Free Where Serpents Strike (Children of the Falls Vol. 1) by CW Thomas Page B

stopped to tend to them properly. Even then, I
have nothing to care for them with.”
    A second nun, an older woman wearing a
simple white coif over her salt and pepper hair, joined Khalous and
Ariella. “I would like to stay with the wounded,” she said.
    “Out of the question,” Khalous said. “No one
stays behind.”
    “Don’t be a fool. You can’t carry them all.
Someone needs to get these children to safety and it surely won’t
be me and these tired old feet.”
    Khalous started to protest again, but
Ariella placed a calming hand on his elbow. “We have no
choice.”
    Before Khalous could protest any further,
the old nun ambled over to a group of injured refugees, most of
whom were lying prostrate on the ground, motionless and bleeding.
Others sat slumped against rocks nursing debilitating wounds.
    “Are they really going to leave them
behind?” Lia asked in disbelief.
    “They have to, Lia,” said Dana.
    “They won’t make it anyway,” said Broderick
without a tinge of sympathy in his tone. “They’ll just slow us
down.”
    Lia slapped him on the thigh.
    “Owe!” he said. “What’d you do that
for?”
    Lia glared at him.
    “Behave yourselves,” said Khalous as he
approached them. “I want all of you to stick close to me. We’ll be
at the harbor soon, so—”
    “Captain!” said Pick as he sprinted into the
camp, his dark blue cloak rolling in the wind behind him. “They’re
coming!”
    “How far?”
    Pick didn’t have to answer because the
distant echo of barking dogs did it for him.
    The collective panic of the people began to
rise. Nervous mutters circulated throughout the crowd. At Khalous’
orders they mustered their strength and hurried out of the alcove,
leaving the tents and carriages behind along with the wounded
few.
    Brayden saw a hysterical woman pleading for
her husband to come with her. She tugged on the sleeves of his
shirt as he lay on the ground holding his mangled leg. He ordered
her to leave without him.
    Not too far away a nun pried two small
children from their crippled mother. The woman blew them kisses
from shaking fingers as her other hand clutched a broken arrow
shaft protruding from her ribs.
    “Goodbye, my darlings,” she said.
    The children fought and cried.
    “Aren’t you coming mother?” Brayden heard
Clint say. He watched his cousin standing over the paralyzed queen
as she lay on her bed of forest brush.
    “Clint, my baby boy, be strong now for me,”
she said.
    One of the soldiers tried pulling Clint
away, but he shoved the man back and threw himself down next to
Earline. “No, mother, you’re coming with us! Someone carry her.
Now! I order you to carry her!”
    The sounds of the dogs drew closer until the
provoking shouts of their masters could be heard as well.
    “Come on,” Dana said, tugging at Brayden’s
sleeve.
    Brayden and his siblings took off through
the forest, hot on the heels of the soldiers of the King’s Shield.
In front of them the trees gave way to tall grass where the scent
of sea salt hung heavy in the air.
    “We’re almost there,” Brayden said.
    “Faster!” someone shouted.
    Echoing after them through the trees came
the horrible wails of the wounded citizens they had left behind as
an onslaught of vicious snarling assailed them.
    When the sounds of his mother’s agony
reached his ears, Clint loosed a girlish scream that sent shivers
down Brayden’s spine. The boy cursed the gods and kicked against
the Montrosian soldiers fighting to keep him moving toward the
harbor.
    Lia tried to look back, but Brayden told her
not to.
    “Just keep moving!” he shouted.
    He pressed on as fast as he could go.
    The ocean appeared between the trees in
front of them, blue and beautiful, its color darkening under the
gray clouds above. The waves were rising and starting to spin off
white tails of spume.
    “There it is,” Brayden said. “Come on!”
    Behind him a young boy screamed as a mangy
dog plowed into him. The frenzied mastiff,