Chaosbound

12 The Prophecy

Darkness engulfed the great fortress of Rugassa. A roof covered the world, a roof of made of swirling clouds so thick that they blackened the sky.

The clouds did not smell of wetness or rain. Instead, they filled the air with fine sediments of soot, giving the air an acrid tang, as if a volcano had exploded, sending ash to mushroom out for as far as the eye could see.

The winds high overhead screamed, night and day, a distant piercing whine.

Sunlight could not penetrate the storm, yet light exuded from it: brief flashes of lightning that strobed high up among the dust and debris, lighting the heavens from time to time in strange colors—the green of a bruise, the red of flame.

The storm was centered over Rugassa, but its effects covered the land for a thousand miles in every direction, sealing all of Rofehavan beneath shadows, eternal night.

Thus it was that nine days after the binding of the worlds, the lich emperor Zul-torac took his first walk in the daylight in nearly three hundred years, venturing out of the fortress to explore his lands.

He feared no danger. No sunlight could touch him, and no enemy could strike him down. In the nine days since the binding of the worlds, the wyrmling hordes had crushed all human resistance—destroying armies, enslaving nations. With a mountain of blood metal at their command, the wyrmlings were unstoppable.

More importantly, their leader was unstoppable. Lord Despair now marched at the head of the wyrmling armies, and with his vast powers and wyrmling runelords, he was invincible.

Even now, Lord Despair had taken his armies to a far world, to the One True World that had existed from the beginning, where he hunted now for the Bright Ones and the Glories, destroying those who had the greatest chance to strike him down.

Rumor said that the war went well. The enemy was fleeing from Despair, desperately seeking escape. Zul-torac’s master had slain thousands of them, and now his troops were searching the wilderness, trying to corner the last of them, though they hid from him like foxes in their dens.

Yet there was a worry upon Zul-torac’s mind that had nothing to do with assassins or armies. It had to do with his daughter, the princess Kan hazur. She had fallen ill, and it looked as if she would die. There were certain rites he hoped to perform this coming winter, rites that required the lifeblood of his only child. He could not allow her to die before the solstice.

The lich lord was dressed in a robe made of black spider cloth with powdered diamonds sewn into it, so that he glimmered as he floated above the ground.

Thus he made his way up a long, winding road, out of the fortress, traveling a tunnel that ran through the cone of the volcano.

Suddenly, there was copious light ahead, thrown by the magma at the volcano’s core. So high up, the winds’ piercing howl grew to a keening wail; Zul-torac could taste dust upon the remains of his tongue.

He followed the road along a steep path. To slip off the side would send him plummeting into the molten ore.

Ahead, the path leveled out into a plain that had been gouged out of the mountain. Huge columns of black stone had been arranged upon the ground—not in any pattern that a wyrmling could discern. Some of the pillars stood upright, others canted to the side, as if a great temple had fallen.

There was a sense of order to the ruins, but not a pattern.

Circling this plain were dozens of doorways to other worlds, each an archway made of shimmering light. Zul-torac peered through them. In one world he saw great beasts wading amid a swamp, using their broad faces to gather algae from the scum-covered surface of the water. Another door opened into a world covered in bitter snow. A third showed an impenetrable jungle of odd vines. Through that door came two wyrmlings bearing a huge leather bag, sopping wet.

Inside it, some nameless evil growled and thrashed about.

The wyrmlings grinned as they passed, and warned, “Watch yourself. This one is nasty! Bog crab, we’ll call it. Got more teeth in its mouth than I have hairs on my arse.”

“What are you going to do with it?” Zul-torac asked.

“Throw it in a swamp on the borders,” one wyrmling replied, “and let it eat anything that happens by.”

The two carried their thrashing burden past Zul-torac.

The bog creature was but one of Lord Despair’s new recruits. Through these doorways, tens of thousands of creatures had passed during the week— Darkling Glories that rode the night winds, giant walking hills from a planet called Nayaire, and nameless monsters from a hundred other realms.

But now Zul-torac focused on the plain before him. Amidst the black pillars, the chaos oracles hid—both from themselves and others. The creatures were so hideous, it was said, that the sight of one unveiled would drive a man mad. So the chaos oracles twisted light away from themselves, cloaking themselves in shadows the way that a wyrmling might wear his armor of bone.

Still, the thought of seeing one unveiled was tantalizing, and so Zul-torac peered.

Gloom had gathered around them, black shadows thicker than the mists in the sky above, darkness that swirled and eddied, sometimes parting just enough to reveal the tantalizing hint of a form, then just as quickly gathering again to immerse their masters in blackest night.

The chaos oracles were not of this earth, not of any earth that Zul-torac had heard of. They liked it here by the volcano, relished the taste of sulfur in the air.

The shadows parted from around one an instant, and Zul-torac caught a tantalizing glimpse of a hunched back covered in horns, and twisted limbs, and one bright golden eye that peered at him, filling him with horror.

His blood ran chill and his breathing stopped.

Then the shadows coalesced, and thankfully the chaos oracle was cloaked again.

Zul-torac saw flashes of memory from his childhood as a chaos oracle accessed his mind. He could feel something, a presence, moving through his brain—from the right temporal lobe, to the left, then back down to the brain stem.

All of his secrets were laid bare.

“You come because you fear for the life of your daughter,” an oracle whispered in his mind.

“Yes,” Zul-torac said.

“You wish to know how to save her. . . . This I cannot see. Time is like a river, flowing toward eternity. Yet there are eddies and swirls. I cannot see all, but I see your death.”

An image flashed into Zul-torac’s mind: a darkened corridor, where glow worms lit the tunnel like ten thousand gleaming stars. In the distance was a light, a torch, but its flames boiled and sputtered as it rushed toward him. A man was coming, a man blinding in his speed. He raced toward Zul-torac in a blur. Zul-torac sought to flee, but his opponent was too fast. A dozen endowments of metabolism he might have had, and there was no escaping him.

He came in a blur. Zul-torac could see little—a simple rounded helm of steel with a broad nose guard. Feral eyes filled with death. A red beard streaked with gray.

Then the man was on him, swinging a war hammer. At the touch of its spike, he felt the spells that bound his spirit to its wasted flesh shatter, crumbling, and all of his power drained away.

Worse, there were spells upon that blade, spells that brought banishment to the very spirit.

The warrior shouted in glee and for one instant he held still long enough so that Zul-torac could see his face. It was a human, a large man with the nubs of horns common to the folk of Caer Luciare. His grim countenance turned to exultation, and he opened his mouth wide, baring his fangs as he gave a victorious shout.

Zul-torac cried out in pain as his desiccated corpse exploded in a cloud of dust.

Suddenly the vision cleared, and Zul-torac stood before the chaos oracle, filled with a terror so visceral that he’d never felt the like.

Worries preyed upon Zul-torac’s mind. Lord Despair had seized control of the world; now he was using it as a platform from which to conquer the heavens. Despair’s powers made him invincible. He could use his Earth Powers to “choose” his warriors, warning them how to save themselves in the battles to come.

But Lord Despair could not use his marvelous gift to save a lich. Zul-torac’s body was too wasted, too far gone toward death.

Zul-torac’s mind raced. There was no one to save him, no champion to protect him.

But I have wyrmling warriors by the thousands, Zul-torac thought, and blood metal aplenty.

Despair had ordered Zul-torac to send some blood metal to that evil wight Crull-maldor. Zul-torac had hesitated, not wanting to strengthen his old enemy. Even now he could not bring himself to send her the required forcibles.

The rest of the wyrmlings were growing in power, moving toward the Ascension.

But perhaps it is time, he thought. I can send both—a little blood metal along with enough champions to stop an army.

“He comes for you!” the chaos oracle warned. “He comes—a champion from the north! He rides now upon the water, bringing death and carnage!”

Zul-torac turned his back upon the oracle in a hot rage. “Not if I can help it,” Zul-torac said. He headed back down the mountain, back to the safety of the wyrmling’s indomitable fortress.

There he searched among the city’s champions until he found the right wyrmling for the job: Yikkarga, a captain who had been put under the protection of Lord Despair. He was a huge wyrmling, well versed in battle, with a vicious reputation. Just as importantly, he had many endowments to his credit.

“I am sending you north,” the emperor told him, “with a contingent of runelords. There is a human that needs killing. . . .”

13 The Borrowbird

That first night, Draken took the rudder once Aaath Ulber succumbed to sleep, and sailed his little ship up north. The voyage across the ocean to Mystarria normally took six weeks, but their little vessel was light and swift. Being a new ship, it had no barnacles on the hull to slow its progress, and since the vessel carried no cargo, it sat light on the water, and when the sails unfurled, it seemed to fly.

Thus, Sage named the ship the Borrowbird. The name seemed appropriate. The vessel was white, like a borrowbird, and the birds were known for theft. They often raided the fruit trees, and were fond of trinkets. The males used bright stones to adorn their nests in the hopes of attracting females. The decorations often spread for several feet in a circle, and were wondrous to look upon, for the birds arranged stones and flowers by size and color and shape, creating collages that were lovely and bizarre, as if formed by the minds of gifted, otherworldly artists.

In the early spring the birds went about stealing pebbles from riverbeds, flowers from gardens, colorful bits of fruit or cloth, or shiny coins— anything that wasn’t nailed down. There was even an odd report of a borrowbird going so far as to steal an earring from a woman’s ear in order to get a glittering ruby.

With so many people wanting to steal the ship, the name was doubly appropriate. Draken didn’t like the name, for the association with theft was a constant reminder of how Aaath Ulber had killed Owen Walkin, and so Draken suggested a dozen other monikers that day.

But Sage was the youngest in the family now, and so her name stuck.

That first day, while Draken was at the helm, his mind was filled with wonder. He could not remember when he’d sailed to Landesfallen as a child. He’d been too young.

Now he was going back, but to what?

His mother came up to watch the sunset with him. She sat next to him at the rudder, staring out to sea. The ocean had been rough and wind driven part of the day, but now it calmed. The smell of salt was thick in his nostrils, and he wondered, “What do you think we’ll find when we get to Mystarria? Will it be as bad as Father thinks?”

Draken had only a vague notion of the threat imposed by the wyrmlings. He really couldn’t even envision what they looked like. But if Aaath Ulber was frightened of them, then he imagined that they must be terrible indeed.

“I think, we are sailing to war,” Myrrima said. “It is not just a suspicion. Water has called me to battle. I hope that this is the last time.”

Draken knew that his mother had faced terrors beyond imagination. She’d founded the Brotherhood of the Wolf and slain a Darkling Glory in her youth, and had fought reavers by the thousands. She’d battled Raj Ahten at the height of his powers.

Yet she seemed older to him and a just a bit frail, like a shirt that was growing threadbare from too much washing.

“To war with the wyrmlings?” he asked, and was surprised to find that his mouth went dry, and he had to lick his lips to moisten them. “Water has called you?”

Myrrima nodded slowly. He knew that it was an odd thing.

“Mother, surely there are water wizards on the far side of the world who could be of better service.”

Myrrima glanced at him, turning away from the sea. “I may no longer be strong in battle, but I am strong in wizardry; perhaps that is what we need in this war.”

“Father says that the wyrmlings may have a mountain of blood metal,” Draken objected. Sage came out of the galley and sat down with them.

“I wish that it were not so,” Myrrima said. “I don’t want the wyrmlings to have it. Certainly I don’t want to fight them for it.

“I wish that there was no more blood metal. It is an evil thing, the way that men use each other, the way that cruel men try to force their will upon the rest of the world. Men should not wield so much power.

“For the past few years, I have been glad that the mines in Kartish had played out. It seemed to me that it gave the world a rest, allowed mankind a chance to settle down, offered people a chance to work their gardens and raise their children.

“Your father and I have been content, more at peace than I had ever imagined.”

The sun was plunging into the water out on the distant sea, a bright golden orb dipping below the horizon. Draken saw a tear in his mother’s eye, something that he’d never witnessed before.

As a young man, he sometimes dreamt of war, imagining how he might prove himself on the field of battle. He’d never considered what a great gift peace could be.

Taking on firewood turned out to be as easy as sailing inland. The great tidal wave had deposited huge rafts of deadwood all along the coast, and in only a couple of hours the family was able to wrestle enough free for the entire voyage.

The greater worry was insufficient supplies. Draken had not been able to buy an ax in town, so he had nothing to cut the wood with. His father’s war hammer could be used to split the logs, but it was a poor substitute for a good wood ax.

Nor did he have a decent stone to sharpen his blades with, so he picked up an assortment of rocks to use as grinding stones.

There were other things that the family wanted—proper cups and plates, spices, leather to make shoes and boots, a good large skillet, grease for frying, and so on.

But Aaath Ulber insisted that they would have to do without.

Draken dared not argue. He found that he was uncomfortable in the giant’s presence. Aaath Ulber was an imposing figure, towering over everyone on the ship. And Draken had seen what happened when Aaath Ulber lost his temper.

Even now he could hardly look at the giant without having the image of Owen’s death flash through his mind. Draken often found himself wondering what misspoken word or deed might set the giant off again.

Myrrima saw what was happening, and she told Rain. “Now that we know Aaath Ulber’s problems, we must face them.”

“Face them how?” Rain asked.

“There are runes that I can draw on him—runes to bring forgetfulness from hurtful memories, runes to help calm him, like a troubled sea.”

With that, Myrrima got a bucket and threw it into the sea, then pulled up the rope.

With the seawater, she went to Aaath Ulber, who was at the helm, and drew some runes upon his brow to help soothe his mind—not that he seemed any great threat at the moment.

Though Rain tried to avoid Aaath Ulber, she couldn’t do so completely. Late in the morning on the third day he grabbed Rain just after breakfast.

“Right, then,” he said, staring at her as if she were a brood mare. He grabbed her thin biceps, squeezed, and then smiled. The effect was chilling, for his oversized canines showed as if he was baring his fangs. “Let’s see what we’ve got here, girl.”

Aaath Ulber had Rain come to the captain’s deck; there he gave her a heavy chunk of wood and had her lunge with it, practicing sword drills in order to strengthen her arms. He made her swing until Rain fell into tears, and then he stopped and let her rest, warning, “The wyrmlings won’t give you a break, child.”

When she was rested, he forced her to go through various routines of lunges and dodges, until she felt as if she’d faint.

“Too little food, and too little exercise,” Aaath Ulber had said gently. “But we’ll get you toughened up.”

Rain was furious with him, certain that he sought an excuse to criticize her. But Aaath Ulber forced everyone in the company to join in battle practice that first day.

He began his lessons by telling them, “Fighting a wyrmling isn’t like fighting a man. They’ll outweigh you by five or six hundred pounds. So you won’t be fighting level, eye-to-eye. Nor can you hope to take a blow from one and survive. You can’t parry their attacks—they’re too strong. A strike from a wyrmling ax will shatter every bone in your body.

“So you’ll have to begin by forgetting everything that you know about how to fight.

“Your best and only defense is to avoid getting hit. We’ll practice evasive tactics—dodges and leaps to help you get away from your opponent.

“You won’t wear heavy armor—a little silken armor would be best, if you wear any at all. Chain mail or plate will just slow you down, and it won’t do much to soften a wyrmling’s blows.

“But better than defense is a good offense.

“Wyrmlings have long arms. Their strike zone is larger than yours. So you must perfect your lunges. Your goal will be to lunge in, strike quickly, and get back out of the wyrmling’s strike zone before the monster can ever deliver a blow.

“More than that, your attacks must be effective. You must make certain that when you strike, you don’t just draw blood. Try to make every blow a killing blow, or at least a crippling blow. You’ll strike for the arteries in the groin, or a kidney, or a blow to the lungs. You want to fight with economy and grace, because as soon as you take down one wyrmling, the chances are that another will charge in behind to take its place.”

“What if a wyrmling just comes out swinging?” Rain asked. “I mean, you said that they put harvester spikes in their necks and then go into a killing rage.”

“When that happens, you must figure out how to steal the initiative. A feint, a shout, a misdirected gaze—any one of these can cause your opponent to freeze for just an instant, and in that instant you must strike.”

So Rain practiced lunges hour after long hour, day after day, until her thighs and calves ached from hard use, and her arms felt as heavy as lead.

They were under full sail, following the coast northward.

The captain’s cabin, being the finest room aboard ship, was given to Rain.

That left Myrrima and Sage in the crew’s quarters, while Draken slept in the hold with his father and the goats, when he could sleep at all.

But Draken could not rest, he found that first day. It wasn’t his father’s snoring that kept him awake, nor was it the goats nibbling on his clothes.

It was Rain that kept him awake, his desire for her.

He’d been in love now for two months, and he looked forward to the day when he could marry.

As was the custom in Landesfallen, he’d promised himself to the girl when he was young, but it would be years before they could wed—three or four, at the least.

He needed to purchase his own land, build a house, dig a well, then plow and plant his fields for a couple of seasons, in order to prove that the ground could grow crops. He needed to plant trees and berry bushes, and it would take a few years for them to mature so that they’d bear enough fruit to support a small family.

He needed to accumulate livestock—a milk cow, some pigs and chickens. If he was lucky, he might even be able to afford a horse.

Three years it would take to prepare for a proper marriage, maybe four or five.

But the world had turned upside down.

He couldn’t see himself buying land anytime soon, or planting crops. It was as if his dreams were slipping away, moment by moment, like the land that slipped behind them with each passing mile.

Draken’s father steered the ship through the daytime, while Draken took the rudder at night.

He found himself yearning to be alone with Rain. So he was glad that night when she came to him in the early hours and sat cuddling against him “for warmth.”

He wrapped his arm around her protectively, and struggled gamely to resist the urge to make love.

Draken broke out in a sweat as his desire for her grew; he often found his heart pounding.

As they sailed, the ocean lit up from beneath. Large gray squids had gathered in a huge school that spanned miles, and as they rose from the water, they would flash fluorescent blue and actinic white, driving the fish from the lower depths up to the surface.

So the ocean was alive with the sounds of fish leaping and slapping their tails in the water, even as the squids put on their light show.

Draken supposed that this was some new wonder in the world. Perhaps these squids hadn’t existed in the oceans before the great binding. Perhaps they had come from the shadow world.

Yet the spectacle was peaceful, beautiful. Sometimes entire fields of light would burst up at once, as hundreds of squids strobed. It was like watching a lightning show down in the water.

As Rain cuddled against him, she looked longingly to the east for a bit, to the dark woods of Landesfallen.

“You know,” she said. “You and I could get off this ship still. We could go inland and make a life for ourselves. We could forget about my family and your family, and just start over. We could be a family.”

There was such yearning in her voice that Draken wanted to agree. The idea had its attractions. They could try to live off the land, eat burrow bears and rangits.

It sounded like a grand adventure.

She was willing to forgo the comforts of civilization with him, the amenities that most girls demanded.

But as a young man, Draken had patrolled the inland with the Gwardeen, flying over the wastes upon the back of a giant white graak.

Landesfallen was a remarkably inhospitable continent, rocky and hot in the interior, with vast deserts of red sand that blew in raging sandstorms during the summer. The only habitable places had been on the coasts, which were now underwater, and along the banks of a few of the larger rivers. That prime farming land had all been claimed hundreds of years ago.

But there were folks who made a living in the interior of the continents—crazed treasure hunters who went exploring the deep caverns where the toth had once lived a thousand years before. Then there were the gold seekers and opal hunters who went scrabbling over the rocks all year long, living off of lizard meat and desert tortoises and the grubs that they dug up from giant termite mounds.

Draken couldn’t imagine himself and Rain doing that.

But there were more immediate concerns.

“I couldn’t do that,” Draken admitted. “My father and mother need my help. Besides, my brothers and sisters might be in jeopardy.”

“What are the chances that they’re even alive?” Rain asked, leaning in to rest her head upon his chest. He could smell her sweet hair. The scent was intoxicating. “I mean,” she apologized, “think about it. You said that they were going deep into the Underworld, to a place called the Lair of Bones, to find the Seals of Creation, so that Fallion could use his powers to mend them, to bind the worlds into one.

“But if he just bound our two worlds together as an experiment, to see what happened, what are the chances that he lived through it? Half of Landesfallen crumbled into the sea. Surely there were earthquakes there in Mystarria. The reaver tunnels . . .” She spoke softly now, apologizing even as she tried to reason with him. “. . . would have caved in. I fear that Fallion would have been crushed.”

Draken’s heart sank. “You’re right,” he said. “Trying to save him, it’s a fool’s errand. But I have to try. You don’t know Fallion, or Jaz, or Talon or Rhianna. They raised me. They were my best friends. I know that if I were in danger, they’d do everything in their power to come to my aid—even if it meant crossing an ocean and fighting their way through reavers.”

“If Fallion was alive,” Rain objected, “wouldn’t he unbind the worlds?”

“I don’t know,” Draken admitted. “Think about it: He’s down in the Underworld, and reaching the surface could take weeks. Once he does, once he sees what a mess he’s made of things, he might wish to reverse his spell— if he can. But that would mean another perilous journey, weeks or months in the making. He could be alive. I have to hope that he’s alive, and at the very least make the effort to come to his aid.”

Rain just shook her head sadly. “I wish that he would unbind the worlds. I wish that we could turn about, get back to living our lives. . . .”

Now she switched the subject. “Aaath Ulber doesn’t care about all of this, about your brother. He has other designs, I think. He wants to fight the wyrmlings more than he wants to save Fallion.”

Draken wasn’t sure if that was true. “I think his loyalties are divided. He’s two men—Borenson, who has children in danger, and Aaath Ulber, who has a wife and family in need.”

“So who will he put first?” Rain asked.

Draken knew the answer. He’d look in on his wife and children at Caer Luciare. If the ship took port at the Courts of Tide, they’d have to make their way inland for hundreds of miles. The fortress at Caer Luciare would be on their way.

But he had to wonder, was that the right thing to do? Who was in greater danger, Aaath Ulber’s wife or Draken’s brothers and sisters?

Suddenly the seas pulsed with light ahead and salmon began to leap from the water, their backs flashing silver beneath the powdered starlight.

The squids were driving the fish to the surface. He got up, walked to the railing, peered down, and witnessed a giant squid flash in the water, with long arms and tentacles. He had heard tales of luminous squids before, but he’d never heard of any this big.

Draken realized that he should get a spear and go to the prow of the boat, try to bag a couple of the fish in order to make their stores last.

But he hated the taste of salmon, and he wanted to stay here and cuddle with Rain.

Rain stepped up and grabbed him then by the collar and kissed him so passionately that it took his breath away. She pressed her entire body against his, so that he could feel every inviting curve. He could sense her longings, and he had never had a woman who so wanted to make love with him.

At that instant his mother softly cracked the door to her cabin and stepped on deck. She cleared her throat and suggested sternly, “Don’t tempt yourselves!” Rain scrambled to get clear of Draken’s arms. “We have a long trip ahead. And don’t let Aaath Ulber catch you.”

Myrrima stood staring at them in the starlight, with a crescent of moon riding the sky at her back, until Rain retreated to her cabin.

Myrrima sat next to Draken and gazed at him until he was forced to admit, “I want to marry her, Mother. I want to marry her now. I’ve never wanted a woman so much. I feel like I’ll die without her.”

His mother did not answer for a moment. The only sound was that of the ship as it bounded over the waves, and the splash as a fish leapt in the air. The wind sang in the rigging, and waves drove against the hull.

Myrrima stared in wonder at the flashing lights in the water.

“There are squids down there,” Draken said. “Giant squids.”

“Yes,” she said. “I can sense their . . . hunger.” She turned to look at him. “And I understand yours. You won’t die if you don’t have her. I know. I felt that way about your father.”

But Borenson had changed. The notion that she could feel anything for the giant Aaath Ulber was repulsive.

“I want to take her to wife,” he said. “I want her to be the mother of my children. It feels . . . so healthy, so right.”

“No doubt,” Myrrima agreed. “Young love is always that way. But you must not make love to that girl, do you understand me?”

“Father is the captain,” Draken suggested. “He could perform a marriage.” It felt wrong somehow, imagining that his father would marry them.

“You knew your father,” Myrrima said. “He wouldn’t have allowed it. I cannot imagine that Aaath Ulber will be any more eager. Hold off for a few years.”

