rise of the Serpent (Serpent's War Book 2) (9 page)

“Why?” Jillystria asked.

“I have a hunch,” Namitus said.

“A hunch?” Corian asked. “What now?”

Namitus offered a humorless smile. “I have a feeling we’re going to find proof that this is more than a village.”

“What…why?”

Namitus drew his scimitar, causing the others to tense up at the surprise movement. “This is my weapon. You have a dagger and a bow. Gor has an axe big enough to cleave a hole in a Kelgryn ship. Allie has her talwar; Amra a dagger. None of us wield the same weapons, yet every one of them had matching swords and some had the same throwing spears.”

“So? They’re made by the same smithy,” Corian said.

Allie shook her head. “You think they’ve been outfitted.”

Namitus favored her with a smile. “I do. And my guess is there’s many more.”

“The chests,” Gor grunted and turned to look at the collapsed hut.

“Not there, I don’t think,” Namitus said. “Why risk them? Besides, spears would not fit in those chests.”

“If not weapons in the hut, what then?” Gor asked.

“I’d love to find out,” Namitus said. “But I’m not willing to spend the time digging through it.”

“I will,” Gor grunted. “You check the other huts.”

Namitus pressed his lips together, considering the options. He nodded. “Sounds good. Amra, with me. Jillystria, with—”

“She’ll be with me,” Corian snapped.

“Of course,” the rogue said. “Allie?”

“I’ll help Gor,” Allie said.

Namitus shrugged. He sheathed his scimitar and turned to Amra. “Shall we, my lady?”

“You’re mad.” Amra laughed.

“You’ll not be the last to say it.”

They split up into their groups and began to ransack the huts. Amra was shy about it at first until she saw Namitus pushing furniture out of the way and tipping barrels and tables over. She joined in, breaking a fresh sweat by the time they cleared their fourth hut. She met his eyes and shook her head. They hadn’t found much of anything beyond utensils and useless personal effects.

“Namitus!” Corian cried.

“Saints,” Namitus muttered. He rushed out of the hut and stared until he heard the elf call his name again. He hurried over to the hut the man called from and saw him standing next to a dark hole in the ground. The sleeping pallet was tossed aside, revealing the pit. “What’s down there?”

“Weapons and armor,” Corian said. His words were clipped, as though they tasted bad on his tongue.

“Ha,” Namitus cried. “You know what this means, right?”

“There are stores like this all over the place,” Corian said.

Namitus nodded. He looked up and glanced around. “Where’s your sister?”

“She’s fetching the horses,” he said.

Namitus frowned and turned to Amra. He nodded to her and she turned and ducked out of the hut.

“Jilly can handle herself; she’s only retrieving the horses,” Corian said.

Namitus walked out of the hut and circled it until he saw Amra heading towards Jillystria. The elf had gathered the reins of the horses and led two of them while the others were tied to the saddles of the horses in front of them. He smiled. His grandmother was calm and quiet. Shy or timid, perhaps. Whatever the case, she got along well with animals.

He waved them over and pointed to the site of the battle. Jillystria waved back, signaling she understood. Satisfied, Namitus turned and headed to the hut to see what progress was being made. He glanced up at the sky as he walked. The mist had been burned off but a thin covering of clouds remained. They were thin enough he could see the sun was beyond the high point in the sky, marking a descent towards dusk.

“Namitus!” Allie panted when she saw him. She straightened from where she’d been resting her hands on her legs and turned to point at one of the chests. “We got one!” she cried. “The others are broken. Nothing of worth, just pieces of leather, metal, and cloth.”

“What’s in this one?” he asked.

Gor grinned and flipped the lid back. Several bulging sacks were gathered together. Beneath them, the glint of metal could be seen. “Coins,” he said.

Namitus bent over and pushed the small sacks around. “Copper and silver mostly. Some gold too.”

“A fortune!” Allie cried. She patted her belt and stared at Namitus with rounded eyes. “Oh! I forgot, I pulled this out of the wreckage too.”

Namitus smirked and took his dagger back from her. He nodded and then looked down at the chest again. “Just coins,” he said. “They come and go. True wealth is in the people who will stand at your side through the toughest of times.”

