The Song and the Serpent

Adan’s sleep was fitful that night.

The pain in his leg was enough to keep anyone from sleep, but the images presented by his subconscious mind made a good night's sleep impossible. Many times during the night he would stir awake, chased by the memories of his nightmares.

He and Kian had gone to bed as soon as Adan’s leg was cleaned and wrapped with a fresh bandage. Layla had brought the needed supplies herself and would only leave when Adan assured her that he would be alright and only needed a good night's rest.

But the night was wasted in fearful tossing and turning. Adan’s desire for rest was soon outmatched by his fear of dreaming and what he would see if he closed his eyes.

He and Kian were both up early the next morning.

Helena had seen to it that breakfast was brought to them: Eggs and cheese with toasted bread and butter. They wolfed the hearty breakfast down, thankful to satiate their appetites after the battle the previous night. Adan made a mental note to thank Helena for her care and hospitality.

“I don’t think your new look suits you,” Kian said as the two of them ate.

Adan swallowed a mouthful of toast before replying. ”What do you mean?”

“Your eye is bruised. Probably going to be black for a while.”

Adan shrugged and continued eating. “It is what it is.”

“What a profound statement,” Kian said, before taking another bite of egg. “‘It is what it is.’ How could it be anything else?”

Adan shrugged again.

Once the food was eaten, they made their way down to the main hall and found a handful of village leaders and strangers milling about the hall and enjoying an early breakfast.

The blue light from the early morning sky shone through the open roof of the hall. The sun had not yet risen to shed warm rays of gold on the dew covered grass outside.

“What do you plan to do today?” Adan asked Kian as they stood surveying the hall.

“I’m going to talk to each of the village leaders individually,” Kian replied. “I cannot sit here and do nothing while our enemies send armies to attack us and our brethren. I’m going to see what they hope for by staying here.”

Adan nodded.

“What about you?” Kian asked.

“I’ll stay with you today. I may leave to go find Layla again this afternoon, but I want to hear how your discussions go.”

Kian nodded, scanning the leaders in the room.

When he saw Governor Fagus sitting alone at a table near the main door, he began walking in the older man’s direction.

“Top of the morning to you both,” Fagus said, raising a mug in their direction as they approached.

“And to you as well,” Kian replied as the two of them sat across from the leader.

The village leader leaned forward. “I was hoping I could have a word with you. I wanted to thank you for your words last night. I worried Hurst and Corthenu might come to blows if they were left to quarrel with each other.”

Kian shrugged. “Perhaps. But it made no sense for us to be arguing when we all have a common enemy already.”

“Agreed,” Fagus said, ”we must all work together if we are to survive.”

“That is what I wish to discuss with you?” Kian asked. “I have some questions for you.”

Fagus leaned back in his seat. “Ask away.”

“What do you and your people hope to achieve by staying here in this fortress?”

”To avoid being slaughtered by the Undelmans,” Fagus said with a deep sigh. “That is why we came here. We would have been destroyed.”

Kian nodded. “True, and now that you are here, what do you plan to do?”

”Exactly what we have been doing: Planting crops, finding food, rebuilding our lives, and staving off attacks from the Undelmans as we did last night.”

”Do you believe we can continue to stave off attacks?”

”I can only hope so,” Fagus admitted. “What happened last night was difficult for me to witness, but we were victorious in the end. We managed to stop five-hundred warriors while only losing a fraction of that number.”

“But there will be more warriors. Hugo will not ignore us forever. We made five-hundred men disappear. That will not go unnoticed.”

Fagus sighed again. “Then we will have to hope that we can match whatever strength is pitted against us when the time comes, in order to survive this war.”

Kian crossed his arms. “You know that the most likely outcome is to be our collective deaths?”

Fagus held Kian’s eyes for a moment before looking down. “You speak so certainly of our failure.”

“I am certain of it. Last night was proof of it.”

”What action would you suggest as an alternative to what we are doing?”

”Muster the men who can fight and go to war,” Kian said. “March to Threcalax and aid our brothers.”

