Serpent Kings Saga (Omnibus Edition), Page 3

  I tried to imagine my Elder Mother in action. Zora had always been so graceful. Even so, very few could match her ferocity. I longed to be like her some day.

  “The third man was the one carrying the bomb,” Sarah continued. “Zora tried, but was unable to reach him before he detonated inside the cafeteria. She is among the bravest of our elders. Gwen, you should go to her; try to comfort her.”

  I watched Zora straining against the women holding her down. It was terrible. There had been very few times I wanted to run from something. The first time I was punished by Zora for exploring the ancient ruins came to mind. She had been so scared for me; so angry at my disobedience that could have easily harmed me. Seeing her face when I was returned to her—I had wanted to run very much that day.

  But now, seeing her like this, I wanted to run again. Still, Sarah urged me on. I found myself moving toward the surgical suite, toward my suffering Elder Mother. I watched as fatigue came over her, overwhelming the pain. She was so tired. I rushed forward then. One of the physicians, Marla, saw me and nodded. The girl holding her left arm moved out of my way, allowing me to take her place.

  “Zora?” I whispered. She didn’t seem to hear me. I called to her again, closer to her ear this time. She turned, tried to focus on my face. I could see recognition dawn within her eyes. She tried to whisper my name, but the stab of a suture needle running through her abdomen stole it away as she grimaced against the pain.

  “Zora,” I said again. “I’m here. You can do it, Zora. Let the pain melt away from you. Call for the gifts.”

  Her eyes closed gently, her face relaxing a little as she tried to concentrate on the Gifts of Transcendence. I held her hand, gently whispering to her, encouraging her. I stroked what was left of her hair, weeding out bits of dirt and debris, ignoring the metallic odor of blood that filled the room.

  Zora calmed down within moments, concentrating only upon her breathing and the sound of my voice now. The tension in the room seemed to abate. The physicians kept up their work stitching closed the wound in Zora’s belly. I closed my eyes and concentrated with my Elder Mother, whispering a prayer to Belial for her.

  DEATH WALKING

  Donavan stood smiling at the small crowd of villagers who had stopped to listen to him. He had just concluded his dissertation examining the current state of kingdom affairs, the true nature of their dragon gods and the imminent return of their long forgotten Creator. One of the men nearest to him looked as though he might have a comment, to which Donavan offered, “Yes?”

  A meaty slab of fist slammed into his jaw, sending stars across his vision and his body backward into the wall of their town hall. He bounced off of it back into the man’s pudgy hands, stammering for a word as blood gathered in his mouth. The small crowd of less than twenty persons jeered at him, picking up mud and stones from the street to throw in his direction.

  The thick man turned around, holding him by his shirt, and then tossed Donavan away from him into the street. It had been raining the day before when Donavan had come to the village, carrying Ezekiah’s message of hope of Elithias’ coming. He landed sprawling in the muddy street. The rocks and clods of mud followed him. They bounced off of his back and legs and head, stinging him.

  He was assaulted with insults besides. Even the women congregated around him were swearing at him and lobbing their share of projectiles in his direction. They cursed him by their dragon gods, calling him an ignorant fool.

  Donavan had not come unprepared to hear such things. Ezekiah himself had warned his disciples that the citizens of the kingdom would likely not want to hear their message. “This world and their serpent gods are the only things they have ever known,” he had warned. “Do not think that they will welcome you into their midst. Man’s heart has been turned from Elithias for nearly a thousand years. We cannot expect to undo the resulting damage in a day. They will despise you and spit upon you or worse. Only, do not be afraid of them. Remember that Elithias watches over us.”

  A fist sized rock smacked the back of his head. His vision blurred, then went black. He felt a warm trickle down through his hair onto his neck. The voices grew distant and muffled. The impact of stones seemed little more than small pricks at his skin.

  Donavan opened his eyes, coming back to himself and his situation. He waited for the rocks pounding his flesh, but they did not come. The voices had grown quiet. In fact, now that he listened, the whole village had become eerily still. He lifted his head, but did not see anyone standing around him as they had been only a moment before.

  Feeling the back of his head with his hand, Donavan came away with congealed blood on his fingers. The bleeding had already stopped. Still, he could feel a sizeable knot where he’d been struck.

  He moved, getting his hands and knees under him. Donavan could feel bruises all over his body. His jaw was still hurting. He hoped it wasn’t broken where the man had punched him. Rocks of various sizes lay around him in the street along with broken clods of dirt.

  Donavan raised his head, noticing the sky for the first time. The sun had been high overhead during his preaching. Now, it was hovering just above one of the distant mountains in the west. Dusk was approaching. Soon the sun would be down completely. Had he really been unconscious for hours?

  Villagers should have been quite busy right now, trying to complete the day’s tasks and preparing for the evening meal before darkness swept across the land. Donavan stood to his feet. The only thing active right now was a steady breeze blowing dust and light debris down the streets of the little town.

  Perhaps the citizens of the village had already gone indoors leaving him for dead out in the street. It wasn’t a comforting thought, or an unexpected one. After all, Ezekiah had been right about the response the preachers would experience as they traveled throughout the kingdom spreading the good news.

