Servant of the Serpent (Serpent's War Book 1) (12 page)

Allie couldn’t stop herself from opening the door and staring out into the yard. Her grandpa was surrounded. Two of the snake men were on the ground already but more were running to overwhelm him. She saw a splisskin with a sword thrust at her grandpa from behind. He moved to the side, somehow knowing what was coming, but she saw him stagger and reach for the cut on his side.

“Grandpa!” Allie shouted. He’d told her how important it was to protect your back and flank in a fight. If she could attack the splisskin from behind, she’d help him. And this time she wouldn’t drop her sword. She’d been shocked the first time. This time she’d be ready!

“Stay back!” he shouted as he spun and hacked the arm off a splisskin. He twisted back, driving another snake man back. He slipped on the tail of a dead splisskin and tried to recover. A spear bit into his hip, earning a grunt and curse.

Allie whimpered and took her first step. She meant to run but her hair was grabbed and pulled on, yanking her head back. Her feet went out from under her and she fell, hitting the ground and losing her breath. She stared up and saw the flickering light from the fire on the smoke that filled the sky and blocked out the stars. A shape filled her vision: another splisskin. She gasped, sucking in air to her stunned lungs, and tried to sit up.

The splisskin’s foot crashed into the side of her head, rolling her over and driving her sense from her.

Chapter 12

“Gildor, you sure you don’t want to come all the way?” the wagon driver offered. “It’s twice the gold.”

Gildor shook his head. “Less than a day from Almont and you’ll be in Shazamir. The guards will keep you safe from bandits.”

“Ah, but who’s to keep me safe from the guards?”

Gildor chuckled. “They’ve been better since the new king took over.”

The driver cut off another section of tabas root and slipped it in his mouth to chew on. “It’s only a matter of time,” he muttered around the root.

Gildor laughed at the driver’s skepticism. “You’ll be fine. Besides, I’m longing for a home-cooked meal. That’s worth its weight in gold.”

“I’ve met some barmaids like that,” Dakota, the other caravan guard, reminisced.

Gildor smirked and kept his thoughts to himself. His reputation as a guard and pathfinder was what earned him easy pickings for work and top rates. The last thing he needed was word getting out of any questionable habits or rumors about his behavior.

“Come by the Silverdust. I’ll buy your meal and talk you into it,” the driver said.

“Hey, what about mine?” Dakota asked.

“You’re already coming the whole way; I don’t need to bribe you.”

“Maybe I’ll change my mind!”

“Go back on a contract? I don’t think so.”

Dakota cursed. “Hey, why not a bonus for having the goodwill to go the length with you?”

The wagon driver laughed. “Keep dreaming.”

Dakota opened his mouth to try a new tack but Gildor waved him silent. Gildor narrowed his eyes as he scanned the countryside ahead of them. “You smell that?”

Dakota sniffed and frowned. “Old campfire?”

“Almont’s not far,” the driver said. “Probably a chimney.”

Dakota disagreed with a shake of his head.

“Stay with the wagon,” Gildor said before he snapped his reins and urged Patches forward.

“Gildor, come back! You can’t—”

“You’re following me,” Gildor shouted over his shoulder. “I’m making sure your path ahead is clear.”

Gildor rode on, the driver’s protests fading into the background. Patches went from a trot into a light gallop at Gildor’s urging. He rode between hills and followed the road, the smell of stale smoke growing stronger by the second. Gildor’s heart hammered in his chest and his throat dried. His fears turned to solid ice in his stomach when he saw the first blackened and charred building at the southern edge of the village.

“Allie!” he hissed and put his feet to his horse. Patches snorted at the treatment but jerked forward, running harder and tearing through the burnt-out hulks that had been Almont. Bodies littered the ground, most of them human but a few covered in scales. Dogs, rats, birds, and other scavengers fled from the galloping horse, only to return after they passed by.

Gildor slowed when he reached his father’s home and leapt off the saddle. The house, like the others, was burned to the stone foundation. The small barn, of all the structures in the village, remained untouched. Brownie and Stinkeye whinnied and pushed against the fence. Gildor glanced at the horses and then away, his eyes falling on the pile of splisskin bodies that had been picked over by scavengers. In the midst, he could make out a hand that wasn’t covered in scales.

Gildor stepped closer and kicked the stiff limbs of a splisskin out of the way. A cloud of buzzing flies took to the air, disturbed by his action. He ignored them and reached into the gory mess of slain bodies. He pulled the hand out and found it had been severed just above the wrist. He dropped it and staggered back a step. His gorge rose and he had to squeeze his eyes shut for a moment to collect himself.

