Serpent Catch: Book Two of the Serpent Catch Series

by David Farland

  Scandal looked at Tull as if the Pwi had slapped his face. “What in the hell is going on here?” Scandal asked, but he backed away from Tull. “I’ll meet you at Castle Rock in nine days,” Scandal said questioningly as he ran down the docks, looking for a boat.

  Tull headed for the city. His thoughts were fuzzy, and he felt as if he were watching himself move. He’d once heard a man tell of a similar experience in a bar fight, that out-of-body feeling.

  He knew he might die for his actions, but rage burned in him, and he wanted to fight. He walked into town, expected to be stopped, expected a fight, but saw no Blade Kin.

  He ducked into the fishery just as dozens of Blade Kin rushed down the road, heading for the dock. The Blade Kin shouted at the witnesses on the docks, and during the commotion Tull left the fishery through a back door, crossed the street, and sneaked through a huge warehouse full of lumber.

  In this way, he crept through the city until he reached the clockmaker’s shop. It was closed, but through the window he could see the same Thrall building clocks. Behind the Thrall a door led to a back room where a cheery fire burned. The shopkeeper sat in a large chair, watching the fire reflectively, eating from a bowl of fruit.

  Tull did not know how well the doors would be bolted. In Smilodon Bay, giant cave bears sometimes came in spring to eat table scraps from the garbage piles behind the houses. People on the outskirts of town secured their winter doors with huge beams to keep the bears out.

  Tull imagined the door would be heavily barred but there were windows. The one that had broken the night before was now boarded over, so he stepped back a pace and leapt through a second window, knocking over a case of clocks.

  The Thrall working at the table fell from his chair, and the shopkeeper came running into the room to see what had happened.

  Tull rushed the shopkeeper and grabbed the man by the throat. The old man tried to push Tull away and whimpered in fear.

  Tull held him easily with one hand.

  “You shall be a sign for the Slave Lords of Craal,” Tull said, and he dragged the shopkeeper to the front window. The old man struggled and tried to grab a display case, knocking his dainty clocks to the floor.

  The Thrall worker stood in a corner, watching Tull, and the slave had a look in his eyes Tull had not seen before—rapture. Tull dragged the old man to the broken window.

  Shards of glass stuck upward from the casing, like glittering daggers, and Tull threw the old man down, impaling him.

  Tull walked through the room, picked up a tiny silver clock that opened like a flower, and stood, looking at it. He felt dizzy, happy, yet he was so weary he wanted to lie down.

  “Brother,” the slave hissed. “Run for your life!”

  “I am not done here,” Tull told the slave.

  “You think you will prove your courage by staying,” the slave whispered, “but you will only die. You are not a Thrall. You are a Pwi. I see it in your eyes. Many Thralls have the courage to die for a cause, but, brother, do you not see? They do not need only courage, they need hope! If they strike and die, what have they won? Nothing! But if they know they can strike and escape, then they will have hope!”

  Tull’s mouth fell open just a bit at the revelation.

  Out in the street, a single Blade Kin stood peering at the window, studying the dead shopkeeper, walking forward cautiously. He saw Tull in the window, took off shouting, “Blade Kin to me! Blade Kin to me!”

  “If I leave, will you come with me?” Tull asked the slave.

  A curious light shone in the man’s eyes, and he nodded. He ran to the back room and stuffed food into a sack. Tull grabbed the clockmaker’s tools in their box, filled his pockets with dozens of watches. Tull wondered if he would ever master the use of the delicate instruments.

  In a moment, the slave grabbed Tull’s arm and ushered him into a back room. “I have clothes and food,” the man said, and they rushed out a door and into an alley.

  The air smelled of smoke, and though it was still foggy, a bright red light glowed in the sky.

  “The shipyards are burning,” the slave said in awe.

  Tull looked at the sky and laughed. Bless you, Scandal, he thought.

  The two men wormed their way through the ghettos of Denai for an hour, through warehouses, over roofs. The slave told Tull that his name was Nai, the Pwi word for clever, and he lived up to his name, for they avoided the Blade Kin who were rushing everywhere.