Allie glanced at Gor and then back to Namitus. “Seems I’ve got both then.”

Namitus chuckled. “Let’s fill as many sacks as we can. Favor the gold and silver. We’ll load the horses within reason.”

“What about the rest?” Gor asked.

Namitus shrugged. “Leave it or bury it, if you think you might come back this way.”

Allie’s eyes widened. “Bury it,” she insisted. “I can’t bear the thought of giving it away to someone who hasn’t earned it.”

Namitus kept his thoughts to himself about earning the money. He nodded instead and turned to see the horses nearly upon them. “Let’s be quick about it. We’ve many hours left and I want to be as far from here as we can be by the time the sun sets.”

Chapter 8

Allie rolled onto her side and stared across the dark and gloomy landscape of the swamp. She shivered now that the humid air had finally lost yesterday’s heat. Morning had to be close; she felt rested.

No, she felt anxious. She was alert because her last time in a swamp had scared her more than anything she’d ever seen in her life. She’d endured worse since then, but her skin still crawled and ice formed in her belly when she remembered it.

Allie rolled over, trying to get comfortable. The ground was soft but her bedroll was damp now. There was no comfort to be had. She sighed and looked around, trying not to get freaked out by the darker shadows the trees and clumps of weeds in the swamp formed. She kept looking and froze when she saw the unnatural bulge on the side of a tree staring back at her.

Namitus nodded, freeing her chest so she could breathe again. He blended in with the tree so well she wouldn’t have known it was him if not for his eyes.

Allie climbed to her feet and walked over to him. “Can’t sleep,” she said. “Figured I might as well help you keep watch.”

Namitus smiled and nodded to the root he was sitting on. She moved next to him and sat down, facing away from the others instead of towards them.

“Why is it only you, Corian, and Gor split the watches? The rest of us can help.”

Namitus turned on the log so he could see her more easily. He had his ready smile on his boyish face, putting her at ease and making her want to trust him. “Probably, but if you can sleep, why not sleep? I don’t sleep much. I never have.”

“Why?”

Namitus shrugged her question off. “Just the way I am. What about you, though? Why can’t you sleep?”

She sighed and looked at the hanging moss and vines of the swamp. “The swamp. I had a bad experience in a swamp once.”

“What happened?”

“I was bound and gagged in the bottom of a boat filled with splisskin.”

Namitus winced. “That’ll do it.”

“That wasn’t the worst.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What could be worse than that?”

“We stopped at a splisskin camp in the swamp, but there was a human there too. A wizard, I think. He talked to me a little, nothing much, just that he wanted to know where my grandfather took the elf and her half-blood child.”

“Doesn’t seem so bad,” Namitus ventured.

Allie shook her head. “That wasn’t. It was the dragon that scared me.”

Namitus stiffened. He turned and glanced at the others and then back to her. “Dragon?” he asked.

Allie shivered and nodded. “He was enormous and…well, terrifying. He told me things, but I was so scared I don’t remember what he said, just that I would give them what they wanted, I think. I would have done almost anything to stop him from talking and looking at me.”

Namitus nodded. “They are powerful beyond our understanding. I’ve been present or a part of killing a few of them, and it takes a team of very skilled men and women to do it. Even then, truly defeating one requires some trick of magic that seems a one in a million chance.”

“And you’ve done this?” she breathed.

“I’ve seen it done,” he said. “Alto, now he’s the true dragonslayer of this age. Well, Alto and Garrick, perhaps.”

“Your friend, the king and the…barbarian?”

Namitus nodded.

Allie shivered again. “He—the dragon—breathed fire on one of the splisskin that failed him. It burned to ash in the blink of an eye. The trees in the swamp, much like these, burst into flames and burnt out so quickly the fire had no time to spread.”

“I’ve found the best thing to do when it comes to dragons is avoid them. I’m not the hero type, though; my talents lie in other areas.”

“What areas?” Allie asked. “I couldn’t see much in that hut the other day, but you were the one moving like a desert storm from one splisskin to the next and leaving them holding their innards in their hands.”