Draken suspected that his mother didn’t understand. He sometimes found himself growing dizzy with lust, and he knew that Rain felt the same way as he did. “But Mother—”

“No!” Myrrima said firmly. “You can’t make a future with that girl now. We are going to war. If you were to bed her, she’d find herself with child inside a week.

“What if we get to Mystarria and find it overrun with wyrmlings? What if we find ourselves battling for our lives? What if you were killed, and left Rain pregnant, struggling to bring a child into the world and care for it?

“We have nothing, Draken—no home, no money, no safety. When you can offer Rain those things, then you can permit yourself to marry.”

“I love her,” Draken objected.

“You crave her,” Myrrima argued, “and that is only the beginning of love. If you really love her, you’ll wait until the time is right to be together, and that is how I’ll know that your love is true. You’ll prove your love by showing restraint.”

Draken knew that she was right, and so he told himself that he would obey. Yet he craved Rain that way that a drowning man might crave water.

“Is there a spell that you can put upon me,” he asked, “the way that you used to ease my mind when I was a child and I woke from nightmares?”

Myrrima studied him a moment, her mouth tightening into a hard smile. She seemed to focus on something behind his eyes as she thought.

“Magic shouldn’t always be our first recourse when we are confronted by a problem,” Myrrima said. “I could help ease your mind, make you forget your desires for Rain. But you’ll grow more by struggling against those desires.”

Draken resisted the urge to swear, but he wanted to. He was a drowning man, and his mother wouldn’t throw him a rope.

“How long must I wait to marry her?” Draken begged.

Myrrima considered. He knew that she had no idea what they might be facing, how long the coming war might last—whether it would be over in a matter of weeks or stretch out for a lifetime.

None of them knew what they were getting into. They only knew that Gaborn had warned that it was urgent for Aaath Ulber to go to battle.

Myrrima shook her head. “Years,” she said at last. “You will have to wait for years—perhaps only three, but ten would not be too long to wait for someone you love.”

Draken took a deep breath and prepared himself to wait.

When Rain got up the next morning, she felt embarrassed. She could hardly look Myrrima in the eye.

So she went to work. She went into the hold where Aaath Ulber snored louder than an army, and milked the damned goats, then fed them some of the grass that she’d gathered the day before. Then she went topside to the galley and boiled some oats, spooned a bit of molasses over it, and served everyone breakfast—even daring to wake the giant.

She now felt determined to win Aaath Ulber’s respect. In the few days that he’d known her, she felt he’d hardly said a kind word to her.

So she handed him a giant’s portion of breakfast and waited for him to say thank you.

Aaath Ulber sat groggily on the side of the bed, scratched his chin, thought for a moment, and said, “Thank you, child.” He studied her a moment, as if assessing the glare in her eyes, the anger in her stance. “You know I’ll expect a lot from you. You’ll have battle practice each day, of course, but there is plenty of other work to do. There will be sails to be mended, decks to be swabbed. You can start by taking the bucket and emptying the water from the bilge each morning. In a few days the wood in the hull will swell up and seal tight, but until then you’ll have to keep ahead of the leaks.”

“Yes, sir,” Rain said.

She got the bucket, filled it, and spent the next two hours emptying the bilge. Then she practiced swordsmanship for an hour. When she was done, she opened a bale of linen undergarments that the men had salvaged earlier, unbundled them, and found that the seawater was ruining them. She could smell mold growing.

So she took all four bales of garments topside and boiled the undergarments, then strung them out to dry, so that for the next four days linens were strewn over every spar and tied to every rope that held every sail.

Thus there were underskirts flying like pennants from the crow’s nest, and breast bands in the rigging, and dainty night blouses that young newlywed women liked to wear to please their men all strewn across the deck.

She’d never really get them dry, she suspected at first. The salt spray thrown up from the whitecaps kept everything moist, but she discovered that when she climbed the rigging and got high enough, she was able to dry out the clothes.

Thus she was able to salvage hundreds of garments which she imagined were worth a small fortune, but got hardly a word of thanks from Aaath Ulber.

Any free time that she had, Aaath Ulber put her to work in battle practice, and so she discovered that she was trying to stay out of the giant’s way, trying to avoid his baleful gaze.

She realized that she couldn’t visit Draken at night anymore, couldn’t try to find time alone. Aaath Ulber and Myrrima wouldn’t approve.

Draken steered them through the night and was up well after dawn, and Rain had to be content to serve him breakfast, earn a smile and a thank-you.

Soon, Rain’s muscles ached constantly from the toil of battle practice and from scrubbing the decks; she wished that Fallion would unbind the worlds, undo the damage that he’d done.

The sun rose bright and clear each day, and the skies were hardly marred by clouds. The winds drove them mercilessly toward Mystarria.

In the far north of Landesfallen, the company stopped once again to obtain firewood, get more forage for the goats, and refresh their water supply.

They set sail to the west.

Over the days, Rain’s relationship with the giant did not improve. There was a wall between them, a wall so high and thick that she could hardly see over it, see Aaath Ulber for what he was. She kept expecting him to blow up, lash out at her in a senseless fit of rage.

A week out on the voyage, Rain was on her hands and knees, swabbing the deck, when Aaath Ulber bumbled past, stepping on her hand.

She let out a scream of pain, for the giant weighed well over three hundred pounds, and she heard fingers crunch as he plodded on them.

She lifted her hand instantly, found that it was swelling and bleeding. She worried that he’d broken her fingers, for pain was lancing up her arm.

She pulled her hand away, sat up, put it under her armpit and squeezed.

“Sorry,” Aaath Ulber said.

“Sorry for what?” she demanded.

His brow scrunched. “Sorry for crushing your hand.”

She knew that she’d never get an apology for the rest of his faults, but she had to ask. “You didn’t have to kill my father. You left those men in Fossil alive. Why couldn’t you have left him alive?”

Aaath Ulber shook his head. “Oh, child, I didn’t think of it in time,” he admitted. “He pushed me too hard, too fast, and then the world went red. I— don’t know how to ease your pain. . . .”

The giant choked up, then hung his head. “The man is dead. He was a fool to fight me.”

That’s when Rain saw the truth of it. Aaath Ulber was afraid to apologize. His emotions were too strong, too close to the surface.

The words he had just spoken were the closest thing that she’d ever get to an apology.

“I thought you hated me,” Rain said.

“If I hated you,” Aaath Ulber said, “I wouldn’t be working you so hard. I wouldn’t be so eager to keep you alive. I . . . don’t know you well, but my son loves you, and that counts for something.”

Rain broke into tears of relief to know that he did not hate her, tears of frustration that he had hurt her so—then rushed to her room to bandage herself.

Draken called at the door later, but Rain did not open it. She decided that she would comport herself with complete decorum from now on. She would not seek Draken out, or go to him at night. Instead, she would avoid him.

That night, the first autumn storm blew in, a hurricane. The sky became dark, the clouds the sickly green of a bruise. Then the winds and hail struck, and lightning lashed the heavens.

The men were forced to stow the sails while the storm blew the ship backward, far from its course.

The ocean swelled, and enormous waves rose up, threatening to smash the vessel. They slammed over the railings, and drenched the decks.

Thus, the hard times began in earnest.

Yet it was not the wind or the weather or the storms that bothered Myrrima most—it was the loss of her family.

From the time of his change, Myrrima had not slept with her husband; they were growing further apart by the hour. Aaath Ulber spent his days at the rudder, eyes cast toward Mystarria and his wife there.

The children, too, seemed lost. The whole family was torn apart. Sage had lost her sister along with all of her friends. She cried in her sleep at night, haunted by the memories of rushing water.

Meanwhile Draken barely spoke to anyone, and had become so morose that he spent every free hour huddling in the hold. When he wasn’t asleep, he was feigning it, Myrrima felt certain. He too pined for his sister and for his friends. But most of all he longed for Rain.

Perhaps, Myrrima wondered from time to time, we should have left them both back in Landesfallen.

But Draken would not have been happy there, either. He would not have fit in among the Walkins. He was bright enough to recognize that.

But most of all, the children seemed to miss their father.

In the first few days of the ship’s voyage, Myrrima still saw traces of her husband in the giant—in the way that he held his head, or the way that his blue eyes sparkled when he smiled.

But over the weeks, Aaath Ulber asserted control. He began to show a gruffness that she’d never seen in Sir Borenson. He quit smiling, quit his jokes.

After three weeks Sir Borenson was all but gone. Aaath Ulber became a driven creature, and desperate.

14 Rumors of a Hero

“Damn these humans,” the wyrmling lord Yikkarga growled as he knelt near a pit on the side of a small creek, the full moon shining brightly upon his pale face. “They’ve gotten to another cache!”

Crull-maldor stood on a levy behind the lord, some nineteen days after the binding of the worlds. There had once been an outcropping of a blood metal by the creek—red stones, soft and heavy and coated with small particles of metal the consistency of sand. Crull-maldor recalled having seen a few stones on the surface here several de cades ago, but obviously the humans had been digging at the site. The pit here was twenty feet in diameter now.

She tried to calculate the loss. A dozen pounds of blood metal, she suspected. That was all that she remembered seeing on the surface here. But the pit might have yielded more ore. A great deal of dirt had been removed. There might have even been a ton or two deposited here underground—enough to make tens of thousands of forcibles.

The threat provided by so many forcibles was incalculable.

Over the past three weeks, Crull-maldor had begun creating her own army of wyrmling runelords, twenty thousand strong.

Victory over the humans had come rapidly, it seemed.

After the binding, the human runelords had spent the greatest part of their strength attacking her fortress. But Crull-maldor’s counterattacks had been swift and brutal, decimating the humans until none had the strength to openly defy her any longer.

She’d taken throngs of the small folk captive—marching them down into her fortress where they were either butchered for meat or put to the forcible.

The young men were the first to go—those who were strong in arms and firm in their courage, those who had no wives or children and therefore had little to lose.

Some had been taken slaves, sent to work the mines. Others were forced to gather cattle, horses, and fish for the wyrmling hordes, thus freeing her wyrmlings for the more important duties of guarding Crull-maldor’s empire.

The humans’ weapons had all been seized—as much as Crull-maldor had been able to find; their gold and treasures had all been looted.

Thus, her armies had subjugated the vast majority of humans in the Northern Wastes.

But her hold was tenuous. There was far too much to do. The women and children in her tunnels were struggling to carve their own armor. The smiths at the forges kept their hammers ringing night and day. Her troops were grappling to hold on to the human territories—even as her scouts raced to relieve the small folk of their blood metal.

The emperor was being stingy with his blood metal, keeping her weak.

Often, a new slave will strain at the bands that bind him, and that was an ever-present danger.

She could not afford to let the humans gain an advantage.

Not three hundred yards away, a dog was barking and snarling furiously at the edge of a small village, distraught at the scent of so many wyrmlings nearby.

Crull-maldor knew that one of the humans from the village must have discovered the ore, probably within hours of the binding. Crull-maldor had sent her troops to mine this outcropping twice already; and both patrols had come back empty-handed, unable to locate the trove. Now she knew why.

“We should destroy the village,” Yikkarga suggested.

Crull-maldor scowled. She didn’t trust Yikkarga. He was the emperor’s man. It had only been six days since his ship had arrived from the mainland, and already he was seeking to wrest control of her troops from her.

Rumor said that Yikkarga was someone special. He was more than a runelord—he was under the protection of Lord Despair himself, and “could not be killed.”

Crull-maldor did not know if that meant that she was forbidden from killing the wyrmling or if it was literal—the wyrmling Yikkarga could never taste death.

There were strange tales coming out of the South since the binding, and Crull-maldor did not know what to believe. It was said that the Lord Despair had taken a new body, that of a human. It was also said that the Knights Eternal had captured the wizard that had bound the worlds, and Lord Despair now employed strange creatures to guard his captive.

Great things were afoot. History was in the making, and it was a grand time to be alive.

But she did not trust Yikkarga. The emperor was obviously grooming him to be her replacement.

Already Yikkarga had sent some of his spies back to the emperor, to warn him that Crull-maldor was creating runelords of her own. She imagined how he would snarl and rage when he heard the news. Perhaps he would even report her insubordination to Lord Despair. If the emperor did, Crull-maldor would point out that she was only trying to empower her troops, prepare them for battle.

What would happen next, she could not guess. Perhaps she would be punished. Perhaps she would be praised.

Either way, a battle was coming.

“Don’t be too hasty to deal out death to the humans,” Crull-maldor told Yikkarga. “We shall have vengeance in time, but first we must recover the blood metal.”

“So much of it, it will probably be hidden nearby,” Yikkarga suggested. “I can have my scouts sniff it out.” Yikkarga had brought a small contingent with him. His scouts had taken endowments of scent from dogs.

“Good idea,” Crull-maldor agreed, “get to it.” Secretly, she hoped that his scouts would fail to find the cache. She wanted to humiliate Yikkarga. He was hasty in the way of those who have taken endowments of metabolism, but Crull-maldor’s troops would be willing to take days in a concerted search. Given time, her own troops could find the treasure.

Yikkarga’s scouts rushed off to hunt. With a jerk of her head, Crull-maldor sent her troops swarming toward the village.

There were over a hundred wyrmlings in this band. Most of them were Crull-maldor’s men, but four of the scouts and a captain served under Yikkarga.

If the humans had hidden the metal, it was going to be a race to see who could find it first.

Crull-maldor was becoming adept at rooting out hoards of blood metal. In the past week, her troops had recovered ten pounds of the precious stuff hidden beneath the stones of a hearth, and another bagful secreted beneath a pile of cow dung on a farm.

She knew that a man could be counted on to hide his treasure near.

But another three hoards had gone missing completely, had been spirited away— far from the site where the blood metal was mined—and her troops had yet to find them, though she was sending scouts out on a nightly basis.

In moments the barking of the dog was cut short by a yelp, and the wyrmlings swarmed into the village. They did not enter the homes by doorways or windows, but instead simply tossed the thatch roofs off or put their shoulders to a wall. They grabbed toddlers from their cribs and pulled women into the streets by their hair. Any man who dared defy them quickly succumbed with one blow from a meaty wyrmling fist.

The humans, perhaps four or five hundred strong, were gathered in the village square beneath a great sprawling oak.

Crull-maldor floated to them. She could not easily question the humans. She hadn’t had time to master the small folk’s speech, but Yikkarga spoke it well enough. The big wyrmling had taken five endowments of wit, and now remembered everything that he heard.

He went among the folk of the village, growling at the head of each family, demanding to know where the blood metal had gone. Men shook their heads, muttering the word “No!”

It was one of the few words that Crull-maldor understood in the speech of these small folk; she’d grown weary of hearing it.

The wyrmling troops hesitated now, encircling the humans. Crull-maldor’s scouts were rushing through the town, sniffing at each hovel, sometimes rummaging under a bed or scrutinizing an attic.

It took nearly twenty minutes for Yikkarga’s captain to report, “The blood metal is not hidden here in the village. We found a wagon that smells of it, though, out behind that barn.” He jutted a chin toward a large building on the road north of town, near a small manor house.

“Go and search the woods and fields nearby,” Crull-maldor suggested. “You have done well. You shall be rewarded.”

Yikkarga had already found the owner of the manor, a ridiculous looking man in a nightcap. His plump wife clung to his arm, while his three children groveled and tried to cower away.

The wyrmling lord Yikkarga loomed over the small folk, and stepped on the hand of a young boy of five or six to keep him from crawling off.

“He denies knowing anything about the blood metal,” Yikkarga shouted to Crull-maldor. “Shall I torture them?”

“I will handle it.” With a thought, Crull-maldor went whispering over the dry grasses of the field, using her powers to pull life from all around. The wyrmlings were masters of torment, but they could assault only the flesh. Crull-maldor could do more. As she neared the humans, the air grew frigid, and their breath steamed in the cold night.

The humans shrieked in terror and sought to back away. Crull-maldor wore a new robe of spidery black gauze, so that they might see her there in the moonlight, a hooded shadow.

She stopped near the family, reached out an ethereal finger, and pointed to the man’s youngest child. “Tell me where you took the blood metal,” she commanded. Yikkarga translated her demand into the human tongue; the fellow sat with pale eyes made round by terror, pleading, “No! Please, no!”

His wife grasped his wrist and squeezed subtly, a warning for him to be strong, to keep silent. She glared up at Crull-maldor, determination in her piggy eyes.

Crull-maldor marked the woman for death. She was the strong one in the family, the determined one.

“Take the woman,” Crull-maldor said. “Let your men humble her.”

Yikkarga grabbed the woman by arm and jerked her from the little family circle. He tossed her into the street, ordered some men to begin carving off her kneecaps.

Cries of outrage rose from the humans. Women and children wept bitterly and turned away, while the little man in his nightclothes gibbered and cursed.

Suddenly Yikkarga dodged aside, just as an arrow came whizzing from the darkness.

There was a shout of warning, and Yikkarga pointed toward an inn. A dozen troops rushed the house, caught the assailant, and dragged him into the street. It was a young man with a longbow. He’d hidden in an attic.

It was a brief incident, and hardly slowed the woman’s torture, but Crull-maldor marked it.

It is said that Yikkarga cannot die, that he is under Despair’s protection, she thought. There was no warning that an arrow would come from the darkness. His back was turned to it. Yet he knew!

Now she knew, too. He could not be killed.

The wyrmlings turned their attention to the piggy woman, who was on the ground, wrestling with a couple of brutes.

“Tell them nothing!” the woman wailed.

Crull-maldor nodded to one of the men. He took a club and struck the human on her mutilated knees, causing such intense pain that the woman blacked out and fell silent.

The small human lord seemed to screw up his face, gather his courage, as if he imagined that he could withstand such torment.

Crull-maldor looked among the family members, searching for the next victim, settled on the youngest boy. There are things worse than physical torment. There is anguish that goes beyond heartbreak. Crush a man’s hand and you cause him pain, but some tortures are profoundly more difficult to endure than physical discomfort.

Crull-maldor reached out to take the child, rend his spirit in front of the whole family, when suddenly a young woman leapt into her path, a girl of twelve or thirteen, hatred burning in her eyes.

“Kill us all, if you want,” she shouted. “You’ll never find the blood metal! It’s gone—far away from here. And someday a lord will come, a powerful lord who will rid the earth of your kind! The oracles have seen it!”

Crull-maldor hesitated briefly, allowing Yikkarga time to translate.

“It is the prophecy again,” he said. “The humans have heard of it, a tale of a hero who will bring down the emperor. They have stolen the blood metal in the hopes of bringing it to pass.”

Crull-maldor peered up at Yikkarga. He couldn’t be trusted. He served the emperor—him and a hundred runelords more powerful than any that she had kept.

The emperor had sent them out of fear. Apparently, things had changed in Rugassa. Lord Despair had begun creating gates to the shadow worlds, assembling a vast army. Great swirling clouds of darkness now blanketed the entire southern realm, and beneath those clouds creatures called Darkling Glories flew, scouring the land for signs of enemies, while troops from a dozen worlds kept watch upon the ground.

Amid those troops was a race of hideous creatures called Thissians, led by their chaos oracles, who could catch glimpses of the future.

They had seen something, a threat coming from the north, from her realm: a warrior bold and powerful bent on destroying the emperor, with a pair of sorcerers at his back.

Forewarned by prophecies of his doom, the emperor Zul-torac had sent these crack troops to the Northern Wastes, instructing them to find the human champion—and kill him.

But when Crull-maldor asked for a description of this warrior, Yikkarga was evasive.

He’s trying to make me look bad, she thought.

It was an old trick. The emperor could not demote Crull-maldor without giving a just reason. Lord Despair would never approve it.

So the emperor was trying to embarrass Crull-maldor. The emperor had demanded that Crull-maldor hunt down and execute the humans’ hero. Yet he sabotaged her efforts.

“He is a large man,” Yikkarga had reported, “with red hair.”

But here in the North, red hair was nearly as common as teeth. Millions of humans had it.

Yikkarga was withholding information, Crull-maldor felt sure. He knew more about this warrior, much more.

So the emperor played his little game. When the emperor’s men caught their champion, Crull-maldor’s humiliation would be complete. The emperor would remove Crull-maldor from her post. Yikkarga would replace her.

But more was going on here than met the eye.

The emperor is a fool, Crull-maldor thought. In the process of hunting for a human hero, by asking too many questions, Yikkarga’s men were about to empower the very man they were sent to destroy.

For now the small folk were seeking out blood metal and hoarding it, saving it for the day when their savior would appear.

The girl stood defiantly before Crull-maldor, as idealistic children so often do. The lich ordered Yikkarga, “Ask her if this warrior has a name.”

The girl answered, and Yikkarga translated, “The hero has no name, but she says that her people will know him when he comes.”

Crull-maldor wasn’t so sure. Even if Yikkarga had learned something important, he would not reveal the information.

Indeed, that was the problem. Any information that these humans revealed would benefit only the emperor’s men.

So Crull-maldor reached out and seized the young woman, placing a shadowy thumb and pinky finger each on the girl’s mandibles, the middle finger in the sacred spot just above and between the eyes, and a finger each upon the girl’s eyes.

Instantly the young thing froze, and a whimper wrenched from her.

The humans all cried out and mourned, some backing away while the father fought to draw near, to comfort the girl.

Then Crull-maldor took her. A thin wail rose from the child’s throat, even as spirit matter escaped through her nostrils in a streaming fog. Crull-maldor drew out her hopes and dreams, all of her secret ambitions and her love—emptying her like a bowl.

The child whimpered and trembled as Crull-maldor drained her, but she could not break away. She was trapped like a boar upon the end of a spear, trembling and straining but unable to escape.

The energy from the child was sweet, as sweet as flesh fresh after a kill.

She died with a feathery wail rising from her throat, her lips quivering, beads of sweat upon her brow, and a haunted look in her eye.

Crull-maldor broke off the attack early. The girl had died inside, but Crull-maldor left her with her heart still beating.

The girl managed to sway on her feet for a moment before she crumpled to her knees. There she just stared forward in a daze.

She was a hollow shell. She would never speak again, never eat.

Her family would try to restore her, to feed her, but it would take days until she died.

“Raze this village as an example to the humans,” Crull-maldor growled.

The wyrmling troops cheered. Even Yikkarga rejoiced, and the sound of it brought a smile to Crull-maldor’s lips.

Raze the village, Crull-maldor thought, and the people will scatter and tell what we have done. The humans will become even more enraged, more determined to destroy us, and perhaps they will create the very hero that the emperor fears.

Thus, I will turn the tables on him, and see him destroyed.

It was on the lonely march back to the fortress that Lord Despair communed with Crull-maldor—for the first time in nearly two hundred years.

The lich lord was floating among pale gray boulders that glowed eerily in the light of a thin moon. A slight breeze blew, so that she could nearly catch it and float on it, propelled by its strength alone. In the distance, foxes yipped and barked, while nearby the mice rustled among the thin grasses. The land was dying, succumbing to the curse of the lich lords, and so the stalks of wild oats were dry. As the mice scrabbled about, the reedy voices of grass betrayed their presence.

Then Despair came. He took Crull-maldor’s mind, much as she might seize that of a crow, and he filled her consciousness with a vision of his presence.

Despair could take many forms, Crull-maldor knew. Male, female, old, young, human, wyrmling, beast. They were the same.

He came to her in the guise of a human this time, one of the true humans of Caer Luciare, with nubs of horn upon his brow. He was clean shaven, with flashing eyes and a regal look, and he wore black robes with diamonds sewn into them, so that they caught the starlight. He stood upon a parapet, upon a tower in Rugassa, so that in the distance forests loomed above the castle walls, dark and brooding.

He smiled in greeting, and peered right through Crull-maldor’s soul, penetrating all of her evil designs, all of her little schemes and betrayals, and then dismissing them with a shrug.

“I know you, little lich lord,” Despair whispered. “Though you feel alone and forgotten, I remember you still.”

Immediately, Crull-maldor dropped to the ground, prostrating herself before her master. “As I remember you,” Crull-maldor hissed, “and honor you.”

“Is it honor to spar with your emperor?” Despair demanded; fear lanced through Crull-maldor. “Is it honor to withhold the blood metal that he demanded?”