  “You picked a bad time to come here,” Nai told him. “Ten thousand extra guards have come to watch the city in the last week. The Lords of Craal talk of war with Bashevgo, and Hukm attacked one of our fortresses a few weeks ago.”

  “Why would Craal go to war with Bashevgo?” Tull asked.

  “The Pirate Lords purchased many supplies—wheat and cloth, yet they have sold us no slaves for a year,” Nai said. “And last summer, they began attacking Craal ships.

  “The Pirate Lords are crazy. They could never hope to defeat the Lords of Craal. Next summer, Craal will move armies into the Rough and destroy the Hukm to keep the wilderness from falling into the hands of the Pirate Lords.”

  Tull listened to this bit of news with interest. The streets seemed to be boiling with Blade Kin in their black armor and red capes. Smoke rolled over the city from the burning ships at dockside. While the fog was still heavy, they jumped a Blade Kin outside a human home.

  Nai beat the man to death and dragged him behind a thick hedge in a garden. The dead Blade Kin wore the badge of a captain, with five stars over the top of a sword.

  “This fedda is most trusted,” Nai said. “He is authorized to go anywhere in Craal, even into the Rough. Put on his clothing, and you can walk out of this city a free man. There must be twenty captains of his rank here now. If you are lucky, people will just think that you are another.”

  “Won’t you come with me?” Tull asked.

  “If we both leave,” the slave said, “the Blade Kin will kill an innocent man and claim that they killed you. In my people, the hope will die, for they will see that they cannot escape. I must stay behind to be your witness. I will tell them that a Thrall who killed a human went free.”

  “Not just a human,” Tull said. “I killed four Blade Kin.” The slave chuckled softly, and Tull put on the Blade Kin’s uniform, gasping as the leather touched his ragged back. Behind them, on the far side of the city, the fog was beginning to lift, and Tull could see that more than just the boatyard was on fire—the flames had spread to the warehouse district.

  Unfortunately, the morning wind was blowing down the mountains and out to sea. The flames would not engulf the city. Tull pulled his hair down to cover his ears, hugged Nai around the shoulders.

  “Someday, we will all walk away from here free,” Nai said, pushing the bag of food into Tull’s hands.

  “We will walk away,” Tull said, and the hate burned in him so badly that he added, “but first we will destroy Craal.” He laughed at his own audacity.

  Tull walked openly from the city of Denai toward the Rough, past three guard houses, each packed with Blade Kin, past an army of five thousand that guarded the east gate. If any man thought to question him, no one dared, for he was their superior in rank, and seldom had anyone ever seen a Blade Kin walk through Denai with so much rage burning in his eyes.

  Tull felt sorry as he left the city, sorry that he could not kill more men.

  ***

  Chapter 32: An Invitation to Power

  On all the maps that Tull had ever seen, Denai was shown on the west slopes of the White Mountains. Yet the road through Denai Pass was bordered by farmhouses for twenty miles. The number of Blade Kin thinned until none wore the black armor and red capes of the city guard. The local Thralls watched Tull fearfully or ducked to hide behind some hedge.

  When daylight turned to dusk, Tull stopped at a Slave Lord’s manor and relieved the house of a few choice rations before setting off into the Rough.

  Once he climbed down the hills, the
land was bare of all but sparse grass and sagebrush. Frigid gravitational winds beat upon this waste mercilessly night and day. Only a few coyotes inhabited this land, for Craal’s armies had been marching through it all summer. Tull found their fire pits filled with ox bones.

  Tull’s feet ached as he walked, and he stopped every so often to massage them. Their color returned the first day, yet they still felt cold. His back burned from the lash strokes, and he was grateful for the rigid leather armor, for more than once it seemed to be all that held him up straight.

  Tull knew that Phylomon and Ayuvah waited at Castle Rock, knew it was a walk of only twelve miles per day. On his second day out, his back burned as if it were on fire, so he stopped at an icy creek and bathed, and felt the rough ridges where the skin had swollen. He was thankful he could not see it.

  He rose from the creek bed after an hour of soaking, and happened to glance uphill. From the corner of his eye, he saw the orange hair of a Thrall, but the man dropped to the ground.