“That’s quite a picture for not being able to see much.”

Allie shrugged. “I’ve had to learn to see things with my ears,” she said. She fought back the memory of being tortured with red-hot irons by the splisskin before they healed her injuries so they could do it all over again. “Sometimes the eyes can’t be trusted.”

Namitus raised an eyebrow. “Thank you for telling me. It confirms my belief that there’s a dragon behind this.”

“Why?” she asked. “Why would they care? About us, I mean.”

“Dragons aren’t mere animals that carry off village maidens like a wolf hunting a sheep,” Namitus explained. “They have goals and needs beyond my understanding. They covet power and as much as they have, they long for more. Sarya wanted it to become immortal.”

Allie gasped. “I hadn’t thought of that. I mean, I guess I never considered how long they lived. I assumed it was forever.”

“Nothing lives forever,” he said. “As far as I know, that is. Perhaps the saints. Sarya had plans to transfer her soul into a silver statue that her magic would mobilize. Alto interrupted the ceremony and trapped her inside it. A few years later, when we learned what he’d done, we went back and finished it before she could take over Rosalyn, the Dragon Queen, and live anew in her body.”

“Wow,” Allie breathed. “That’s a complicated story.”

“You have no idea.” Namitus chuckled.

“This time there’s a dragon, but there’s no Alto. Just Namitus,” she said. “This time it’s your turn to be the hero.”

Namitus’s eyes widened. He shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. You, Gor, and even Corian and Jillystria. You’re the heroes.”

“So what are you?”

Namitus winked. “I’m the storyteller.”

She stared at him and considered his many stories he’d already told them. She smiled. “You do seem to excel at that. But you’re better than any of us in a fight, too—even Gor.”

“I wouldn’t go up against Gor with an army behind me,” Namitus said. “Have you seen his axe? It’s big enough to chop a mountain down!”

Allie felt some of the growing tension slip out as she laughed. She covered her mouth so she didn’t risk waking up any of the others and glanced at them. Her eyes fell on Amra. “Are you and Amra…?”

Namitus followed her gaze. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Of us all, she has the least experience outside of what she knew. She’s scared, but doing well.”

“She’s fond of you, though,” Allie said. “I know that much.”

Namitus shrugged. “I promised her father I would keep her safe, and I told her I would be her friend. I’m not encouraging anything more.”

Allie’s lips parted in a silent gasp. “Safe? Hello? There’s an army of splisskin massing and a dragon behind them!”

“I love a challenge,” Namitus said. “They make the best stories to tell.”

Allie snorted. “You really are mad.”

Namitus grinned. He turned his head and did a quick sweep of the swamp. Seeing nothing, he returned his attention to Allie. “How old did you say you were?”

“Seventeen.”

“I was on my own by half that age,” he said. “I’m not bragging, just a sad statement of how foolish I’ve been. Alto saw his family murdered by that age.”

Allie frowned. “Why are you telling me this?”

“So you know you’re not alone.”

“Not alone?” she asked. She snorted. “My family is dead, Namitus. And you know what, they weren’t even my family. Not my real one. My father, Gildor, found me when I was only a few months old in a burning house in Assurion’s Crossing. He saved me and swam across the Silverflake River while they threw their spears at him.”

“Sounds like your father was a hero. Whether he was real or not, that’s the kind of man who deserves the title.”

Allie clamped her lips together and nodded. She turned away to keep him from seeing the tears in her eyes. “He was,” she agreed. “Grandpa too.”

She started when Namitus placed his hand on hers. She hesitated and glanced down at their hands on the tree root and then up at him. On her way, she was distracted by movement out of the corner of her eye. Amra sat up and was looking at them. Allie jerked her head to Namitus and saw he’d noticed Amra as well.

She opened her mouth to insist his hand on hers meant nothing. No words came out, or at least not from her mouth.

Namitus motioned for Amra to join them with his other hand. “You have seen more and traveled farther, but I think you should spend some time with Amra. It might do you both some good to have a friend near your own age.”

