Serpent's Child (The Mindbender's Rise Book 3)

by D J Salisbury

  Maybe he should buy boots with taller heels. Like six inch heels. Then he’d be only a few inches shorter than Tsai’dona.

  He sighed. Both girls would laugh at him. And he’d probably fall down on his nose. He’d best settle for three inch heels.

  Tsai’dona finished with her fleabitten mare and trotted over to assist Lorel by combing Poppy’s belly.

  Both horses closed their eyes as if they were getting the best backrubs ever. Their blissful expressions reminded him that he hadn’t had a decent backrub since Trevor died.

  Thunderer, now he was envious of horses. When had he fallen so low? He busied himself with stowing the harness straps exactly the way Lorel had shown him last night.

  When she finished grooming the team, Lorel dropped the brush in the grass, gathered up their lead ropes, and wandered away.

  No, blast her. The turtle turd wasn’t getting out of setting up camp again that easily.

  “I’ll make you a deal.” He rescued the discarded brush and stowed it away. “I’ll cook if you gather firewood and berries or greens.”

  She looked back from leading the horses toward the tallest grass. “You always make that deal, kid. What if I say no?”

  “You cook and I look for wood.”

  Lorel groaned. “That means a cold supper.”

  “And a burnt breakfast.” Tsai’dona rolled her eyes toward Lorel, who burnt every meal she touched, though the new girl wasn’t much better.

  Viper fought to keep a grin off his face.

  “I’ll get the wood.” Lorel released the team and headed into the forest.

  “I’ll see if I can catch a rabbit.” Tsai’dona, who hadn’t caught anything in the few days he’d know her, strolled into the woods in the opposite direction, hopefully in search of berries or some sort of vegetable.

  He smiled and shook his head. Neither girl was interested in the chores he’d set them, but it was easier to work when they weren’t around. They fought and wrestled too much, and got into his way. Sometimes he wished he hadn’t carved wooden swords for them to practice with.

  He’d have a strong fire going long before they got back, even if he did strike matches to get it started. Lightning blast all fire magic! He’d learn to control it yet.

  And he’d prove to Lorel he could do useful things. As if she’d notice.

  He crutched to trunks at the back of the wagon and fetched a hand shovel and his cook pots. The Kyridon watched with mild interest while he dug a little pit, lined it with stone, and filled it with deadwood from the edge of the clearing. He lit the kindling with a match from his new stash.

  He filled a kettle with water from the stream, lugged it back, setting it on the ground with every step – carrying heavy loads on one foot and a crutch was an puzzle he hadn’t properly solved – and set it on the fire to boil. He’d have a cup of tea waiting for them when they got back. It was actually rather fun to be domestic when everything went right.

  The ground rumbled, then shook violently. Viper pulled his kettle away from the fire and hopped away to wait out the quake. It must be Alignment Day, after all. He needed to start keeping a calendar.

  The horses reared and danced and squealed. Should he try and calm the monsters? He snorted at himself. If any of them stepped on him, they’d squash him flat without ever noticing.

  The team seemed to treat the quake more like a game than a threat. In fact, they behaved the way Nashidran warhorses were rumored to react to earthquakes. They herded the riding horses around the meadow, and didn’t let them escape to the road or the forest.

  They couldn’t be warhorses, not at the price he’d paid. He laughed aloud at the thought of Lorel’s pride if they had bought warhorses.

  “Speaking of Lorel, where is she?” He stood up to look for her. “There’s deadwood all over the area. She can’t have gone far.” She wasn’t within view of his camp, though.

  The Kyridon lifted its head as though it were searching, too. “This one is disturbed.”

  A sparkling green-and-gold aura appeared near the driver’s bench.

  Breath froze in his throat. His gut twisted into a tight knot. The sandblasted ghost was outside the wagon? So much for sleeping underneath to avoid it. Wasn’t he safe anywhere?

  The transparent figure waved its arms like a seawall signalman fighting to catch a distant ship’s attention.

  The Kyridon hissed at the abomination, and it faded away, its flapping hands disappearing last.

  Viper swallowed hard. “Thank you.”

