Serpent's Child (The Mindbender's Rise Book 3)
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Serpent’s Child
The Mindbender’s Rise: Book 3
D. J. Salisbury
Published by
Magic Seeker Books
Serpent’s Child
Copyright © 2016 by D. J. Salisbury
All rights reserved.
DJ@magicseeker.com
www.DJSalisburyBooks.com
Published by Magic Seeker Books
www.MagicSeeker.com
100 PR 232
Abbott, TX 76621
Cover art and design by Deb Salisbury.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.
Fantasy Novels by D. J. Salisbury
Illusion’s Child
Sorcery’s Child
Serpent’s Child
Dragon’s Child – Coming Soon
and
Feda’s Anchor
Table of Contents
Chapter 1.
Chapter 2.
Chapter 3.
Chapter 4.
Chapter 5.
Chapter 6.
Chapter 7.
Chapter 8.
Chapter 9.
Chapter 10.
Chapter 11.
Chapter 12.
Chapter 13.
Chapter 14.
Chapter 15.
Chapter 16.
Chapter 17.
Chapter 18.
Chapter 19.
Chapter 20.
Chapter 21.
Chapter 22.
Chapter 23.
Chapter 24.
Chapter 25.
Dedication
About the Author
Chapter 1.
A scream ripped through the midnight-shrouded forest.
The blood-soaked giant roared, drew her sword, and charged between leafless trees. Moonlight glinted off the edges of her bahtdor-bone blade. Crickets sputtered into silence.
That girl would trip over her sword, someday, and cut off her own arm. Viper sighed, laid his mandolin next to his knapsack, snatched up his crutches, and hobbled after her.
Why exactly was he traveling with this turybird? Oh, yes. She was his bodyguard. What trouble was she leading him into this time? She’d croaked, “Slavers,” and dashed off into the dark.
All he needed was a brawl with slavers right after he’d driven away a dead wizard’s ghost. Tired didn’t begin to describe him. Pooped out flatter than a sandcrab mashed by a bahtdor bull only came close.
But he couldn’t desert her. No matter how annoying she was.
His crutches crunched on the dry leaves that littered the forest floor, but the noise didn’t hide the sounds of combat. Wood hammered against wood, a woman cussed in Duremen-Lor, several people cried aloud.
He tottered into the clearing just as Lorel reached the fighters.
A short, rounded girl defended a group of cowering people. Her straight hair swung like liquid ebony around her face as she swung an oak branch at a burly man wearing a Paduan slaver’s silvery robe.
Blast. Lorel wasn’t kidding. How many slavers were there?
Wood thunked again. The Paduan blocked her branch with an indecently large club. He reversed the swing and aimed at the girl’s leg.
She parried with more grace than Viper would have thought possible under the circumstances. Still keeping her body between the slaver and the people huddled on the ground, she swung the battered branch at the slaver’s gut.
Lorel raced up to the pair, swung back her sword, and chopped at the slaver’s arm.
He twisted around and swung his cudgel at her, knocking her sword aside.
She whirled out of clubbing range, raised her blade high, and vaulted toward him.
The warrior girl smashed her branch against his back. Splintered wood showered both of them.
The Paduan staggered and collapsed to his knees.
Lorel’s sword came down hard on his neck. His head bounced on the leaves a few feet from the falling body.
The fighting girl backed out of range of the splattering blood.
Lorel was already so blood-encrusted she didn’t seem to notice the gore splashing on her. She bent down to clean her long sword on the slaver’s robe before sheathing it.
The people lying on the ground cringed away from her, but didn’t even try to flee. What was wrong with them?
“That’s the last one, I think. Good to see you, Too Tall.” The girl nodded at Lorel and turned to the people behind her. “Did anyone see where I dropped the key? I’d rather not sit here all night waiting for a jaguar to find us.”
She appeared to be only a little older than Lorel’s fourteen, but her words calmed the whimpering group. Praise the Thunderer someone was in command. Lorel didn’t seem to know what to do with herself, much less anyone else.
