Serpent Catch: Book Two of the Serpent Catch Series

by David Farland

  Tull did not move. The man raised a dagger, waved it overhead, and for a full five minutes walked softly, using his toes to move tiny twigs before placing each foot. When the man was only a few feet away, he stopped where Tull had made his bed and stood, dagger poised.

  Tull crouched in the shadow of a large bush, and did not think the man could see him. It was almost a game, to see if the hunter would pass him by.

  The man whirled and struck, driving his dagger into Tull’s chest—only Tull’s lacquered armor turned the blade.

  Tull lunged with his sword. The man knocked it aside and slammed Tull in the head with a knee, knocking him back. He swung the knife again, and Tull caught his hand, so the fellow jumped on him, grappling for the knife.

  Tull felt so weak and dizzy, he did not know how he could hope to wrest the knife away.

  “Give it up,” someone grumbled, and his attacker jumped clear.

  A Blade Kin stood in the moonlight, aiming a gun at Tull.

  ***

  Chapter 34: Spitting in the Dark God’s Eye

  Phylomon and Ayuvah reached Castle Rock exactly six days after leaving Tull and Scandal. It had been an uneventful trip. They’d stolen a wagon, four oxen, and some food. They’d freed several slaves and taken their testimonies.

  Castle Rock was nothing more than a large igneous haystack that jutted from the shore. If one squinted at the black mass, one could imagine turrets near its top.

  It marked the entrance to the Strait of Zerai, and it also marked the entrance to a small fjord that served as a makeshift harbor on this treacherous coast.

  Here they met Scandal. The fat man had not stolen just any boat—it was a fine little twenty footer made of Benbow glass with masts worked in a filigree of silver so that the morning glinted on it from afar.

  The sails were woven from white silk, and the small ship dazzled in the sunlight. Scandal had dressed in a golden jacket with epaulets and a red silk belt. His hair was combed and perfumed. He looked as clean as if he’d spent the entire week soaking in perfumed bathwater.

  “You shouldn’t have stolen this boat,” Phylomon said. “The owner will be looking for it.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Scandal said. “I set fire to a ship in Denai, and half the city burned. They don’t have anything to hunt me with.”

  “But where is Tull?” Ayuvah asked, and Scandal relayed their adventures.

  Phylomon frowned. “He killed four guards? And you burned their harbor? And I freed a dozen slaves on the outskirts of the city. No wonder the Lords of Craal dislike us Roughians! I hope to God that Tull makes it out!”

  That night, as Scandal washed the dishes down at the water’s edge, Ayuvah sat next to Phylomon, silently watching out to sea.

  “Zhe adjena? What do you fear?” Phylomon asked in Pwi. “Do you think Tull was captured by Blade Kin?”

  “I don’t know. I was just thinking of all we have lost on this journey, and all of the things we have yet to lose.”

  “Little Chaa?” Phylomon said. “Your love for your brother was strong, but you have not been the same since Wisteria died. I know that she was Tull’s wife, but sometimes two men will fall in love the same woman.”

  Ayuvah laughed. “That whore-I-did-not-care-for? No.”

  “But you mourn for a woman?” Phylomon said.

  “I mourn for my wife!” Ayuvah said. “I mourn for my children.”

  Phylomon felt his skin crawl at those words. He had a strong appreciation for the Pwi’s ability to feel the future. “You said that when you tried to take your Spirit Walk, you failed! Did you speak the truth?”

  “I did fail, sadly, to walk into the future,” Ayuvah said. “I’ve never been good at connecting. I have no talent for it. But while I was on the threshold of the netherworld, my father came in the form of a crow. He showed me the future.”

  “The Spirit Walkers of the Pwi are notorious for being vague. Are you sure you understood what he showed you?”

  “He showed me a line of gray Thralls with clubs, standing from horizon to horizon. He showed me a cloud of crows, each with a green worm in its mouth, and they flew over a field of thorns, and as they flew, they dropped the tiny destroyers from their mouths, and the green worms fell like rain and ate the thorns. He showed me a lightning storm, and the instrument of my own death-that-is-cruel. I know the very moment. It comes shortly.”