  The serpent nodded and glided to the ground. “This one is concerned that the swordling may be damaged.”

  “We better find her.” Any excuse to get away from the wagon sounded great at the moment. Viper scooped up his crutch and hobbled into the forest, heading south, as she had. “Lorel! Hey, Lorel Gyrfalcon! Where are you?”

  Silence cloaked the forest. Not even crickets chirped.

  He stood still, listening, and shook his head. “The turybird isn’t likely to play dead just to scare me. She must be hurt.”

  Using his crutch as a balance pole, he climbed up on a low hanging branch. Still no sign of the girl.

  “LOR – EL!”

  “This one believes the swordling lies to the east.”

  Viper jumped down from the branch and hopped around to face it. “How much to the east? Show me.”

  The Kyridon snaked into the brush.

  He hurried after it, crashing through bushes and scrambling over fallen branches that the Kyridon slid under. He was crutching along haphazard, almost flying with each swing, when the Dreshin Viper reared up and wrapped a loop of itself around his body.

  “The swordling is below this point.”

  They hung balanced on the edge of a newly cut cliff.

  He tried to peer over the ledge, but dust and clouds swallowed the base of the precipice. “The ground must have disappeared from under her feet. Let me go! I need to find her.”

  The Kyridon pulled him well back from the edge before releasing him. “The hatchling should observe the fragmented oak below this point. This one suggests that the hatchling follow the verge of the precipice until a pathway downward is available. The hatchling is not prepared to fly.”

  Was that a joke? Hopping along on his crutch was the closest to flying he would ever get.

  He shrugged, turned south, and hobbled along the ledge. The gloomy evening light began to fail. The clouds seemed darker. If he didn’t find her soon he’d need to split his attention and create a will light.

  Several minutes later he found a steep, broken path to the canyon floor. “This will have to do.” He started down without waiting for an answer. He could feel the Kyridon moving close behind him.

  He slid down the first few feet of the path and jarred his ankle on a tiny ledge. Losing his foot hadn’t only ruined his balance. He’d become as timid as a sandcrab scuttling between the claws of a hungry bahtdor herd. He paused for a moment to recapture his courage.

  Sandblasted canyon. Cliffs weren’t supposed to form all the sudden. “Lorel, if you aren’t hurt, I swear I’m going to kill you, and then I’ll make you carry me back up the cliff.”

  He studied the path to the next ledge, thirty odd feet down and to his left. Layers of broken gray shale protruded across the entire stretch, offering only slippery and fragile handholds.

  He needed to quit thinking and move before he lost his nerve. Else he’d be stuck here all night. Without Lorel. Who must be hurt or she’d have run to his rescue by now.

  He eased his body over the next ledge, his foot searching cautiously for purchase. He slipped half his height before his toes found a solid ledge.

  This was embarrassing. Less than two years ago he’d have scrambled down the cliff and back up again in half the time he’d wasted so far.

  Who was he kidding? Two years ago he had two feet, and no concern about getting hurt. Now he was out of practice, and terrified of the possibility of Lorel trying to doctor him. Her nursemaiding had b
een scary enough.

  A few large drops of rain splattered around him, and thunder echoed in the distance.

  Lady Wind Dancer, sing to the Thunderer, please. Let it stay dry until he got Lorel back to the wagon. Please let it stay dry!

  The thunder drummed louder and the clouds grew darker, but the rain didn’t fall.

  He worked his way down the shattered slope, clinging desperately to slippery outcroppings. His fingers began to bleed, and they burned when his movements ground dirt into the cuts, but he dared not halt.

  If he stopped he knew he would fall.

  Thunderdrums pounded inside his head by the time he reached the ledge, and his heart thudded in painful accompaniment. The clean smell of rain on fresh earth filled his nostrils, making him dizzy with worry.

  He couldn’t wait here.

  His whole body ached. His torn fingers cramped, refused to bend. He shifted from foot to crutch, fighting to catch his breath.

  He had to find her.

  He slithered from the ledge, sliding to the top of a craggy boulder.