“Forgive me, milord Despair,” Crull-maldor said. “I kept back a part of the blood metal only to serve you better, so that we might conquer the humans in this realm.”

Despair glared at Crull-maldor for a long moment, then broke into a hearty laugh. “You amuse me, my pet,” he said. “Long have you and the emperor sparred from a distance, and in this you have done well. Both of you are stronger now because of it.

“But the time has come to put aside your differences. A war is coming, one that will span the universe. You are my great wizard, and I will lean heavily upon you.

“In securing the North, you have done well. But more needs to be accomplished. I need warriors, runelords of great power. But I need more. I will need weapons and armor by the score. Your people must work faster. Give endowments to all of your people—to every man, woman, and child. Give them ten endowments of metabolism each.

“Begin with your facilitators, so that they might grant endowments more quickly. Then move to your warriors.

“Do you have enough blood metal for this task?”

Crull-maldor thought quickly. She had seventy thousand wyrmlings under her command. It would take a pound of blood metal for each ten forcibles. She would need seventy thousand pounds just to grant metabolism. But her warriors would need more than just speed.

“My lord,” Crull-maldor confessed, “I have but twenty thousand pounds of blood metal.

“Fear not,” he whispered. “I shall send more soon. I must secure Rugassa and the blood metal mines at Caer Luciare first. Then you shall receive your rations.

“Go in among the humans, and harvest them as you have been doing. Strip them of endowments, so that even those who are unwilling to serve me shall find themselves converted to our cause.”

Crull-maldor was struck by a thought. “Milord, if our people take ten endowments of metabolism each, it will create vast logistical problems. With seventy thousand wyrmlings here in the North, we struggled to feed ourselves. But with so many endowments, our people will need ten times as much food to eat. . . . The land cannot support it.”

The more that Crull-maldor listened, the more frightening Despair’s proposition sounded. By granting all of his people endowments of metabolism, he would give them great speed. The endowment itself would boost all of the metabolic processes. It would speed up the body so that the wyrmling runelords would move at ten times their normal speed. Thus, in one year they would accomplish as much as they might have in ten years.

But they would age more quickly, too.

And they would need to eat ten times as often. Thus, they would have to harvest caribou and elk, wild oxen and seals. But there was not enough game on the island for that. In a month or two, all of the animal population would be decimated, and the wyrmlings would face starvation.

“There is much to eat on the island now,” Despair said. “There is not just game—there are the horses and cows and sheep that belong to the humans, and then there are the humans themselves.

“Take endowments from the young,” Despair said. “And as you do, seize their livestock to feed yourselves. By the time that the livestock is gone, the small folk will be too weak to fight you, and you can harvest them. . . .”

Crull-maldor considered the plan. It was monstrous in nature. Despair would create a nation of runelords, something that—as far as she could tell—had never been tried before.

Among the humans, such a plan could not have worked. The humans were farmers and herdsmen. They relied so much upon their harvests that they could not have attempted anything on this scale.

But the wyrmling armies that swept across the worlds would move so quickly that they would be impossible to stop, and they could simply feed upon their enemies.

“I see,” Crull-maldor whispered. “We shall be the devourers of worlds.”

“You see but a glimpse,” Despair corrected. “For now, your people shall each take ten endowments apiece, and in doing so they shall ascend above all other races.

“But in a few weeks, they shall get ten more endowments of metabolism, and ten more—until each has a hundred. Thus each wyrmling will be born and die within a year, and conquer much. The work that we are set to do is vast indeed, so vast that it could take millennia to perform under normal circumstances.

“Yet within the year, your people will begin populating a thousand new worlds, breeding and multiplying. Inside a few de cades, we shall not rule one world, but all worlds.”

Crull-maldor smiled, unable to fathom what this might mean. “Milord,” she whispered, “what place will you find for me to serve in such a vast kingdom?”

Despair gazed at her thoughtfully, and whispered, “You may choose a world, the finest jewel that you can find, and there you may reign.”

15 Water

For six weeks the Borrowbird plowed through a sea that seemed to Aaath Ulber to be made of stone. For much of the time, leaden waves, as rough as boulders, tumbled into the ship under heavy gray skies. Three times great storms arose, battering the ship, driving it mercilessly.

The ship’s meager supplies soon began to give out. The barrels of food dwindled, the water became depleted.

Aaath Ulber never caught sight of land, but six weeks into the journey Draken raised a shout in the nighttime, having spotted sails ahead. They were massive red sails of a wyrmling fleet, some twenty warships strong.

Aaath Ulber stood on the deck in the early morning and peered off in amazement: he hadn’t known that the wyrmlings had such fleets.

So much about the wyrmlings was a mystery. They lived underground, and often sought to hide their numbers. Their capitol was at Rugassa, but there were tales of other large cities elsewhere—in the lands that Sir Borenson had once known as Inkarra and Indhopal.

But fleets of warships?

“Where do you think they’re going?” Draken asked, while the rest of the family stood at Aaath Ulber’s back.

“To introduce themselves to the folk of Landesfallen,” Aaath Ulber said. The sight of the ships left him sick. “The wyrmlings must have learned of it.”

But how? Aaath Ulber wondered. He could come up with only one answer: The folks in Rofehavan must have alerted the wyrmlings.

Aaath Ulber didn’t want to alarm the children, but the sight of the fleet filled him with foreboding.

The wyrmlings have already taken Rofehavan, he reasoned. They wouldn’t send out ships if they felt that there was still a threat to their home front.

They could only have gained such complete control, Aaath Ulber reasoned, if they got to the blood metal at Caer Luciare.

Otherwise, the folk of Mystarria would have overrun the wyrmlings.

My wife Gatunyea will be dead, he realized. As will my children there.

The wyrmling ships drew near, and Aaath Ulber had to run to the north for several hours to evade them. But his small vessel, so light and free, quickly outpaced the black ships.

The water ran out completely a day later. Just when Aaath Ulber needed a storm, none came, and his barrels lay empty.

The family could not go long without water—a couple of days if the temperatures stayed cool, fewer if it grew hot.

He wrapped a little goat hair around a hook, creating something that looked like an eel, and threw his line out behind the ship, hoping to lure a fish, hoping for just a bit of moisture.

They caught a striped bass that way, and Aaath Ulber ate it raw, but the moisture in the fish tasted as salty as seawater, and it only made his thirst worsen.

There were tales of water wizards who could turn seawater into fresh pure drinking water, and so he asked Myrrima if she would give it a try. But she had no knack for it.

They sailed through the next night without water, and a third day.

By then, Aaath Ulber’s tongue felt swollen in his mouth, and he was beginning to grow sick with a fever. Little Sage was worse off. She fell into a swoon that morning, and when she woke at all, she kept calling to her dead sister, “Erin? Erin, where are you?”

Rain took some of her linen and draped it in seawater, then made a compress of it and put it on Sage’s head, to try to slow the fever. But upon feeling the moisture in the rag, Sage kept trying to pull it into her mouth.

“We need water,” Aaath Ulber mourned when his wife drew near. “Could you summon a storm?”

She just shook her head weakly. “I’ve never had a gift for that kind of thing.”

The day was cool, but the sun beat down on Aaath Ulber as he sat at his tiller, drying his skin. His lips were chapped and caked with sores. He felt light-headed.

This sun will be the death of me, he realized.

Every muscle felt weak. He doubted that he could make it through another day.

But Draken has steered through the nights. He can carry on when I’m gone.

If someone is to die, he thought, it is right that it is me. I’m the one who brought them here.

Such was the parade of his thoughts, plodding in circles through his frenzied mind, when suddenly Myrrima came from the galley.

“Head straight into the wind,” she said. “I smell fresh water.”

Aaath Ulber turned the rudder just a bit, and Myrrima adjusted for him. Then she saw how weak he was and told him to move aside, as she sat and steered.

He peered off toward the horizon, looking for signs of land, but saw nothing.

“Get into the hold,” Myrrima told him. “This sun will be the death of you.” Aaath Ulber chuckled, for he’d been thinking the same all day.

Groggily, he made his way into the hold, where he lay having fevered dreams. Sometimes he thought that he was Gaborn’s bodyguard again, and that they were traveling up the coasts of Mystarria to survey the realm. Other times he thought that he had been wounded fighting reavers, and that someone had put him in a death wagon by accident.

Draken put a cool compress on Aaath Ulber’s head, and after a time he began to recover.

For hour after hour, Myrrima steered, gradually moving farther and farther south. It was near dusk when Rain finally spotted the source of the water and let out a shout. Aaath Ulber found the strength to struggle up from the hold. The red sun on the horizon cast its light upon a snow covered hill far in the distance, staining its peak red. A great blue fog spread out from the mountain’s base, so that Aaath Ulber could not see the island’s shore.

“There!” Myrrima cried.

Aaath Ulber grinned, and cheers went up from Rain and Sage and Draken.

But a moment later Aaath Ulber finally caught a strange scent— metallic and bitter.

It’s not a hill, he realized. It’s an iceberg!

But ice is water, fresh water. And we’re saved.

So that night in the fading twilight, as the half-moon rode upon the backs of the stars, the two men rowed their little away boats up to the berg.

As they drew near, the heavy fog obscured the stars. They could hear the sounds of the ice, splitting and cracking, and every few minutes some ice would rumble and go cascading into the water, starting an avalanche.

Getting the ice would be dangerous business. Even drawing close to the berg was to risk one’s life.

“Perhaps we should wait until morning,” Aaath Ulber suggested. “When we can see what we’re doing.”

“I’m not sure you’ll last until morning,” Draken said, as a loud crack split the air. “How about we get in and out quickly?”

Aaath Ulber grinned. “Spoken like a warrior.”

So they lit a torch, and then rowed close to the berg. The ice seemed to rise straight from the water a hundred feet, and Draken stood for a long moment, waving his torch from right to left, looking for a path.

They turned south and Aaath Ulber began to paddle for a moment. Behind them there was a cracking sound and boulders of ice came raining down, just where they had been.

“Hah,” Aaath Ulber jested, “if we’d only known, we could have just held our barrels out.”

But the blocks of ice that bobbed in the water now were contaminated with salt.

So the two rounded the berg until they found a gentler slope, one where loose ice lay like boulders.

Here they tied their boat to an outcrop of ice and disembarked.

Draken carried the torch and scaled the berg’s rough sides, while Aaath Ulber hoisted an empty water barrel under each arm and made his way behind.

When they were a hundred feet above the sea, and Aaath Ulber felt that the water would be pure and fresh, he used his war hammer as a pick, gouging out great blocks of ice.

With bare hands, Draken shoved the ice into barrels; then they hammered on lids and took them down to the boat in a rush, lest an avalanche fall upon them.

Three trips they made, hearts hammering in fear.

When the iceberg was silent, it seemed deathly silent. And when the ice cracked in the least, it sounded like doom.

On the last trip, Aaath Ulber carried two barrels up, and felt too weary to hammer the ice, so Draken took a turn. He had only clanked the hammer against the ice lightly, when Aaath Ulber heard movement above.

Chunks of ice began to roll down. One pinged off of a nearby ledge.

“Avalanche!” Draken shouted; he turned and began to slide downhill.

But Aaath Ulber paused. It was only a few chunks; he hoped that there would be no more.

He lifted his torch and looked up—toward the peak of the iceberg three hundred feet above. He saw something white in the darkness— huge, rushing toward him.

A boulder of ice! he thought. He heard a snarl as it came to life.

A bear rushed past him, a great white bear!

It dwarfed the enormous bears that had haunted the Dunnwood in his youth. This breed could stand thirteen feet tall and weigh well over a ton, and this par tic u lar specimen strained the limits for size.

Aaath Ulber shouted a warning, but Draken was already running, and his flight attracted the predator. It bounded atop him. The weight of the bear drove Draken down onto his belly, and the two of them began sliding over boulders of ice, sledding toward the water amid the frozen scree.

But the bear was eager for a kill.

Draken screamed in terror, tried to scrabble away. The bear roared and lunged for Draken’s neck.

By blind instinct, Draken managed to get on his back. He shoved his arm up into the bear’s mouth, far enough so that it got behind the monster’s teeth, and kept it there, trying to keep the bear’s jaws from clamping down. The bear slapped at Draken with a big paw, raking his side with its claws.

Aaath Ulber roared, hoping to startle the beast, and went rushing down the slope waving his torch.

He saw the war hammer that Draken had been digging with, and grabbed it as he ran.

Draken had nothing to fight with but his eating dagger, which was strapped to his hip. Draken shoved the bear’s head back with one hand, pulled the blade and stabbed, thrusting it into the bear’s neck.

The bear gave a yelping roar, whirled its head to the left to see where the pain came from.

Then it snarled and chomped down on Draken’s face. Its teeth were like a vise, and it shook its head savagely, trying to rip the young man’s flesh, or perhaps break his neck.

Aaath Ulber reached the pair and shouted, “Aaaagh! Get off of him!”

The bear looked up, saw Aaath Ulber. There was madness in the creature’s eyes, an endless hunger. Aaath Ulber realized that it had been stuck on this iceberg for weeks with little or nothing to eat. It was desperate, and would give no quarter.

Draken slammed his knife into the bear again, and the monster barely registered the pain.

So Aaath Ulber swung with his might, adjusting the blow in mid swing so that his war hammer, slammed the bear between the eyes.

The bear fell upon Draken, a sodden weight.

“You killed it!” Draken shouted, panicky, trying to shove the monster’s weight off of him. “You killed it!” he cried again, relief and glee mixed in his voice.

“Yes,” Aaath Ulber said dryly. “I killed it. But you get to skin and gut the beast!”

16 The Spirit Bag

A whisper of a thought came from the emperor. Lord Despair desires Knights Eternal to lead his armies. You will begin creating and training them.

Crull-maldor was down among her sorcerers, hundreds of liches and wyrmlings who struggled day and night to meet Lord Despair’s growing demands, for the wars that he was about to wage were straining every resource.

No longer was the Fortress of the Northern Wastes a sleepy little outpost. In the forges, hammers rang night and day. Ax and spear, helm and shield. Crull-maldor’s wyrmlings were struggling to meet the new orders.

War was imminent, Crull-maldor knew, a war so vast that the wyrmlings had never dreamed of the like. World upon world her people would be called upon to conquer.

But now this?

Knights Eternal? Crull-maldor demanded. How many will Lord Despair want?

For millennia the wyrmlings had only three. A few hundred years ago, Crull-maldor had participated in creation and training of three more. But Crull-maldor had recently learned that some of those had been killed. Obviously, Despair would want to replace them.

It was a great labor to create and train the monsters, a labor that Crull-maldor despised—especially now, when so much more was required of her troops.

Our lord desires a hundred thousand of them, the emperor whispered. It will require much from all of us. We will begin immediately. The rut is on. You will speak to the spirits of the babes in the wombs of your females, begin their instruction, and strangle all who are born this breeding season.

Crull-maldor was stunned, and could think of nothing to say, but the emperor cut off contact with her mind, relieving her of the burden of speech.

She hesitated a moment, wondering why the sudden need for Knights Eternal in such vast numbers. The training of such a monster took hundreds of years, hundreds of thousands of hours.

For the next few centuries, training them would require all of Crull-maldor’s time, all of her effort.

I am a nursemaid to the undead, she thought. That is all that I can be.

This was the end of her life, she knew. There would be no honors, no vaunted position. She would never become emperor, for with a call for so many Knights Eternal, even the emperor Zul-torac would be demoted. He too, would become a nursemaid.

Why would Despair need so many of them? Crull-maldor wondered. But the answer was obvious. Despair had begun his great and last war. He was sending troops through the doorways, into the far reaches of the universe. He would conquer one world at a time, until the heavens groaned under his rule.

He would need servants to dominate these worlds—the most powerful servants in Despair’s arsenal.

The Knights Eternal had gained Lord Despair’s favor. That was the only possibility. It was said that they had taken endowments. Their living flesh allowed them a boon that Crull-maldor could never receive. That was the rumor, at least, and Crull-maldor believed it, for it was the only thing that made sense.

The Knights Eternal shall rule the heavens, Crull-maldor realized . . . and I, I will die being their nursemaid.

The very thought made her seethe.

I am more powerful than they, she thought. I am more powerful than the emperor.

And an idea struck her.

The only reason that the Knights Eternal had gained favor with Lord Despair was because they could garner endowments.

But what if I took endowments?

It was an intriguing idea. The endowment process worked only among the living, she knew. If a runelord took endowments and died, then the attributes returned to those who had given them. And if a Dedicate died, then the attribute was stripped from the lord who had taken it.

For this reason, it was imperative that a runelord guard his Dedicates, keep them safe, lest the lord’s enemies kill the Dedicates and thus strip the lord of his attributes, leaving him weak and powerless.

But what is life? Crull-maldor wondered.

It was a mystery that she had studied for hundreds of years. As a lich, she defied death every second. She lived half in the world of the flesh, half in the world of the spirit.

Life is not an absolute, she told herself. Between life and death are infinite gradations, shades of gray. A body survives only so long as its spirit clings to its flesh, and most men who feel themselves to be alive are closer to death than they would like to believe.

So why would a Knight Eternal be able to take endowments, and not me? she wondered. The Knights Eternal are deader than I am, for I still cling to the remains of my own body while they only inhabit the shells left by others.

But that was the difference, she recognized. The Knights Eternal clung to flesh.

For ages she had trained the creatures, telling them that they had no spirits, that it was only the power of their minds that allowed them to seize a corpse and inhabit it.

But that was not true. The Knights Eternal did have spirits, powerful spirits. Crull-maldor lied to the creatures only so that they would fear oblivion all the more, so that they would cling to any flesh that they could, like a drowning man clinging to a raft.

It was true that their spirits were not whole, undefiled. As part of their preparation, before birth Crull-maldor would damage them, remove the spirit tendrils that formed their conscience and gave them their will. By doing so she made the Knights Eternal ill-suited to become abodes for the loci. Thus, the Knights Eternal could not communicate across the leagues with other loci, as Crull-maldor did. That had always been their weakness. That was why Despair had never shown them favor.

But much had changed with the binding of the worlds.

Much has changed, Crull-maldor thought, and much more shall yet change. . . .

Less than an hour later Crull-maldor trundled into the Dedicates’ Keep deep in the wyrmling fortress. She wore her cloak of glory.

The cloak was not made of material; it was fashioned from skin, Crull-maldor’s own hide, skinned from her while she was still alive. By wearing it, Crull-maldor could walk about in her wyrmling form, rather than appear as a spirit. She could manipulate things with her hands, if she so desired—bearing a spear into battle, or adjusting an ocular.

There was life in the hide still. It breathed on its own, and required nourishment. She kept it in a vat by day, soaking in blood, seawater, and various nutrients.

The skin had aged over the centuries, becoming wrinkled. Growths had formed over it—warty things—and patches of it were discolored.

The skin had eye holes but no eyes, mouth holes but no teeth. Crull-maldor could move about in the skin, but she had no flesh and bone to give her proper form.

Instead, she walked with a hunched back, barely able to hold her head up, her knuckles sometimes dragging on the floor. She was unsightly.

But the cloak of glory had its uses. The eye holes and other orifices could all be sewn tightly shut, so that Crull-maldor could inhabit her old skin and walk about in the daylight, as she had need.

Now she hoped that it would provide another use.

The Dedicates’ keep here was a vast hall where dozens of sorcerers coaxed attributes from human Dedicates and bestowed them upon the wyrmlings. Hundreds of people filled the hall—terrified human women weeping and begging to be spared, wyrmling soldiers eager to taste the sweet kiss of a forcible.

The wyrmling troops were drawing attributes as quickly as they could. Mostly they took metabolism from the humans, thus speeding up the troops while leaving the Dedicates in a magical slumber. Human workers sweated and grunted as they lugged the sleeping Dedicates off for storage.

The room was filled with the deep songs of the facilitators, the screams of pain from Dedicates. White lights flashed as forcibles came to life, and the odor of burned skin and singed hair filled the room.

Crull-maldor limped to her chief facilitator, and commanded in a harsh whisper, “Give me an endowment.”

The facilitator stared at her a moment, and a scowl of revulsion crossed his face. Obviously he did not think that her experiment could succeed, but his answer was contrite. “Which endowment, O Great One?”

“It matters not,” Crull-maldor said. “Metabolism is easy. Give me metabolism.” She imagined how it would be to speed up, to move faster than other liches, to think twice as fast as the emperor. There were so many possible advantages. . . .

So the facilitator waded in among the humans and brought back a likely Dedicate, a small young man with a weak chin. The boy dodged and kicked, trying to break away. He did indeed seem to be a child with a gift for speed.

The facilitator spoke to the boy in his own language, soothing him, calming him, promising life in return for his gift. A few slaps to the face left the boy with a bloody nose and a firm conviction that giving up his endowment would save his life.

Then the ceremony began; the facilitator picked out a forcible and began singing to the boy in his deep voice, a wordless song meant only to mesmerize the child, get his mind off his fear. Then the facilitator pressed the rune end of the forcible to the boy’s neck, and it suddenly grew white-hot at its tip. The sound of sizzling skin filled the air.

The boy whimpered then, but did not break away. Instead, he sat stoically, glaring at Crull-maldor, as if daring her to take his gift.

The facilitator continued singing, brought the forcible to Crull-maldor. He twirled it in the air, and thick white lines of light held in the air wherever the forcible went, creating a serpent of light that coiled through the room.

But when the glowing forcible touched Crull-maldor’s skin, the white hot metal did not burn it. The serpent merely hung in the air, as if waiting to strike elsewhere.

The facilitator grew nervous, tried touching Crull-maldor in various places—her belly, her neck, a healthy-looking patch of skin on her forehead.

But nothing worked. Beads of sweat began to break upon his brow as he considered how she might punish him for his failure.

“Master,” he begged, “a lich cannot take an endowment. . . . You are too far gone toward death.”

It was as Crull-maldor had feared. She had tried an experiment, and failed.

It is because I do not cling to my flesh, she realized. I am a spirit inhabiting a bag made of skin, nothing more. I have the form of a living being, but I am not like the Knights Eternal.

She thought for long seconds, and answered the facilitator. “Oh, I can take endowments. But first I must take a fitting body. . . .”

17 The Barbarous Shore

Six days later the soft cries of gulls wafted above a still, fog-shrouded sea. In the gray dawn, the water barely lapped against the hull of the Borrowbird, looking for the entire world like molten lead.

Myrrima peered overboard, and tasted the salty air. Land was not far off. She could smell a hint of it—autumn fields and wet earth, not too far away.

Fifty-two days it had been since the family had fled Landesfallen.

Fifty-two days was a long time. Much can change.

Myrrima was filled with burning questions: What will we find in Rofehavan? Where is Talon? What has befallen my other children?

The sea gave no answers. Myrrima was a wizardess, but unlike some who were gifted with aquamancy, she could not foretell a person’s fate by gazing into a still pool.

For a moment, she thought that she caught sight of a shadow on the water— a fishing coracle. But it disappeared through the fog as silently as it had come, and she wondered if it had been a dream.

Her ship lay as silently as a log in the water. She’d lowered the sail an hour ago, and then bade the ship be still. A small spell kept a dense fog in place. It was not hard to do. There was no wind, and it would have been a foggy morning even without her help.

Aaath Ulber stumbled up from the hold and wiped the morning sleep from his eyes. He took the rudder by long habit, though there was no need to steer.

“We’ve got land nearby,” Myrrima told him. She didn’t know exactly where they were. No one on board was a navigator. But they had known that if they sailed west long enough, they’d run into a continent. But how far north or south had they come? To the north was Internook, home to the savage warlords. That was the most likely place for them to beach. But if they had drifted south far enough, they might beach in Haversind or Toom—lands that would be more hospitable.

The giant drew a deep breath, taking a long draught of air. “There’s a port,” he said. “I can smell cooking fires.”

He has a good nose, Myrrima thought. The warrior clans bred like hunting dogs, and they gave him a good nose with all the rest.

“Aye,” Myrrima said. “If you listen close, you’ll hear foghorns braying in the distance.” She shot him a worried look.

Aaath Ulber stood silently until a horn sounded, long and deep. “Internook,” he said softly. “We’ve landed in damned Internook.”

