Where Serpents Strike (Children of the Falls Vol. 1) (64 page)

“Serves him right,” said another. “Edhen
folks bring nothing but trouble here.”

“Honeyed mead please,” Khile said, rapping
his knuckles across the bar. “Two. And none of that filthy, sandy
piss water.”

“All we got in here is filthy, sandy piss
water,” the barman snapped. “It’s what makes our mead the best in
the known world.”

“Then at least pile on the sugar.”

The barman chuckled as he handed over two
mugs of foaming, yellow colored liquid. Khile passed one to
Lia.

“To piss water,” she said.

They clunked cups.

Khile started counting. “Four… three…
two…”

“Already?” Lia asked, slamming her mug down
and rolling her eyes.

A rotund man squeezed himself up to the time
worn wood of the countertop, pushing aside the patron to Lia’s
right. He leaned toward her, his drunk eyes lingering around her
bosom. “You a girl or a boy?” he asked, slobbering spit down his
wiry beard.

Lia wasn’t surprised by his question. Her
hair was cropped short enough that from many angles she did indeed
look like a boy. With the amount of dirt that usually smeared her
face combined with her lack of any noticeable feminine assets, the
only thing she found surprising was how often men seemed intrigued
by her.

Lia cocked an eyebrow at the fat drunkard.
She looked him up and down and curled her lip. “Am I girl or a boy?
You don’t look like the type who’d care, sweetness.”

The man’s eyes widened, almost as though he
were offended. A moment later a broad smile split his ugly face.
His head fell back, and he burst with laughter.

“Where did that come from?” Khile asked,
nudging Lia.

“I just wanted to see what he’d do.”

Khile sighed and took her by the arm,
pulling her away from the bar to a dim corner.

“Listen, I get that you’re serious about
wanting some real fights, but lets pick and choose our tests
carefully, all right? This is a dangerous place.”

“I can handle myself.”

“Of that I have no doubt. Still, you’ve got
to learn to use this.” He tapped a finger on her forehead.

Khile kept talking, but Lia was no longer
listening, her eyes had refocused on the three black vipers that
had just entered the tavern. The sight of them set her teeth on
edge. They wore no helmets or plate armor, but still bore black
tunics bearing the gold insignia of High King Orkrash Mahl. These
soldiers were off duty.

Khile snapped his fingers in front of her
face. “Do you hear what I’m saying to you?”

“Uh-huh.”

Lia strolled through the tavern, weaving
past patrons, making her way toward the vipers. Climbing up on top
of the bar, she opened her arms wide and said in perfect
Efferousian, “Welcome, men of Edhen. Your swords are legend. Would
you kindly tell us your names so that we may drink to your good
health?”

The three soldiers looked at one another as
the crowd quieted. All eyes fell upon Lia.

“I am Tomas Guldonroch,” said the
leathery-faced man in the middle. He had deep lines around his
mouth, and gray hair edging his ears. A seasoned soldier.

His comrades introduced themselves as Ian
Henderson and Ewan Glamdrang. Lia bought them all a pint of beer
and toasted to their health.

She saw Khile out of the corner of her eye
acting antisocial in the dark corner. She ignored him, knowing
she’d get an earful later, but she didn’t care. This was just the
kind of test she’d been waiting for.

“My lords,” she began, slurring her words to
appear just a tad inebriated. “Might you present us with a
demonstration of your skill?”

To Lia’s delight a few of the other patrons
goaded them on. “Yeah, do it,” one of them said. “Go on then, let’s
see,” said another.

While the soldiers exchanged glances with
each other, Lia noticed that Ewan was blind in his right eye, and
Ian’s right hand was nursing sore ribs on his left side.

“You flatter us, miss…” Tomas let his last
word drag on.

“Ulyssa,” Lia said with a broad grin.

“Ulyssa. I’m sorry, but we must respectfully
decline.”

The crowd offered murmurs of
disappointment.

Lia sent a knife pinwheeling into the
countertop right between Tomas’ hands.

In an instant, the room became as silent as
a graveyard.

The vipers looked at her with death in their
eyes.

“I insist,” she said cheerfully.