”By the time you get there, it will likely be too late. Besides, how can a force of only a thousand men turn the tide of battle?”

“It may not, but that doesn’t matter. We have a duty to our people, and I for one cannot hide away while Hugo ravages our homeland.”

Fagus looked down at the table. “Maybe so, but as governor, I have a duty to the people of Enys Island as well, and I cannot leave the most vulnerable of my people unprotected and send the fighting men on a suicide mission.”

”You already have,” Kian said. “Coming here has only delayed the inevitable.”

Fagus stiffened at Kian’s charge, sitting up straight and meeting Kian’s eyes. “Your suggestion assumes that we will fail and die. I will choose hope. I hope that if we preserve and protect our people here with faith that the Creator will aid us, He will not let us down.”

Kian let out a deep sigh and stood from the table. “Your mind is made up. I know you are doing what you believe is right, but I think we are abandoning our countryman, hiding in fear and calling it faith.”

Fagus didn’t answer, sitting thoughtfully on his bench.

Adan rose from his seat as Kian did, sensing the discussion was over.

Kian started to walk away but Fagus raised a hand to stop him.

“Lord Kian,” he said. “You retired early last night, so you didn’t hear. We are having a feast tonight to celebrate our victory over the Undelmans.”

Kian stood silently eyeing the governor for a moment before turning and walking away.

“Of course you are,” he said.

Kian spoke thus with every village leader in the main hall, walking from table to table and asking them the same questions he asked Fagus. Every single one of them agreed with the Governor of Enys Island.

After six discussions that all ended the same way, Kian stopped. Two more village leaders sat in the hall, but Kian did not approach them, choosing instead to stand by the entrance and watch the leaders finish their breakfast.

“They’ve all taken comfort in our victory last night,” Kian said, running and hand through his dark hair. “We barely managed to stop the Undelmans last night, and we lost too many men. But they are throwing a feast like we won a great victory.”

“They have no idea what’s coming, do they?” Adan said.

Kian shook his head. “Hugo will sweep this place away like an ant hill if we give him enough time. But these governors don’t see it.”

”I think one of them will,” Adan said, looking sideways at Kian. “One you haven’t spoken with yet.”

Kian returned Adan’s glance for a moment before looking back at the dining hall.

“I know,” he said. “But I wanted to try to convince them before talking to Corthenu.”

Kian turned his back on the dining hall and he and Adan left the citadel, marching across the grassy field that lay between them and Othelli camp.

By now, the sun had crept over the tops of the pines along the ridge, casting bright rays onto the tall wet grass and evaporating the dew in a fine, steaming mist.

As they walked, Adan saw a handful of men dragging the bodies of Undelman warriors that still peppered the field to a group of horse carts. The men heaved the bodies into the carts after stripping them of their weapons and armor. Then the corpses were wheeled out through the main gate.

“I wonder where they’re taking them,” Adan said.

“Somewhere to dump the bodies, I should think,” Kian replied.

Adan noticed that the men didn’t keep any of the spiked Undelman helmets. They were discarded with the corpses.

The two of them tromped over the tall grass and through a small brook that crossed their path before arriving at the gathering of hovels that belonged to the Othelli.

Adan heard the loud clang of a hammer ringing against steel to their right, and when he turned he saw a large man beating a rod of red hot steel on an anvil. A wooden cart sat behind him with an assortment of tools: A variety of hammers in different sizes, tongs, leather gloves, and other oddments Adan didn’t recognize. A pile of stones and rocks stood next to the man, and judging by the smoke rising from the rocks and the bellows laying beside them, Adan guessed the pile was a makeshift forge.

The Othelli blacksmith had hair the same color as Corthenu’s, midnight black, although his was cut short. He had no beard, only a bushy mustache that grew straight out the sides of his face and covered his closed mouth.

He paid Adan and Kian no mind as they approached him. They came to stand before him and he continued pounding the hammer against the rod of molten steel.

When he finally stopped to rest and inspect his work, Kian cleared his throat.

“You're the Othelli blacksmith.”

The man nodded without looking up.