  Phylomon considered. The line of Thralls with clubs could well be an army, and the black crows would be Pwi Spirit Walkers. The green worms, or tiny destroyers, he did not understand. “He showed you your death?” Phylomon asked. The Spirit Walkers never told a man the moment of his death. It was far too cruel.

  “Yes,” Ayuvah said. “Chaa taught me that I must say a certain thing before I die. The timing is important. Tull cannot make the serpent catch without me. But now I am afraid, for I may need to go back into Craal to free him.”

  The two Blade Kin stood in the moonlight, watching Tull. The fellow with the gun seemed nervous, kept licking his lips, and Tull watched the man’s eyes.

  He was an older man, in his forties. The Blade Kin with the knife got up, and his hood fell back, and red hair tumbled out. Tull realized dully that the Blade Kin was a young woman, a girl of fifteen or so, yet her face was angry and hard. She fingered a white disk at her throat, and said, “Notify Lord Tantos that we have captured Pu Tchixila. We await his judgment.”

  The older man motioned toward the ground, and said “Sit.” Tull found himself a bare spot on the ground.

  The girl sheathed her knife.

  “You did not take long in finding me,” Tull told them.

  “Adjonai rules this land,” the old Neanderthal said. “His finger pointed us to you.”

  Tull smiled, realizing that the Crawley Spirit Walker had nudged the Blade Kin toward him, just as he had tried to nudge Tull back toward Craal. “Adjonai is a clever god,” Tull said. “I planned to go into the Rough. I hear it is nice there. Why don’t you come with me?”

  The old Blade Kin laughed, “Why don’t you sit for a moment while someone rouses Lord Tantos from his bed long enough to consider whether we should deliver you back to Craal alive or dead.”

  Tull gazed into the young girl’s eyes and in her features he saw only cruelty. He rested a moment. So much sleeplessness and weariness made his head spin. Both of them wore robes in shades of desert blue and purple, but each also wore a small insignia at the chest, a Black Cyclops.

  Tull realized dully that these were two of Lord Tantos’ best, and wondered if they fought any better than the city guards. He decided not to wait to learn if Tantos would give his death sentence.

  He focused on the old man, filled his right hand with gravel, tossed it, and leapt for the woman. He pulled her knife from her sheath and put it to her throat, using her body as a shield.

  The old Blade Kin cursed and stood blinking dust from his eyes. He did not fire, and Tull realized that the Blade Kin thought Tull would use the girl as a hostage, but she twisted from his grasp and Tull leapt forward and swung high, slashing the old man’s throat.

  Tull heard the rustle of cloth as the girl circled behind him, and he bashed with all his force behind the dagger.

  The girl had picked up his broadsword, and she swung from the side. The force of his blow drove the dagger into her chest and sent her flying to the ground, yet the broadsword swung into him, slashing into his leather cuirass so that the blade nicked his skin.

  He stood in the moonlight and caught his breath, peered down at the two dead Blade Kin.

  A voice came from the white disk at the girl’s throat. “Lord Tantos asks that you hold Pu Tchixila until others arrive, and then return him to Denai. Our Lord desires that the criminal watch the water night after night, until the serpents take him.”

  A cold wind pushed at Tull, teasing him. “You cannot escape me,” a voice whispered into his ear. “My minions follow you still.”

  Tull looked back toward Craal, in the moonlight he saw A
djonai sitting upon the side of a mountain.

  The dark god glared at him, and the kwea of terror that the creature radiated pierced Tull’s chest. “In the Land of Shapes,” Chaa had said, “there is no east or west, north or south. Direction is as meaningless as time.”

  Dutifully, Tull realized that he had been traveling the wrong direction all along. He turned back toward Denai and trotted toward the feet of the dark god.

  That day, Tull often felt the sorcerer with him, and upon each occasion Tull would look toward Denai and see Adjonai staring intently.

  Each time, the terror of the beast struck Tull like a blow, just as it had at Gold River Pass. But then Tull would stop and close his eyes, imagining Frowning Idols or Smilodon Bay, establish a mental connection in his mind, and as he traveled to these familiar lands in his imagination, he felt the cold wind leave, and the dark god would turn his face.

  Tull realized that the sorcerer could not discern between a landscape that Tull traveled in his imagination and one that he traveled in reality.

  Toward evening, Tull crossed a hill and saw four Blade Kin to the north. They spotted him and gave chase, and he ran south, heading away from them. He lost them at night and went without sleep.