  Tull watched the spot for a full ten minutes, hoping to detect more movement, but the man had been wearing a gray-green robe, and the colors blended in with the dead winter sage too well.

  It could have been a lone hunter, Tull thought, or an escaped slave.

  His back felt better much of that night, and the next morning he found wagon tracks, the only pair he’d seen since leaving the farmlands of Denai.

  He knew that if he followed them long enough, he’d find Phylomon at the other end, but by noon, fever struck again, followed by chills.

  As he walked, the sun seemed to rise and set, rise and set. He felt tremendously cold, and at one point he was looking at the White Mountains, at the snow upon them, and he felt that the snow must be blowing in upon him.

  In front of the mountains he could see Adjonai, his black form looming at the borders of Craal. Tull walked toward the peaks and realized he was walking back to Denai, but a voice inside him whispered, “You are on a spiral journey. Though you head back to Denai, you see everything more clearly. You are walking upon a higher plane.” Tull thought back to the Journey of the Worm.

  He looked up, saw Adjonai’s rotting face leer above the plains, and felt a dull terror radiating from the monster, a sensation both frightening and inviting. Only clear sight lets me see the beast, Tull thought.

  Tull studied a twisted limb of sagebrush, and at the distance of forty feet discerned egg casings of spiders upon its stems, saw the spirit burning within the bush, saw the infinite number of deformities and scars where deer and birds had fed upon its leaves, saw how mold and lichens made the bush their home. The grass smelled of death and rot, and he heard the distant sounds of winter starvation in the voices of birds.

  Everywhere, in every living thing, were signs of decay and darkness. In the ground beneath him he beheld the moldering bones of heroes who had died here on these plains in war against Craal, saw how each had lived and died in vain, for Adjonai still stood at the borders of Craal, with mountains rising behind him like the merlons on a war tower.

  The sun was dying, and Tull came to a stream where rabbits fed by the water’s edge. The wind began blowing furiously toward the west, pushing everything back toward Denai, and he saw crows and seagulls carried upon the wind, leaves ripped from branches.

  Even the rabbits began running toward Denai, toward death and decay. He realized that he was seeing things clearly, more clearly than ever before. The great wheel of evil. He was caught in it, playing his small role, and everything would flow back to Denai.

  Tull stopped a moment by force of will and let the wind blow at his back. The sun was setting, and the shadows of plants and trees and mountains all seemed to stretch out toward him.

  No, we are not all caught in the great wheel of evil, Tull thought. The great wheel is only shadows on the ground. I am on the spiral journey.

  He turned back toward Smilodon Bay and had the strangest sensation—a chill wind shot through him and for a moment he was sure he felt icy hands twist his head so that he pivoted back toward Denai, and the cold hands began to push him.

  He stopped with a wrench, felt the cool mysterious touch play over his body. Something within Tull cried out. He knew that touch. It was the same sense of violation he’d felt in Smilodon Bay when Chaa had entered his body to Spirit Walk his future.

  “The spiral journey begins in shadows,” a voice whispered to Tull, “but it ends in brightness.” Tull halted, searched for the source of the sound. No one stood near. “Come back to Denai.”

  Tull glanced up at the White Mountains. The form of Adjonai hovered in front of the pass to Denai, and Tull felt myriad icy fingers brush his skin, teasing him, drawing him toward Denai. He realized then that Adjonai was only an apparition created by the sorcerers of Craal.

  A voice infinitely deep whispered, the voice of Adjonai. “Come back to me. I will give you power, and you will be to me as a favored son.” He raised his kutow of terror, his shield of despair, and the kwea of them lashed at Tull. Adjonai held them out as if to give them as a gift, and Tull realized that he could wield those weapons. They were powerful, and they would be even more deadly in his hands.

  Tull’s face twisted in rage. Did they really think he would become one of them?

  “When I come, I will destroy you!” Tull roared, and he turned back toward Smilodon Bay. He knew his enemies now. Somewhere, Tull thought, a man lies near death, trying to use his powers to seduce me back to Craal.

  The icy fingers slammed into Tull’s back, shoving him to the ground. A gust of wind roared, flattening the sagebrush around him in a great circle. “You cannot escape Craal,” a voice whispered. “I see you. I will follow.”

