Serpent Kings Saga (Omnibus Edition) Read online

  Nevertheless, I immediately ran across the top of the train, hoping to get his attention. The other rider, I quickly realized, was his friend Donavan whom I had met before at Thorn Mountain; the same thought to have been killed with him at Mount Doom. Both of them had somehow survived. They couldn’t be apparitions, I just knew it. This was real, and my heart was bursting.

  Ezekiah and Donavan closed with the train, riding alongside as close as possible without being swept aside. Still, the train was gaining speed and passing the horses despite their best efforts at keeping up. They were near the front of the train, perhaps anticipating that the train would run away from them soon. I leaped through one of the boxcar vents further back, wondering if I could be of some help.

  Looking ahead from the open sliding door, I saw the two men ahead, stirring up dust and gravel as their horses tried to close the gap between rider and train. A terrible cry resounded across the valley. Fear raced up my spine as I turned, realizing already the horror that would await my eyes. Still, I was unprepared for the sight.

  All five Serpent Kings had just crested the Urtah Mountains behind us. Belial flew at the front of their arrowhead formation. Moloch and Daimon flew on his right, while Asteroth and Baphmet flew on his left. They were still miles away, but having seen Belial sweeping over Babale on approach to his temple from Mount Doom I knew they could easily close this gap in moments.

  “Hurry!” I screamed as loudly as I could to Ezekiah and Donavan.

  Ezekiah looked back over his shoulder to find me several cars back hanging out the door. He smiled when he recognized me. I’ll never forget that smile. But we were all in terrible danger, and the train was still gaining speed on its decline toward the sea.

  Donavan had not heard my cry, but still pulled his horse close to the train, grabbing one of the ladders mounted to the side of a car. The locomotive literally pulled him off of his horse as he committed to his decision, holding on with both hands for dear life. His feet fell away, and he looked as though he might fall. Then he pulled his feet up to the ladder and was safe.

  As I watched Ezekiah, my boxcar was gaining on his horse. Soon the train would pass him completely. He realized this as well. He missed the last ladder like the one Donavan had used. The other boxcars either didn’t have ladders attached, or they were mounted on the opposite side.

  Ezekiah’s horse was terribly tired and it looked like it might die beneath him at any moment. He tried to bring his feet up onto his saddle while the horse rocked back and forth beneath him. He leaped for the open door on my boxcar. I saw that he would fall short. I couldn’t let him die again.

  I leaped after him, using the gifts for speed and strength, catching the rail on the sliding door for an anchor. Our arms locked. With his momentum and my help, it was enough. We fell backward together against the hard floorboards of the boxcar, gasping for breath.

  When I opened my eyes, he was beneath me, looking into my eyes, laughing uncontrollably. I couldn’t help it. I started to laugh with him. He was here. He wasn’t dead at all. Somehow, though I had lost hope days ago, Ezekiah had survived the events transpiring within Mount Doom. And now he was here with me.

  Before I realized what I was doing, I dropped my face to his and kissed him. Rather than being repelled by my advance, his strong arms surrounded me. I had never kissed a man before. Such an act was forbidden for a priestess of Belial. But I no longer belonged to the beast that had slain Zora and so many others by his lies. I was free.

  Then I remembered the situation we were in. The danger was not over, it had barely begun. I remained lost in my joy with Ezekiah for only a moment. I pulled away from him suddenly. By the look in his eyes, he must have thought that I was offended by him when nothing could’ve been further from the truth.

  “The dragons,” I said.

  He released me. “What?”

  As if to punctuate the matter for me, several of the Serpent Kings’ screeching cries sounded from somewhere above. “They’re here!” I said, backing away from him, standing again.

  Ezekiah jumped to his feet as well. “How many?”

  “All of them.”

  TROUBLED WATERS

  Acid streamed from Asteroth’s mouth as he made a sweeping pass over the train. We heard it splatter against the roof of the boxcar. Ezekiah grabbed me suddenly, slinging me back behind him as the acid ate through the metal like a hot knife through butter, splashing down upon the floorboards where I had been standing.