He gave her a worried glance. They’d had nothing but bear meat to eat for the past few days, an old boar, sour and rancid.

Myrrima said, “I think that I should go ashore, purchase some fresh supplies.”

Aaath Ulber held his tongue for a moment, peered at her from the corner of his eye. She knew that he would argue. He loved her too much to let her take the risk.

“I’ll be the first to go into town,” he said.

“Why you?” Myrrima demanded.

“I’m the biggest,” he said. “If anyone gives me trouble, I’ll be able to squash them.”

She had known that he would make that argument. “You’re the biggest—and the easiest to spot,” she said. “You’ll attract too much attention.”

“Your dark hair will attract almost as much attention. And you speak with a Heredon brogue. I’ve always done a fair impression of an Internook accent.”

“Fair enough to mock the warlords at a drunken feast, but this isn’t a feast, and these are not our friends. They’ll spot you in minute!”

“Last that I heard, it wasn’t against the law in Internook to be a Mystarrian,” Aaath Ulber growled.

“Last I heard, the warlords of Internook were using Mystarrians for bear bait in the arena.”

“Let them,” Aaath Ulber said. “The last bear that I tangled with didn’t do so well.”

“Maybe we should just keep sailing,” Myrrima said. “I have an ill feeling about this. In two more days we could be in Toom.”

Aaath Ulber stood over her, put his huge hand on her shoulder. He was trying to be gentle, she knew. He was trying to ease her mind. But it felt clumsy and wrong somehow. His hands now were as big as plates. They felt like the paws of some animal. There was a distance between them that could not be crossed, and when he touched her now she felt more isolated than ever.

“We need ale,” Aaath Ulber said, “at the very least. I’ve heard that we cannot trust the water here. Ale, a few vegetables, a couple of hens. I can go to the morning market and be out in an hour. I won’t talk much, just grunt and nod and point.”

“That was my plan exactly,” Myrrima smiled.

“Mmmm?” he asked. He pointed at her, jutted his chin, and grunted, as if to say, “I want that one.”

Myrrima laughed.

“See,” Aaath Ulber said, “I’ve been practicing all month. I’ve got it down to an art.”

Myrrima didn’t agree to let him go. Aaath Ulber simply went to one of the two away boats, lowered it over the side, and climbed down in. When he settled into it, he looked far too large for the small vessel. It threatened to sink under his weight.

Rain came rushing out of her cabin at that moment. “Wait,” she cried. “I’m coming with you.”

“You?” Aaath Ulber asked.

“You shouldn’t go alone,” she said. “With my blond hair, I’ll fit right in.”

Aaath Ulber opened his mouth to argue, but Rain shushed him. “I’ll follow you, keep a good distance. And if there is trouble, I won’t intercede. I’ll just let the others know.”

Myrrima studied the girl. She had the right hair color, but she wasn’t big-boned enough.

Rain’s plan made sense, but a wave of foreboding stole over her.

As Rain scrambled to get into the boat, Myrrima said, “Maybe I should come, too. . . .”

Aaath Ulber said tersely, “The others need you more than I do. Keep a fog wrapped around the boat, like a fine gray cloak. I’ll be back soon.”

He took the oars and began to paddle away, toward the distant bray of a foghorn. Myrrima demanded. “How will you find us when you’re done?”

“Easy,” Aaath Ulber said. “I’ll just look for a broad patch of mist on the ocean, and aim right for the heart of it.”

He smiled up at her, then pulled hard on the oars once, twice, three times—and the mist swallowed him.

Aaath Ulber rowed toward shore on the little ship’s boat, with Rain seated in the back of the boat, doing her best to look brave.

“Don’t worry,” Aaath Ulber told Rain. “Everyone will be looking at me. No one will be looking at you.”

He considered how very little the young girl knew, and realized that Rain could use more instruction. “When we get to the dock, wait until I’ve gone a good hundred yards before you begin to follow. Understand?”

“I’ll be fine,” Rain said.

Aaath Ulber recognized that Rain seldom had to be told a thing more than once. She had a keen memory, and a good wit when she wasn’t too shy to speak. But right now, her life would depend upon how well she performed.

For a moment there was little sound, only the splashing of oars as he dipped and pulled, dipped and pulled. Then a great horn sounded off toward shore. Other than that, the only sound was the waves lapping against the boat, and the only sight was the gray fog above and the waves beneath as they lifted the boat gently and then let it fall. The water was clear, with a bit of kelp floating here and there, and some small yellow jellyfish.

“When you follow me, keep your head down, and your hood up. This may not be the largest village in Internook. The men and women of the place, they’ll think that you’re some girl from the outskirts of town or a nearby village. But folks your own age—they’re the ones you have to watch out for. They’ll mark you as a stranger.

“Don’t speak to anyone. Try not to look like you’re following me. That means that you don’t watch me. You might stop and look in the windows of a shop, or stoop over to tie the straps to your boots, or pet some stray dog. But you don’t follow me with your eyes, understand?”

He waited for Rain to nod.

“Now, tell me what you’re going to do when we get into town?”

Rain repeated the instructions nearly perfectly.

Yet he worried. Rain’s face was pale with fear. Bone-white skin was common up here in the North, and so he figured that she wouldn’t look too out of place. Her hair color and eye color were right. The folks here all had yellow or red hair.

What bothered him was the fear in her eyes, the tight lips, the way her shoulders hunched in on themselves, the way her breath came shallow.

“I want you to try not to be afraid,” he suggested. “Your fear is what will give you away. Keep your head down but your back straight and tall, your shoulders wide. When you see someone, smile as if you were greeting an old friend. And when you walk along the streets, think of better days, and happier times ahead.”

Now he had to broach the subject that most concerned him. “The warlords of Internook aren’t bad folks, if you’re one of them. But they breed like rats, and so for five hundred years they’ve been eager to hire their young men out as mercenaries. There are families here so poor that they raise children just to sell them. When a young man goes to war, he only receives wages after a campaign has ended, and if he dies in battle, that payment goes to his family. Many a father and mother have sent out their sons hoping for nothing more than to get gold from it, and to see their children all slaughtered.

“So the folk of Internook have gained repute over time for their brutality, for their warrior’s spirit. The rest of the world sees them at their worst. But I think that in their own homes, they may not be so bad. . . .”

Rain spoke up, choosing her words slowly and carefully, her voice hinting at barely subdued rage. “What the warlords did to us cannot be forgiven or ignored. Their reputation for brutality is well earned. What’s more, I do not believe that such folk could go to Mystarria and act like monsters without losing something of their souls. War hardens a man, and in Internook, their folks have been growing hard for generations.” She gave Aaath Ulber a stern look and said, “You do me a disservice by telling comfortable lies.”

Aaath Ulber was surprised by her impassioned outburst, but he was learning that there was more to this girl than met the eye.

More to the point, he could not fault her logic. The folk of Internook had grown hard over the centuries, and perhaps Rain was correct.

“Don’t worry about me,” Rain said. “I’ve taken the worst that the warlords are likely to dish out.”

Aaath Ulber peered into her clear eyes and saw something frightening there: death.

She’s been raped, he realized. Probably more than once.

Aaath Ulber felt more than a little worried. Had he known what she’d endured, he would not have allowed her to come.

So he rowed on in silence. The folks of Internook were great eaters of fish, and as the boat neared land, he saw many a fisherman’s coracle hugging the shore. The fishermen didn’t dare go far in the thick fog.

The blowing of the horn guided him to port, and at midmorning he tied up at the docks.

The port was like many here in Internook. A river had carved a channel into the bay, a channel broad and deep. But the barbarians had hauled in huge rocks and blocked most of the old bay off, forming a funnel that pointed into the shallows. The mouth of the funnel ended with several iron columns interspersed about two feet apart.

In the summer, leviathans—great serpents of the deep—sometimes came in near shore, driving large schools of fish before them: salmon and cod, mackerel and bass. The fish would swim for safety toward the shallows, and be driven down the long throat of the funnel into the bay. Once they were in, the barbarians could drop boards through slats, locking the fish in while the iron bars kept the great serpents out. Thus, the fishing grounds here in Internook were remarkably bountiful.

The fog still held, and so Aaath Ulber was shielded from faraway eyes. He got up and whispered, “Remember, keep well behind me. When you can’t see me any longer, that’s the sign to start following. I’ll take care to make plenty of noise, so that you’ll know where I am.”

He checked his head wrap, then lumbered out of the boat, onto the docks. He began to whistle an aimless tune as he strolled, his heavy feet thumping on the wooden planks.

Here near shore, the sea smelled differently. The fishermen would gut their catches in the afternoons, tossing the offal to the crabs in the bay. So the clean salt smell of the sea had heavier overtones of death and decay.

He passed a few women mending fishing nets on the docks, and as he did, all eyes peered up at him. As he feared, no one as massive as he could hope to make his way through town undetected.

He nodded politely, grunted as he passed, and his face flushed as he felt their stares follow.

At last the wooden docks met the land, and stairs climbed some fifty feet, scaling a rock embankment. He thumped up the stairs. There were fish stalls all about, the heart of the village’s market, and people filled the streets in droves.

For barbarians, he decided, the village was surprisingly well kept. The streets were clean and well cobbled, and the market stalls were painted in bright colors—canary, crimson, deep forest green. Each stall served as the front of a home, and the houses were so close together that many of them shared common walls, thus conserving heat. Wildflowers seemed to sprout up from any little patch of dirt at the front of the houses.

But farther up on the hill, enormous long houses could be seen shrouded in fog, each ringed with tall picket fences. Cows ambled about up there, while chickens and geese scratched in the yards. Each long house was made from huge beams, and served as a fortress for the families that lived inside.

Aaath Ulber bumbled through the market, peering at giant eels that hung from hooks in one stall; he stopped to watch one merchant toss a load of crabs into a huge boiling pot. Everywhere, fishmongers called out, “Cod, cod—so fresh he’s still wiggling!” or “Shark, shark—eat him before he eats you!”

But it wasn’t fish that Aaath Ulber wanted. He was looking for fresh vegetables, perhaps a young piglet.

He stopped for a moment, heard voices up the street to the north, other merchants hawking their wares.

He worked through the crowd, trying not to step on anyone. Everywhere, people stopped to gawk. Most didn’t even bother to hide their stares.

So he strode along, still whistling. He stopped for a moment at a cross street, took an instant to look back, to see if he could spot Rain. But there were too many faces in the crowd, and he didn’t dare search for long.

So he moved forward, hoping that she could see him well enough.

At last he reached a vendor who sold produce—fresh blackberries from the woods, wild mushrooms, hazelnuts, honeycomb—and a smattering of herbs from the garden—leeks and parsnips, carrots and tulip roots.

He grunted and mostly pointed at what he wanted, feigning an accent when he was forced to barter. He paid too much, giving the woman a plain golden ring for a good deal of food, then tucked it in a makeshift rucksack.

He moved on, stopped to buy that piglet he’d been hungry for. He found a nice fifty-pounder, traded it for some steel, and then tucked it up under one arm. The pig squealed like mad. It had been castrated in the not-so-distant past, and apparently feared that Aaath Ulber might try it again.

There is nothing that attracts attention like a giant in the marketplace holding a squealing pig, Aaath Ulber discovered. Every eye turned to him, and it seemed that folks two hundred yards down the street all stopped to stare.

So Aaath Ulber held the pig and scratched its head, trying to soothe it with a few soft words.

He wanted to get back to the boat now, but there was so much more that he wanted here in town. He was hoping for some nice pastries for Myrrima, or perhaps a new dress, anything to put a smile in her eyes. And he wanted cloth to make new clothes for himself and everyone else on the ship. But mostly, his family needed news—and weapons.

So he quieted his piglet, then kept on walking. After purchasing four loaves of bread, which went straight into his rucksack, he found that his piglet stopped squealing altogether and amused himself by sniffing at the sack and grunting quietly.

At last he found a man in a stall who sold knives of all kinds. He stopped.

The man was old—astonishingly old. His face was lined and wrinkled, and his red hair had all gone silver long ago. He wore a beard cropped short, and dressed in robes appropriate for a merchant—not so rich as to garner envy but not so poor as to earn disdain.

Yet there was wisdom in his eyes, and he moved quickly enough when Aaath Ulber stopped to study his wares.

“Do you sometimes feel that something is missing from your life, good sir?” the merchant asked. “Perhaps it’s a knife—something to butcher your pig there? Or would you like to see something larger, something more appropriate to a man your size?”

Aaath Ulber peered at the merchant’s wares. There were long knives with notched blades for cutting bread, and small knives that a woman might use for peeling apples. But what interested Aaath Ulber most were the knives against the back wall. There was a pair of fine dueling knives— not too fancy, mind you. It wasn’t the polished steel that you might find in Heredon, with silver finger guards and scenery etched into the blades. They were cheap, sensible—the kind of knives that some warrior lad might take into battle.

“Do you have anything larger?” Aaath Ulber asked. “A man my size needs a blade to match.”

The old merchant eyed him for a long moment. “It’s not pigs that you’re wanting to kill,” the fellow mused. “I don’t have much call for real weapons, you understand, but I have something that might interest you. . . .”

He turned and went to the display case on the far wall, then pulled out a hidden drawer beneath. It opened to reveal a tall sword, the kind that the barbarians here favored—nearly seven feet long. Few men were big enough to wield such a blade, but Aaath Ulber thought it just a bit too short. He knew that he couldn’t afford it.

Yet the old man laid it on the display table in front of him. “You’d have to travel many a mile,” he promised, “to find its equal.”

Aaath Ulber nodded, but did not pick it up. Between a rucksack over his shoulder and a pig under one arm, there was not much that he could do.

He peered down at it appreciatively.

“You’ve an accent,” the old man said. “Where do you hail from?”

Aaath Ulber grunted, “To the east—Landesfallen.” He glanced back over the crowds, spotted Rain’s dark green cloak. The girl was standing near some boys who were play-fighting with sticks. Aaath Ulber turned away quickly.

The old man fixed him with a stare, and nodded appreciatively. Aaath Ulber prepared for the old fellow to hit him with a barrage of questions: “How are things on the far side of the world?” “Did you have a pleasant voyage?” That sort of thing. But the old fellow simply got worry lines in his eyes, leaned forward, and whispered, “They’re looking for you, you know.”

Aaath Ulber was certain that the old man had him confused with someone else.

“For me?” Aaath Ulber asked. “How could that be?”

“Don’t know,” the fellow whispered secretively. “There’s a giant—sailing from the northeast. That’s all that I’ve heard. But they’re asking for you.” Then he peered straight into Aaath Ulber’s eyes and urged, “Take the sword!”

“I . . . don’t have that kind of money,” Aaath Ulber said honestly.

But the old man smiled gamely, the look of a soldier who had fought for far too many years. “The price is cheap, to the right man. All that I ask is a wyrmling’s head!”

Aaath Ulber wasn’t surprised that the man had heard of wyrmlings. “What news do you have of them?”

The old man’s eyes suddenly went wide, and he hissed, “Watch your back! They’re here!”

A woman cried out, perhaps a hundred yards behind, and a deep growl rumbled through the crowd—a wyrmling curse.

Aaath Ulber straightened, whirled. Two wyrmlings came striding through the crowded market like small hills.

Wyrmlings in broad daylight! Aaath Ulber realized in dismay.

He’d never seen such a thing. The sun blinded wyrmlings and could burn their pale skin.

They wore helms and ring mail ornately carved from the bones of a world wyrm, so that it was the color of yellowed teeth, and their flesh and hair was as white and as unwholesome as maggots.

They’d seen him already, and one shouted in the tongue of Caer Luciare, “You!”

The wyrmlings rushed him, shoving commoners aside, and the crowd could not part fast enough.

They have endowments! Aaath Ulber realized. Each of them had at least two endowments of metabolism, he guessed, by the speed of their movements.

He didn’t have time to run. He could hardly hope to fight. The wyrmlings streaked toward him.

He dropped his rucksack, reached behind himself, and grabbed a wicked fish knife from the table. Its blade was narrow and long. He figured that it would fit nicely between the chinks of a wyrmling’s armor.

He grabbed the handle, held it in his palm, with the blade flat against the inside of his wrist.

His heart was pumping loudly in his ears, and Aaath Ulber’s thoughts came swiftly. He studied their weapons. Each had a battle-ax sheathed to his back, and each wore a pair of “daggers” on his hips—each dagger the size of a bastard sword. One carried a long meat hook, and both had heavy iron war darts tucked into their belts. Aaath Ulber noticed how the wyrmlings peered about, their heads swaying from side to side. They were alert for danger, watching the crowd warily. Though they homed in on him, he could tell that they expected trouble.

I can use that fear against them, he thought.

I can’t hope to beat two wyrmling runelords using normal tactics.

He didn’t have an endowment to his name anymore. He couldn’t match these monsters—not in speed, not in size, not in strength. But perhaps he could hope to outwit them.

Sir Borenson had studied the fighting styles from a dozen countries, and had mastered them all. Aaath Ulber suspected that he’d have to pull from Borenson’s hoard of knowledge to win this fight, show these wyrmlings some tricks they’d never seen before.

The wyrmlings neared him. It had not been five seconds since he’d spotted them.

“You there!” one of the wyrmlings shouted. “Come with us!” He reached behind his shoulder to grab the huge battle-ax sheathed on his back.

Aaath Ulber picked that moment to strike. He hurled his pig at the monster’s head. The pig squealed in terror, lofted into the air. The wyrmling’s eyes went wide, and he reached up to swat the pig away.

At that moment, Aaath Ulber lunged, throwing all of his speed and strength into one terrific burst, his hand blurring as he sought to strike.

The wyrmling was fast. He roared a battle challenge and knocked the pig out of the air as easily as if it were a pillow. He reached back and slid his ax from its sheath, twirled it as he threw it the air, and then caught the handle—too late.

Aaath Ulber’s diversion had served him well. He slid his long fish knife into the wyrmling’s armor—prodding for its kidney, then twisting. Black blood spurted from the wound, warming Aaath Ulber’s hand. The wyrmling roared in pain and surprise, then tried to step back. Aaath Ulber placed a foot behind the monster’s heel and threw his shoulder into the creature’s chest, using the wyrmling’s momentum against it, so that it tripped and fell.

Aaath Ulber grabbed one of the monster’s poisoned war darts and palmed it as the creature dropped.

The second wyrmling had already gained his weapon. This one pulled his “knife” from its sheath and halted for a moment, warily.

Already Aaath Ulber had palmed his knife again, and now stood with both hands in fists, so that the creature wouldn’t know which hand held a weapon. But of course, at the moment, Aaath Ulber had a weapon in each hand.

The Muyyatin knife tricks, Aaath Ulber thought. That might do it.

The Muyyatin assassins had made an art of hiding weapons, of pulling daggers from hidden folds in their clothing, or switching weapon hands as they whirled about, seeking to gain the element of surprise.

The wounded wyrmling roared in frustration and scrabbled up from the ground. Aaath Ulber hoped that the creature had only seconds to live, but he couldn’t be sure. The wyrmling was enormous, over eight feet tall, and the fish knife might not have reached all the way into monster’s kidney.

I’ll know soon enough, Aaath Ulber thought.

If he’d hit the kidney, the monster would go into shock within seconds.

His companion raced up behind and roared like a lion, urging the fallen wyrmling into battle. All around, the folks in the marketplace were screaming, fleeing, so that a battlefield was opening up around them.

The second wyrmling swatted with the back of his hand, slapping aside a woman who was carry ing a small babe. The blow took her head off and sent a spray of blood over the crowed. People shouted in terror and lurched back.

In that instant, it seemed that a curtain of red dropped before Aaath Ulber’s eyes. He drew a breath in surprise, and his heart pounded, so that he heard a distant drumming in his ears.

He lost all conscious thought as a berserker’s fury swept over him.

18 Wulfgaard

The morning sun could not quite penetrate the patches of mist that veiled the village, and Rain felt as if her old clothes were becoming too worn, too insubstantial to keep out the chill. But when the wyrmlings appeared, she felt a thrill run down her spine bitterer than the cold.

She heard the deep growls behind her, like something that might come from a frowth giant, then turned to see the wyrmlings.

Her first thought was that they were beautiful. They had carved on their bone armor and helms for thousands of hours, gouging in strange pictographs and various knots, so that their work rivaled the finest scrimshaw carved into ivory that she had ever seen.

But then she saw the wyrmlings’ eyes—soulless and cruel, a pale green that made them look like pits of ice. Their cheekbones were thick and their foreheads were thickened, as if over the millennia they had bred armor into their own bodies, and their mouths with their overlarge canines were impossibly cruel.

All of her perception of them was gathered in a split second as the monsters raged past.

Then people in the marketplace began to shout. Vendors threw blankets over their wares, while townsfolk sought to escape.

A big man shoved Rain in his hurry to reach an alley, throwing her down. She still hadn’t gained her land legs yet, and so her balance was off.

Children were screaming, but the townsfolk didn’t clear a path fast enough, and flecks of blood rained through the air as one of the wyrmlings knocked a woman out of the way.

Rain leapt to her feet just in time to see Aaath Ulber attack. He had no endowments to his name, but he had a lifetime of training—no, she realized, two lifetimes of training.

He moved with blinding speed, stabbing. He seemed to leap into one of the wyrmlings, slugging it, but then Rain caught a glimpse of a flashing knife. The second wyrmling burst toward him with blinding speed, wielding a huge ax.

Aaath Ulber met him with a scream, a strange animal howl that Rain hadn’t heard since he’d butchered her father.

Now he took his rage and lashed out at a wyrmling that towered above him. The wyrmling’s ax fell in a blur, and Aaath Ulber reached up and grabbed it. As he did, he leapt in the air and kicked with both feet, crushing the wyrmling’s knee.

The wyrmling fell back, snarling in pain. His companion had been knocked over, but now he regained his knees. He lunged, swinging a meat hook down low, and caught Aaath Ulber in the calf of his left leg. Viciously the wyrmling jerked, pulling Aaath Ulber down.

After that, Rain didn’t see much of what happened. The crowd was screaming, and several people rushed in front of her, making for the alley.

“Run!” some woman shouted. “The guards will be down on all of us!”

Just then, Rain heard a strange clacking sound—bone on bone—and peered down the street. A dozen more wyrmlings were rushing around a corner.

She heard Aaath Ulber snarling, while wyrmlings shouted and roared, and she suddenly realized that Aaath Ulber could not hope to win against so many.

A wise man might have run, but Aaath Ulber was in his berserker’s fury, striking out blindly against wyrmling runelords, though he didn’t have a chance in the world.

Many of the townsfolk stood riveted by the spectacle. Some men even dared shout words of encouragement to Aaath Ulber.

Rain put her back to a wall and stopped for a moment, staring. The crowd opened enough so that she saw Aaath Ulber on the ground, grappling with a much larger foe, struggling to rip the wyrmling’s throat out with his teeth.

But one wyrmling, bleeding furiously from the face, had leapt to his feet, and now he kicked Aaath Ulber in the ribs so hard that Rain heard bones snapping.

Aaath Ulber rolled into the street, snarling and furious, bereft of weapons. The bloodied wyrmling blurred into motion, leaping on Aaath Ulber, grappling with him, throwing punches with a steel gauntlet.

He struck Aaath Ulber in the face, once, twice, then gave a mighty blow that felled the giant, so that he dropped limp to the ground.

The wyrmlings then turned on the crowd and took vengeance upon those who had urged Aaath Ulber on. One of the wyrmlings grabbed up a great sword from the booth and swung, decapitating two men in a single blow.

By then the rest of the troops were arriving, and they circled Aaath Ulber, kicking and growling like a pack of wild dogs, while others fell upon the townsfolk.

It appeared that even being here, even watching Aaath Ulber fight, was deemed a crime worthy of death.

The townsfolk were rushing away. Merchants had ducked behind their stalls, often with women and children leaping in to seek cover.

A young man raced past Rain, grabbing her wrist. He pulled her toward the alley, and she resisted. He yanked her so hard that it lifted her from her feet, and he half-dragged her around a corner.

“Come on!” he said, his voice full of terror. She stumbled and ran, trying to keep up, as he raced across the street, into a stable.

“This way!” he urged as he pulled her toward some horses. The horses neighed in fear, while a few chickens that had been strutting about squawked and raced under the horses’ feet.