Lia trotted across the top of the counter,
retrieved her knife, and pointed toward a wooden beam at the other
end of the room. “Best two out of three,” she said. “You and me.
I’d like to know if I have what it takes to best a soldier of
Edhen.” She let her accent slip just a bit, and she could tell by
the quick tilt of Tomas’ head that he had noticed, just like she
was hoping he would.

He nodded. “Very well.”

The crowd cheered.

Lia hopped down from the bar.

Spectators cleared a straight path about ten
paces in length to the wooden beam. Bets were made. Judgments were
passed.

“She’s a drunken halfwit,” said one man.

“I saw her performance in the square today.
She always hits her mark.”

“Against black vipers? She’ll never
win.”

Tomas was a soldier of average build, but
with muscled arms that looked cut from stone. His eyes were steady
and alert, vaults of combative knowledge containing decades of
experience.

Lia gave him the option of going first. He
took a short moment to gauge the distance and get a feel for the
weight and balance of the knife. With a sharp flick of his right
wrist he sent the dagger spinning into the dead center of the
support post.

He was right arm dominant, Lia noticed. He
didn’t even need to use his left arm to compensate from the force
of his throw.

People applauded him.

Lia stepped up to the line, cracking her
neck, and putting on a show of looking dizzy and a bit drunk. It
served to illicit a few chuckles from the crowd, effectively
lowering their expectations. When she planted her knife right next
to Tomas’, the crowd gasped, laughed, and applauded all at the same
time.

She bowed, and said, “Thank you. Thank
you.”

“Two out of three, right?” Tomas said with a
smirk.

She responded in the language of Edhen,
“Yes, sir.”

The black soldier froze, looked at her, and
his smirk broadened. “Very well. Might the lady go first this
time?”

Lia accepted, and threw her knife into
almost the exact same spot.

Tomas’ blade stuck right under Lia’s with a
rare upward spin that dislodged her knife and sent it tumbling to
the floor.

This, the crowd loved.

“Very nice,” she said, feigning
astonishment.

Tomas shrugged. “An amusing trick I learned
long ago.”

On the third and final round, Tomas went
first. He threw his knife hard, burying it deep into the wood.

Lia stepped up. “Here’s a trick I learned,”
she said. She lifted her right leg and balanced the knife on the
toe of her boot. She stood there for a moment on one leg, arms out,
waiting for the crowd’s bated breath to be at just the right
moment. Then she kicked the knife into the air, spun around,
grabbed the blade, and used her twirling momentum to throw the
knife into the end of the first knife’s handle.

The eruption of cheer from the crowd was
deafening in the tight confines of the tavern.

Tomas clapped as he walked up to Lia. He put
a firm hand on her shoulder and drew her into him, speaking into
her ear, “Come outside with me, miss.”

“Oh, but sir, I—”

“Now.” His tone was calm, collected, and not
to be trifled with.

Tomas and his two comrades escorted Lia out
the front door and around the side of the building.

Now that she was alone and walking among
them, Lia had to admit the black vipers were far more intimidating.
For a while she couldn’t discern if she was feeling more fear than
excitement, or if it was the other way around.

Once they were off the street and between
the shadows of the buildings, Thomas said, “You hide your accent
well, little miss, but not well enough, I’m afraid. What part of
Edhen are you from?”

To Lia’s own surprise, she froze. All at
once the shadows, the soldiers, her own small size, the situation
in which she had gotten herself, all settled upon her at the same
time. She felt ashamed and foolish and well out of her depth.

“Miss? I asked you a question.” Tomas
snapped the fingers of his right hand in front of her eyes.

The gesture was just what Lia needed. Khile
had done the same thing to her many times over the years, always in
an attempt to get her to focus. She hated it, but it never
failed.

Lia grabbed Tomas’ right wrist and bent it
forward toward the notch of his elbow, the pressure and pain of
which sent the man to his knees. She heard his wrist snap as she
leaned forward. At the same time she brought her heel up into the
blind eye of Ewan on her left. She vaulted over Tomas to give
herself some space. With a death grip on his broken hand, she
twisted it in a half circle as she kicked Ian in his left side
where she knew his ribs were tender. He dropped like a cart of
bricks.

