Serpent Catch: Book Two of the Serpent Catch Series

by David Farland

  “Very well,” a voice replied over the disk. “For trespass, twenty lashes. For assault, forty lashes and a night of Water Watching.”

  Tull’s eyes widened, for he’d hoped to be taken before a mayor or a judge or a jury of some kind. But the trial was over.

  ***

  Chapter 30: Water Watching

  Some Blade Kin slipped a noose around Tull’s neck and began choking; Tull grabbed at the noose.

  A guard punched Tull in the ribs. “Troublemaker,” he growled. “You get us all in trouble.”

  Someone else kicked his legs out from behind, and the blows began raining from all sides. Tull tried to cover his face with his hands, but the man with the noose began dragging him through the wet mud. Every time Tull tried to cover his face or get up to walk, someone kicked him again, so that he was reduced to holding the rope, pulling at it so that he did not strangle.

  By the time they reached the docks, Tull’s vision had begun to fade, and he was grateful to reach the docks alive. He was so sore that he hoped only that the whipping would not take long.

  He already felt dead to pain. The docks of Denai were not the seedy little docks found in Smilodon Bay. A dozen booms with block and tackle reared up above Tull—the kind used to pull boats from the water for dry dock.

  A large fishery nearby had a bright photo converter outside that illuminated the slushy snow, so that as Tull tried to catch his breath, he could see white falling from the sky.

  One Blade Kin put a spear to Tull’s throat and knelt over him. For a moment he blocked out the light and slush. Tull heard shackles rustling, and they stirred a dim memory, a primal fear from his childhood.

  One Blade Kin grabbed Tull’s ankle, and though Tull could not see the man, Tull kicked the Neanderthal in the face. The guards crowded around and began kicking Tull so quickly that he could not cover his face fast enough.

  The Blade Kin worked quietly, expertly, and for a moment there was only silence and the darkness, and the pain of the blows. Chains rattled, and Tull felt the cold iron on his ankles, and suddenly he was hoisted into the air by his feet, and then the Thralls ripped his clothes from him and swung him out over the water, naked.

  “Pu Tchixila,” a Blade Kin pronounced. “You have been convicted of trespass and assault. You are sentenced to a night of Water Watching and sixty lashes.”

  The words had hardly been spoken when the whipping started. Tull had believed he was numb to pain, but the first slice of the whip taught him otherwise. He cried out, and a man nearby hissed, “Please, quiet! Don’t call the serpents! Please!”

  Tull followed the sound of the voice, saw another man swaying out over the water nearby, suspended by his feet, like a cocoon hanging from a twig.

  I am not the only one watching the water tonight, Tull realized.

  Beyond him were two other prisoners—the boy who had tried to sell himself to Scandal earlier in the day, and what looked to be a man, until Tull recognized that it was only a headless corpse, draining its blood into the bay.

  There are worse things than a beating, Tull realized, and he clenched his teeth.

  The lashes came quickly, and Tull felt his own blood run into the water. He did not scream as the lashes fell. He merely held his breath and watched the water beneath him.

  It was white-capped and rough, driven by the wind. Tull heard serpent voices beneath, the deep moaning they made as they searched for prey by sonar and scent. The water boiled. In the pale light cast by the fishery, Tull saw great dorsal fins slice through the water nearby. As his warm blood dripped, a thirty-foot serpent rolled in a great circle, calling its brothers, seeking the source of the blood.

  It would not take long for them to find him.

  The whipping continued, almost endlessly, though it took only half an hour, and during that time, Tull did not cry out, for he was too afraid to cry.

  At the count of sixty lashes, all but two Blade Kin left the docks. They stood, leaning on their spears, watching Tull and the others, presumably to keep friends from setting the prisoners free.

  Tull was left to watch the water. Twice he saw the spines of young serpents rise as they thrashed above the foamy waves. He listened to their deep voices and prayed that the serpents would not find him.

  In answer to his prayer, a serpent rose from the water and bellowed, ripped the head from the man next to him, the man who had begged Tull to keep quiet.

  The Thrall boy, the only other survivor, dutifully bent double and grabbed his shackles, pulling himself up so that he was not so close to the water.

