A Snake's Path (A Snake's Life Book 2) Page 19

  Arkos, following Carlas' lead, slowed to a stop and floated just behind the much smaller god.

  "Who is it!? Who's coming!?" Arkos asked excitedly.

  "I'm hurt, Arkos. I thought that you, of all people, would recognize your own brother," a raspy voice said from behind the two.

  Carlas slowly turned to face the new arrival and groaned in annoyance when his fears were confirmed.

  The man standing before him was one of the three "major” gods of the Calarian pantheon. He was currently slightly taller than twelve feet and was wider than most horses were long. His long, obsidian-colored hair was pulled into a bun on top of his head, and his thick, curly beard hung down to his navel.

  However, even though he was clad from neck to toe in silver armor, you could tell something was... off. His arms and legs didn't quite fit his body and the overly large head certainly didn't help to even things out.

  But what could be done about the appearance of a dwarf? Even if it were an ascended dwarf.

  "Lord Fieren... How nice to see you," Carlas said in a faux-polite voice.

  "Hello, dead-thing. Have you been properly watching out for my brother?" Fieren asked in a voice that clearly showed what he thought of the "dead-thing” standing before him.

  Carlas grimaced at the casual insult. He ground his teeth together and plastered a cheery, but just as fake smile on his face. "Of course, I have, my lord. Arkos is in perfect health." Carlas' statement was reinforced by Arkos nodding over his head.

  "Hmm... Good," Fieren muttered while stroking his beard.

  "I mean no disrespect, my lord. But... What brings you here?"

  Fieren's pale blue eyes briefly glanced over to Arkos, then returned to meeting Carlas'. He stopped stroking his beard and reached into a small leather pouch tied to his dull-white belt. After rummaging around inside the pouch for a few seconds he pulled out a sealed envelope and held it out for Arkos to take.

  "A letter from Mother. She asked that I get this to you personally, Arkos," was his simple response.

  Ahh, yes. The momma's boy rears his ugly head, Carlas thought while suppressing the smirk that threatened to show on his face.

  Fieren was rather notorious within the pantheon for his unhealthy obsession with his and Arkos' shared mother. No one knew for sure why Fieren felt the way he did, though most assumed it came from the lack of love he received from her as a child.

  Both of them, Fieren and Arkos, were born from the union of a mortal man and their goddess mother, making them originally demi-gods. This, of course, led to them being much more powerful than their fellow gods once they ascended to godhood. But as with nearly all demi-gods, the divine parent usually left them to fend for themselves in the world of mortals.

  It was rumored that being abandoned is what led to Fieren’s obsession, and his distaste for Carlas, as he was one of the few mortals to be chosen by Mother to be her champion. While most in the pantheon begrudgingly accepted this, Fieren never could stand the thought of a “dead-thing” sullying his mother's image, so he'd been actively trying to interfere in Carlas' assignments, even if it meant dragging Arkos down with him.

  "Thanks, Fieren!" Arkos cheered as he gratefully accepted the letter.

  "Hmph," Fieren grunted as he vanished in a flash of light.

  Carlas stared at the letter in Arkos' hands cautiously as he used his magic sight to thoroughly inspect every corner of it. I don't see any enchantments on it, aside from a sealing spell with Mother's magic signature. Though I wouldn't put it past Fieren to booby-trap the letter with something that could break through Arkos' defenses. Carlas began muttering to himself a prayer to mother for protection. It wouldn't do anything since she couldn't actually hear him from inside the time dilation, but it certainly made him feel better.

  *Boom!*

  Carlas turned in the direction of the sound and saw a wave of fire glassing the planet.

  NAUNET APPEARED IN a flash of silver light. He stood in the center of the frozen wasteland known as the Neutral Zone. The nine pillars, dubbed the Pillars of Orochi by the “lesser” royals, began to shake as the snow-covered ground thawed, revealing a frozen lake beneath the snow.

  Naunet knelt down and placed the palm of his right hand on the ice. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. It’s almost time. The pieces are falling into place, and soon you will be free. We will take our revenge on the ones responsible for imprisoning us. Of that, you have my word, brother. Power pulsed from Naunet’s palm, causing the ice to crack beneath his fingertips.