  Finally, a little luck. Natural steps in the rock eased his way to the broken ground. He picked his way through the boulders at the base of the cliff, unconsciously sucking on his bleeding fingertips.

  Too slow! He was moving far too slowly. He had to get away from the rocks and move faster.

  He trudged away from the cliff until he reached unbroken ground. With his heart in his throat, he turned toward where he hoped to find Lorel, leaned on his crutch, and ran, still searching for any sign of his friend.

  Nothing. No sign of anything human.

  Maybe she was behind one of those boulders. She couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t be.

  He reached the broken tree the Kyridon had shown him and found nothing but a mound of dirt and broken shale. And, sticking out of the rock like a gravestone’s blood lily, a single limp hand.

  “No,” he whispered. “Please, no.”

  He turned away, rubbing his eyes, hoping to clear away the false vision. But when he turned back, the dusty, limp hand was still there.

  If she died, everything they’d worked for died with her. No one else could make musical instruments. No one else would protect him no matter how stupid he was. No one else could make him laugh until his gut ached.

  Her name burst from his soul. “Lorel!”

  The earth beneath the hand exploded. Dirt flew upward in a single blast, rocks skipped away. Dust swirled and danced, a maniacal cloud from another world that glowed orange in the sunset.

  A tall thin specter without a face appeared within the dust.

  A demon. A demon had stolen Lorel!

  His heart hammered louder than the thunder. His gut slithered into the soil. He’d never be able to outrun the creature. He fell to his knees and searched his memory for a chant, for any kind of magic that might discourage a demon.

  Kerovi demons were rumored to ignore chants and shields, any kind of magic. The only things that killed them were cold steel and bahtdor-bone swords. And Lorel’s swords were belted to her dead body. Wherever it was.

  The demon shook its head. Dirt fluttered around it and spilled into black ringlets. Lorel’s silver eyes appeared in the center of the settling dust cloud and blinked stupidly at him.

  She wasn’t dead. That wasn’t a demon.

  Viper gasped and choked on the dust. He coughed so hard he sat back in the dirt and fought to catch his breath.

  Lorel stood frozen for a moment, as stiff as a Nashidran soldier on parade in front of the Emperor, his wife, his thirty seven concubines, and the company cook.

  She couldn’t be too hurt, could she?

  Slowly her knees gave way, and she collapsed onto her back in the dirt. Blood spurted from a jagged gash on her forehead and disappeared into her hair before dripping onto the ground.

  She was hurt. She needed him.

  Viper scrambled over the rocks to her side. “You scared me halfway to the Deathsinger’s hall, you turybird.”

  She moaned, a sound more like a whisper of wind than like a loud, obnoxious girl.

  He ran his hands down her bones. The cut on her head was the most serious damage, assuming no internal injury, which he couldn’t deal with in any case. He could only pretend there was none.

  He took off his tunic and shirt and tore the shirt up for bandages. He tried to dab away blood, but the wound flowed too freely. He didn’t know how to help her. Why hadn’t he studied medicine while he waited for her in Sedra-Kei? If felt like he’d studied everything else.

  He grunted in disgust and tied the rags as best he could, around her head and under her chin to hold it on. “That should shut you up. You’re going to have one thundering scar, Gyrfalcon.”

  “That’s good,” she mumbled.

  He couldn’t help it. He laughed out loud. “Do you think you can walk back to camp?”

  “You never told me I needed just five points.”

  “That’s rather what I thought.” He yanked his tunic back over his head, smearing bloody handprints into the wool. “We’re not at the sword school, turybird. You don’t need any points to impress me. Though come to think of it, your sword master beat you up quite as well as those rocks did.”

  The Kyridon slithered closer and tapped its snout against a large green rock. “This one recommends hoarding the verdant semiprecious gemstones. Jade is a notably magical stone. A particularly profitable stone.”

  Viper flinched at its callous reference to his attempts to earn money at a desperate moment like this. Well, it was a snake. No point in expecting it to act human. “Remind me later. Could you help me carry her?”

  The huge serpent looked at him, at Lorel, and back to Viper before dipping its head in a gesture that looked oddly like a human shrug. “This one will attempt assistance. The swordling is quite substantial.”