“I’m Kian. And this is…”

”I know who you are,” the man grunted, still not meeting Kian’s eyes. His voice was raspy and deep.

“I don’t wish to interrupt your work…” Kian began.

“And yet you keep doing so,” the blacksmith replied.

Kian opened his mouth to speak, before snapping it shut.

They stood watching as the blacksmith inspected the lump of metal, took a few more swings, and finally plunged the steel rod into a bucket of water beside him.

“I’m crippled without a proper forge,” the blacksmith said, tossing the rod onto his cart and looking at the pile of rocks beside him. “All the heat escapes this pathetic pile of pebbles and I can’t heat the metal properly.”

The blacksmith picked up a pipe that had been sitting on the cart. Only after lighting the pipe with a small twig that had been burning in his forge did he finally look up at Kian and Adan.

“I’m Kellessed,” he said after puffing a cloud of tobacco smoke into the air. “What do you want?”

”I’m just looking for Corthenu.”

Kellessed let out a deep sigh, before puffing on his pipe again. “Do you see him here?”

Kian looked around and shook his head.

“Then why are you still standing here looking for him?”

Kian paused before answering. “I thought you might know where he is.”

“Oh! Why didn’t you say so? He’ll be going to Master Hammund’s house right now.”

”Master Hammund’s house?”

”That’s what I said.”

Kellessed picked up another piece of iron that looked like it had once been a scythe. He stuck the mangled metal into a hole in the side of his forge and began pumping the bellows while smoke poured from his mouth and nose.

“Do you happen to know where Hammund’s house is?” Kian finally asked.

“I do,” the blacksmith said as he worked the bellows.

Kian and Adan watched as he silently heated the metal without another word.

”Can you tell us the way there?”

”I can.”

Continued silence.

”Please do.”

Kellessed stopped the billows and looked at the two of them before speaking. “The house lies outside the city, over the northeast ridge. You can’t miss it after you crest the top of the basin.”

“Thank you,” Kian said emphatically. “We’ll leave you to your work.”

“At long last,” the blacksmith replied.

Kian and Adan left Kellessed and made for the gatehouse.

“He seems a decent fellow,” Kian said. “I rather like him.”

The two of them fell in step behind a cart loaded with Undelman bodies as they made their way to the gate. They passed under the gatehouse and through the open doors, turning right as soon as they left the city. The cart continued straight, rolling up the hillside with its gruesome cargo.

The rising sun continued to burn through the morning mist, brightening the sky and warming the air. Adan began to wipe sweat from his brow as they walked around the outer wall.

The northern side of the basin outside the wall was far more overgrown than the western slope. Pine saplings and patches of tall weeds sat in their way and Adan and Kian were unable to walk along the edge of the wall. Blackberry bushes laden with red fruit grew in thorny clumps around the trees and bushes.

By the time Adan and Kian reached the top of the northeastern ridge, their trousers were soaked from the dew still clinging to the tall grass. They passed through the line of trees that rimmed the ridge of the basin, but the trees quickly thinned out and they found themselves looking at a wide open valley.

Cultivated farmland stretched out before them, dotted here and there with trees that had been trimmed and maintained with great care. Adan saw rows of vegetable plants from corn to cucumber growing in vast quantities on the gradual slope that led down to pasture fields where cows, sheep, goats, chickens and countless other livestock grazed and scratched for their food. A large barn sat at the top of the opposite side of the valley, large enough for Adan to make out the open doors at this distance.

At the base of the valley, beside an orchard of apple trees, a stone house rose up two stories high. Adan saw shuttered windows with boxes full of bright flowers hanging from the sills.

Adan and Kian continued walking down the hill through the fields, careful not to tread on the vegetable plants along the way.

They passed dozens of men and women working in the fields, pulling weeds among the vegetables and carrying them to the livestock, planting new seed in recently plowed earth, or picking and pruning ripe fruit from the vine.

As they approached the house, they passed a small herb garden and Adan caught the scent of lavender, rosemary, and mint, as well as a host of other fresh smells.

“Hammund and Helena have done well here, despite their isolation,” Kian said.

Adan nodded without a word.