  My instincts had resisted him for a moment before I realized his intention was to save my life. “Sorry,” he said absently.

  “Thank you,” I replied. How I wished to go back to the kiss a moment ago; especially since I realized we might very well die within the next few minutes. But there was no time. Ezekiah intended that we stay alive.

  He grabbed my hand, leading me to the back of the car so that the dragons could not see. The acid had burned holes through a great deal of the forward wall panels on our boxcar; holes that even extended into the next car ahead. The roof, however, and the ladder leading up to it had been mostly destroyed.

  “We have to get to the engineer’s cab,” Ezekiah said.

  “But how?”

  “Follow me,” he said. Then he took off running across the boxcar, leaping over the gaping wound in the floor. I followed, realizing now what he was up to. Ezekiah then leaped through the hole in the far wall, crossing the gap between cars to come down within the adjoining car. I stayed with him easily.

  Here we found a working ladder leading to the intact roof of this car. We rushed up the ladder, me still following. When we reached the top, we found Donavan with Andrea and Tobias helping him up the ladder to the roof two cars ahead of us.

  The dragons screeched behind us. Another descended toward us from their formation high above. Baphmet swung wide, flanking the train. His intent was clear. He would derail the train, killing us all before we reached the sea.

  Ezekiah led us across the roof of the train toward the engine. Only the passenger car and the coal car remained before we reached our goal. We all crossed except Tobias. He leaped for the ladder between cars instead. When I stopped to retrieve him, he motioned me on. But I couldn’t leave him. Then I saw what he was doing.

  Baphmet closed the gap between him and the train. Tobias released the lock holding the rest of the train to these forward three cars. They broke away as Baphmet closed in. He screeched furiously just before hitting the hinder part of the train.

  The cars behind us were thrown together from the tracks, tumbling and tangling with one another like a giant chain. All of it smashed to pieces, pounding into the dirt. Baphmet swooped upward again, likely believing he had accomplished something of real significance. But one of the others had seen the futility of Baphmet’s maneuver and meant to finish the job.

  Daimon folded his elegant azure wings and fell from the sky like a falcon on the hunt. He shot down toward the remaining three cars as we all tumbled into the coal car; the coal shifting beneath our feet like quicksand to trap us rather than hasten our flight. I looked up toward the engineer’s cab to find Arthur at the controls with Jillian standing beside him, terror in her eyes as Daimon shot down toward us.

  Then Varen appeared beyond the lip of the coal car, raising a rocket launcher toward us. He locked eyes with Ezekiah for a fraction of a second, grinned, and then lifted the weapon toward the dragon. He fired the rocket into Daimon’s blue sky underbelly. The explosion shook the shortened train considerably and knocked Daimon out of the sky in the nick of time.

  Varen lowered his spent weapon, giving Ezekiah hard looks as we rose from our ducked positions in the coal bin.

  “Your choice surprised me,” Ezekiah said, grinning.

  “I only had one rocket,” Varen replied coldly.

  Jillian and I drew knives so quickly the moves appeared simultaneous. I could sense Andrea tense behind me.

  “We’ve got bigger problems at the moment,” Ezekiah said.

  V
aren watched the dragons soaring above. “Agreed,” he said.

  “They aren’t following,” Tobias noted.

  We all surveyed the scene now, wondering. The train jumped slightly as we hit a dip in the track. Then we were gliding away from the shore out over the churning sea.

  “We have to stop!” Jillian screamed.

  “No,” Ezekiah said. “We must follow the rails.”

  “We’ll all die,” Varen argued.

  “You would rather take your chances with Belial and the rest of the dragons back on the shore?”

  “Not to mention an army of death walkers that’s coming,” Donavan added.

  Ezekiah nodded. “We saw the walkers leaving Tarris on their way here.”