A skinny boy pointed a trembling finger toward a bronze stake. Chains attached to the stake rattled from the shackle around his wrist.
Of course. Chained slaves didn’t move far or fast. If his hands hadn’t been full of crutches, Viper would have smacked himself on the forehead. He was simply too tired from battling RedAdder to think clearly.
Lorel croaked something. The girl nodded. They both moved toward the boy and scuffled through the dry leaves.
They’d never find it that way. And he’d bet the slaves had fled as far from the fight as they could. Viper measured the length of the chain gang with his eyes, crutched across the clearing to where the end slave might have been when the fight started, and lowered himself to the ground.
Blast. This wasn’t his best idea. He was so tired he might not be able to get back on his feet. His foot. Getting up would be easier if he had two feet.
Lorel kicked at the leaves in front of her and turned to him. “Can you make a light, kid?” Her voice sounded like ground glass. What had she done to herself?
“Sorry, I’m too tired.” He didn’t trust what his magic would do right now. Besides, he wanted to hold a little in reserve in case RedAdder’s ghost came back.
Lorel staggered toward him. “You hurt?”
He couldn’t exactly admit he’d fought off possession by a wizard’s ghost. She’d accuse him of lying again. Not that he had, or even would, but she’d been acting strange ever since she was dismissed from the sword school. He barely recognized her anymore.
“I ran into a little trouble. You look a lot worse off than I am.” He gestured at her blood-encrusted, formerly-new clothing. “Please tell me how you got covered in gore.”
“Had a run in with slavers.” Her bloody fingers brushed her swollen neck and she winced. “One of ’em bruised me up a little. It’s all fixed now. Except…”
“Except what?” Thunderer protect him. When his turybird found a loose string, the whole blanket was liable to unravel.
“We gotta get these folk back to Chiisai-Kei.”
His fingers hit something hard and cold. “We can do that.” He held up the bronze key.
“Bless the Seven Temples.” The girl turned to face him. Her eyes widened when she got a good look at him in the moonlight, but she only smiled a little and nodded at Lorel. “Toss it here.” She caught the key easily and bent down to unlock the shackles.
Lorel lurched over to him. “That’s Tsai’dona.” She reached down, grabbed his hand, and pulled him upright. “We had classes together, before she left to be a caravan guard. She watched my back.”
Sticky blood clung to his fingers when she released his hand. He fought down the urge to wipe his palm on his own new clothing. No way was he going to wipe blood off on the dead Paduan’s robe. It was simply too disrespectful. He scooped up
a handful of dry leaves instead.
Lorel’s last words finally sank into his foggy head. Being trusted to watch her back was his tall friend’s highest compliment. But the girl came from the same sword school that had driven her mad. Could he trust her? Could he really trust either of them?
The slaves – former slaves – stared at him as though he’d grown a third eye. One girl whispered, “Is that a ghost?”
“Nah, he’s a Setoyan.” In the brightening moonlight, Lorel’s eyes glinted like silver coins. She was probably laughing at him. “By daylight he’s kinda honey colored. Not scary at all.”
Who could be afraid of a one-footed, thirteen-year-old boy on crutches, much less of the shortest Setoyan in history? He was barely as tall as Lorel’s chest. At least Tsai’dona wasn’t more than a few inches taller than he was. Maybe only six inches. Or ten. That would make her five feet tall. He’d rather not know exactly.
Tsai’dona freed the last prisoner and turned to Lorel. “You said we’re near a town?”
Lorel nodded and pointed west. Her arm started drooping before she completed the motion.
“I have a camp set up in that direction.” He’d left all his gear there, too, and he was fairly sure Lorel had dropped hers near his campfire before she charged off to the rescue. At least, she wasn’t carrying it now. “We can set out for Chiisai-Kei in the morning.”
“I think it is morning, kid.” Only a raspy whisper. She looked ready to fall over.