  He took another deep breath, then released a second burst of power from his palm, cracking the ice even further.

  The Neutral Zone began to shake as the pillars started to glow with a faint violet light. Soon after, the first of the nine pillars cracked down the center and shattered into a billion purple particles that slowly rotated in place, forming a three-foot high hurricane of magic that sunk into the ground. The second pillar came next, followed by the third, fourth, fifth, and so on.

  As the last of the pillars sunk into the ground, an intense violet light lit up the frozen lake.

  "So, the seal is finally weakening?" a hissing voice echoed across the land. It was an oily, venomous sound that would've made even the bravest hero pause.

  “Yes, it took some digging, but I’ve learned that the god responsible for sealing you away has met his end.”

  "Good!" The voice laughed. “And what of our followers? Have they come to greet their king?”

  “They’ve—No, sire. Most of them have turned their backs on us. Though we do still have some allies in the Golden City.”

  “I see. Then it seems I must remind them who it is they serve, and why my name instilled respect and fear into the hearts of my enemies. Hurry up and free me, Naunet. I’ve kept them waiting long enough.”

  “Yes, my lord. Soon the pieces will be in place, and your replacement will—”

  “Replacement?” Orochi hissed.

  “Sorry, sire.” Naunet hurriedly apologized. “Not replacement, no one could possibly replace you. But it will be enough to fool the enchantment on your prison and those idiotic gods that monitor it.”

  “Hmm—Yes, perhaps you are correct,” Orochi softly hissed. “Forgive me, Naunet. This place has made me... irritable.”

  “No apologies necessary, Sire,” Naunet replied, a chill racing down his spine.

  Chapter 22

  "HEY, WAIT UP DAMN IT!" A young man who appeared no older than fifteen with shaggy brown hair and a scruffy face yelled to the group of adventurers.

  "Go home, Steven," the tall blond woman at the front of the group replied without looking.

  "What? B—but you said I could join you. You promised me that last night, Kiera!" Steven hollered as he caught up to them.

  "Did you really promise the boy that?" a towering man at the back of the group asked.

  "No—"

  "That's a lie! You swore you would help me get revenge for my brother!"

  "No, I didn't!" Kiera yelled in his face, then continued in a softer tone. "I told you we would get revenge for all those Rajah has imprisoned here and forced to serve as his slaves. We, not you." She turned on her heel and motioned for the others to follow her. "Go home Steven and leave this to the professionals."

  Her traveling companions had mixed reactions to her refusal of the young man, but they all followed along after a few murmured words of encouragement to him.

  "Was that really necessary, Lady Kiera?" an older woman of elvish descent asked. Her head was completely shaved and she wore a yellow robe with the symbol of the elven goddess of life; Ysvarna, emblazoned on her chest.

  "Aye, that seemed a bit harsh even for you, " said the towering man, who stood well over thirteen feet tall and as wide as three men standing abreast. He had a leather shawl draped over his bare chest and a pair of loose cotton breaches as his only protection from the elements. Not that a cyclops needed much protection.

  "Better his feelings get hurt than his life be
taken," said the fourth and final member of the party, a yellow-scaled dragon-man. He was wearing a thick layer of chainmail over his entire body with only his face exposed.

  Kiera, the leader of the group, an Amazonian woman with resplendent blonde hair and bedecked in loose-fitting yellow robes, rolled her eyes at the dragon-man's apparent agreement.

  It was no secret that he'd been attempting to mate with her for decades, and part of his latest attempt at getting into her pants was to be as agreeable as possible. As if she were attracted to that. While she hadn't known Agronok, the cyclops, and Sheena, the elf, for very long, at least they seemed to have noble intentions.

  Q-Shan, on the other hand, she'd known since long before she was brought to this cesspool of a planet. As the first warrior of an Amazonian tribe, Kiera was the strongest warrior in the tribe and was in charge of training the younger generations.