Battle and death wasn’t a problem; he’d had to deal with that in the past. Knowing the hand might very well belong to his father was another thing entirely. He forced his chest to work and draw in breath, no matter how charnel it was. The pile of bodies had no other sign of a man among it. Not a human man, at least.

He turned to the burnt skeleton of Bucknar’s house and then looked to the ground. The sun was setting but it was high enough yet to shed a fiery glow on the remains of the town. It also allowed him to see a trail across the ground. Something—or more likely somebody—had been dragged to the barn.

With his heart once again in his throat, Gildor walked as fast as he dared to the barn without breaking into a run. He reached the door and glanced at the anxious horses. Patches had already made his way to the fence to be with them in some sort of horsey camaraderie. Or perhaps commiseration was a better choice of words.

Gildor opened the door and let the light fall past him into the barn onto the body of his father. He stared at the man, shocked into paralysis, and then rushed forward. He turned him from where he lay on his side, his bloody stump of an arm clutched to his side. Flies rose up from the body, upset and swarming. Bucknar’s eyes were open and filmed over. His body pale and beginning to bloat.

“Saints,” Gildor muttered. He staggered to the side, his legs weak. He bumped into a table and used it to hold himself up while he stared at his dad’s body.

Bucknar was cut and stabbed time and again. Gildor couldn’t tell if his severed arm was the worst of his wounds or not; he had several that would have been enough to kill him. But he’d fought like a devil, if the pile outside was a testimony. Gildor stared long and hard, his vision blurring with tears that filled his eyes and ran down his face.

“Gildor!” Dakota shouted from outside. “Gildor? Where are you?”

Gildor jerked his head up but didn’t answer. Dakota would want answers. Answers he didn’t have. His father was dead and he was sure the charred remains of his daughter were in the house. Because he’d left her instead of staying with her. Or keeping her with him. He kept promising that one more job and he’d retire and stay at home. He’d work harder to farm and make a living. He just needed a little more gold to buy a few more tools.

Now all the gold in the world didn’t matter. Everyone was gone. His house, if he returned, would mock him. It would laugh at how foolish he’d been. It would be a fitting punishment from the saints for daring to think he could do more.

“Gil—there you are! Oh saints—is that Bucknar?” Dakota asked as he found Gildor inside the barn.

Gildor nodded but didn’t turn away.

“He gave a good fight, though, didn’t he? Damn, that’s a lot of those snake-humping bastards for one man,” Dakota offered. “Say, what’s that he’s got there?”

Gildor glanced at Dakota and then looked down at his father. He moved to the side, finding the strength in his legs returning. A plank of wood beside Bucknar was clutched in his hand. Gildor reached for it and pulled it free. He could see writing on it and had to move to the open doorway to get light enough to read it.

“Saints! He wrote it in his own blood!” Dakota muttered.

Gildor stared at the four-word message and read it slowly, as though he didn’t believe what he was seeing, “Down River. I’m Sorry.”

“Sorry? What’s he sorry for? I think he done better than any man’s got a right to,” Dakota observed.

Gildor turned and stared to the west. Did he mean they came from down river or they went that way? Not that it mattered, he supposed. They were gone and everyone was dead. The entire town, as near as he could tell. Maybe some outlying houses had survived, but if they had, where were the people who lived in them?

Gildor turned back to his father’s house. They’d built it after he’d saved Allisandra. Bucknar had insisted, after the house was up, that they build a hiding spot beneath it. They’d dug it out and built the bolt-hole, but had never finished digging an escape tunnel. They couldn’t figure out where to take it. They were men, not dwarves—they didn’t know anything about supporting the walls and ceiling underground.

But the bolt-hole itself might be all right. Bucknar would make certain Allie was in it. Gildor pushed past Dakota, surprising the man, and hurried to the remains of the house. The wooden floor was burnt and charred, cracking and crumbling underfoot. He made his way through the wreckage to where Bucknar’s bedroom had been. The bed was burnt and even the heavy wooden frame crumbled apart. He kicked the chunks of charcoal aside, exposing some coals that still glowed.

The floor beneath the bed was in better shape. It was blackened from the fire but looked intact. He looked around for a tool to pry it open with. His father’s iron fire poker was what they usually used, but there was no telling where it would be in the mess.