It probably was after midnight, so technically morning, but it was far too dark to go wandering around a strange forest. And he was too tired to argue about it. He’d lead them all back to the village in the morning, and he and Lorel could travel north in the afternoon. After a hot bath and a decent meal, if the Thunderer permitted.
“Everybody follow me.” He turned and crutched out of the clearing.
Wonder of wonders, everyone did what he asked. Not even Lorel argued with him. Had killing a man changed her so much?
Chapter 2.
Two days after leaving that fraying little village, Lorel decided she’d had enough of wandering in circles. She flicked her fingers at the miswoven skunky swamp. “I think we’re lost, kid.” Her voice was still as hoarse as a bullfrog in the middle of a drought, and her neck was so bruised she didn’t dare touch it, but she was pretty sure the kid hadn’t noticed her injuries. She tried hard not to worry him. He had enough problems.
Tsai’dona nodded, her lips pressed tight together. By now the girl must be wishing she’d gone back to Sedra-Kei.
“We are not lost, pine tree.” He steadied his crutches on a solid spot on the mucky trail and ducked under a leaf bigger than he was. “According to the map we’re doing fine. We’re near the northern edge of Chiisai Swamp. In a few days we’ll reach a forest, and Leiya a few days after that.”
Him and his maps. He must’ve bought seven thousand of them while she was away at school, and he’d stowed twice that many books in her pack. “Ain’t gonna happen soon enough for me.” Gnats descended from a parasol-shaped tree and whined around her ears. She slapped her face and squished a pair of bugs. The buzzing biters chewing on her seemed to ignore him altogether. “How can you tell?”
He didn’t even bother to look back at her. “The flower types are changing. They match the transitional plants in Mist’s Aquatic Flora of Dureme-Lor.”
“The miswoven what?” She didn’t understand half of what he said these days. The lunars they’d spent apart had left him talking even weirder than before. What was he up to while she’d been at the sword school? Had he really read all them books she was hauling around?
The kid sighed. “The types of flowers are changing as we go north.”
Tsai’dona snorted, but didn’t join the conversation, not even to complain about the bugs. Likely she was still stinging from the kid fighting so hard to stop her from traveling with them. Why on the Loom did he fuss so much? It would take both of them to keep him out of trouble.
The kid must’ve heard her thinking. “How old are you, Tsai’dona?”
“I turned sixteen ten days ago.”
“I’m sixteen, too. The kid’s only thirteen.”
He glared up at her. “You are only fourteen, turybird. You don’t need to pad your age, you know.”
Weaver’s chamberpot, he was so fussy. “I meant to say fifteen. I’m almost fifteen.”
“And I’m thirteen and a half. Not that much younger than you are.”
Tsai’dona looked like she was trying hard to keep from laughing. She turned her face away and hitched the pack the kid bought for her higher on her back. Was good of the kid to replace Tsai’s gear when he’d lost the battle over her traveling with them. She had to admit, he was never a sore loser.
Both the sword school and too many days in the swamp had her trained. Out of habit, Lorel touched both her swords and checked the muddy trail. “Don’t walk on the wiggler, kid.”
He yelped and squelched backwards in several one-legged hops.
A tiny snake slithered under a fern frond.
He splashed to her far side, putting her between him and the baby snake.
She snickered and patted the top of his head. “You named yourself Viper, and you’re scared of wigglers.”
“It’s a matter of honor. I refuse to let the viper that got me Outcast defeat me.” He shook mud off his crutches, hoisted his knapsack higher on his back, and shifted the strap of the mandolin case. Somehow he’d kept the padded boot on his stump of an ankle. “At least you weren’t teasing this time.”
Mud oozed around her feet and tried to steal both of her boots. “I don’t tease about snakes no more. I swore I wouldn’t.” She shrugged her bulging knapsack and the harp case higher on her shoulders and shoved her tangled hair out of her eyes. She needed to stop and rebraid it, but she wasn’t about to drop her gear in the muck. “There ain’t no trail here.”