  The problems only arose when they sent her out to find a group of men to father the next generation. As first warrior, she was exempt from this, as she needed to be combat ready at all times—a fact Q-Shan blithely ignored after he and several other dragon-men were offered the job, and unfortunately for Kiera, he'd been after her ever since.

  After several hours of traveling in near silence with only Q-Shan and Sheena attempting to hold a conversation, the group began to notice a strange sensation in the air: like an oppressive force was bearing down on their shoulders and attempting to drive them into the ground.

  "What on Yggdrasil is that?" Q-Shan asked anxiously.

  Kiera glared at him out of the corner of her eye but didn't rebuke him since she felt it too.

  "I don't know, but we should remain cautious moving forward. This could be another of Rajah's tricks." After saying so, she slipped her hands into the ebony-colored gauntlets at her waist and tightened them to the point they wouldn't slip off. After making sure they were fastened to her satisfaction, she slammed her palms together, which caused spikes to jump out of the many small holes dotting the back of the gauntlets and lock into place.

  The other members of the group all readied their own weapons within seconds of Kiera. Q-Shan drew a claymore from his back. It was easily as long as Kiera was tall and almost as wide, with a plain ebony hilt on the end.

  Agronok was far too large to wield ordinary weapons, even those made by the dragon clan, who were known for their ridiculously oversized weapons. He instead opted to use his natural weapons... Teeth, horns, and sheer overwhelming might to beat his enemies into submission.

  And Sheena, as an elven priestess, began whispering prayers to her goddess to grant her allies "buffs” and to weaken her enemies.

  However, once she started asking her goddess to affect their guest personally, a large shadow suddenly appeared behind her and an eyeless serpent with a mouth large enough to swallow even Agronok whole coiled tightly around her body.

  "Don't take this personally," the monster said in a dreadfully terrifying voice that seemed to echo multiple times before coming to an end.

  The adventurers spun on their heels and instinctively charged the monster, but the sight of Sheena being hoisted into the air by the odd-looking serpent gave them pause. Better to find out what it wanted and possibly convince it to let her go, than piss it off by attacking and guarantee her death. After all, it had spoken, so it had to be intelligent enough to bargain with, right?

  Kiera raised her hands with the palms facing the monster.

  "Hey, easy now. You don't want to do this," she said while taking a few small steps towards the towering creature. It had short black hair, and stern-looking eyes that were deep red. Having nine eyeless serpents tracking her every movement was creepy, to say the least, but she didn’t want to insult the creature by staring.

  "Who here knows of a serpent that goes by the name Rajah?" the naga asked in that eerie voice of his.

  The sudden question put the group on edge and caused Sheena's eyes to widen even further than they already were. Unable to control her anxieties, she began to struggle against the serpent’s hold.

  The naga glanced at her and said, "If you answer my question, I have no problem with letting you go. But you need to stop struggling before you get hurt."

  Sheena began to fight even harder as panic set in, and her higher thought processes were overridden by fear. Before Kiera could tell Sheena to calm down, Sheena began screaming in pain as the snake tightened around her.

  "I said. Stop. Struggling." The naga said in a tone which brokered no argument.

  It was a combination of the sight of their companion in pain, the naga’s voice, and the overwhelming pressure they'd been feeling for the past few minutes that ultimately led to the group’s first mistake.

  "Let the lass go!" Agronok roared as he swung his meaty fist over Kiera’s head and slammed it into the naga’s cheek.

  The naga’s head was turned slightly to one side and he loosened his grip enough that Sheena slid out and collapsed to the ground. Except, the moment she touched the ground, before Kiera's eyes, Sheena's body, clothes, and jewelry seemingly evaporated into bright blue particles of light and flowed into the naga.

  "I apologize for your friend. I didn't mean for that to happen," the naga mumbled.

  "What did ye do!?" Agronok yelled as, in a fit of rage, he began swinging.

  Each hit slightly turned the naga’s head from side to side. However, that was the only reaction they received, as not even the look of apathy on his face changed to reflect the damage he should be feeling.

  An adult cyclops like Agronok was capable of bending steel beams with his bare hands. As such, no matter how large the naga was, there was simply no way he wasn't feeling Agronok's punches—right? Kiera wondered.