  “Much too large for me to carry.” He looked around for an easy path out of the rocky debris. “I think she’ll walk most of the way, if we can get her to stand up. But we’ve got to find a better path than one I came down.”

  The Kyridon coiled around Lorel and helped him to prop her upright. Once she was on her feet, it slid aside. Without glancing back, it slithered north –

  To a gently sloping trail less than fifty feet away. “This one shall locate the other swordling and demand its reinforcement.”

  Why hadn’t it mentioned that path before he half killed himself?

  Lorel leaned her elbow on his shoulder. He wrapped his free arm around her hips – the highest point he could reach and keep hold of – and leaned harder onto his crutch.

  Her weight and wobbly height stranded him. He couldn’t hop even a single step.

  The Kyridon had better find Tsai’dona soon. They were stuck exactly where they were until she got there. Or until they both fell over.

  Chapter 7.

  Viper pounded his fists against his thighs. “Will you lie down!” Was the turybird trying to push him off the cliff with her antics?

  Camping in the middle of an oak forest might have been a mistake, though he really didn’t see any other choice. Lorel was too sick to travel on. Not that it stopped her from trying to ride the bahtdor. Sandblasted turybird.

  Yellow leaves fluttered around his ears, just one more irritation. He pulled the bowl of thick green tea back into his lap and eased his fingertips into the hot liquid. “You’ll never get well if you insist on wandering about.”

  “Don’t yell at me.” Lorel glared at him, but settled back into the bed of ferns and blankets. “I ain’t all that sick. I’m just bored.”

  “Not sick.” He tilted back his head and spoke to the cloudy sky. “Oh, no, you’re not sick. You were out cold for two days, and you’re still puking every other time you move. You’ve got a lump on your head the size of a bahtdor turd, and two black eyes to match. Not to mention twenty stitches on your forehead.”

  He nodded across the fire, saluting Tsai’dona. Praise the Thunderer she knew how to sew, and to sew ne
atly. The scar wouldn’t be half as horrendous as his turybird would like.

  Tsai’dona shrugged and continued to polish her knife. The blade glowed blood red in the morning sunlight.

  She’d polish that knife to a nubbin if she wasn’t careful. He needed to buy her a real sword. She’d earned it. Even if he still didn’t understand why his turybird insisted the girl must travel with them.

  Lorel shrugged, moving her shoulders gingerly. “Lump ain’t all that big. And it’s gone down, mostly.”

  “Anything you say. I really don’t want to fight with you. Honest.” Viper sighed and stared down at his sore fingers, currently soaking in the bowl of herbal tea. The torn flesh was still red and painful, three days after his battle with the cliff. If he didn’t soak them regularly, yellow pus oozed out of the cuts. He feared the infection would turn to gangrene if he didn’t find a better cure soon.

  He’d already lost one foot to gangrene. He wasn’t about to lose any fingers to it. Asking one of the girls to amputate a digit wouldn’t be fair. Not to mention the mere thought gave him nightmares.

  Time to change the subject. “I dreamed I talked to our ghost last night.”

  Tsai’dona groaned and turned her back to the fire.

  “Yeah?” Lorel’s tired face brightened. “What d’he say?”

  “He was glad to be back on the road.” It had been a surprisingly pleasant conversation, even if it had been all in his head. “Leiya was the dullest place he’d ever gotten stuck in.”

  “Gotta agree with him there. Dull and dirty. What else?”

  Why wasn’t the kettle boiling yet? He picked up a stick and pushed it closer to the center of the fire. “I think he likes us.” The dream almost felt real. It had even ended with the Kyridon hissing at the ghost. “We seem to be in trouble or heading that way all the time, and that interests him. He led a peaceful life, for a magician. He thinks he died of boredom. The way he talks, he must have been two hundred and ninety.”

  “I’ll die of boredom, too, if I get that old.” Lorel sighed. “I’m ready to die of boredom right now. Sorcerers and magicians live too fraying long. I plan to go out like a warrior should, on a sword while I’m in my prime.”