  Donavan brushed at some of the dirt encrusting his shirt and jacket. The best thing he could do at this point was probably to move on. No one would likely grant him a room after so warm a reception. Still, the thought of trying to travel through the wilderness toward the next town at this late hour was not a very promising prospect.

  A lamp was burning inside the local general store. Donavan could still feel the coin pouch hidden beneath his belt. At least the villagers hadn’t robbed him. He began walking across the street toward the store. He might at least purchase some provisions for his journey before setting off in search of a place to make camp for the night.

  As he approached the store, Donavan noticed that several of the small square panes making up the whole front window had been smashed. There was no one stirring within, as far as he could tell from the street. A wagon with no horse sat in front of the store. However, when Donavan came upon it, he noticed that part of a torn harness was lying before it in a pool of blood that trailed away from the wagon down the damp street.

  Donavan’s eyes followed the trail until he spotted the dark figure of a horse lying on its side near the edge of town. It was not moving. No driver could be found. Fear crawled up Donavan’s spine. What had happened while he was unconscious in the street? Had the angry group gone on some bloodthirsty rampage?

  He stepped over the crimson trail, coming to the door of the general store. It was hanging on one hinge half open. Donavan pushed past it, trying to make as little noise as possible. He crept inside. His feet crunched on the broken glass lying on the dusty wooden floor. He paused, grimacing. But no one appeared to have noticed. Nothing moved. He noticed that some of the goods had been knocked off the shelves. Sacks of grain had been torn open, spilling their contents out onto the floor. A shelf near the back wall had been overturned.

  He spotted a bloody handprint on the wall behind the counter. The stain was smeared as though the hand that had made it were sliding downward. Donavan tiptoed to the counter and looked behind it. There, lying on the floor was the body of the shop keeper. His neck was twisted almost completely around and his abdomen had been torn open—not at all lik
e a blade had done the work.

  This looked like some beast had gotten to him without care for the carnage it wrought. Flies had begun to buzz around his open wound, and Donavan thought he might be sick if he didn’t get out of there immediately. He backed away from the counter holding his hand over his nose and mouth.

  As he started to turn for the door again, Donavan noticed something out of the corner of his eye. A man was standing at the rear of the store in the shadows looking at him. Donavan knew he had not been standing there before. “You there, do you know who did this to the shop keeper?” he asked the man.

  There was only a low gurgling sound, then the man shuffled forward a few steps, coming more into the light. Donavan had been about to ask again, but was horrified as the light revealed the man’s blood stained clothing. His nose and mouth were covered in fresh blood; not as though he’d been injured, but more like he had been feeding. He had the appearance of a man who drops his face into his plate, eating ravenously.

  Donavan caught sight of his eyes then. They were black as night even where the white sclera should have been, like two opals set into the man’s skull. Donavan realized he was trembling, barely containing his own fear. He wanted to run, but instinct told him it was unwise; like standing your ground with an angry dog, knowing that if you run it will think of you as prey and come after you.

  His eyes scanned the room. Donavan spotted farming implements and tools laid out on a table nearby. He looked back at the man who still hadn’t moved toward him. Donavan edged toward the table, letting his hands creep over it, taking hold of a hatchet in his left and a machete in his right.

  The bloody fiend had followed his movements over the table. His gaze returned to Donavan’s face as he straightened with his makeshift weapons in his hands. Even though he was armed now, Donavan was still terrified. The fiend grinned at him, as if smelling his fear in the air. It licked its lips hungrily and started toward him.

  Donavan backed away toward the awkward hanging door, crunching broken glass beneath his feet again. The fiend picked up speed, lumbering toward him despite being unarmed. The man raised his gore-stained hands, reaching for his next victim. Donavan turned, running through the half open door.

  He began to sprint away from the doorway when the fiend smashed through the remainder of the large front window. The creature slammed down upon Donavan, driving him to the street in a shower of broken glass. The machete fell from his hand, landing a few paces away in the dirt.

  The fiend kept Donavan’s hatchet-wielding hand at bay, scrabbling over him; its blood-streaked teeth bearing down upon his throat in an attempt to rip it out. Donavan was pushing with his feet, trying to reach the machete. He threw his weight one way then another, hoping to keep his neck and face away from the frothing gurgling mouth of the creature.

  The beastly man lunged for his throat as Donavan’s hand closed around the handle of the machete. He brought it forward desperately. The silver blade sank into the creature’s skull with a sickening thwack, like cutting into an unripe melon. The man moaned loudly, now straddling Donavan’s torso as he tried to remove the machete from his skull.

  Donavan was still holding onto the handle of the machete when the fiend finally got the blade out. But Donavan reached back and let the machete fly again. This time it landed in the softer flesh of the creature’s neck, biting better than halfway through with his first swing.

  The head bobbed sideways, teetering on the remaining muscle and sinew, and then the grisly man-thing fell away from him into the street. Donavan hoped severing the creature’s spinal cord might stop it. After all, legends said that the only way to kill a death walker was to sever the spinal cord, separating the creature’s tortured mind from the body it controls.