The young man reached a small ladder that led to a hayloft, ten feet in the air, and shouted, “Up—go up!”

She climbed the ladder swiftly, found that there was a huge mound of hay, and scrambled to get over it.

The young man raced up behind her, urged her over the hay, and then pulled the ladder up and set it behind the pile of hay. Then he just lay back for a moment, panting from fear, and tried to still his breathing.

Rain did the same. Her heart was pounding hard, and it seemed to her that she saw everything in preternatural detail.

There was little light in the room. Most of it came from a small open door above them, so that sunlight streamed through the gloom. Motes of dust hung in the air, floating upon every breath of wind.

Aaath Ulber is dead by now, Rain realized, and despair dropped on her with a massive weight.

That can’t be, she told herself. The Earth King said that he has to help Fallion, he has to help bind the worlds.

Has he failed already? Did he fail so easily? Was it dumb luck that brought him here?

“What, what will happen to that giant?” Rain asked.

She looked at the young man. He had long golden hair with a hint of crimson, almost the shade of cinnabar. His chin was strong, his nose narrow, and his eyes smoldered a deep blue.

“He’s dead,” the young man whispered, putting a finger to his lips, warning her to be quiet. “He’s dead. And anyone who walks the streets now will die with him.”

“But, but . . .” Rain tried to imagine Aaath Ulber dead. She leaned back in the hay, fear tightening her stomach. Involuntarily, she began to twist the ring on her finger. It was an old habit, each time she felt in danger.

“You’re from Mystarria,” the young man said. It wasn’t a question. “Did you know that . . . giant?”

Rain wasn’t adept at lying. She hesitated. The man had saved her, and she hoped that he was an ally.

Would he turn me over to the wyrmlings if he knew?

“I didn’t know him,” she said, too late.

“Your lips lie, but your body tells the truth,” he said. Rain found that she was trembling in fear, and that it was everything she could do to hold back her tears.

“They knew that you were coming,” the young man said. “For weeks the wyrmlings have been searching for a giant, a man with red hair, a man that they fear.” There were shouts in the street outside, the sound of running feet, and the growl of a wyrmling. A man screamed as the wyrmling took him.

The young man peered over the pile of hay, making sure that no one had entered the stable, and whispered, “There are two wizards with you, yes? We must get word to them, before the wyrmlings find them.”

Rain shook her head, trying to make sense of this. There was only one wizard in her group. Yet she suspected that he was right. The wyrmlings were looking for them. There were two wizards in Draken’s family, and that was so rare that Rain had never heard the like. “How could the wyrmlings know that we were coming?”

We told no one, she wanted to say.

But the young man simply said, “How do they do anything? Their leaders can talk to each other even though they are a thousand miles apart. They have wrapped all of Rofehavan beneath a swirling cloud of darkness, and they send blights to destroy our crops. They know things . . . things that they shouldn’t.” He peered about nervously, obviously distraught at being here. “We will have to keep our heads down.”

“For how long?” Rain asked. She desperately wanted to get back to Myrrima.

“As long as it takes—hours at least. The wyrmlings—”

The clanking of bone armor sounded outside the stable, and for a moment the two fell completely silent. A wyrmling trudged inside, and the horses neighed and stamped nervously at the smell of blood.

Rain didn’t dare move. She held her breath, heart pounding as if it might burst, and pleaded with the Powers that the wyrmling might leave.

But the monster plodded through the stable for a moment, then stood below them, sniffing at the loft.

He’s taken endowments of scent, Rain realized. She trembled all over. She wished that she’d thought to pull some hay over her, perhaps mask the smell of her sweat.

Shouting arose down the street, a man roaring a battle challenge. “You killed her!” he cried at some wyrmling. “Damn you for that!”

At the sound of clanging metal, ax on ax, the wyrmling rushed from the stables.

The young man leapt up and grabbed a beam, pulled himself higher, then peeked out the open window. Stealthily, he peered down one street, then back into the market.

He let out a sigh of relief, but there was sadness in his voice. “That man buys our lives with his own.” He jumped back down into the hay, nodded toward the market. “Your giant killed two wyrmlings, but they did not take off his head. They always take the heads of those that they kill. . . . Unless I miss my guess, he’s still alive. We must do what we can to save him. But we cannot make a move until the wyrmlings have cleared from the streets.”

Rain shook her head in wonder. Eight weeks ago, she’d wished the man dead. Now she was to be his savior?

The young man waited for a long moment, then whispered, “My name is Wulfgaard.”

“That is not a name I have ever heard before,” Rain said. The young man was handsome in his way. He looked to be no more than twenty or so. She wondered if he had been watching her on the street a few minutes ago, but realized that she had seen him: a young man who walked with a hunched back, pulling a game leg, as he hurried to keep up at Aaath Ulber’s back. She’d worried at his motive. She’d thought him perhaps to be a simpleton, awed at the sight of the giant, but she’d also worried that he might have darker designs.

“It is not the name I was born with. I took it when I joined the Brotherhood of the Wolf.”

Rain knew of such men, sworn to fight evil no matter how great it might be or where it might rear its ugly head. She knew that he would protect her with his life, if necessary.

“You were following Aaath Ulber,” she said. “I saw you.”

“I knew that he was the one,” Wulfgaard admitted in a whisper. He strained to listen for a moment, as the clacking of armor drew close again. The sounds of battle down the street had gone still. “I knew him as soon as I saw him.” Wulfgaard’s voice became husky with emotion. “I need . . . we all need his help.”

19 The Interrogation

Not all of Crull-maldor’s troops had wyrms in them. Only a dozen of her captains were evil enough to earn the parasites that fed upon their souls.

So she had strategically stationed these captains across the island. One of them was in Ox Port, and thus he could speak to her across the miles. The captain’s name was Azuk-Tri.

His mind touched hers but lightly, and she heard his voice as if it was a distant shout. We found him. We found the one!

Crull-maldor was in the Room of Whispers, attending her daily duties. She was ever vigilant, worried that at any moment an uprising might occur. The humans were restless.

She whirled at the call, and sent her consciousness across the miles, seizing the captain’s mind.

Suddenly she saw what he saw, knew what he knew.

His men were dragging a limp body through the streets by the feet. The man was a giant for a human—a giant with red hair and small nubs of horns upon his plated brow. He was from Caer Luciare, a “true man” as they called themselves.

Blood covered the man’s face. An ear had been torn off, and both eyes were swollen. He had puncture wounds in his leg from a meat hook, and he struggled mightily to breathe.

You’ve nearly killed him, Crull-maldor whispered to her captain’s soul.

He fought like a madman, the captain whispered. He has the berserker’s rage. Never have I seen such a warrior. He killed two of my troops. Even when we had him down, even after we thought him subdued, he rose up and killed our men.

Crull-maldor was impressed. The emperor would want the berserker’s head.

But Crull-maldor did not want to give the human to her enemy—yet.

The berserker has fought well, Crull-maldor mused. And now he was in enemy hands. His deeds are the kind that makes a man a legend.

Yikkarga will hear of him, Crull-maldor suspected.

Crull-maldor knew that Yikkarga had bribed some of her troops to be spies. She couldn’t hide the berserker for long.

She wasn’t sure that she wanted to. Much was at stake. Lord Despair had promised a great deal for Crull-maldor’s service, and she did not want to jeopardize her future.

But Crull-maldor had her own spies, and she knew that the emperor was still plotting her demise, seeking some way to sabotage her, and eventually replace her. A feud that had lasted centuries was not likely to be set aside now. Indeed, the emperor had more to lose than ever before, and even his servant Yikkarga recognized how high the stakes had become.

Over the past three weeks, Crull-maldor had learned a great deal about Yikkarga—and the power that preserved him.

Lord Despair had “chosen” the wyrmling, and in the City of the Dead, Crull-maldor had sought diligently to understand just what that meant.

She knew now that there was some kind of link between Yikkarga and Lord Despair, a link that warned him when death drew near.

So she could not kill the wyrmling. She could not take his life directly. But there were things that she could do to sabotage his efforts, and Crull-maldor had the beginnings of a plan.

So she rode the mind of Azuk-Tri as her wyrmlings dragged the berserker for nearly a mile, until at last they reached their makeshift fortress—a long house, confiscated from the humans. It was set upon a hill, and made of logs from giant fir trees. Because the previous own ers had been rich, the logs were bound in copper, to keep them from taking fire, and the roof was made from fine slate and imported copper shingles that had turned green with age.

Enormous logs framed the door, and all along the top, antlers of caribou spread wide. At the very center, the antlers of a giant bog elk spread, some twenty feet across. It was an impressive trophy.

The wyrmlings dragged the human into the house, which was open and spacious. A hearth was banked with huge slabs of carved basalt, taller than a man, while rows of sturdy benches and a table made from slabs of wood filled the great room.

Crull-maldor whispered to Azuk-Tri, Lend me full use of your mind.

The captain calmed himself, let his thoughts roam. In that instant, Crull-maldor seized the man, crawling into his skull and taking possession the way that a hermit crab fills a shell.

It was easy, surprisingly easy—as easy as riding a crow. The feat had not been nearly as easy weeks ago before the great binding, and Crull-maldor found that she liked this man’s mind. It was filled with interesting tidbits of information about this human settlement.

Crull-maldor ordered her men, “Bind the human to the table.”

The wyrmlings lifted the man onto a huge table that was made from planks that were six inches thick. The man’s feet were already tied together. Now the wyrmlings used ropes to truss him to the table, and the human groaned in pain, showing the first signs that he might revive.

When he was secured, Crull-maldor reached down into the captain’s belt, into a compartment in the waistband, and pulled out a harvester spike—an iron spike about six inches long. The spike was rusty at one end, but its tip was black with glandular extracts.

Crull-maldor rammed it into the human’s leg. Within seconds, the warrior’s muscles spasmed and his eyes flew open.

“Yaaaaagh!” He screamed a battle challenge and began to struggle to break the ropes that held him to the table.

Crull-maldor pulled out the spike. The glandular extracts could give a man great strength, but they tended to blank out his mind, free him from all reason.

“Now, do I have your attention?” Crull-maldor spoke in the human tongue of Caer Luciare, a language that she had mastered more than three hundred years ago.

The human’s eyes had gone bloodshot in but a few seconds, and he peered about dazedly, straining to see the wyrmlings in the room.

He’s counting our numbers, Crull-maldor thought, in the hopes of winning a fight.

“Do I have your attention, human?”

The man let his head fall back to the table, then lay panting a moment. “Yes.”

“Why are you here?” Crull-maldor demanded.

“I am Aaath Ulber, and I’m going to kill you all!” the human raged, straining at his ropes. His back arched off the table, and he jerked his arms mightily. Sweat had beaded upon his brow, and his eyes were filled with desperation. Not fear, Crull-maldor decided, but a desperate need to wage battle.

Crull-maldor knew that Aaath Ulber spoke the truth. The glandular extracts filled a man with rage, and in such a state, a man would speak the truth boldly, daring his enemies to defy him.

“Aaath Ulber . . .” Crull-maldor translated, “The Great Berserker?” He would be one of the humans’ darlings. “You killed two of my men today. For that, you must die.”

Crull-maldor held the thought for a moment. If she did the emperor’s will, she would execute the human now. Yet she could not do it. If this man really posed such a threat to the emperor—well, perhaps he would deliver himself.

“But I cannot just take your head,” Crull-maldor explained reasonably. “You killed my men in public. Other humans saw what you did. Hope in an enemy is a dangerous thing. We must kill their hope, by executing you . . . in front of them.”

Aaath Ulber shouted a berserker’s cry full of passion and murder. He strained at his bands, throwing punches at the air, until the ropes around his wrists cut through his flesh and were soaking in blood.

The lich lord patiently waited for him to calm. It took long minutes before the warrior lay panting and exhausted on the table, sweat staining his shirt, eyes peering up at nothing.

Now Crull-maldor planted a seed. “You have come a long way,” the lich whispered, “but you have accomplished nothing. Your people at Caer Luciare have all been killed or captured. Emperor Zul-torac has seen to that. The land is covered in darkness, and all of it is under the emperor’s power. The woman you love is no more. Any children that you sired have likely been eaten. Your friends and comrades—both those whom you admired and those whom you held in contempt—are gone forever.

“There may yet be a few who survive, deep in the dark recesses of Rugassa. Some have been reserved for torture, no doubt. Others have been put to the forcible.

“So perhaps your woman still lives on. Perhaps your children cry in the night, hoping that you will come.

“But you cannot save them. To even try is vain. You shall die to night in front of those you thought to free . . . by the emperor’s command.”

The berserker Aaath Ulber roared at that, and once again he strained at the cords, his knotted muscles bulging, his face twisted with rage and desperation. Though his wrists were cut deeply, he struggled against the ropes, striking at hallucinatory foes, until the thick wooden slats beneath him cracked under the tremendous stress.

Aaath Ulber’s eyes were glazed from rage and pain. Speaking to him any longer would accomplish nothing, for he was past hearing.

Instead, with the fury of a wounded animal he continued to bellow and moan, eager to break free from his bonds, hoping to fight his way south.

In his dreams, Crull-maldor thought, he is already in Rugassa, emptying the dungeons of the emperor.

Crull-maldor leaned back and smiled in deep satisfaction.

20 The Duel

For the first three hours after Aaath Ulber left, Draken managed to keep his composure. A slight wind arose, worrying the sea. Long swells began to rise up and whitecaps slapped the hull, but Myrrima used her powers to keep the fog wrapped around the boat.

Twice in the morning other vessels drew near, but gave Draken’s ship a wide berth.

Draken had spent the night guiding the vessel, but he could not sleep, so he stayed topside to peer out into the fog.

It was autumn, and with the coming of fall the salmon had begun to gather near shore. Draken saw huge ones around the boat, silver in the water, lazing about, finning in slow circles. The sight of them only sharpened his hunger. He’d never liked salmon, but it was better than the rancid bear he’d been eating.

Myrrima spotted some olive-green kelp floating by, and she used a staff to pull it in, then sat on the railing and began chewing it.

She offered some to Draken and the others but they all declined. Draken found that salty food only made him thirsty.

Sage amused herself by singing softly, and for long hours the family waited.

After four hours, Draken told himself that Aaath Ulber must have stopped at an inn for a drink, as his father was known to do.

After six hours, his lips drew tight across his teeth with worry. By mid afternoon, he was sure that there was trouble.

Of course there is trouble, he told himself.

“When’s Father coming back?” Sage finally demanded, well into the afternoon.

Draken was angry by then, angry at himself for letting Rain go into town without him. He felt weak from lack of decent food, and the weakness left his nerves frayed.

“Soon,” Myrrima promised. “If he does not return by nightfall, I’ll go find him.”

“Not without me,” Draken said.

Myrrima gave him a hard look, as if to say, “If I don’t come back, you’ll need to take your sister and flee.” But then her face softened as she realized his predicament. His betrothed was out there somewhere.

“Your sister’s safety comes first,” she said.

Draken didn’t dare voice his own thoughts to Sage. Why can’t the child see? he wondered. Her father is never coming back.

At sunset Myrrima let her cloak of mist blow away in the evening breeze, and then waited until darkness had fallen before Draken lowered the away boat. The evening fog rose from the water, creating clouds at the limit of vision. A waxing moon was just cresting the horizon like a glowing white eye in the socket of the sea. Stars danced upon the glassy waves. A slight breeze had come up from the south, surprisingly cool, like the touch of the dead. Draken almost imagined that he felt spirits on the water.

As soon as the boat was lowered, Draken dropped into it. His mother shot him an angry look, but he stared her in the eye. “You can’t ask me to stay,” he said.

Myrrima hesitated, as if to voice some argument. “Will you follow my orders?” she demanded.

“Yes,” Draken said.

“Then I order you to get out of this boat and take care of your sister.”

“Perhaps in going with you, I would take better care of my sister. We don’t know what kind of trouble you might be walking into.”

His mother stared hard at him, and at last sighed. The truth was that neither of them knew what was right. “You’ll keep your head down.”

Myrrima gave Sage some final instructions. “If Draken and I don’t come back by dawn, take the ship south to Toom or Haversind. Don’t come looking for us.”

“I won’t leave you,” Sage said, as if by will alone she might hope to save them.

“Promise me you won’t try to come for us,” Myrrima said. “If we get in trouble, then I doubt that you could help, Sage. You have a long life ahead of you. If we don’t return, know that we love you—and know that above all, I want you to make the best life for yourself that you can.”

Sage jutted her chin and refused to promise.

I suppose that I should not be surprised if my little sister is hardheaded, Draken told himself, considering who we have as parents.

Draken took the oars. Myrrima drew some runes upon the water to ease their way, and Draken began to row.

He could smell the smoke of cooking fires on the water, and as he drew near to shore, he spotted a large village rising upon a nearby hill; he was surprised by its size. It sprawled north and south along the shoreline for as far as he could see.

Internook always did have an excess of people, he thought.

A pair of beacons had been lit on the arms of the bay. The fires themselves burned in censers held by statues of men with the heads of bulls, carved from white stone. The firelight gleamed upon the surface of the stone, turning the monstrous statues orange-yellow, so that they could be seen from afar. Their horns looked to be covered in gold, and they spread wide and nearly circled the pyre like bloody crowns.

Draken recalled hearing once that each port had its own symbol, its own effigy at the mouth of the bay, so that ships passing by night might better navigate.

He knew that the word vagr was old Internookish for port. But he could not guess at the word for bull.

“Do you know where we are?” Draken asked.

Myrrima shook her head no.

Draken made his way by starlight toward the docks, pulling his cloak up to hide his face. As he drew nearer the village, he studied the rocky beach. He could see no wreckage as there had been in Landesfallen.

Internook, it appeared, had actually risen a bit, rather than sinking into into the sea.

What a shame, Draken thought. The world would have been better off without the barbarians.

He silently rowed up into the bay, and the reek of a town grew strong. He could smell fish guts and dead crabs, the leftover of the day’s catch. Sea lions barked somewhere among the rocks along the shore, and that surprised him, given the warlords’ penchant for wearing boiled sealskins as armor when they went to war.

Lights shone all through town—wan lights that only yellowed the thin hides that the barbarians used for windows. There were no lanterns placed upon the darkened streets, as he would have seen in Mystarria. The houses looked strange and widely spread. There were huge long houses upon the hill; each was a dark, monolithic fortress with forty or fifty acres of farmland surrounding it. Dozens of families might live in a long house.

It made the village seem surprisingly . . . desolate, Draken decided. It was spread over a broad area, and each long house squatted like a small keep, an island in its own private wilderness.

No one walked the streets that he could see. There were no rich travelers with torchbearers, as you might notice in more civilized countries. There were clean bright houses down near the docks, but he could not hear any travelers at the inns, raising their voices in song.

The entire village was preternaturally quiet.

This is not the Internook of legend, Draken thought, where warlords drink and gamble through the long nights, while their dogs are made to fight bears for sport.

He pulled up to the docks in the starlight, climbed from the boat, and pulled his hood low over his face. His mother took the lead.

They climbed onto the wooden decks, which creaked and trembled under the onslaught of small waves, and made their way up toward a steep ridge, where he could see stairs climbing into town.

Hundreds of small fishing boats were moored at the docks, and as Myrrima passed one, she grabbed an empty sack, stuffed in some rope, and slung it over her back, as if hoping that in the darkness she might pass for some fisherwoman, bringing her catch home from the sea.

The ruse worked with the cats at least. A dozen hungry dock cats came rushing up to greet her, tails raised high and twitching in excitement. Some of them mewed sweetly, eager for fish. But when Draken peered down at one orange tom in the moonlight, he saw that its face had been clawed by other cats until it was swollen and disfigured. One eye was closed with pussy wounds, and as it mewed, it sounded vicious and threatening, as if it was accustomed to demanding fish rather than begging.

Myrrima stomped her foot, shooing the monstrosities away, and climbed the stairs into town, with Draken at her back. They came out of the darkness onto a deserted street, and peered both ways. The cold wind gusted suddenly at Draken’s back, and once again he felt that odd chill creeping up his spine, like the touch of the dead.

It seemed early for the streets to be so barren. No one walked them, not a solitary man.

Sailor folk live here, Draken told himself. That’s why the streets are barren. They’ll need to be up at dawn, to sail with the tide.

Yet that answer didn’t entirely satisfy him. He’d seen the docks at the Courts of Tide in Mystarria, where sailors caroused to all hours.

Perhaps it is unsafe to walk the streets at night here, he wondered.

Myrrima halted, and spoke, her voice shaking. “This is odd. It’s almost as if the town is deserted.”

Then Draken heard something, a bit of music carried on the wind, the distant sound of singing, like men carousing in an ale house.

“That way!” he said. “I hear something.”

Myrrima looked baffled, but followed his lead.

There was a sort of wooden porch that ran the length of the streets—made from rough planks laid over the mud. Draken crept to the side of a building and stood in its shadow, then padded along quickly toward the inn. The walkway let him travel in complete silence.

As he drew closer, the noise of the place became louder. There was roaring and cheering from men, as if a great celebration was going on. Drums and pipes pounded a steady rhythm while drunken men sang some folk song in the ancient tongue of Internook that had long ago fallen into disuse. A bear roared, mastiffs woofed, and the cheers became frenzied.

Perhaps it is a holiday, Draken reasoned. That’s why the town is abandoned. Everyone has gone to the celebration.

He considered how best to keep a low profile.

I’ll find a dark corner or nook, and then crawl deep into it, he told himself. I’ll keep my ears open and my mouth shut. Surely someone will mention Aaath Ulber. It is not every day that a giant wanders into town.

Soon he reached an ale house, but it was unlike any that he had ever seen. In his home country of Landesfallen an ale house or an inn was seldom much larger than a cottage. Indeed, most ale houses simply were cottages owned by some widow who made her living by brewing ale. At night, when a batch was ready, she’d open her doors, throw a keg on the table, and let folks come and enjoy a mug at her hearth. If she had talent and could sing, all the better. If she was fair to look upon, finer still.

But this place was no cottage. He’d never seen a building so large, not outside of a castle. It was all made of wood, with enormous beams black from age. It was built much like a long house, but it seemed that all of the houses on the hill could fit inside. It had no windows, but high up, where the ceiling reached its apex at about forty feet, there was a broad opening in the wall. There, Draken could see light and the smoke of torches leaking through the breach.

The building looked like a castle, he decided, a fortress all made of wood. He went to the great front doors, which were wide enough so that a wagon might be pulled through, and yanked on one to see if it would open.

It swung outward a bit, and immediately he regretted his deed, for there was no way to open that door discreetly. Still, he saw no other way to enter.

So he pulled it open just a crack, and tried to see inside.

He nearly made it. A young man was standing with his back to the door, and as it swung outward, the young man was thrown off balance. He was a dirty creature, perhaps in his mid-twenties, with grime on his face. He had the blond locks so common to men here, cascading down his back, and a deep yellow beard covered his stony visage. He wore a jerkin of gray spotted sealskin, but bore no weapons.

He glanced at Draken suspiciously, seemed disinterested, and then craned his neck to see over the crowd. A bear bellowed, and the men roared and cheered.

They’re watching the dogs fight, Draken thought, and strode into the great hall and tried to see over the crowd. The men in front of him were so large that it was like trying to peer over a wall.

The building, it turned out, housed more than an inn. It had an arena. A shallow pit, perhaps twelve feet deep and eighty feet in diameter, filled the center of the room. Tables circled the pit in rows, each row elevated a little higher than the last so that Draken found himself peering down into a little amphitheater.

The place stank of Internook ale, dark and sour and as rank as stale piss.

Warriors sat at the tables, drinking and feasting and carousing, laying down bets. There must have been five hundred men in the place, all with light hair. Some were blond going to gray, or pure silver. Some were more of a burnished gold or even a light red.

The men were all so much alike—burly barbarians with strong chins and deep brows, and great bushy beards that hid their mouths—that they seemed like brothers and cousins. Men with faces creased by wind and sun. Some wore their hair braided in corn rows, while others tied it back with rags.

It was not a bear in the pit. Instead, two great white bears were chained with iron collars to some support beams, and thus loomed above the pit. Several of the barbarians in the crowd had dogs with them, and the dogs growled and barked at the bears.