  With tremendous effort, Tull did the same, and beneath him the serpents began to rise, making the water boil—for once they found their prey, the entire school joined in, leaping at the dead bodies, ripping off those parts that hung too close to the water.

  Tull studied the young Thrall and realized why the youngster had not told him how to escape the reach of the serpents—the boy would have revealed his own position.

  Tull bent double, clinging to his shackles. Seeing the child earlier, he had felt an odd sense of recognition, and once again Tull felt a kinship to the child.

  They were united, silently struggling to live out their vigil. Tull wanted to comfort the boy, to give him some hope, but he was too wise to speak.

  After awhile, the serpents quit thrashing in the water, and it became quiet.

  Tull knew better than to believe they were full, and he remembered the serpents in the river, lying on the bottom, silently watching their prey as they prepared to strike.

  He clung to his shackles, panting from the exertion, and knew that to take even a moment’s rest was to invite death.

  Above him, his shackles were tied to a rope, and ten feet up the rope was a pole, the lower end of the boom on which he’d been swung out over the bay. Tull wondered if he could climb the rope and hang from the pole, but the guards were watching.

  The cold slush kept coming, and after a while it turned to snow. The corpses hanging next to him cooled, and their blood dripped into the bay less frequently. Tull blessed the snow for freezing the blood on his own back, numbing the wounds, and at the same time cursed it, for he could not feel his feet.

  The waves surged beneath him. In the back of his throat, Tull suddenly felt as if he tasted one of Tirilee’s kisses, burning and sweet.

  He was filled with the desire to make love to her, and he laughed quietly in pain, for it was an odd time to want her.

  Tull remembered his dead wife, how he had sent her floating down the river, and could not help but think that Wisteria’s body might have reached this bay, that as he watched the whitecaps he might see her float by.

  He hugged his legs and wished that she were close by. The kwea of his love for her eased his pain somewhat and helped him endure.

  After nearly two hours, the young child beside Tull let go of his shackles and fell toward the water. Tull prayed to the gods to spare the child. He could not see if the boy had fallen asleep, whether he was weakened by exhaustion or whether he had merely hoped to rest. Yet he dangled above the waves for only a minute before a serpent leapt and took him.

  Tull watched the jaws gape wide, the porcelain white teeth gleam in the light from the fishery, the red eyes flash in the darkness.

  Kwea was building in him, Tull realized, a kwea of terror.

  He could feel his fear of the serpents growing, and it bound itself to his old fear of the shackles, a fear of the waves, a fear of Denai and the Blade Kin. It was a cold, paralyzing fear. The kind of fear that locks a man’s legs together so that he cannot run, and in his mind, Tull dreamed of running, and the thought terrified him, for he almost feared what would happen if he tried to escape more than he feared staying.

  Tull found Adjonai’s dark kingdom of terror at last.

  He saw that Water Watching was meant to instill that kind of fear. The Blade Kin did not care if Tull lived or died. If he died, he served as an example to others. If he lived, he served even a greater example, for h
e would tell the tale of this night to a thousand other Thralls, and as they lived through the experience in their imaginations, the kwea of this night would pass to them.

  Tull laughed a quiet and bitter laugh. For truly, just as he’d been taught, the God of Terror was god of this land.

  He remembered old Caree Tech stirring her pot of lye and singing about threads of iron. The Slave Lords did not need guns or chains to hold the Thralls. Threads of fear held this nation together, cords so thick they turned into webs strong enough to snare all who entered.

  The Blade Kin killed their brothers out of fear—fear of retribution if they refused their duty. Thieves and dreamers in high places let the cycle go on in fear—fear of poverty should they stop. “The great wheel of evil.” That is what Adjonai had called it. Tull finally understood.

  Slowly, he became enraged. Always he’d blamed the humans for becoming Slave Lords, but now he saw that Denai was self-sufficient.

  Even if all the humans died, the city and its evil would remain.

  Yet, there is no reason for Denai itself, he realized. If every Thrall were to walk away, no one could stop them. Sure, the Blade Kin might kill a few, but not one in a hundred would die. The city, the entire nation, runs solely upon an economy of terror.