Allie watched Amra approach. Her eyes kept darting to their hands, making Allie’s itch. She slipped it out from beneath Namitus’s and rubbed it against her pants before leaving it in her lap. “Hi,” she said. “Can’t sleep?”

Amra looked at both of them before answering. “Seems I’m not the only one.”

“Allie and I were talking about the splisskin, helping me get a better understanding of what it is that is going on.”

“She did, did she?” Amra asked.

Allie fought the urge to grimace. First she’d asked him to call her Allie instead of Allisandra and now this. She hadn’t felt any sort of impropriety from him at all. Namitus was a kind and good-hearted man.

“I was right,” Namitus continued, amazing Allie at how he ignored the suspicious tone in Amra’s voice. “There is a dragon behind the splisskin. He’s uniting them and driving them, but first they seem to want to find as many half-bloods as they can.”

Amra’s eyes went to Namitus and stayed there. Her voice changed to a concerned tone when she asked, “Have they…um, found anyone yet?”

Allie frowned. She turned to look at Namitus and then back at Amra.

“No, not yet,” he said.

“Am I missing something?” Allie wondered as she glanced back and forth at the two.

“What?” both of them asked.

“The two of you act like you know something about this. Something more, I mean.”

Amra and Namitus looked at each other before turning back to her. Amra pressed her lips together and shook her head. Namitus sighed.

“What is it?” Allie demanded.

“I’m a half-blood,” Namitus said. “Half-elven. Well, quarter-elven to be precise, but even a pinch of blood is enough, or so I’m told.”

Allie’s eyes widened and her jaw fell open. She recovered after a moment of being too stunned to think and jerked her head back to the camp. Corian and Jillystria were asleep, no doubt thanks to Gor’s snoring droning out the conversation.

She turned back to Namitus. “You have to tell them! Do you…no, that would be impossible. You’re not old enough. And you’re not a woman.”

“He’s been known to dress in women’s clothing,” Amra offered with a satisfied smile.

Namitus sighed. “No, I’m not ready to. I may never be ready to.”

“What? Why not?”

“Jillystria is my grandmother.”

Allie jumped to her feet and stared at him. She turned and watched the sleeping elf before comparing her features with Namitus’s face. “By the saints! I see it! But…how?”

“Her daughter, Lilliandara, is my mother. She had me when she was young and left me with her parents while she ran off with my father. I don’t remember ever seeing them, although I’m told they checked in on me a few times when I was a baby.”

“How do you know?”

“I saw my mother a few times as I grew up—”

“No, you just said—”

Namitus shook his head, stopping her in mid-sentence. “I did; my apologies. I meant I don’t remember seeing them when I was a child at home. I knew their names and I learned where they would play their music when they came to Mira. I waited and watched, seeing them from the crowd without her ever knowing.”

“That must have been horrible,” Allie whispered. “I couldn’t have done it.”

Namitus shrugged. “She made her choice, but I wanted to know why.”

“But you said she never knew. Didn’t you ask her?” Allie wondered.

“No, I didn’t need to,” he said. “The way they played together, his pipes and her voice. It was clear. They couldn’t have the life they wanted to live if they’d have been burdened with a child.”

“Burdened?” Amra gasped. “A child’s not a burden! It’s a—”

Namitus chuckled. “I was a burden. That’s why I left at a young age. My grandparents didn’t deserve the trouble I brought home.”

“Wow,” Allie said.

Namitus smiled. “I trust you’ll keep this private?”

She nodded. It didn’t seem right, but that was from what she knew of Jillystria. The elf was a caring woman who wanted to atone for her past. Her daughter was missing still, but her grandson was right in front of her. If only she knew.

But Namitus wanted otherwise. It was his right, she supposed. She stopped nibbling her lip and nodded. “I will.”

“Good,” he said. “Now go and get some rest. I mean to make it to Shadowmarsh tomorrow. I think we’ve learned enough about what we’re against. It’s time we found this Lariki and saw what sort of man he is.”

Allie nodded. “It would be good to be done with this,” she admitted. She smiled at Amra. “Good night, Amra.”

“Good night,” Amra said, her voice slipping back into a stiffer tone.