Down in the pit stood Aaath Ulber. His eyes were so black and swollen that Draken wondered if he could even see. His right ear had been bitten off, so that dried blood colored his hair and seeped down his shirt.

The giant had no weapons, and he was ringed by three wolves.

One of the wolves lunged, jumping for the giant’s throat. Aaath Ulber dodged, caught the wolf in his fists, and hurled it against the wall, snapping bones and sending droplets of blood flying onto the dinner guests. The barbarians cheered and roared their approval, banging tin mugs on the wooden tables, even as another wolf lunged in and bit into Aaath Ulber’s hamstring.

The giant kicked and flailed, until the wolf yelped and leapt back, then stood blinking.

Draken spotted more dead wolves on the ground, and realized that Aaath Ulber had already beaten them. There wasn’t any fight left in these two.

A tiny portcullis opened behind the wolves, and Aaath Ulber rushed them. The wolves went fleeing into a dark tunnel.

A warlord shouted, “Round one goes to the giant! Praise be to the Powers!”

He blew a war horn, and the crowd roared in approval.

But the wolf fight was not the only entertainment. The room thrummed to the sound of drums and pipes and lutes. A band was stationed on a platform so high that they seemed to be playing in the rafters. Men sang drunkenly and laughed at the tops of their voices.

Draken spotted a man in a fool’s cap, wearing a cloak made of particolored patches of rags—scarlet and daisy yellow, sky blue and sea-foam green, plum and bone—weaving in and out among the tables. He had an enormous swan upon a platter, cooked with its feathers still on, its neck hanging over the edge of the plate. He made a great show of trying to work his way among the tables, smiling at guests and greeting them, all the while knocking over mugs and stepping on people’s feet. He stopped at one table and held up the swan’s head, then worked its mouth open and closed as it told jokes to the guests.

The place stank. Old ale had spilled onto the tables and floors for generations. But worse was the odor of the men in their jerkins made of sealskin and pig leather. They smelled of putrefaction and grime. Only the fairer scents of roasting meat and new-baked bread made the place bearable.

The young man who had seemed disinterested in Draken a moment before now stepped up behind and whispered in his ear. His voice was soft, his tone low and threatening. “Here now, little brother, you shouldn’t be here. This is for elders of the clan.”

He took Draken by the biceps, and began to steer him out. Draken reached for his knife, in case the fellow tried to get rough.

“Wait,” Draken said. “I want to watch!”

Down in the pit, the announcer shouted. “Now, for the main challenge: Aaath Ulber the giant, scourge of the North, shall fight the wyrmling hero Lord Gryzzanthal!”

The shouting and cheers rose to a fever pitch, and the young fellow that had taken hold of Draken seemed unable to help himself. He stopped, then glanced toward the action.

A door flew open down in the pit, and out strode a creature neither quite man nor monster. The creature was massive; it stood a good nine feet tall and could not have weighed less than eight hundred pounds. It was broad at the shoulder, almost impossibly so, and its skin gleamed sickly white; Gryzzanthal’s face was hideous, with bony ridges upon his brow and armored plates upon his cheeks and jaw. The scowl upon his face could only have belonged to something that was pure evil.

The wyrmling was dressed in full battle regalia—with helm, armor, and sheath all ornately carved from bone. The helm was decorated with the tusks of a great boar that curled up near the bottom, forming chin guards. Gryzzanthal bore a round shield of yellowed bone with a black circle painted on it that showed the Great Wyrm in red.

His only weapon was a wyrmling blade, a strange heavy sword that ended in two long prongs.

The wyrmling banged sword on shield and growled a challenge. Aaath Ulber stepped back, roaring like an enraged animal, and the two began to circle, looking for an opening.

It wasn’t a fair fight.

Aaath Ulber had no armor, no weapon.

Draken wondered what the giant had done to deserve such a fate. And he wondered why the warlords of Internook would keep a wyrmling to fight in the ring.

Myrrima had crowded close to the door, and now she let out a soft yelp of recognition. Myrrima whispered, “That’s him!”

The elder gasped. “Shhh . . .” he urged, opening the door, trying to push them out of the building. “Quiet. It’s not safe for you here.”

Down in the arena, Aaath Ulber lunged toward the wyrmling’s weak side. The monster responded by swatting with his shield.

The crowd roared as Aaath Ulber grabbed the shield and pulled, trying to rip it from the wyrmling. But the monster tried to yank it back.

In seconds somehow Aaath Ulber got behind the creature and worked an arm under its chin guard. Aaath Ulber leapt in the air, throwing his weight into a lock, and tried to strangle the wyrmling.

The wyrmling flailed about, but its sword was useless. He swatted back with his shield, equally useless. The great monster whirled and threw himself backward, crushing Aaath Ulber into the wooden posts that ringed the arena; for a moment Aaath Ulber’s eyes rolled back in pain as the wind was knocked from him. But Aaath Ulber clung to the wyrmling like death, and the audience went wild, shouting, “Ride him! Ride him to the ground!”

The young elder shoved Draken again. “Run!” he warned. “Head for the woods. The streets are not safe!”

Draken turned to leave. The rising moon glanced off the cobbled streets, and not a hundred yards away he saw something.

It was a great boar, like those his father had hunted far to the south in the Dunnwood of Heredon. It was a huge shaggy beast, with hair on its chest that swept the ground, and massive curling tusks that glinted like skeletal teeth.

Atop the boar was barding that gleamed like silver in the moonlight—chains across its back, and a fearsome helm that covered its head and snout.

But it was not the great boar that took his breath away, it was the creature riding its back.

“Wyrmling!” Myrrima breathed in warning, and Draken thought to run. But the wyrmling leapt from its mount in a single fluid movement and seemed to flow toward them with superhuman speed.

Eight endowments of metabolism it has, Draken thought, perhaps more.

And a sudden realization hit home. The warlords of Internook were not keeping pet wyrmlings. The wyrmlings were keeping pet humans.

Draken tried to whirl and flee into the crowded arena, but the doorman grabbed him from behind in a choking hold.

“I have him, milord!” the doorman cried.

In the flutter of a heartbeat, the wyrmling grabbed Myrrima and pulled her upward in the air, nearly snapping her neck in the process, as if she were no heavier than a doll woven from straw.

Then its free hand grabbed Draken and hurled him against the wall. Lights flashed behind his eyes like exploding stars, and he heard bones crack.

He sank into pain and forgetfulness.

21 Brotherhood

Three times during the day, Rain had tried to follow Wulfgaard from the stable. But each time, their attempt was cut short.

The wyrmling patrols came often. Sometimes they’d march by three minutes apart. Sometimes the roads would be clear for half an hour. But regardless of how seldom patrols came by, it was clear to Rain that the streets were not safe.

The markets did not reopen. No fishmongers called from their stalls. No one wandered the streets.

Rain and her newfound cohort could not sneak out.

“The wyrmlings have all the advantage,” Wulfgaard told her. “They can stand on a hill two miles off and watch the streets with ease. With their endowments of sight, nothing misses their attention. With their endowments of metabolism, some of them can run a hundred miles in an hour. If we walk into the open, they’ll rush down upon us, and there is no escape.”

The young man did not talk loudly. His voice was all whispers, lest a wyrmling be within hearing range.

The power of a great runelord of course was legendary, and evil men with such power were the stuff of nightmares. But the wyrmlings were doubly frightening.

“We must wait until the wyrmlings give the townsfolk the all-clear. Then we can blend in with the crowds.”

So the two waited, Rain biting her lip, sometimes twisting her ring nervously. The hay that they lay in smelled fragrant. It was a mixture of grasses—fescue and oats, with sweet clover and a bit of alfalfa. It had been harvested only recently, weeks before, and so did not have the underlying odor of mold. Rain and Wulfgaard had covered most of their bodies with it, to hide their scent. They left only their faces exposed, so that they could breathe, and speak.

“You said that you need help,” Rain asked once when the streets were dead quiet, and they did not fear the wyrmlings. Even then she whispered softly, so that her words barely carried to Wulfgaard’s ear. “What makes you think that you need Aaath Ulber?”

“The wyrmlings fear him,” Wulfgaard says. “They do not fear anyone else, even the greatest of our lords. . . . So the Brotherhood has been searching for blood metal.”

“You found some?” Rain asked.

“We did—a stone here, a small cache there. The wyrmlings have managed to get most of it, but there are stores of it hidden away. . . . We have forged our forcibles in secret, and there are many who are just waiting for the hero to arise.”

“You think Aaath Ulber is that hero?”

“He’s a giant, sailing from the north—a man who knows the wyrmling strongholds . . . and their weaknesses. Who else could it be?”

No one that Rain knew. But she couldn’t reconcile her feelings. Aaath Ulber was dangerous to the wyrmlings, but he wasn’t the kind of man she’d pick to be her hero.

“We’ve been preparing for weeks,” Wulfgaard said. “The wyrm lings have taken many of our people, our best fighting men, and marched them down into their fortress to harvest their endowments, or sent them to the mines to work in chains. I am one of the few who has escaped attention. I feign a bad back, so that they will not take me.

“Each day, our people grow weaker and the wyrmlings grow stronger. We cannot afford to wait. . . .”

“Would your people grant him endowments?”

“Some would,” Wulfgaard said hesitantly. “Perhaps many will rally to his cause.”

“What would stop them from giving aid?” Rain asked.

“The wyrmlings are everywhere. Their scouts are on guard for those who have given endowments. Those who are too sick to walk or to work, are culled. A man who gives endowments . . . I do not think he would last a week.”

It would take great courage to give an endowment under such circumstances. Rain wondered how many might really do it. But no one doubted the warlords of Internook. For generations their barbarian hordes had been trained to rush into battle against runelords with more endowments and better armor, and throw themselves against their enemies’ spears. No warriors in the world had greater courage.

Rain asked, “You said that you needed Aaath Ulber’s help. . . .”

“There is a girl,” Wulfgaard said, “my beloved. The wyrmlings took her. For the past six weeks they have been demanding thralls—men and women to be stripped of attributes. The wyrmlings put them on ships and sailed them to Mystarria, under the eternal clouds.

“None that have been taken shall ever return.

“But I am not the only one to lose a loved one,” Wulfgaard added. “Tens of thousands have been taken, and nearly everyone in the land feels the loss. They may have been deprived of a brother, or mother, or perhaps a friend.”

“Why would the wyrmlings want your betrothed?” Rain asked. “Grace, glamour, metabolism?”

“Glamour,” Wulfgaard said. “She is very beautiful.”

Rain wondered. Would a wyrmling care about taking an attribute of glamour? She suggested softly, “Aaath Ulber said that the wyrmlings eat human flesh.”

Wulfgaard was stricken, and he barely muttered, “We have suspected as much, but I hoped that it was not true. They do not have fields or gardens. . . .”

“Because they don’t need them,” Rain confirmed. “They eat only flesh. And there is more. The wyrmlings cut the heads off of people and extract glands from them, to use in making their weapons. They are called ‘harvester spikes.’ They are nails that the wyrmlings push into their flesh before they go into battle. Have you seen them?”

By now, Wulfgaard’s face had gone pale indeed. He was trembling. He shook his head no. He had not seen the spikes.

Rain felt for him. The best that he could hope was that his beloved was still alive and had only been forced to give up an endowment. If she had given glamour, there would be no beauty left in her. Rain imagined that instead of honeyed locks, the girl’s hair would be limp and colorless. Instead of bright blue eyes, her orbs would have turned yellow and sickly. Gone would be her smooth skin, and the surface of her face would look weathered and papery.

Instead of a beauty, the girl would be a horror.

“You know what the wyrmlings will do to this girl of yours. Do you imagine that you will love her still?”

Wulfgaard tried to hide his own uncertainty. “She was raised in the long house next to mine. We have been best friends since we were children. In some ways, she is more like a sister to me than a wife. Yet I love her as I love myself.

“Besides,” he added, “I plan to kill the wyrmling that took her glamour.”

“That is easier said than done,” Rain said. “The wyrmlings are roving wide. We saw ships full of them heading for Landesfallen.”

“Still, I must try,” Wulfgaard said. “Think of it. The wyrmlings are trying to enslave us. At this moment, their burdens are light. But already we see the shadows on the wall. The wyrmlings do not care for us any more than we care for a pig that we shall butcher. They will use us—for our attributes, our glands . . . and if you are right, for food.”

“They must be stopped,” Rain said.

“They must be eradicated,” Wulfgaard corrected.

Outside, there was the familiar clank of wyrmling armor, bone against bone. A soldier came within a hundred yards of the stables and stood for a long time, as if straining his ears.

Wulfgaard and Rain fell silent, and waited until well after dark. At sunset a great horn blew five short blasts, repeated five times.

“That is the wyrmlings calling,” Wulfgaard said. “They will assemble at the moot hall.”

“Do they do that often?” Rain asked.

Wulfgaard frowned. “Only twice before: Once when they took over the village, they told us the rules. The other time—it was to punish some men who would not give up their children.”

He did not have to say it. Rain immediately suspected that the wyrmlings would dole out punishment to Aaath Ulber to night.

“What did the wyrmlings do to those men?”

“I don’t think you want to know,” Wulfgaard said.

Only when the horns had stopped sounding did Wulfgaard dare stir, to creep from the stable out onto the street.

Before he left, he warned, “Only men will be allowed at the moot, I fear. You must stay hidden, until I return. . . .”

Wulfgaard crept down from the loft, then slipped out the door.

Rain wondered. Men were on the streets, and with her breeches and tunic she was dressed much like a man. She pulled up her tunic, tightened her breast band, and then made her way into the streets.

Boldly she trod down the center of the street in the dusk as the men of the town joined her.

But where do I go? she wondered. A wyrmling guard was on the street, not far ahead. She avoided eye contact, tried to keep an even pace.

If I head down to the docks, I will be seen. The wyrmlings will have me before I get far.

So she strode forward to the moot hall, hoping to learn Aaath Ulber’s fate.

“When were you going to tell me that you found their champion?” Yikkarga demanded of Crull-maldor.

It was just past sunset. The wyrmlings were stirring in their dens, and the Fortress of the Northern Wastes was coming alive. Crull-maldor was in the Room of Whispers, and from every listening post she could hear the trod of heavy feet and the growls and snarls that made up the wyrmling tongue.

“I was going to tell you when I was certain,” Crull-maldor hissed. It was a game between them, hiding information. “I know only that a large human was caught, one with red hair. I doubt that it is your hero.”

“Why do you doubt?” Yikkarga asked. “He killed two of your men.”

“He is not one of the small folk,” Crull-maldor said. “He is a true human, from Caer Luciare.”

Yikkarga snarled in outrage. “He is the one. I must take his head, immediately.”

Crull-maldor gave him a sidelong look. She had suspected that he had been withholding information. Now he had confirmed it. “You never mentioned that you were searching for a true human. How many weeks have my men spent searching in vain for some phantom hero? Through your foolishness and ineptitude, you have placed the entire realm in danger. Or was it sabotage? The emperor fears this human. Are you trying to get the emperor killed? That would be treason! I am going to have to report your . . . indiscretion to Lord Despair.”

Yikkarga had begun to turn as if he would race off to find the human, but now he whirled on Crull-maldor, fear in his eyes. Crull-maldor had him now. Most likely, Yikkarga had been ordered to hide the needed information by the emperor himself, in order to discredit Crull-maldor. But the emperor could never admit that to their master, Lord Despair. So Yikkarga would be left to shoulder the blame, and he would face the tormentors in the dungeons of Rugassa before this was through.

The huge wyrmling hesitated, then gathered his courage. “You are bluffing. You don’t have Despair’s ear.”

“Six weeks ago that was true,” Crull-maldor said. “But the world has changed. We have many enemies here in the North, and a surplus of humans that are of much worth to Despair. He whispers to my soul now, asking for frequent reports.”

Yikkarga could not know that Crull-maldor was lying. Those who had wyrms could talk from spirit to spirit across vast distances.

“I . . . I am under orders to take the head of this human myself!” Yikkarga said.

Ah, Crull-maldor thought, of course. The emperor fears the human champion, so he sent an assassin—a warrior who could not be killed. Who better to make sure of the humans’ champion?

“That won’t be necessary,” Crull-maldor suggested. “I have arranged for his public execution to night, in the arena in Ox Port. He will fight a wyrmling—a runelord fully armed and armored.”

A fool of a runelord, Crull-maldor thought. The wyrmling that she’d sent had taken endowments of speed and brawn, but he was a bumbling lack-wit. Aaath Ulber had already slaughtered better wyrmling troops on the street. If Aaath Ulber managed to take this one in combat—a broken and wounded human slaughtering a wyrmling runelord in full battle armor in front of an entire city—Aaath Ulber’s reputation would be sealed.

Yikkarga immediately saw the danger. “This man has already slain two of your troops in combat!”

“True,” Crull-maldor said, doing her best to sound addled by age. “Yes, now I see the wisdom in it. Perhaps you should go!”

With that, the wyrmling’s champion was off, rushing from the room, disappearing in the blink of an eye. He had to have at least eight endowments of metabolism, and thus he could run some eighty miles in an hour. Ox Port was some eighty-seven miles away.

With any luck, Yikkarga would reach the arena just in time to see Aaath Ulber slaughter the wyrmling’s slow-witted champion.

Crull-maldor smiled. She was a wight, and thus was not bound by the physical limitations imposed by mortal flesh. She could not travel at the speed of thought itself, but she could still cover a hundred miles with great haste, when need drove her.

She shucked off her spider robes, in order to gain more speed, then headed up through the dark tunnels toward the surface. Almost instantly she flew out of the opening of the watchtower, a shadow blurring through an evening sky lit by only the first star.

Down below, she spotted Yikkarga, racing down a winding dirt road.

She willed herself ahead, gathering speed until she rode through the sky faster than a ballista bolt.

She would be in Ox Port to greet Yikkarga when he arrived.

The wyrmling stood before Aaath Ulber, sword at the ready, poised for battle. It was studying him, refusing to make a move.

The arena was lit by a circle of torches, in sconces high up on the wall. Aaath Ulber’s eyes were nearly swollen shut, and the smoke made them water. He blinked away tears, trying to get a better look at his foe.

Every breath was bought with pain, for Aaath Ulber had more than one cracked rib. He took a deep inhalation, and laughed. “You’re the one with armor and weapons, yet you’re afraid of me.” Aaath Ulber danced to the side, and the wyrmling blurred to intercept.

Quick, too damned quick, Aaath Ulber realized.

“I do not fear you,” the wyrmling roared in challenge. “I shall roast your flesh on the end of my sword, and your blood will run down my chin this night!”

Aaath Ulber couldn’t guess how many endowments the wyrmling had. His speech gave a hint. He spoke quickly, an octave too high.

But it was his breathing that gave him away. A man with metabolism draws breath more quickly. By counting the seconds between breaths, one can estimate how many endowments of metabolism a foe might have.

On average, a man draws about one breath every three or four seconds.

The wyrmling was drawing one breath every second.

No less than three endowments of metabolism, Aaath Ulber suspected, but perhaps no more than four . . . unless, of course, the wyrmling was purposely slowing his breathing, in order to hide the number of endowments that he had taken.

That was the problem when facing a runelord. You could never be certain how many endowments they might have. A smarter wyrmling might have refused to react just a moment ago. He might have tried to keep Aaath Ulber guessing whether he even had endowments.

But this wyrmling was dumb. It wasn’t just his lack of strategy that convinced Aaath Ulber. It was the vacant look in the creature’s eyes.

This fight is rigged, Aaath Ulber realized. The enemy wants me to win.

But why? To get rid of one useless warrior? That made no sense.

Unless this battle is only meant to warm the crowd, Aaath Ulber thought. Perhaps another wyrmling is waiting in the wings, ready to fight, hoping to expand his reputation.

That felt like the right answer.

Which means that I must conserve my energy, Aaath Ulber thought.

He took stock of his wounds—swollen eyes, blood loss from his ear and leg, broken ribs.

And everything else hurts, too, he thought.

It is possible to fight a man who has more endowments of speed than you, Aaath Ulber knew. A man who is well trained in battle, who acts and reacts without thought, can sometimes beat a man who has taken several attributes of speed. That is because a runelord with such attributes learns to use them as a crutch. They imagine that they are so much faster than a commoner that they can decide how to attack or defend when the battle is upon them.

But Aaath Ulber had been practicing to fight faster opponents all of his life, and he was going to teach this wyrmling a trick or two.

He shouted and lunged to the wyrmling’s left, keeping clear of its blade. He grabbed its shield and jerked, pulling the wyrmling toward him, then used his momentum to get behind the monster. With a single bound and twist, he was on the creature’s back. He worked an arm down beneath the wyrmling’s chin and put the creature in a choke hold, then just dug his knees into the creature’s back.

The wyrmling bawled, like an enraged bull, and struggled to shrug him off, batting his shield back uselessly, then spinning in an effort to throw him off.

For two seconds Aaath Ulber rode the monster. Suddenly it realized that Aaath Ulber could not be dislodged, so it threw its weight, all eight hundred pounds, back against the logs that lined the arena.

Aaath Ulber’s ribs cracked, and the air went out of him. He wrenched his arms up tighter, and clamped a hand over the wyrmling’s mouth and nose.

To strangle a man properly took time—two or three minutes. But a man could go unconscious in as little as thirty seconds. A man who was exerting himself in battle might go even faster.

But this wyrmling had endowments of metabolism. He burned through his air more quickly than a normal man.

Ten seconds, Aaath Ulber told himself. I only have to hold on for ten seconds.

The wyrmling stepped forward and then leaned to hurl himself backward once again. Aaath Ulber knew that he could not take another blow like the last.

He kicked off against the wall, seeking to throw the wyrmling off balance. But the wyrmling did not fall. Instead he spun again.

He is not thinking clearly, Aaath Ulber realized. He’s craving breath.

The wyrmling shook his head, trying to break free of Aaath Ulber’s grasp, and tried to bite Aaath Ulber’s hand. He was almost out of the fight. His movements were slowing.

He reared back, tried to bash Aaath Ulber into the wall once more. But he was weakening, and when he drew back, he staggered. Aaath Ulber kicked backward striking the wall, and broke the wyrmling’s momentum.

He clutched all the tighter, and suddenly the wyrmling seemed to remember that he had a sword. He reversed the grip, struck blindly overhead, trying to slash.

But Aaath Ulber threw his own weight forward and used his elbow to impede the wyrmling’s attack. The sword blow never landed.

The wyrmling staggered forward and then fell. Aaath Ulber became aware that the crowd was chanting: “He-ro, he-ro, he-ro!”

He held on, kept strangling even though the wyrmling was down. When the creature went still, Aaath Ulber quickly grabbed its sword from the floor and lopped off the wyrmling’s helmeted head.

He raised it high as the crowd of barbarians chanted. Blood flowed liberally from the severed head, splattering down over Aaath Ulber’s shoulders. Many a man threw up his mug of ale, in toast to Aaath Ulber’s battle prowess.

Not that I’ll live long, Aaath Ulber told himself. I might be able to take a dim-witted wyrmling with only three endowments of metabolism, but the enemy has better warriors waiting in the wings.

“Toast!” the barbarians shouted, mugs held high. “Toast! Toast!”

They want me to drink from the wyrmling’s head, Aaath Ulber realized.

He paraded around the ring, blood dripping down upon him; he spotted Rain in the crowd.

A door suddenly opened in the wall, a man-sized portcullis that led into a dark corridor.

The men were still cheering, urging him to drink. Aaath Ulber opened his mouth and raised the head high, as if to let blood pour down his throat.

Then he smiled in jest and flung the wyrmling’s head into the crowd. He grabbed up the creature’s sword, took a torch from its sconce, and strode into the dim recesses, armed to meet his fate.

Rain had been dazzled by the spectacle. She huddled against a back wall, as far into the shadows as she could get, and now searched frantically for Wulfgaard.

She hadn’t been able to spot him earlier among the crowd. So many of the men looked similar.

She spotted Wulfgaard on the far side of the room, high in the shadows. He was huddled with several men, who cast their eyes about, as if they feared being watched.