  Tull held his shackles and concentrated—concentrated upon turning his fear into hatred. His desire to run turned into a desire to strike. The night was so cold, colder than anything he had ever known, for he was naked and each wet, stinging snow pellet that touched him hardened his fear into an icy sheet of rage.

  ***

  Chapter 31: The Penitent

  Tull woke with a start in the morning. He’d been clinging to the shackles in his sleep, but a guard poked him with the butt of his spear, making him swing farther out over the water, and he came awake disoriented, falling toward the dark water.

  Tull struggled to grab at his shackles, but the guard laughed and hit him hard with the butt of the spear again.

  “You’ve got blood on your face,” the guard said. “Here, let’s wash it off for you.”

  The guard went to the block and tackle, turned a handle, and lowered Tull a foot toward the water.

  Tull tried to reach up for his ankles, but his muscles were too tired to let him bend up. Tull went still. Beneath the cry of the gulls in the bay, he could hear the moaning of the serpents.

  The guard watched his expression, and Tull realized the man wanted to see his fear.

  If Tull screamed, if he pleaded, the Blade Kin might stop. But the very act of pleading would call the serpents below. Tull’s heart hammered, and he fought to remain calm. The guard lowered him another foot, and another, until the whitecaps brushed Tull’s knuckles.

  He twisted slowly in the wind, and every half minute he glimpsed the morbid sight of the three dead Thralls dangling from their chains.

  His back felt stiff, and his feet felt frozen to the shackles. He knew he was nearly dead.

  He looked at the corpse of the dead boy. Tull’s head dangled, and he went limp, and in the steel gray water he saw his own eyes, mad with rage, and realized where he had seen the child. The child too had had revolution in his eyes. Tull wondered how many times he’d seen his own eyes filled with rage, staring at him from some stream or pitcher of water.

  The air filled with the cries of gulls as they fed in the early morning. A thick fog was blowing in. At sunrise, some dozen slaves gathered by the dock and watched Tull dangle.

  These were mostly women and children, the mothers and wives of the dead, and they wailed and ripped at their hair. In the heavy fog, Tull could not see the buildings behind him, the boats farther on down the dock. All he could see were the mourners and the two guards on the dock pushing them back with their spears.

  As morning wore on, the fog only thickened. An hour after sunrise, Scandal walked down the planks of the pier, clomping so heavily his feet sounded like the hooves of a cow on the wood, and through the mist, three Blade Kin trailed beside him. “Damn you, you will pay!” Scandal shouted. “I send my favorite slave to buy me a clock, and you’ve nearly killed him. I demand reimbursement!”

  One of Tull’s guards pulled his boom out above the dock, and lowered Tull to the plank. Tull recognized the Blade Kin that Scandal spoke to. He wore a badge with a sword beneath a silver star. It was the sergeant who had taken him prisoner. The other two were Thralls who had beaten him.

  A guard unlocked the shackles. Tull kicked them away. The Blade Kin looked at Tull’s ankles, at the ugly white scars. The Blade Kin said, “I’d think you would be more accustomed to shackles by now.”

  Tull sat and rubbed his feet. He could not feel them, and they’d gone blue from cold. Certainly, he thought, these feet will die now. I’ve lost circulation to them. They will rot away, and I shall die of gangrene.

  Scandal came up to Tull, looked at his back and bellowed. “By God, you’ve been thrashed, boy.” He bent near and whispered, “Stay down. Play like you’re hurt bad. I smell money! Oh, my child!” Scandal shouted at the Blade Kin. “How could you do this? You will pay!”

  A chill shook Tull. He wondered if anyone had a blanket to loan. If I am to die from these wounds, he thought, others will die with me.

  He looked at the two Blade Kin guards, at the man who’d tried to murder him only an hour before.

  Quietly, he struggled to rise. The guard who had unshackled him helped pull him up. Like all Blade Kin, the Thrall wore a broadsword strapped to his right thigh. When the guard had him up, Tull pretended to stagger. He grabbed the Thrall’s sword, pulled it free, and shoved the blade into the guard’s belly with all his might. The guard looked at him in surprise, eyes bugged, and Tull twisted the blade and dragged the sword up, slitting his leather armor and gutting the man the way he’d gut a fish.