She clenched her fist, allowing her middle
knuckle to protrude about a finger’s width, and rapt it into the
side of Tomas’ neck, paralyzing his right arm and knocking him
down. She bore down onto him with a crushing blow to his face,
relishing the way his nose popped against her knuckles.

Khile arrived in a flurry of fists and
knees. He roughed up Ian and Ewan until they lay motionless on the
ground.

As Lia surveyed her handiwork, a wide grin
broke out across her face. When she caught the look in Khile’s
eyes, however, her smile vanished.

“What?” she said, holding out her hands. “I
knew I could beat them.”

Khile’s blue eyes glared at her in
disappointment. He turned and left the alley without a word.

Confused, Lia followed him across the street
to the inn. She thought he would’ve been impressed. Not every
thirteen-year-old girl could knock a grown man unconscious, let
alone three.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. She trotted
behind him as he entered the inn and stomped up the stairs to the
second floor. “Will you talk to me? What are you doing?”

She followed him into the bedroom that he
had rented for them to share. Her belongings were in a pile on the
bed. Khile grabbed his things and turned to leave the room.

“Where are you going?” she asked, her
stomach knotting up.

Khile stopped and exhaled in frustration.
“As soon as those soldiers regain consciousness they’re going to
start asking around. It won’t take long before they figure out who
and where we are.”

Lia had to admit he had a point.

“I did it on purpose, you know?” she said.
“My accent. I wanted them to hear it so they’d take me
outside.”

“It was foolishness,” he muttered through
gritted teeth.

“I did exactly what you taught me to do.
Know yourself, know your enemy, and know your surroundings. That’s
what you always tell me. I got to know my enemy during the knife
fight. He was overly dominant with his right hand to the point that
his left side was useless. One of them was blind in one eye, the
other had a wound on his side. I knew what I was doing.”

“You don’t know yourself as well as you
think you do,” he said flatly.

“How can you say that? I just bested three
trained soldiers in—”

Khile lunged at her so quick and swift that
by the time Lia finished flinching and opened her eyes again, his
fist was a hair’s width from her nose.

“You didn’t even see that coming, did
you?”

A shiver crawled through her bones. “What’s
your point?”

“If you were ready you would’ve been able to
defend that.”

“You’re my friend,” she countered. “Why
would I think about having to defend myself from you?”

“You’re still letting your emotions control
you. Whenever you get worked up you get sloppy. You have no
self-control. And I’m done trying to help you understand that.”

He threw his saddlebags over his shoulder
and left the room.

Lia ran after him.

They retrieved their horses and mule without
notifying the stable hand and hurried down the street.

“What did you mean by that?” Lia asked
him.

But Khile just said, “Later.”

They followed the main road east for a ways
before heading out of Thalmia’s northeast gate.

Khile said nothing to Lia as they made camp
in the woods well off the road, far away from being spotted. He
didn’t even bother to start a fire. He just spread out his mat and
went to sleep, leaving Lia alone in the dark with nothing but the
stars and her miserable thoughts.

Twice she opened her mouth to say, “I’m
sorry,” and twice she changed her mind. She finally decided that
perhaps she had been a little too careless, but she had still
defeated three of the high king’s men. As far as she was concerned,
Khile wasn’t giving her enough credit.

She looked at him asleep on his mat and
allowed her eyes to trace the strong curve of his chin, his sharp
nose, and handsome brow. He had been her only companion since
leaving Aberdour, and though he was more of a mentor to her than
anything, he was also a valued friend. Perhaps she hadn’t given him
the respect he deserved.

Khile’s place on the ground was empty the
following morning. His bedding was gone, as were his horse and
saddlebags. He’d left Dumbass and all the rest of their belongings,
so Lia assumed he was coming back. This wasn’t the first time he
had wandered off without telling her, just never under such
circumstances.

Lia decided not to worry about it. She took
her time exploring the wide bend in the river beyond their
campsite. She dug out some fishing line and nabbed a couple of
blunt nosed silverbacks that she gutted and cooked over a small
fire. She tried to enjoy the catch, but found the meat bland and
unsatisfying.