  Suddenly, as if in answer to her unasked question, the naga moved around a still swinging Agronok. "You should have just listened to me," the naga sighed as he moved out of the way of a punch. "You would have lived longer." As the naga moved past a suddenly unmoving Agronok, he pulled the shawl from the cyclops’ shoulders and wrapped it around himself just before Agronok pitched forward and dissolved into blue dust.

  After seeing the imposing cyclops reduced to nothing more than dust in the wake of the naga, Kiera's mind was flooded with fear, and her fight or flight response kicked in. She ran with all the might her legs could generate and in a flash of lightning, she left Q-Shan alone with the monster that would come to haunt her dreams.

  GOTTA GET AWAY, GOTTA run, I gotta leave! These thoughts repeated in her head over and over again as the events that had just transpired played on a loop inside her mind's eye.

  The monster appearing, Sheena evaporating into the pale blue lights, Agronok falling to dust, and the look of betrayal on Q-Shan's face as he realized what she was about to do. I'm sorry! Was all her fear clouded mind could manage as she fled and left him to his fate.

  As the walls of a large city filled her empty eyes, she snapped back to reality. She slid almost to a complete stop just outside the city's gate, prompting the line of people trying to get in to turn to her in surprise.

  "Jeez, what's her problem?"

  "Oi lady, watch where you're going!"

  "Is she okay?"

  The crowd began murmuring as they watched her pant with wild eyes, disheveled hair, and robes tattered from racing through the forest, though she didn't even notice the last thing in her haste to get inside the city walls.

  "Help—Please." She muttered as she fell to her knees.

  Luckily one of the guardsmen at the gate recognized her and came running to her aid. "Lady Kiera, what is it? What's wrong?" the guardsman asked while removing his gray-metal helmet to reveal a weathered face filled with frown lines, short gray hair, and a thick mustache.

  "Monster—" Was all she could manage to say as the adrenaline began to wear off and inky blackness clouded her vision.

  "Monster?" the guardsman asked.

  "Serpent—" she whispered, then her head fell forward and she passed out.

  DORIAN, THE GUAR
DSMAN, lifted her into his arms and carried her through the gates in spite of the protests from those waiting to get in.

  "Hey, what about us!?"

  "We were here first!"

  "That's not fair!"

  One burst of outrage led to another as a cacophony of voices soon began to rail against the guardsmen at the gate.

  "Silence!" Dorian roared. Their voices died in their throats as the glare of the captain’s anger pressed down on them. "The next person to open their mouth is barred from the city for a week," Dorian informed the men standing at the gate as he walked through it.

  “What—”

  “We’ll die—”

  “Those two, no entry for a week. Anyone found letting them in will have me to deal with, am I clear?”

  “Sir!” the guardsmen yelled.

  Once inside, Dorian made his way to the gate barracks and started barking out orders to the men under his command.

  "Kiera returned without the others. I want a full regiment sent to investigate!"

  "But sir, we don't have the manpower to–"

  Dorian rounded on his lieutenant. "Those adventurers, shabby as they may be, are our best shot at killing Rajah and getting off this godforsaken world! I don't care if I have to borrow men from the other captains, we will find them!” Then, in a much quieter voice, he asked, "Do I make myself clear, lieutenant?"

  The shorter man swallowed thickly and nodded. "Crystal, sir."

  "Then get on it. And tell the healer I'm taking her up to the holding cells until we can get this sorted out."

  "Sir!" The lieutenant gave him a one-armed salute and left to follow his orders.

  The barracks, much like the city it protected, was almost solely created by Earth magic millennia ago, back when the serpent lord Rajah first decided to start abducting people from the wider verse and imprisoning them on this planet. A young prodigious thaumaturge was one of the first hundred abducted.

  Whether it was by design or accident, no one is sure, this mage would become the hero they needed more than anything, as he alone used his knowledge to form the walls that protect them to this day. He spent the remainder of his life creating this city as a bastion for those Rajah had doomed to walk this planet.