  Instead, he ran toward the feet of the dark god, and as he ran, he closed his eyes and thought of Tirilee and Wisteria, of the good times he’d had upon his way to Craal.

  He reached the sorcerer’s camp at midnight, at the foot of a hill where the dark god sat.

  Tull wondered how the Spirit Walker projected the illusion, for he was staring into the black rotting face. The dark god’s kutow radiated terror, and his shield radiated despair, and the whole land felt foul and ill, yet the creature seemed unaware of Tull, for he was too intent on searching the distance.

  Tull closed his eyes and imagined the redwood forests, imagined making love to Wisteria in a mountain glade, and the dark god suddenly lifted his head and gazed east toward Smilodon Bay.

  A dozen Blade Kin had camped at the foot of the hill, and all of them had tents of black.

  Only one tent was different: a fire glowed within so that the tent shined like a lantern. Tull remembered how Zhopila had kept Chaa warm and moist in his cave while he took his spirit walk. Tull could see no guards, and he wondered if the image of Adjonai was thought to be guard enough.

  Tull waited till all the moons were down, and forced himself to remember Tirilee. The thought of her still stirred his passion, and sometimes he would swallow and find that he tasted her kisses in his mouth. He remembered the clean aspen forests, the bed of leaves, and when his lust for the Dryad grew strong, he crept to the lighted tent.

  Inside, he found a small boy sleeping by a fire, and beside him lay the body of a powerful young man, dried blood at his wrists. The boy woke and glanced up at Tull in confusion, and Tull slapped the child, hard enough to knock him back.

  The Spirit Walker shuddered, and his eyes fluttered open. The young man began to shout.

  Tull shoved his hand into the sorcerer’s mouth. A great wind hit the tent, blowing it away with a single tearing sound.

  Tull gazed up into the face of Adjonai, and the god shouted, “No!” and the earth rolled and shook.

  Adjonai reached down with one great finger, as if to touch Tull, and Tull shoved his broadsword into the sorcerer’s chest, under his ribs, twisted the blade to puncture both lungs, and prepared to run, fearing that the Blade Kin had been wakened by the shout.

  Adjonai wavered in the sky for a moment, and then faded. The image that had dwarfed even the mountains vanished, and Tull found that he was sitting in the tent.

  The sorcerer lay dead. His child guardian had been knocked out. Tull hoped that the child didn’t die.

  Tull rose and went outside, looked warily, searching the camp. All was still and quiet, as if only Tull had heard the god shout. Tull spat toward the mountain where Adjonai had reclined only moments before, then headed for Castle Rock.

  ***

  Chapter 35: Castle Rock

  Tull staggered in to Castle Rock at noon. His back was swollen and festering, and his body shook from fever like aspen leaves in the wind.

  Ayuvah embraced his brother. Then he set a small fire and put some water on to boil so he could lance Tull’s back. By the next morning, Tull’s fever had dropped.

  Phylomon insisted that they rest for a day at Castle Rock, but soon after, the men pulled their little sailboat from the water and put it on the wagon for the journey along the Straits of Zerai, for it was far too dangerous to sail these straits in the winter.

  The next morning, Tull felt much recovered except for an unshakable weariness, and they began following the rugged coastline. Tull sat in the wagon, his blanket wrapped about him, while Phylomon drove the ox team.

  By map, the straits were only a hundred miles long. On foot, the coastline was so rugged that one had to travel over two hundred miles. In the valleys they came upon small groves—white oak and willow, maple and birch. Often, they could see mountains off to the north across the water.

  A dozen miles from Castle Rock, they found something they never expected—an army of Thralls that stretched from the shore in a line across the plain to the hills at least five miles south. The Thralls held war clubs, and they raised them over their heads and shook them. The party stopped a mile off.

  “By God, there are thousands!” Scandal shouted. “Are they friendly?”

  “Friendly enough,” Phylomon said, and he whistled for his ox team to move.

  They walked up to the line of Thralls, and Tull saw something wrong. The Thralls did not move from their spots.

  When they got near, they found them to be scarecrows slowly raising their arms, waving clubs. Each was green, the color of a laurel leaf, and the scarecrows had the faces of Pwi. Ayuvah stepped up to one, and it suddenly gasped and moaned, dropping its club slowly.