  But the looks Varen and Jillian gave one another made it clear that they already knew. I confirmed as much for Ezekiah. “We were nearly killed by hundreds of them in the mines.”

  “Thousands,” Varen corrected.

  “They must have come from Urth,” Ezekiah surmised. “Seeing the dragons here together, as well as Elithias leading us here, I would guess that all of the patron cities have been transformed.”

  “What leading are you talking about?” Varen asked, seeming not quite as skeptical as I would have expected.

  “A city called Haven exists somewhere out there,” Ezekiah said, indicating the fog ahead. “Elithias has sent me to find it.”

  “You’re crazy,” Jillian argued.

  But Varen said nothing. He simply stared at Ezekiah. Finally, he said, “And what happens when you get to this Haven?”

  Ezekiah grinned as the train continued out to sea, and the fog swallowed the locomotive. “I have no idea.”

  On the shore, the dragons came to rest, taking up a great deal of space between them. An army of death walkers ran across the grassy valley, trampling everything in their wake. Over one million had come, some making a longer journey than others, but still they heeded to the call of their masters, the Serpent Kings.

  Belial sat watching as the train disappeared from sight within the massive, ever-present fog bank that hung offshore.

  “The prophet was among them?” Belial asked.

  “He was, as well as three wraith dancers and the rebel,” Asteroth said.

  Daimon licked his wounds, limping slightly from the rocket blast. “Why all of this drama?”

  “If prophecy holds then they will find their way across to Haven,” Baphmet said.

  “My assassin must be among them when they reach the city,” Belial replied calmly. “The wraith dancers would have spotted her if they weren’t busy trying to stay alive.”

  “And the rest of the prophecy? We cannot allow those things to come to pass.” Moloch bellowed.

  “Our assassin will see to that matter,” Belial said. “When the sword reveals the Prophet King, my servant will strike him down and stop the rest of the prophecy from happening.”

  WAVES

  The fog, we found, was not entirely a fluid mass. That is, there were gaps along the way where a great deal around us could be seen. Strangely, Arthur had mentioned a problem with the brake system on the train prior to entering the fog bank. Now, it worked perfectly fine, which was a good thing, because we had run into a big problem.

  Arthur had stopped the train because of gigantic waves that continually rolled across the bridge one hundred yards ahead. To my amazement, the bridge itself was not washed away, even though the water covered it to a height of nearly five stories. Then it rolled on, calmly and quietly, leaving a trough of nearly equal depth coming behind. We had been sitting for nearly an hour watching the cycle repeat itself without any change whatsoever.

  Ezekiah and Donavan had gone out to the front of the engine with Arthur to observe the phenomena while Andrea, Tobias and I remained in the engineer’s cab with Varen and Jillian.

  “How long is he going to just stand out there watching the same thing over and over?” Jillian complained.

  Varen laughed to himself. “You don’t know him,” he said. “He will stand out there for days if that’s what he thinks his God wants him to do.”

  “And what will that get us?” Jillian replied.

  “Ezekiah’s faith has gotten us this far, despite the dragons and the death walkers,” I argued.

  “Ah yes,” Varen said, looking up at me from where he sat upon the floor of the cab, “the assassin who was shot while trying to kill the prophet; how quaint.”

  “Shot and raised back to life!” Tobias interjected. “I should know. I’m the one who shot her.”

  Varen laughed again. “Do you really expect me to believe that, boy?”

  “Believe what you want,” I said. “I believe it. I experienced it, not you. Elithias is real, whether you like it or not. And if Ezekiah says that he has led us to this place then so be it. I believe him.”

  In my heart, I knew I would die believing him if necessary.

  “Bah,” Varen huffed.

  Ezekiah, Donavan and Arthur appeared, coming back into the engineer’s cab. “It’s time to go,” the prophet announced.

  Varen got back to his feet. “What are you talking about? Go back?”

  “On to Haven,” Ezekiah said.

  “And how do you suppose we do that?” Jillian asked. “Swim?”