“Of course we can’t see a trail.” The kid stopped and waved one crutch at trees dripping with greenbeard moss. “Any trail would be swallowed up in hours. Look at this place!”
He grinned up at her and spread his arms, holding out his crutches like dragon-wing bones. “Orchids and autumn iris, azaleas and arrow-arum. The most amazing flowers have bloomed in the last few days. Even the smell of the swamp has improved. We’ll eat well again tonight.”
“I’ve been looking at this miswoven mud hole for ages, kid.” Green slime coated the water, her boots, her trousers. Wasn’t much else to look at. His soggy flowers didn’t count. “This Loom-forgotten bog is just plain dull. Boring boring boring. And it stinks like a week-dead corpse. I hope we get back to a real forest soon.”
“It’s not that bad,” Tsai’dona said mildly. Probably trying to put a lid on another fight. She’d figure out soon enough they bickered for the fun of it.
“I can’t wait to camp so I can write notes about the area. There are plants here I’ve never seen in any of the botany books. And the birds!”
“Better yet, I hope we find a real city soon, and not some little village.” Her belly rumbled. “A city with a good inn. I’m so tired of eating jerky and weeds. I crave a big mug of beer.”
“Turybird. All you ever think about is beer.” The kid grabbed her belt and tugged her around a quivering patch of muck.
Tsai’dona sloshed around the sinkhole, and grinned when Lorel glanced back at her. Looked like she was getting the hang of traveling with the kid.
“All you ever think about is books.” She slogged after the little chatterbox, one mud-heavy boot after the other. “Except when you’re chasing rocks.”
“Gemstones, not rocks. All you chase is trouble.” The kid stumbled when a salamander squirmed out of their path, but balanced himself on his crutches before he fell. He probably only needed one of them things, not two, but if they made him feel safer, she wasn’t gonna pester him. “If you’re tired of wandering, we could start for home. I have work to do in Zedista.”
“Zedista is boring. I w
anna see the world. Just no more swamps.” Not to mention the City Guard was still looking for Kraken’s killer. Getting hung would spoil all her plans. Dead people couldn’t make no difference in this sad old world.
Gnats buzzed inside her ears and around her eyes. She smacked her face again. “The miswoven bugs are driving me to leap off the Loom.”
He grinned up at her. “Why didn’t you say so? I can fix that.
“Peste, geweggehe, Truble us not.
“Removere thy personen, Elles thy inwards rot!”
Clouds of gnats drifted away. The horde of mosquitoes whined and wandered down the trail, like their meal went and walked that way.
“Sing to the Weaver.” She rubbed her hands over her face. Fraying buggy footprints felt etched on her skin. Their teeth-prints surely were.
Tsai’dona grinned at the kid like she finally understood him. “What’s with the mushy-mouthed poetry?”
Weaver’s chamberpot. Why’d she go insult him?
He just laughed. “It’s not poetry. It’s magic.”
Tsai’dona froze in place with her mouth hanging open.
“Close your mouth before you catch a mosquito.” He slogged onward. “Didn’t Lorel tell you?”
“Tell her what, kid?”
“I’m a sorcerer’s apprentice. Ex-apprentice, now that Trevor’s dead.”
“That don’t make you no sorcerer.”
“What did you think Trevor was teaching me?” He shook his head and plodded away on his crutches. “Of course I’m a sorcerer, if only a second-level one.”
Her feet took root beside Tsai’dona’s.
A sorcerer? The kid? She never really put the two together, even when she’d seen him do weird stuff. She’d watched him chase bugs away a hundred times, never thinking it was magic. She had to admit that she’d avoided thinking about it. The kid must think she was a hopeless noodle brain.
No wonder gnats didn’t bother him. He just magicked them off. Viper, the sorcerer, the maker of magic.
No way. She could not see her little friend as some kind of power. He just didn’t have it in him. Why, he was still scared of spiders and wigglers.