  It happened so quickly, that the Blade Kin speaking to Scandal did not see.

  Tull slammed into the back of a second Blade Kin rammed his sword through the man’s kidneys. The Blade Kin next to him stepped backward and pulled his sword, swinging it down like an ax. Tull dodged to the side, and when the blade hit the dock, Tull rammed his sword into the Thrall’s throat, above his armor.

  The man grabbed Tull’s sword and staggered back, yanking it from Tull’s hands, and then fell into the water.

  “Watch him! He’s gone mad!” Scandal shouted, backpedaling. As the sergeant reached up to the white communication disk around his neck, Scandal slugged him, sent him flying into the water. Tull glanced behind him.

  His torturer stood there. The guard held a spear in hand and advanced on Tull cautiously.

  The sergeant thrashed in the water, his red cape floating up. He pulled out his sword and dumped it, trying to lighten his load. The man gurgled a curse, and then the water boiled. A serpent came up from beneath, carried the sergeant ten feet into the air and splashed under with the Blade Kin in his jaws.

  “You’re next,” Tull said to the guard with the spear. He watched the man, the way he had watched Ayuvah in practice.

  The guard stood warily on the balls of his feet, jabbed at Tull with a couple of feints.

  “You talk big for a man who has no weapons in his hand,” the guard said. He did not have Ayuvah’s speed. He was burly and clumsy, muscle bound.

  Tull dodged away from his thrusts, always moving slower than he was capable of. The guard seemed afraid of him. He saw it in the Neanderthal’s green eyes.

  Tull stepped back, pretended to trip over the body of a dead man.

  The guard lunged. Tull stepped to the side and spun, grabbing the spear. Tull looked in the Blade Kin’s eyes and saw the Thrall’s fear, and in that second, Tull jerked the spear from his hands and with a shout he drove the butt end into the Thrall’s chest, through his lacquered leather armor. The haft of the spear splintered.

  The Thrall fell backward, gasping, impaled on the butt of his own spear, and Tull looked at the man and knew he would not die from the wound.

  Tull picked up a sword from the doc
k, walked forward and beheaded the Blade Kin.

  Tull stood panting and looked at the Thralls who had gathered to mourn their dead. They huddled in the cold, and Tull saw only fear in the eyes of the women and children. They were afraid of Tull. They were afraid they would be punished because of what he’d done.

  “You are miserable curs,” Tull told them. “You have cowered here all your lives.” Gesturing to the dead Blade Kin before him, he said. “Look how easy it is to free yourselves! I am a lone Pwi, and I killed four guards—all Neanderthals, all strong—not weak humans. And I will kill a slaver before this day is over.

  “In my homeland, we go on egg raids in Hotland and hunt the great lizards with spears. Our small boys are greater men than you. Our ancestors dined on mammoth and rhino while humans fed on bugs and rats. Our ancestors tilled their gardens with hoes made of a Smilodon’s tooth, and they were kings of the Earth. And someday, when we have mastered our fear of humans, we will be kings of Anee.”

  Tull raised his eyes toward town. The thick fog had hidden what he had done. Behind him, on the docks, one male mourner shouted, “Watch! Help! Watch!”

  Tull shivered from the chill air. He was still naked. He saw the Thrall who had shouted, a young man, the kind who would make a good warrior.

  The Thrall tried to scurry away, but several women grabbed him. The women wanted Tull to kill the man, and Tull wondered why the women didn’t kill the coward themselves.

  “Free yourselves,” Tull told them. He grabbed the wretched coward and tossed him into the bay, as if to show how it is done.

  He reached down to one of the Blade Kin and pulled the fine red cape from the man’s neck, wrapped it around him and fastened the clasp to his own throat, then picked up his own breech cloth from the dock, and fastened it with its silver clasps.

  “Quickly,” Scandal hissed, “let’s steal a boat and run for it.” Tull picked up a broadsword, wiped it on the leg of a dead Blade Kin.

  Tull stood. The sun was rising, and above the fog one distant castle of green Benbow glass shone, as if it sat upon a cloud. “Find a boat and leave,” Tull said. “I won’t run from Denai.”