  Donavan kicked the twitching body away from him, rolling back to his feet with the machete at the ready. Death walkers were not technically dead. They could be killed; only it was usually very difficult. They ignored much of the injuries that would kill a normal person. The legends said they were created by the dragons; a punishment upon those who offended them. There were worse things than death.

  For these poor creatures death was a release from their torment. It was said that spirits haunted their minds and took over their bodies; inhabiting the living. Insanity quickly resulted. They were driven into the wilderness, scavenging on carrion or whatever they could kill. It was unheard of that one should come into a town on a killing spree.

  The body stopped moving. Donavan’s heart stampeded inside his chest. He tried to calm his breathing, then turned to see if anyone had heard the commotion and had come running to investigate. Another death walker was standing down the road. What appeared to be entrails were dangling in its right hand, dripping onto the ground.

  Probably a fresh kill, Donavan thought. The creature was staring at him, much the same way the other death walker had been just before it attacked. This time he didn’t bother with easy movements. Donavan lunged for the hatchet, arming himself against what he knew was coming.

  Another walker appeared on the opposite side of the street, shuffling out of a home, dragging a small corpse by the hand. Donavan shuddered at the grisly sight. He was nearly frozen with fear. Three death walkers? Death walkers coming into a civilized area? What was happening?

  The dragons had never allowed such a thing before. The tormenting spirits that inhabited death walkers were supposed to be under their control, driving their victims away from society to wander in the wilderness alone. Donavan seemed to have found a pack of the creatures hunting together; killing men, women and children without any regard for the Serpent Kings’ authority.

  Another blood covered fiend wandered into the street behind the others. Three pairs of pitch black eyes stared at him, hungering for another victim. Donavan knew he couldn’t possibly take on two, let alone three, death walkers at once. No one could.

  He turned and ran in the opposite direction, heading north the way he had come from. With fresh prey in sight, the death walkers came running like a pack of hounds. They may have been gaunt with malnutrition and ravaged by disease in their flesh, but the spirits pressed them onward, energizing their sinewy frames with unnatural strength.

  Donavan turned his head, checking to see how close his pursuers were. They were running after him at different speeds; the last in line loping along with a bad leg. He turned back the way he was going and smashed right into a death walker who had appeared out of nowhere. It was a woman.

  Her skin was weathered and brown, her hair stringy and sand colored. Donavan’s momentum combined with the woman’s slight weight bowled her over in the street. He had tumbled one way, her another. Donavan was so startled and terrified that he managed to scrabble quickly back to his feet. If he remained on the ground even a moment, the horrifying ghouls would swoop down upon him, tearing him apart before he could get away.

  A wooden fence sprang into view as he ran toward the edge of the town. Another death walker was feeding upon the carcass of a dead horse, pulling its innards out onto the ground, gleefully taking its fill. Another pony was pacing near the backside of the fence, clearly terrified of sharing the fate of the slaughtered animal.

  Donavan came up with a plan as he reached the fence and climbed over. The feasting death walker had not even noticed him yet, still kneeling before the horse with its back to him. He ran upon the fiend before it could react, using the machete to slice the creatures head cleanly away from its shoulders.

  Leaping over the horse carcass, Donavan charged toward the other pony. He had neither bridle nor saddle, but Donavan had always been a good rider. The pony did not try to get away, instead appearing relieved that someone normal had come to help it get away. Donavan grabbed the mane trailing down the pony’s neck and swung himself up onto the beast’s back.

  Looking back, he found the death walkers coming over and under the fence. They ran at him as Donavan kicked his heels into the pony’s sides. The animal took off, directed by Donavan’s clutch of mane with
in his hand. He had dropped the hatchet, but kept the machete. Two of the male death walkers were knocked aside by the pony’s shoulders. Donavan struck a final blow to the female as she tried to flank him.

  The machete cleaved a hunk of skull away from her head, sending her tumbling into the horse manure littering the pen. Donavan didn’t look back. He urged the pony on toward the fence. At the last moment, they leaped as one over the top rung of the wooden fence, barely clearing it with the pony’s hind hooves.

  Horse and rider left the remaining death walkers in their wake, galloping away from the village at top speed. Donavan patted the pony’s neck, whispering a prayer of thanksgiving under his breath to Elithias. They had no food and no water, but they did have their lives. And both horse and rider were, in their own ways, grateful for that much.

  TOBIAS

  The first snow of the season had fallen a week ago, followed by another yesterday. Tobias tried unsuccessfully to blow vapor rings with his breath in the cold air. The scent of pine was everywhere in the forest bordering their village. Trees that had shed their foliage in autumn creaked under the weight of ice and snow.

  Tobias looked back at the sled attached to his shoulder harness. It was half full of pine logs. He was hungry and wanted to get home to their cabin where his sister, Anne, was cooking supper. The pleasant aroma could be discerned even out here in the woods mixed with all manner of food smells from the village.

  “Father?” Tobias called. His father had gone the rest of the way down the path and over the hill where another cache of logs had been cut and stacked between the trunks of two adjacent trees. Tobias was harnessed to the sled, but it was almost too heavy for him. Even at twelve-years-old he hadn’t grown as stout as some of the other boys he played with.