  “They are called Man Fruits,” Phylomon said. “The Creators sometimes make them, building a living fence. They do it seldom—only when they are introducing a new species to an area.

  “The last time I saw one of these was, what, sixty years ago? Here in the north, we had hunted the giant wolverine nearly to extinction, and everyone was thankful for it. But the Creators put up a fence of Man Fruits, and reestablished the population in a secure setting. There’s not an animal—mammoth, wolf, or cat, that will walk past one of these fences.”

  “A line of gray Thralls with clubs,” Ayuvah said in wonder. Phylomon watched his face, remembering the prophecy. “How do they move?”

  “Plants breathe, just as we do,” Phylomon said. “The Man Fruits exhale into tiny bladders that run along their arms. When the bladders fill, they stiffen, and the arms move up erect. When they become too full of oxygen, a valve opens, and the air escapes from their throats, and they moan. Smell them. They even smell like a Pwi—nothing like a plant. But don’t touch them. They’ll explode.”

  Scandal sniff one. “The explosion wouldn’t be powerful enough to, say, blow my nose off? Would it?”

  “Considering the size of your snout,” Phylomon said, “it would do you a service.”

  “Then, Tull, loan me your sword!” Scandal shouted. He got the broadsword, swung it in the air in great clumsy arcs. “Now, you foul Crawlies, you will die!” He rushed forward, slashed the arm from a Man Fruit.

  It exploded with the sound of a gun, making him jump. Green slime spattered over his belly, and immediately all the Man Fruits nearby gasped and moaned.

  Scandal studied the slime on his gold shirt. “Crap on me, will you?” he laughed, thrusting a sword into a second Man Fruit. He whirled and lopped the head off a third. “Eat my steel, Blade Kin,” he shouted. He grunted and sweated, and ran down the line, dealing death to the Man Fruits, and each exploded in a shower of green slime, soiling his fine clothing.

  A hundred yards up the line, he stopped and stared at one Man Fruits. “Tull! Ayuvah! Come here!”

  The men walked over to him. Scandal pointed
up at the Man Fruit, and Ayuvah gasped. “Doesn’t this one look like Little Chaa?”

  The resemblance was uncanny. The Man Fruit had the same wide lips, the same narrow forehead. The Man Fruit had slowly been raising its arms for several minutes, and it dropped them suddenly and sighed. Ayuvah sank to his knees and wept, and Tull put his arms around him.

  “Do you want me to kill it?” Scandal asked.

  “My brother died once already,” Ayuvah said. “Let me look on his face for a while.”

  “Ayaah, let’s leave it then,” Scandal said, wiping the sweat from his brow. “I’ll fix us some lunch.”

  Tull and Ayuvah sat for an hour, and watched the Man Fruit slowly raise and drop his club with a sigh.

  ***

  Chapter 36: The New People

  That afternoon they passed the Man Fruits and entered the Creator’s introduction zone. Game was sparse—only a few rabbits, quail, ground squirrels, and deer. It was the most peaceful place they’d encountered on the trip.

  They watched the ocean from the cliffs, looking for serpents, and after several days, they spotted a female who rose to the surface and bellowed a mile out to sea.

  “I don’t understand this,” Phylomon said at last. “There should be hundreds, perhaps thousands of serpents nesting in these waters.”

  “We’re lucky to have seen one,” Scandal said. “It was more than what we had at Smilodon Bay.”

  “Yet their hatch was large,” Phylomon said. “The river was full of hatchlings.”

  “Then the mothers are dying,” Tull said, “Chaa said the mothers were dying.” He spoke as if he couldn’t imagine all of them dying, “Or … or maybe they’re not nesting yet. Maybe they don’t come to lay for another few weeks.”

  “Let us hope that is all it is,” Phylomon said. He rested his eyes, recalling a scene from his youth. He’d been here when he was in his nineties. The sea had been thick with serpents. At nearly every submerged rock, a mother guarded her nest. Often, he’d watched two or three mothers fight for the right to lay at one rock. Phylomon’s father had said the mothers were persuaded to lay by water temperature. On his solar calendar, it had been the day of October 31—or day 52 of Harvest, in the Calendar of Anee. It was well past that date now, and the fall had been warmer that year.