They were a rough crowd, most of them younger men with murder in their eyes.

“Good show!” one old warlord muttered as he got to his feet. “That giant is fast. No wonder the wyrmlings want him.”

Another murmured, “Reminds me of myself, in my youth.”

There were guffaws, but no real laughter. The men looked worried, beaten. One of them glanced up toward Wulfgaard and whispered, “Do you think they can save him?”

“Don’t know if I’d want them to save a blackguard who wouldn’t drink to me,” the oldest of the men said.

So, Rain realized, Wulfgaard’s plan is an open secret.

She arose, and as the crowds thinned, she made her way across the room.

Wulfgaard looked up and fixed her with his eyes as she neared. He left his small band of warriors.

“A woman and a young man were taken by the wyrmlings to night, during the moot. They were strangers to our town, both with dark hair. . . .”

Rain fought back a frantic impulse to scream. “That would be Draken and Myrrima,” she said in clipped tones.

Wulfgaard bit his lower lip, peered down at the floor. “We will have to work fast if we are to save them.”

“But the wyrmlings,” Rain said. “How will you fight them?”

“With these,” Wulfgaard said. He pulled up his shirtsleeve to reveal white puckered scars upon his arm—runes of brawn, grace, stamina, and a single endowment of metabolism.

It was not much to fight a wyrmling with, but Wulfgaard’s cohorts looked both dangerous and determined.

“When will you strike?” Rain asked.

Wulfgaard studied his men. There were seven of them. The arena had nearly cleared. He gathered his courage and said, “What better time than now?”

With that, he nodded to the men. A huge warrior with blond locks stood up, pulled a short sword from his boot, and strode down toward the arena. He glanced back at his men. “Right, you men saw how it’s done: no hesitation, no standing about. Now let’s go free these wyrmling gents from the cruel vicissitudes of their mortal existence.”

The others produced weapons from the folds of their sleeves, from inside vests and boots, then followed in line, swaggering killers out for a night of fun.

“Wait,” Rain said before Wulfgaard could follow them. “Don’t you have a plan?”

“There are already men outside the doors to make sure that no wyrmlings escape,” Wulfgaard said. “We know the ground. Most of us have been playing in this arena since we could crawl. Grab a torch.”

When they got to the fighting pit, each man took a torch, then jumped into the arena. One of them picked up the dead wyrmling’s shield, and the men made their way into the dark passage, running swiftly and silently, hot on Aaath Ulber’s trail.

The passage was a simple affair chiseled through sandstone. It led some hundred feet from the arena, climbing up a gradual slope to a large room littered with cages. Some were mere boxes that might hold a wolverine. Others were huge affairs massive enough for a snow ox.

Aaath Ulber could not recall having been here before. The wyrmlings had dragged him to the arena in a daze, and then wakened him by jabbing a harvester spike in his leg.

The only light came from his torch and from the powdery stars that shone through a high open window. Four wyrmlings were in the room, all dressed in battle armor. One jutted his chin toward the largest cage, which was taller than a man and made of thick iron bars. Bear dung littered the bottom of it.

“Into your cage, human,” the wyrmling muttered.

Aaath Ulber stood for a moment, sword in hand, and considered his alternatives.

“You’re good,” a wyrmling said, giving a feral chuckle, “but not that good.”

Instantly the wyrmling blurred, moving so fast that he defied the eye. Before Aaath Ulber could react, the sword was plucked from his hand. A simple shove left him tumbling into the cage, sprawling into the bear dung, and then the iron door clanked shut.

The wyrmlings laughed.

Aaath Ulber got to his hands and knees, looked up at the wyrmling that had shoved him. The creature had to have eight endowments of metabolism, more than even Aaath Ulber could hope to best. Aaath Ulber picked up his torch from the floor and asked, “You sent a fool to fight me! Why?”

“Everyone in those seats has seen a man die,” the wyrmling answered. “We want them to see hope die. But it hurts a bit more, if it is nurtured first.”

A cold wind suddenly swept into the room, sending a chill up Aaath Ulber’s spine. It was a sensation he’d felt only three times in his life. A wight had entered the room.

He peered up, licked his lips, searching for the creature. But he could not see the ghost light that sometimes announced the dead. This one was keeping to its shadow form.

The wyrmlings in the room seemed not to notice. They were accustomed to the presence of wights.

A wight, Aaath Ulber reasoned, will be their leader. . . . It will keep away from the torch.

Aaath Ulber looked toward the torch. It had begun to gutter, as if in a high wind, struggling to stay lit.

“I don’t plan on dying easily,” Aaath Ulber said, rising to his feet.

22 The Escape

Crull-maldor reached the arena only moments before Yikkarga, and spotted humans outside the door ready to ambush any wyrmling that sought to escape.

She flew in unnoticed above them, drifting through the high open windows, floating like a wisp of fog, then rose up into the rafters to hide among the huge oaken beams.

Cages were strewn everywhere down below, making many a dark nook for her to hide in, and wyrmling guards surrounded one iron cage in par tic u lar. There, with a torch in hand, squatted Aaath Ulber.

Crull-maldor tucked herself into a shadow in the rafters above the door. For several minutes, she was entertained by the wyrmling guards below, as they ridiculed and tormented the human. But true to their orders, they did not harm him.

The attack on the guards came swiftly. Nearly a dozen humans rushed silently out of the arena tunnel, their torches blazing a warning to the wyrmlings.

Her troops instantly took a defensive stance. Wyrmlings drew their weapons and roared in warning. As they did, the guards at the door opened it a crack and rushed in, so that the wyrmlings were set upon both before and behind.

Rain was the last in line, and though she sprinted with all her might, Wulfgaard and the others drew far ahead. She heard shouts and metal ringing as sword met sword long before she reached the cage room.

By the time that she did, the battle was in full swing. One wyrmling was down, one human beheaded, and two men wounded. The men were attacking in a well-ordered pack, four humans to a wyrmling. Some were striking high, others low. They went at it with a fury she’d never seen before, men screaming and throwing themselves into the fray, taking no thought about how to attack or where to defend.

There was no hesitation. Rain could see that despite their evident lack of planning for this specific battle, they’d been training for weeks, preparing for the time when the confrontation would come.

Yet one of the wyrmlings surpassed all their skill. As Rain entered the room, a wyrmling captain roared a battle challenge and swung a mighty ax.

Two men dodged the blow, but a third took it full in the chest. The others leapt in, trying to eviscerate the monster, but it was so fast that it merely swatted the men aside.

Two other wyrmlings had their hands full, and this one roared and struck out with an iron boot, the motion a blur, and snapped the back of one warrior from Internook.

The huge wyrmling roared in delight, then stepped back, leaving a clear killing field before him, and with a snarl invited his three remaining opponents to do battle.

The men hesitated, and in that moment two more men went down. The battle was quickly turning.

Wulfgaard raced toward the captain, threw his torch at the monster’s face. The wyrmling stepped back, and in that moment Aaath Ulber struck. The wyrmling had drawn too close to Aaath Ulber’s cage, and Aaath Ulber lunged through the bars and grabbed the monster’s belt, then pulled with all of his might.

The wyrmling was thrown off balance. Instantly Wulfgaard lunged in and struck with his long knife, slicing into the wyrmling’s groin. Blood boiled out from the captain’s leg. Wulfgaard had hit a femoral artery.

The wyrmling batted with his shield, and Wulfgaard went hurtling some thirty feet and crashed into an iron cage. The wyrmling howled then, a primal scream of fear, and his men lunged in, trying to get closer. With the three of them side to side, they presented a fearsome wall.

But now Aaath Ulber reached up and got the captain in a stranglehold. The monster threw down his sword and struggled to use his free hand to break Aaath Ulber’s grasp.

The human warriors in the band hurled themselves on the wyrmlings, stabbing and roaring. One man reached the wyrmling captain and plunged a poniard into his side again and again, striking through his ribs. The other wyrmlings were similarly wounded, but managed to stand and fight.

Suddenly there was a snarl at the door, and a huge wyrmling in full battle array filled the doorway.

Three young guards were there, and they whirled to confront the beast. In an instant the monster used a meat hook to grab one young man by the neck and jerk him from his feet. He used a heavy curved blade to slice through a second man, then ran the third through and lifted him into the air.

He hurled the corpses across the room, knocking one of the human defenders away from his target.

Eight endowments of metabolism he has, Rain thought. There was no way that we can defeat such a horror.

Her heart sank, and the blood seemed to freeze in her veins. Time stood still. She saw the huge wyrmling, imperious and cruel, seeming to grow as it took in the battle before it.

It spoke in the human tongue. “Fools! No man can kill me, for I am the chosen of the Earth King.”

Rain did not do it consciously, but she sank to her knees, hoping that the wyrmling might see some reason to spare her. Of the humans in the room, she alone had not struck with her weapon. She had no place in a battle among runelords.

But in that instant, as all hope left her, she saw a shadow descend from the rafters. At first she thought that a black cat was leaping onto the wyrmling, but suddenly the shadow shined—a blue-gray ghost light revealing the form of a woman. She landed beside the wyrmling champion and leered down upon the battlefield.

Instantly, the temperature in the room dropped by fifty degrees, and the breath fogged from Rain’s mouth.

The wight was smaller than the wyrmling champion, almost dainty in comparison. She was ancient, with flabby breasts and forearms. Her flesh was rotting from her body, but it was not her physical appearance that caused much alarm—a sensation of intense malignant evil filled the room, as if all the maliciousness in the world was made flesh in this creature.

“Wight!” Aaath Ulber shouted in warning. The humans all stepped away from their wyrmling opponents to face this darker foe.

None of the men in the room had weapons that could harm a wight. It took cold iron to wound one. A weapon blessed by a water wizard would sever it from the mortal realm, but such a blow could only be struck with a price—for the man or woman who struck the blow would likely die from touching the wight.

Rain’s weapon had been blessed by Myrrima.

She pulled her dagger, shouted to the other men, “Get behind me!”

She couldn’t hope to take on both a wight and the wyrmling lord, but she couldn’t refuse the challenge.

She shifted her weight, tried to relax, and made ready to spring at the slightest provocation, as Aaath Ulber had taught her.

But at that instant the wight turned and smiled up at the wyrmling lord, a feral smile filled with hate. As swift as thought, she reached up and touched his shoulder.

“Yikkarga,” the wight whispered. “Come!”

The wyrmling lord lunged backward, stricken, and snarled like a wounded dog. The touch of a wight could kill most men. But it only wounded the wyrmling. Its arm fell and dangled uselessly; the meat hook dropped from its hand.

Ice rimed the creature’s bone armor, bright as frost, and its hot breath steamed from its nostrils. It froze, stunned for a second, and the wight leapt to attack.

She rammed her hand into the wyrmling’s face, a thumb and pinky touching each of its mandibles, the middle finger between its eyes, directly over the brain, and the remaining fingers each covering an eye.

The wyrmling tried to swing its sword, but did so in vain. Its sword arm waved feebly, the wight swaying from its reach, and the behemoth stood in a daze, then dropped to one knee.

A thin green vapor began to pour from its mouth. The wight leaned forward and inhaled briefly, draining the life force from its victim.

Then she backed away. The wyrmling lord’s eyes were as white as ice, soulless and empty. Its face was slack, devoid of consciousness.

The enormous wyrmling captain was all but dead.

The wight turned to Rain and whispered, “Finish him, my pet. Banish his spirit with your blade, lest he report your deeds to his master, even in death.”

Then the wight turned to Aaath Ulber. “With this gift I free you, as a token of my goodwill. The emperor fears you. He fears the death you bring. Go now, and take it to him. Serve me well, human, and you shall be rewarded.”

In that instant she faded, the dim light going back to shadow, and it seemed to leap through the doorway and go vaulting up to meet the stars.

Rain trembled, and the hand that gripped her knife felt weak.

If the fallen wyrmling lord had spoken the truth, he was under the protection of an Earth King. Rain tried to understand how such a thing might happen, but all reason failed.

One thing she knew—the wyrmling before her was wounded. Perhaps it could have fended off an opponent bent on its demise, but it hadn’t been able to fight off a wight—one who did not seek its death, but only to wound it.

Perhaps the wyrmling has a locus in it too, Rain reasoned. Or maybe the touch of this blade really will destroy its spirit.

“Do it!” Aaath Ulber urged from his cage. Rain peered over at him. He was still gripping the wyrmling captain, holding him by the throat, though the wyrmling sagged in ruin.

The other two wyrmlings were failing, too. Both of them were down, bleeding from many wounds.

Human warriors lay ringed about on the floor. Blood was everywhere.

Rain held her ground, glared at Aaath Ulber. “Am I some lich lord’s pawn? I’ll not kill at that creature’s command. It has a locus in it.”

Draken and Aaath Ulber had both warned her of the dangers of the loci. To obey their promptings was dangerous, for she could easily find herself under their control.

The men were wrestling with the lock on Aaath Ulber’s cage now, and Aaath Ulber peered at her through his bars, thinking furiously.

“We are caught in some larger game,” he said. “The wyrmlings often hate each other as much as they hate us. . . .”

Some larger game, Rain mused. But what could it be?

Her only goal was to get through this campaign alive, but the wyrmlings and Aaath Ulber were fighting for a greater cause. They were struggling for control of a million million worlds.

Her mind could not quite grasp all of this.

“We fight for our own side!” Wulfgaard said. He had pulled himself up from the floor and struggled to stand. He wobbled to one knee, then came staggering to her. He had a drop of blood eeling down from his nose, but no other sign of a wound.

He reached Rain and snatched the knife from her hand, went to the big wyrmling. The fellow did not seek to fight or run. It merely stared ahead blankly. It did not even blink as Wulfgaard sliced its throat and stepped back, so that it could bleed itself dry.

Wulfgaard turned and peered at Rain. He was handsome, with his long blond hair fanning out over his shoulders.

“The spirits of the newly dead only remain with the body for half an hour,” Wulfgaard said, all business. “If we are to cover our tracks with these lich lords, we must take the spirits of all—friend and foe alike.”

Rain had never heard such a thing before. One of his own men laughed, “Hah! Where did you hear that—from some lich lord?”

“From my mother,” Wulfgaard said. “She could see the spirits of the dead.” With that, Wulfgaard went to each of the wyrmlings and plunged Rain’s dagger into them, then did the same with his own men.

She stood in shock. To kill a man’s body was one thing. To banish the life of the spirit was another.

Can Myrrima’s dagger really do that? Rain wondered.

23 The Sympathizers

Draken woke in pain, a bit of water dribbling on his face. He sputtered, rousing from a dream of drowning, a dream in which a great wall of water was rushing through the canyon, sweeping away his home, his family, his life.

He flung his arms up protectively, and Myrrima whispered, “Be still. This is healing water.”

Almost instantly it seemed as if the water began melting into him, and his pains started to ease.

He peered up at her through swollen eyes.

“Mother,” he whispered through cracked and bleeding gums. He suddenly remembered the beating—wyrmling runelords pummeling him with bare fists, biting him. It had been mercifully short before he passed into unconsciousness.

He tried to take stock. His right ear burned, and he could feel caked blood all down his neck. Both arms felt as if they were broken, and at least one tooth was gone. Both eyes were nearly swollen shut.

All in all, he couldn’t find an inch on his body that didn’t hurt.

Myrrima had blessed some stale water from a bucket, and now she trickled it over his wounds.

They were in a dark room, like a ware house, so deep in shadows that only a bit of starlight beamed through the slat boards.

“Are you all right?” he asked. His mother touched the right side of his face, felt his ear, and her touch was as hot as a bee sting.

“I’ve been better,” Myrrima said. “They bit off my right ear, too. Either wyrmlings like the taste of ears, or they’re doing it to mark us. . . .”

“Slaves?” Draken asked.

A gruff voice came out of the darkness. “Shut up in there, you! No talking!” The voice was human, an old man.

A door squeaked open, and a codger came shuffling out of a darkened room bearing the stub of a candle in a mug. It hardly lit his way, but in its light Draken could see a row of cages to either side of him, each cage bearing three or four people. He’d had no idea that there was even one other person in the room, much less dozens. They looked to be young, most of them—girls and boys between the ages of twelve and twenty, at the prime of their lives.

“Shush your mouths.” The old man glared through rheumy eyes. He had white hair as stringy as worms, and a scraggly beard.

“Hey, what’s going on in there?” An outer door opened, and a second man came in, bearing a brighter lantern. He was a big fellow carrying a knobby stick.

“These two were talking—the new ones!” the codger said, pointing at Draken.

The burly guard strode into the room. “Well,” he said, “did you tell them the rules?” The big man looked pointedly at Draken. “There’s no talking, see, by order of the wyrmlings. Understand?”

The big fellow glared until Draken answered. “Yes,” Draken said.

The knobby club came whistling between the bars, striking him on the shoulder hard enough to leave a bruise.

“Understand?” the burly man said. “Tell me again.”

Draken held his tongue. He felt bitterly betrayed. Here were humans in the employ of wyrmlings. But one look told him that these weren’t just any men. This fellow had a wicked gleam to his eyes, and he delighted in causing others pain. The meanness went so deep that Draken almost wanted to shrink away from the man’s presence.

He has a locus in him, Draken suspected. That’s why he works with the wyrmlings.

During the long ship’s voyage, Aaath Ulber had warned the family about the loci. The wyrmlings sought to be possessed by them, and called them “wyrms.” According to their mythology, every man could prove himself worthy to bear a wyrm. Hence they called themselves wyrmlings.

But it was Fallion who had warned Draken against the creatures first. Fallion had read about them in his father’s diary. He’d said, “Beware of evil. Do no harm to any man, if you can help it, unless you are reproving another for his wrongs. Some men are so evil that they need to be swept from the earth—those who would enslave or maliciously use you. There is no wrong in defending yourself against such evil. But beware of shedding the blood of innocents, for to do so aggrieves your own soul, and leaves you open to the influence of the loci.”

Draken peered up at his captors in silence.

“Ah,” the burly guard said, “the boy learns quickly.” He leered down at Draken for a moment, as if seeking some excuse to hit him again. He swung the club, and Draken dodged to the side.

“Hah!” the fellow laughed at his game, then spun and sauntered out the door, slamming it closed.

The codger with stringy hair stood thoughtfully for a moment, stared down at Myrrima. He whispered, “If you’re nice to me, things will go easier for you.”

Myrrima held her chin up, and Draken could see the blood crusting on her. It had run in rivulets down from her ear, following the line of her cheek, and all along her neck. She shook her head no.

The old man hissed at her, his eyes suddenly blazing with rage and madness, then went tottering away.

Draken felt it from the codger too all of the sudden, a darkness to the soul so profound that he cringed. The man had a locus.

For a moment, Draken used the retreating light to seek a way out of his cage. The bars were thick, and straps of metal were woven into the roof and floor below, reinforcing the wooden slats. It was the kind of cage that was sometimes used to haul pigs aboard sailing vessels, to be killed for meat.

There was no straw on the floor beneath them, nothing to lie on. But they lay down, each of them on their left, and Draken put his arm beneath his mother’s head so that she could use it as a pillow.

They did not speak any longer.

In the distance, a dog was woofing aimlessly, as if to entertain itself, while closer by the waves lapped against the docks. At least he could hear the lapping from his good ear. The water nearby smelled of death.

To the south, a wolf began to howl, and in a few moments a chorus of them rose.

They sound as if they’re on the very edge of town, Draken thought. There’s not a goat or calf that will be safe to night.

“What do you think they’ll do to us?” Myrrima whispered.

Draken pointed out the obvious. “We’re in a cage. They plan to ship us out.”

“Aaath Ulber said that wyrmlings use humans as meat?” Myrrima asked.

Draken shook his head. “Not just humans. They’ll eat anything that walks, swims, or slithers on its belly. Won’t touch birds though—don’t like feathers in their mouths. They won’t be eating us,” Draken said. “They’re shipping us south, to harvest our endowments.”

We’re such fools, Draken thought. We should have known that there would be wyrmlings here. It has been weeks since the binding. That was plenty of time for the wyrmlings to create runelords and send warriors afar.

But the truth was that Draken hadn’t been certain what he would find. He’d hoped that his own people would make use of the blood metal. He’d hoped that the wyrmlings would have been defeated by now.

“Aaath Ulber’s hopes are dashed,” Draken said with certainty. “All of his people—gone. . . .”

“Don’t give up yet,” Myrrima said. “Until we have done all that we can do, we cannot give up hope!”

“How many guards do you think?” Draken whispered. “Have we seen them all?”

“Who knows?” Myrrima whispered in return. “Lie still. Listen, and we’ll see what we learn.”

Draken stilled his breathing. The wolves were howling closer now. They’d been concentrated to the south, but now he heard one chime in from the west, as if a huge pack of them were raiding the outskirts of town.

The sound made him shiver. He’d heard tales of the dire wolves that haunted this land. The creatures were cruel and ruthless, and many a man who raised a weapon to fight them was dragged off and eaten.

A long eerie cry went up just down the street.

The wolves are close! he realized. They’re rampaging through town.

Suddenly there were shouts outside the door to the ware house, the gruff guard calling, “Who goes there! What’s the meaning of this?”

The old codger raced from his little guardroom in the ware house, bearing his stub of a candle at nearly a run. He reached the front door, swung it open. Draken rose up, saw men in the street bearing torches and axes.

A familiar voice bellowed, “What kind of man betrays his own people to the wyrmlings?” Aaath Ulber reached the broad door, and the two guards barred his way.

“Wise men,” the burly guard said, “men who aren’t so dumb as to piss against the wind. You would do well to join us. . . .”

A crowd drew up behind Aaath Ulber, ringing the guards. Rain stood at his back, her face stern but pale with fright, bearing a torch. At the fringes of the crowd, young men were howling like wolves. Firelight gleamed from naked blades.

“Here now,” the guard said, seeing the mood of the crowd. “Don’t you dare touch us! You kill one of us, and a thousand townsfolk will die. The wyrmlings will raze this whole district!”

Someone in the crowd guffawed. “We’ve already done all the wyrmlings in town, and brought death upon ourselves. I don’t suppose the wyrmlings will give a damn if we poke a few holes in your wrinkled hides.”

“See these men?” Aaath Ulber roared, nodding toward the guards. “They tell you that they’re wise, but I’ll tell you what they are: wyrmlings. They’ve got the souls of wyrmlings. Not all wyrmlings are monstrous to behold. Sometimes the monsters hide inside.”

The burly guard lunged toward the crowd, sword flashing, and struck at Rain. She stepped back, and the blow went wide, slashing a young boy in the ribs.

That was the wrong thing to do. Aaath Ulber let out a primal shout, and his eyes lost all focus as he attacked in a berserker’s rage.

He slashed with a wyrmling’s ax in a great arc, sweeping the blade through the guards, lopping them in half just above the waist. Blood sprayed from the wounds, but before either man could fall, Aaath Ulber leapt forward, throwing his weapon down, and grabbed their torsos.

Holding a gruesome corpse in either hand, he shook the men, screaming incoherently at first, then shouting, “Where’s my wife? Where are you keeping her? Where’s my wife, damn you?”

Blood seemed to rain over the crowd, and the corpses spilled their guts. White intestines, wine-colored livers, stomachs and kidneys, spleens and lungs all emptied. Aaath Ulber hurled the corpses against the door of the ware house and stood for a moment stomping and kicking the offal like a madman, roaring in his rage.

“Here now,” some burly warrior called. “You’ve killed them, I think.” His voice was soothing and calm.

Aaath Ulber stood for a long moment, trembling and shouting, muttering under his breath, until he regained his senses.

As one, the warlords of Internook let out a cheer, then Rain rummaged among the offal, looking for the keys to the cages.

But the townsmen didn’t wait. They rushed into the ware house with axes and fell upon the cages, chopping through locks, bending bars, doing what ever they had to in order to set their people free.

In the aftermath of the battle, Aaath Ulber returned to the arena and quickly began to strip armor from the wyrmlings. The creatures were so heavy that it took three men to get off their bone mail. Afterward, they pulled off the creatures’ leather jerkins to see their chests. Aaath Ulber hoped to learn how many endowments each wyrmling had, and in what mix, so that he might better gauge the danger that they presented.