  ***

  Chapter 33: Dark Companions

  Tull raced toward Castle Rock. He did not know how to fight the Spirit Walkers of Craal, but he knew that Chaa had trained Ayuvah a bit in the art. Surely, Tull thought, Ayuvah will know how to fight them.

  At midday Tull stopped to eat. He was sweating and weary, and he wanted to wash his back, for it burned.

  He smelled beneath his cuirass, and his sweat stank. The wounds on his back smelled of sour infection, and his ankles ached.

  He wanted to bathe, but could feel someone’s eyes upon him. He turned, and wondered if the sorcerers of Craal were watching.

  Behind him he saw nothing, yet the desert was too quiet. No birds sang.

  Dr. Debon had once told a woman to expose her rash to the sun, saying that the sun could sometimes burn a wound cleaner than water. Since the stinking leather cuirass would not stop a Blade Kin’s bullets, Tull undid the straps. He pulled off his red cape and tied it in a roll, put it with the cuirass into his food bag, and began running again, faster.

  An hour later, he looked back, and saw two men racing over a hill. They wore clothes the color of winter sage, and he could see that they had the orange hair of Neanderthals. One carried a long glass rod that flashed in the sun.

  Tull felt weak, weaker than a Pwi ever should be, and knew he could not outdistance the Blade Kin that hunted him.

  In his mind, he played an old game from his childhood, asking “Animal Guide, which way should I go for safety?”

  But he laughed to himself, for he had no Animal Guide. So he ran, following the wagon tracks, and let the sun and the salt of his own sweat scour his back clean.

  When he looked behind him two hours later, the Blade Kin had only gained a mile. Tull ran faster, stretching his legs. His calves felt stiff, and once he stepped upon a rock and twisted his ankle.

  It was a small thing, but as he ran, the ankle swelled. He cursed his father Jenks for the wounds he had dished out when Tull was a child. For years Tull had tried to hide his limp, but now he limped unashamedly, wishing only to lengthen his stride, to run as fast as a Pwi should.

  At sunset, he glanced behind and saw the Blade Kin closing in. A cold wind played around him, and Tull pondered. A Spirit Walker could not work his magic except at the gates of death, so neither of
these men were sorcerers.

  The sun set, and for an hour there was no moon in the sky. Tull veered north and ran a zigzag, crossing and recrossing his trail as a hunted fox will do.

  He stopped at a creek to soak, then made a fire-less camp. Several times during the night he woke, shaking with chills. He dreamed that he sat beside a fire with Ayuvah and Chaa, and in the dream Fava sat with him as well, hugging him.

  “In the Land of Shapes,” Chaa told them, “there is no east or west, north or south. Direction is as meaningless as time. A sorcerer establishes a connection with the place he wants to be through his imagination, and the place draws him to it.”

  “Is that how one finds a friend in the Land of Shapes?” Fava asked. “By letting the friend draw him.”

  “That is how one finds friends, as well as enemies,” Chaa answered.

  Tull woke sweating, and wondered if the dream were a true sending or merely a hallucination. For a long time, he sat and fought the desire to walk into Craal. The cold presence of the Spirit Walker pierced him, and Tull lay hugging his knees, sweating, fighting the urge to run.

  At last, Tull dressed in his leather armor, strapping it tightly, and wrapped the red cape around him as a blanket, and for a while he slept.

  Near morning Tull’s eyes snapped open at the sound of a stick cracking under nearby footsteps. He unsheathed his broadsword and rolled back under a bush, wishing he’d had a stone to sharpen the damned sword. Thor, the largest moon, cast its fierce light over the hillsides, muted only by a few clouds, and a soft gravitational wind blew. Tull could smell sea air.

  He watched the hillside above him and saw a dark form scurrying animal-like upon all fours, making its way down the slope. He heard it sniffing.

  Only a Neanderthal had a strong enough sense of smell to hunt that way, Tull realized. Tull was sweating from his fever, and he felt weak. He did not know if he could fight.

  The hunter got within twenty feet of Tull’s camp and stopped, sniffed the air softly, stood to full height, and craned his head from side to side.