Gildor stopped and stared down at his feet. Had he heard something? He listened and then picked up his foot and stomped it down. A moment later, he heard a thump again and gasped. The stink of death and ash didn’t matter anymore. Someone was alive in the bolt-hole. There was only one person other than Bucknar who knew about it. It had to be Allie! Gildor turned, desperate to find the poker.

Dakota watched him from outside the ruins and shook his head. “I’ll head back to the wagon,” he said. “You come when you’re ready. Nothing left for you here.”

“My daughter!” Gildor said. “She’s trapped.”

Dakota stiffened. “You got a kid? Saints alive, man, why didn’t you say so?”

Gildor kicked the burnt wreckage aside, kicking up ashes and the occasional ember. He looked all around the fireplace but didn’t see the tool. He found the head of a hatchet, but the shaft had burned in the fire. Gildor cursed and turned back, searching the wreckage before the light faded for the day.

“What are you looking for?” Dakota asked. “How do you know she’s trapped? There’s nothing here.”

“Underneath,” Gildor said. “There’s a trap door. I need something to pick the door up with.”

“Where is it?”

Gildor pointed to where he’d cleared the bed away. Dakota went over and studied the ground. He nodded and dropped to a knee and took out his dagger. “Wedge knives in and pry it up, then we can grab it.”

Gildor licked the soot off his lip and grimaced. “Good thinking,” he said as he hurried to join him. Between the two, they wedged knives in the crack and pried, lifting the section of floor up enough to get their fingers underneath. Once they had a grip, the trap door lifted easily, revealing the dark pit beneath.

“Gildor—there’s nothing down there.”

“There’s another door,” Gildor said.

Dakota peered into the darkness. “Another door?”

Gildor crawled into the sloping tunnel to the door. It was blackened by the heat but the door was solid. Gildor pounded his fist against it and received an answering thump a moment later. He turned to the latch and pulled up on it. The door jerked against the lock.

“Damn, he locked it,” Gildor muttered.

“Locked it?” Dakota asked.

“Allie!” Gildor shouted at the door. “You have to unlock it. I don’t have the key.”

He heard some scrambling through the thick door but the door remained shut. It wasn’t a simple lock, especially in the dark. He was about to give up and go and face the unenviable task of going through Bucknar’s pockets when he heard wood creaking and splitting.

He looked down, his eyes having adjusted to the dark, and saw something white and sharp sticking through the door. It wiggled and moved, cutting across against the grain in a sawing motion and then pulled back through the door. A moment later, it reappeared, the sharp edges pointing up and down. The strange tool cut up through the wood and, after several moments, it sawed across to the edge of the door.

Gildor waited several seconds after the knife disappeared before he pushed against it. The door swung up and the cut-out section around the latch fell free. A figure moved back in the gloom, the dull white dagger held out.

“Allie! Allie, come out of there,” Gildor called. “It’s okay, I’m back.”

The figure moved closer but kept the knife up. “I’m not Allie,” a man’s soft voice said. His speech was accented, but not enough that Gildor couldn’t understand him.

Gildor stared at the man, his mouth hanging open. He searched around the hole, willing his eyes to pierce the gloom and find his daughter. He was alone. Gildor’s stomach dropped and he fell back.

“She saved me,” the man said and approached again. He lowered his dagger but didn’t sheathe it. “Her and her grandfather.”

“Saved you from what, the splisskin?” Dakota asked. “Who are you, one of the village boys?”

“I’m no boy,” he announced with an edge to his voice. “My name is Corian. And they saved me from where I’d washed up after falling in the Asatra River.”

“Asatra?” Dakota asked.

The man approached closer, coming into the light enough for his features to be seen. “Your people call it the Silverflake.”

“You’re an elf,” Gildor mumbled.

Dakota grunted. “That explains it.”

“Where’s my daughter? Where’s Allie?” Gildor demanded.

“I was sick. They put me in here, but I barely remember any of it,” he said. “She locked me in here and left. When I woke up next, I was coughing and was sure I would die from the smoke and heat. I passed out again, certain to never wake. Then I heard you, and I thought she’d come back to save me again.”

Gildor turned away and crawled out of the hole. He stood up and stared at the wreckage in the last rays of the sun. He shook his head slowly. He had to find her. He’d bury her and Bucknar together, and then he’d go after the splisskin. That was all he had left. Guarding wagons and guiding travelers didn’t serve a purpose anymore. A quiet life on a farm? For what? For who? It wasn’t a life he craved anymore, not without someone to live it with.