  Ezekiah reached over to the throttle control and pushed the lever all the way forward. “We take the train,” he said.

  Jillian drew her blade as the train lurched forward, apparently meaning to strike the prophet down. Andrea and I drew knives as well, ready to intercept her. Tobias cocked his pistol, aiming the weapon at Varen. Jillian stood down and grudgingly sheathed her weapon. In her eyes, I saw her liability. She loved Varen too much to risk his safety.

  The locomotive proceeded forward, oblivious to our human conflicts. Each of us now looked out to the sea, expecting that it would almost certainly sweep our train off of the tracks and kill us all. The sun shone down through the gap in the fog upon the massive wave rolling toward the bridge.

  Varen tensed next to Ezekiah at the controls. “You’re going to kill us all!” he screamed.

  Ezekiah held firm on the throttle. I prayed to Elithias under my breath, hoping beyond hope that we would manage to pass over just after the wave when the trough appeared. But everything my eyes told me, confirmed that we would cross just as the wave swept over the bridge. I sensed everyone except Ezekiah tense as we came to the spot; the wave rolling toward us at a terrifying height. We would not survive.

  Then it diminished like a balloon deflated. The sea became calm all around as we crossed over the place where the waves had kept up their course before. The train chugged along, arriving safely beyond the previous threat without damage. We all breathed a collective sigh. I felt like I might faint at any moment.

  As we looked back to the place, another wave rose up and rolled over like before. The cycle had been stopped and allowed to start again. Elithias had saved us, just as Ezekiah knew that he would.

  He released the throttle. “Arthur, if you’ll take over?”

  “Yes, of course, Ezekiah,” the elder man said. Clearly, he was just as surprised as the rest of us by what had just happened. He placed a shaky hand on the controls.

  Varen stood, shaking his head. “I don’t believe it,” he said.

  Ezekiah looked at him. “That has always been your problem.”

  The train entered the fog again and maintained its steady pace along the bridge. As for us, we had no idea what lay ahead, but we also had no excuses for what had just happened. Either Ezekiah’s God was real, or infinitely blind chance had just smiled upon us. As for myself, I knew the answer. I spent the next hour, quietly, in thankful prayer.

  HAVEN

  The fog had fallen behind us some time in the night. Each of us had fitful periods of sleep at best. Varen and Jillian took their sleep in shifts back in the passenger car, behind the coal car, though Jillian was trying very hard not to sleep at all. She did not trust Andrea or me not to kill Varen.
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br />   In her devotion to him, I was beginning to understand her better. She had grown up as I had among the priestesses of the Serpent Kings. I guessed that she had never thought much of loving a man before meeting Varen. How that had come about, I had no clue. However, having forsaken her vows for him, she was ready at any time to give her life to keep him safe.

  I had not given a great deal of thought about love. There were passing thoughts of courtship and family when I noticed these activities among Babale’s citizens. Still, I had always taken refuge in the high calling of my station. Therefore, I never let my thoughts run wild about such things.

  However, meeting Ezekiah and seeing his treatment of me, despite my attentions to assassinate him for the dragons, had changed my entire viewpoint. When I had thought him killed on Mount Doom, my heart had felt as though it had been ripped from my chest. I could think of nothing else but the loss of him. And now, more than ever, having shared an intimate moment together, I wanted nothing as much as to be with him. This must have been the way Jillian felt, and I couldn’t blame her.

  As the night waned I stood with Ezekiah in the engineer’s cab. Arthur, Andrea and Donavan had retired to the passenger car and were still asleep on one end while Varen and Jillian shared the other end. Tobias had shoveled more coal into the boiler and then fallen asleep at the back of the engine cab on the floor.

  I wasn’t exactly sure what to say to Ezekiah. This was strange, since I had kissed him only yesterday. I would have thought that would open up things between us, but the situation only seemed more complex now. For his part, he appeared to be just as nervous about the situation as I was.

  “Why did he make us wait to pass?” I finally said.