But a quick survey showed that the wyrmlings did not have the scars left by forcibles on their chests and backs. Instead, the marks were found on the tops of their feet, beneath their iron boots.

The mix surprised Aaath Ulber. Their leader had the most endowments—nine of metabolism, nine of stamina, three of sight, two of scent, two of wit, one of voice, and two of hearing.

It was an odd mix in some ways.

“Where is grace and brawn?” Rain wondered aloud.

“They don’t need brawn,” Aaath Ulber said. “They outweigh humans by six hundred pounds, and a swat of their hand will take your head off.”

“Plus, how much more strength would they get if they took brawn from a common human?” one older barbarian asked. “Not much, I’ll tell you. Nor would they get much grace.”

That was true, Aaath Ulber knew. As far as the wyrmlings were concerned, they wouldn’t want to waste forcibles in taking endowments for so little return.

Each of the other wyrmlings in the group were enhanced only with a few endowments—two each of metabolism, two of sight, and a couple of stamina.

“They need our sight to see in the daylight,” Aaath Ulber reasoned, “and they want our speed and stamina so that they can move fast and run far.”

“Good news,” one of the barbarians said. “They shouldn’t be too hard to kill.”

But Aaath Ulber saw the wisdom in their choice. Most of the endowments that they were garnering were lesser endowments—sight and metabolism. Taking the sight from a man would leave him blind—unable to fight, or to escape from the wyrmling dungeons. And taking an endowment of metabolism would put the victim into a magical slumber from which he could not wake until his lord died.

Such Dedicates required almost no care. Better yet, they presented no risk to those who guarded them.

Taking these attributes was easier on the Dedicates, too. A person had to give up his endowments willingly. He might do so under the threat of death or torture, or even with a sufficient bribe, but he had to give them willingly.

But it is almost impossible to coax an endowment from someone who fears that they might die while giving it. Braun, grace, and wit were thus hard to obtain.

Yet the wyrmlings’ mix left them weaker than they might have been.

One of the young heroes that had freed Aaath Ulber was staring at the dead wyrmlings in shock, horror written plainly on his face. Rain knelt next to him, and asked, “What is the matter?”

“The wyrmlings took no glamour,” he said. “When they took my betrothed, they said that she was comely. They said that they wanted her glamour. . . .”

So the girl is dead, Aaath Ulber suspected. Most likely they wanted only her tender flesh. It was rumored that young women are tastier than men. Like an old boar bear or an aging stag, the meat of an old man takes on an unpleasant musty taste.

“They’ll take her sight or metabolism,” Rain said, trying to convince the lad that his love was still alive.

Aaath Ulber considered the magnitude of the threat that the wyrmlings posed. He’d faced Raj Ahten, who had tens of thousands of endowments of stamina, and dozens of endowments of brawn and grace. After fighting a monster like that, these wyrmlings looked as if they would be easy.

But something in his gut warned him not to celebrate too soon.

There were wights in the wyrmling fortresses, and Aaath Ulber had not even told his family about the Knights Eternal or other dangers posed by the wyrmlings.

The wyrmlings will have their Raj Ahten, he knew.

Aaath Ulber sat in a lord’s hall not twenty minutes later with Myrrima by his side and Draken and Rain at his back. The entire town was astir. Odd shouts echoed up from the market district as folks called orders to one another. The townsfolk were preparing to flee, for they expected the wyrmling reprisals to be swift and vicious.

An old lord sat across the table, Warlord Hrath, a stout fellow with a broad face. His braided hair had all gone gray, and each braid was tied with a bloodied scrap of cloth. Time had chiseled regal lines in his brow and face, and left his skin withered, but otherwise he was firm. There was no weakness in him, neither in his flesh, in his mind, nor in his resolve. “What is it that you need from us?” he asked. “Name it, and if it is within my power, I will grant it.”

At Hrath’s side of the table were some of his own stout sons, along with the men who had helped free Aaath Ulber from the wyrmlings.

“I’ll need food for our journey,” Aaath Ulber said, “just enough for me to carry south to the wyrmling’s stronghold in Mystarria. Our ship is lying just off the coast.”

“Done,” Hrath said.

“I’ll need good weapons, to boot. I mistrust using your tall swords in wyrmling tunnels. A good war ax for an off-hand weapon, and a large dirk would be best. I’ll want wyrmling battle darts, and spare weapons to boot.”

“Finding weapons fit for a man of your size will be hard,” Hrath said, “but we’ll scour the town.”

Aaath Ulber stared hard at the old lord. His wife and children and extended family were all in the longhouse—grandmothers, and babes— packing goods swiftly, preparing to flee. Aaath Ulber hardly dared ask for more.

“I’ll need endowments if I can get them,” Aaath Ulber said. “Some of your young men have taken them already. I don’t know how much blood metal is available.”

Aaath Ulber hoped for twenty endowments of metabolism at the very least. He couldn’t fight powerful wyrmlings with any less.

With twenty endowments, he would be twice as fast as a wyrmling who had ten. That was an advantage, but it wasn’t an insurmountable benefit. A wyrmling with well-honed instincts, excellent training, and ten endowments would still pose a considerable threat.

And if I meet a wyrmling with forty endowments of metabolism, Aaath Ulber worried, I’m in trouble.

Warlord Hrath held up his hand, begging Aaath Ulber to stop. He sat for a long moment, elbows on the table, and laid his head in his hands.

“I cannot easily offer you such a boon,” he said at last, “unless you can give us something more in return.

“You talk about sailing to the south into Mystarria, to strike at the heart of the wyrmlings, and this makes sense to me: Cut off the head of the snake, not the tail.

“But there is still power in the tail. Regardless of what you do next, the wyrmlings will make us pay dearly for this night. My family might flee, but where could we hide? I do not know. The wyrmling scouts can track us down by scent, and no matter where we might go, the wyrmlings are already there. They’re scattered everywhere across Internook, ten to this village, fifty to a city. You and your men slew but five. I don’t even know where the rest of the city guard is to night. Usually the number of guards is double or triple what we found. Perhaps they had trouble in the countryside. It is rumored that they go to search for blood metal at night sometimes, when the town is sound asleep. . . .”

“It’s not just our town’s guards,” a young man added. He leaned forward, whispering as if a wyrmling might overhear him. “Many of the largest and most fearsome of the wyrmlings’ runelords have been leaving the past couple of weeks. I’ve gotten reports from many villages.”

“There’s no mystery to that,” Aaath Ulber said. “It’s high summer—time for the wyrmling rut. Only the largest and most fearsome of the males are allowed to breed. They will have returned to their stronghold, deep within its recesses, down where the women are kept as breeders.”

Aaath Ulber did not dare say it, but he suspected that the lich lord had purposely either called much of the guard back to rut or sent them on some fruitless errand.

For reasons that he did not understand, she had sided with him against the Wyrmling Empire.

Perhaps, Aaath Ulber thought, this lich hopes that when I slay the emperor, it will leave her in charge.

Or maybe she is merely mad.

Wyrmlings were not the most stable creatures.

But, he vowed to himself, what ever she wants, what ever she offers, I refuse.

Warlord Hrath pounded the table, gazed at Aaath Ulber. “We will give you what endowments we can, and we will send word far and wide that you have come. We can gather the blood metal that we need. But if we do this, we will need your protection.”

Aaath Ulber was loath to make such an offer, but there were no good choices. If he took a few endowments and then left, the wyrmlings would likely hunt down his Dedicates and slay them, leaving Aaath Ulber weak and vulnerable.

But he did not want to spend the rest of his life here defending the barbarians on this island. Aaath Ulber sighed. “Just my luck,” he said. “I come to town for a loaf of bread and piglet, and what do I get? A war!”

At that, the barbarians laughed, Warlord Hrath pounding his mug on the table.

“I suspect that you will need my help,” Aaath Ulber admitted. “But you understand that the wyrmling presence here in Internook is thin? Their main stronghold is in a fortress called Rugassa, in the very heart of Mystarria. You have tens of thousands of wyrmlings here on this island. There are millions more down in the heartland. I intend to breach their stronghold.”

“You intend to fight them? Millions?” Warlord Hrath asked. “Just you few?”

“I intend to do all that I can,” Aaath Ulber said. “But I hope for more aid. There are men of my stature to the south, or there were before the binding. I do not know how many might yet survive, but my plan is to unite them against the wyrmling hordes.

“I cannot fight that empire myself, but a thousand warriors like me, men with endowments, we could make the foundations of Rugassa tremble. . . .”

“No doubt,” Hrath said, chewing his lip thoughtfully. “So you think to sacrifice us?”

The warlord was testing him, Aaath Ulber knew. He was asking if Aaath Ulber would simply take endowments and march into war, leaving the island defenseless. Hrath needed a commitment that Aaath Ulber would leave them secure.

“A man who takes an endowment,” Aaath Ulber said, “takes the greatest of boons that another may offer. I would not want to put the men, women, and children of Internook at risk.”

“Yet it is what your people have always done,” Warlord Hrath intoned. “Your rich lords in Mystarria have hired our children, put them at the front of their battles, and used them only to blunt the weapons of the runelords that they were fighting. I know this. I myself was one of those young men. I fought for King Orden against the Merchant Princes.”

Aaath Ulber stifled a groan. He had been but a child when he learned of that fray. Gaborn Val Orden’s father had been king at the time. The Merchant Princes had sought to establish a trade route down into the forbidden lands of Inkarra, and King Orden had defied them. The Merchant Princes were known cowards who never fought their own battles, and so they had hired heavy lancers out of Beldinook and wild hill men out of Toom.

King Orden was a pragmatist, and had not wanted to test the enemy’s resolve with his own troops. So he’d hired mercenaries out of Internook, and ordered them to form a shield wall that took the brunt of the enemy’s charge—all while he held off at a good distance and gauged which among Beldinook’s lancers were most rife with endowments.

The lancers from Beldinook had taken more attributes than King Orden had surmised, and Orden’s mercenaries were decimated.

“I am not King Orden,” Aaath Ulber said at last, reaching his decision. “I will not leave you defenseless.”

“Then what will you do—secure Internook in our behalf before you go?”

Taking Internook would be a monumental task. Doing so might require months or weeks, if the land could be taken at all. And every minute that Aaath Ulber spent here was one more minute of frustration, one more minute of aching to learn if his wife Gatunyea, his children, and his people in Mystarria still survived.

Myrrima leaned forward, touched Aaath Ulber’s arm, begging him to help these folks.

Aaath Ulber was loath to accept such a heavy onus, but Myrrima said, “We can’t just leave. This island must be secured. If we try to just sneak away, the wyrmlings here will attack. This village itself will be demolished. Our only hope is to secure this island, then go south.”

“How many enemy troops are here on the island?” Aaath Ulber asked.

Warlord Hrath looked to a young man, one of the striplings who had helped free Aaath Ulber. “Wulfgaard?” The boy leaned forward eagerly. Warlord Hrath explained, “This young man has sworn an oath to fight the wyrmlings. His woman was taken by them within days of the binding.”

There was a deadly gleam in Wulfgaard’s eyes, the kind of determination that Aaath Ulber had seldom seen.

If his woman had indeed granted an endowment to a wyrmling, there was no way to know which wyrmling it might be. If she’d granted sight, she would remain blind until her lord was killed. If she’d granted metabolism, she’d be in a slumber. In either instance, Wulfgaard would have to slaughter one wyrmling after another until his beloved revived.

“We estimate that about twenty thousand have shown themselves,” Wulfgaard said. “But we suspect that there are many more in their main fortress to the south. As Warlord Hrath told you, those twenty thousand are stationed all over the island, but half of the guards in any given city get switched once a week, and shock troops form roving patrols that travel the length of the land—”

“In squadrons of fifty,” Aaath Ulber finished. “I think you’re right. There will be many more below ground. The wyrmlings always hide their numbers that way. And though their head is in Rugassa, they have hundreds of smaller fortresses scattered all across the mainland.”

Aaath Ulber didn’t want to admit it, but his own people had never been able to calculate how many wyrmlings might be about. He’d argued with the High King many times that they should take their people south, flee beyond the mountains, in hopes of escaping the wyrmlings. But the king had justly argued against it. Wyrmling fortresses were hidden everywhere, and flying into the face of one offered no hope—not when Aaath Ulber’s own people might have found themselves fighting in the open, without walls or towers to protect them.

“How many endowments can you grant me?” Aaath Ulber asked.

“We have been gathering blood metal for weeks. Indeed, we have already taken endowments in your behalf.”

“Taken endowments?” Aaath Ulber asked.

Warlord Hrath leaned forward. “I myself have taken endowments of scent from three dogs. Other men have taken brawn, grace, stamina, metabolism, glamour, voice, sight, and hearing. We can vector endowments from a thousand people across the island within a couple of days.”

Aaath Ulber leaned back, astonished. He had imagined that it would take a week to garner a hundred endowments. “How could you take them in my behalf?”

“The wyrmlings themselves announced your coming,” Warlord Hrath said. “They have been hunting for a giant, sailing from the north. They’ve searched our houses, searched our fields, looking for a man with horns upon his head. At first, we thought that they were mad. But as they began to lay heavy burdens upon us, our disbelief turned to hope.”

Aaath Ulber sat thinking furiously. He had long been hunting the wyrmlings, and he knew that their lich sorcerers had strange powers. But he’d never heard that they were prophetic.

So how could they have known that I was coming? Unless, he reasoned, their powers have somehow grown or shifted since the binding of the worlds. . . .

“You could have created your own champion,” Aaath Ulber suggested.

“For what purpose?” Wulfgaard asked. He scraped his chair forward, so that a young maiden could pass, bearing an armload of pillows. “We might protect our own lands for a time, but rumors say that the real danger lies to the south, beneath the shrouds of darkness. Where would our champion go? Who would he strike? So we waited for you.”

Aaath Ulber wondered at the phrase “shrouds of darkness.” He had never heard of such a thing. “Tell me,” he said, “what has changed in Rofehavan since the binding of the worlds. . . .”

“You don’t know?” Warlord Hrath asked.

“I know that most of Landesfallen sank into the sea on the far side of the world, so I set sail to come here as fast as I could.”

“Toom fell into the sea also,” Warlord Hrath said, “as did Haversind and all of the land along the north coast. But the coastlines of Mystarria were raised, and much that was ocean is now land. Ships that were in the bay ended up on dry land. But here in Internook, the sea level did not alter much.

“When first the binding came, we did not look abroad. There were troubles on our own island, not far from here. A fortress was found, with tunnels that led into the ground, and a single dark tower.

“Women and children that went to explore it never made it out. Good men went to rescue them, and their tale ends the same.

“We sent what runelords we could, but it had been ten years since we’d seen a forcible in our lands. The men who went were not like the runelords of old. Some lacked brawn, some grace. None was hale and well-rounded. Though they had the speed of runelords, they were warriors of unfortunate proportion.

“So they scaled the wyrmling tower, but they did not get far inside, I think. No sooner had they entered than smoke began to issue from every vent in the wyrmling fortress. None of our men escaped.”

“A wyrmling fortress is not something that one assails lightly,” Aaath Ulber said. “The wyrmlings love traps. Even your runelords could not breathe in that oiled air. There are pits and false walls inside a wyrmling lair. The harvesters are present in every stronghold, but they are not the worst of your worries. Wraiths guard it, sorcerers of great power who fend off death and steal the life energy from those that they vanquish. And just as every hive has its queen, at the center of the wyrmling fortress there is a lich lord who can communicate across the leagues with their emperor.”

“By the Powers!” Warlord Hrath growled. “We have no weapons against such monsters.”

“I do,” Myrrima said. “I can enchant your weapons so that they strike down even the most powerful wraith.”

“That is why the wyrmlings fear you,” Warlord Hrath proclaimed. “They fear your coming.”

There was a scraping sound nearby as some of the folks dragged a heavy bench across the floor. Two young men pulled up a hidden door, then went climbing down a ladder into the recesses of some hole.

“Our armory,” Warlord Hrath explained, “hidden where the wyrmlings could not easily find it.” Seconds later, the men began hauling weapons up from the hole. Hrath raised an eyebrow and asked Myrrima, “Will you bless these weapons?”

“Take your weapons to the nearest stream; I’ll do it as soon as I can.”

All around, people were darting about, gathering food and clothes, preparing to flee into the night. Warlord Hrath jutted his chin, and the men began hauling the weapons out—spears, axes, shields.

“What more have you learned of the south?” Myrrima asked.

Warlord Hrath shook his head, as if to warn that he held tragic news. “A few days after the binding, ships began to arrive from the south, our folks coming back from Mystarria. They too had been overtaken by the wyrmlings—and worse things.

“They spoke of changes that occurred during the great binding. Giant men appeared, like yourself, at the Courts of Tide. They warned of dire things to come, but that fool Warlord Bairn made a sport of killing them, in the hopes of placating the wyrmlings and making some sort of compact with them.

“But then a winged woman came and told of mountains of blood metal to the east—”

“Wait,” Aaath Ulber said. “You say that a winged woman came? Was she a normal human, or was she like me, or was she a wyrmling?”

“She was human in every way, but for her crimson wings,” Warlord Hrath said. “She was young, beautiful.”

Aaath Ulber considered this news. The only winged people that he had ever heard of were the wyrmling Seccaths—the greater lords. They wore wings that were constructed by means that no human had ever learned or could duplicate. Humans had sometimes won the wings—by slaughtering their wearer and fitting them to their own backs—but it was a rare occurrence, something that might happen only once every two or three generations.

The wyrmling Seccaths were few in number. They included the three Knights Eternal, a few members of the imperial family, and perhaps half a dozen messengers and scouts that the emperor employed—messengers and scouts who were also brilliant and accomplished warriors.

Who could have killed a Seccath? Aaath Ulber wondered. Few had such prowess in battle.

“This winged woman, did she give a name?” Aaath Ulber asked.

Warlord Hrath’s brow furrowed in concentration and he looked about the crowd for help. “Angdar was there in the city that day. He heard the tale many times in pubs that night from those who saw, and so he knows it better than I. Did the woman give a name?”

Angdar stepped forward, a burly man with a greasy face. “I don’t recall hearing that she gave a first name, but she did a last: Borenson. I remember because I have heard that name in song many a time, and I wondered if she was any relation to the great warrior.”

Aaath Ulber leapt toward Angdar, and felt so grateful that he slapped the man on the back. “My daughter. My daughter is alive. When did this happen?”

“Just before midday, two days after the binding of the worlds.”

Myrrima got choked up and began to sob, as did Draken, and Aaath Ulber just stood and hugged them for a moment.

“Talon?” Myrrima asked. “She has wings? But how?”

Aaath Ulber explained quickly. As he did, Myrrima’s face lit up. It seemed that the fears and worries slid from her countenance, revealing a fierce hope that had been hiding inside her for weeks.

“Talon’s alive,” Myrrima exulted at last. “She didn’t get crushed in the binding.”

Aaath Ulber hugged his wife and son, but he wondered. How had Talon fought off a wyrmling Seccath? How would she have known how to take its wings? If Fallion had gone into the Underworld, how could he have returned two days later?

Some answers were obvious. Talon knew of the hill of blood metal at Caer Luciare. Somehow she had killed a wyrmling Seccath, and the folks there must have shown her how to take its wings.

But that left so many questions unanswered.

“Tell me,” Aaath Ulber asked Angdar, “what precisely did my daughter say—as close as you can? What were her words?”

The burly warrior held his tongue for a moment as he thought. “She’d come for help,” he said. “She warned Warlord Bairn of the wyrmlings, like the others had, and told him of a mountain of blood metal. She wanted help in . . . freeing some men from a wyrmling fortress, two men who were being held captive. . . .”

“Fallion and Jaz!” Draken exulted, and Aaath Ulber’s heart pounded with newfound hope. He did not want to leap to conclusions, but who else could it be?

Myrrima muttered, “The wyrmlings must have learned that Fallion bound the worlds. Let us hope that their awe of him keeps him alive.”

Fifty days in a wyrmling dungeon, Aaath Ulber thought. Few could survive so long. The wyrmlings were not gentle. But then, few men were as durable as Fallion Orden.

Aaath Ulber looked to Angdar. “What did Warlord Bairn answer when my daughter made her request?”

“He asked for the location of the mountain of blood metal. She told him, and then he ordered his archers to open fire upon her. She flew off, I hear, unscathed.”

It was all that Aaath Ulber could do to keep from going into a berserker’s rage. “Bairn is a fool.”

“Was a fool,” Warlord Hrath corrected. “No sooner had the woman departed than he began to mount an expedition into the wilds above Ravenspell, seeking the mountain!”

“Above Ravenspell?” Aaath Ulber asked, and a fey smile crossed his face. Smart girl. His daughter must not have trusted this Warlord Bairn. She’s sent him on a chase—right into the enemy’s camp. “Well, I don’t suppose I’ll need to go seeking vengeance upon him.”

“No one knows what happened next,” Warlord Hrath said, “but Bairn’s folly cost him dear. He and his men rode out hard, and none were ever seen again.

“But it is feared that he stirred up a hornets’ nest. Darkling Glories began to fill the skies, winging above the castles in Mystarria, betraying our troops’ positions to the wyrmling hordes. The wyrmlings attacked the Courts of Tide—but they used reavers as sappers, to knock down the castle walls.

“The wyrmling runelords decimated the land in less than a week.”

“Our folks fled the southlands, and as they did, darkness filled the skies—great swirling clouds the color of greasy smoke, whirling in a maelstrom.

“It hovers there still, so that all of Mystarria is veiled in eternal night. The Darkling Glories fly in and out of it, and the only illumination comes from the brief flashes of lightning that rip through the sky.

“The heavens grumble and moan,” Hrath said solemnly, “and the earth is troubled. That is why I have wondered, why we have all wondered . . . against such powers, what mortal man could prevail? Why would the wyrmlings fear you?”

Aaath Ulber suspected that he knew precisely why. It wasn’t his prowess in battle, it was something that he’d learned long ago, a bit of knowledge that he held dear—and had never told anyone.

“At the arena,” Aaath Ulber said, “there was a wyrmling lord. He boasted that he could not be killed, for he was under the protection of an Earth King. Have you heard rumors of this before?”

Hrath leaned away from the table, his eyes wide with surprise. “An Earth King? A wyrmling Earth King? Are you sure? That would be a fell thing indeed!”

“That can’t be true,” Myrrima cut in. “The Earth Spirit would not grant its power to such a beast!”

“Are you certain?” Aaath Ulber asked. “The Earth Spirit cares equally for all of its creatures, the hawk as well as the mouse, the serpent as well as the dove. Perhaps the wyrmlings are in danger of going extinct soon. If I had my way, I’d make them extinct!”

Aaath Ulber thought furiously. It would make sense. If mankind posed enough danger to the wyrmlings, the Earth Spirit might protect them.

But Aaath Ulber couldn’t imagine how he could pose such a threat to the wyrmlings . . . except. His mind went back to that bit of hidden knowledge. It was time to reveal the secret he had kept for over a de cade.

He leaned forward. “There is something that I must tell you: Six months before he passed, the Earth King Gaborn Val Orden came to see me one last time. He was old and frail, and appeared outside my door in broad daylight one morning. The guards at the castle gate swear that he did not enter, that he simply materialized from the soil. . . .”

“I doubt that he materialized,” Myrrima said. “An Earth Warden can be hard to see, if he does not want to be noticed.”

“In any event,” Aaath Ulber said, “he stayed for two days, and when we were alone, he told me something that he wished to be kept secret until the time was right for it to be published abroad.

“He said that there was a way for a killer to circumvent his powers. He said that he had learned of instances where his chosen had died—by murder. He would sense their impending doom, sometimes weeks in advance, but as it drew near, he could not avert the event.

“He said that there was a secret order of men who were doing this to gain power, and he feared what it might lead to. . . .”

“How could this be?” Warlord Hrath said. “The Earth King’s power to preserve was legendary.”

“Slow poison,” Aaath Ulber answered. “When a man takes it, his death may be secured, but it might not happen for days or even months after the poison is administered. Thus, Gaborn would sense impending doom hours or weeks away, and as the threat grew, he would hope that the Earth Spirit would tell him how to avert it. But by the time that he realized that there could be no rescue, the killer was long gone.”

“So,” Warlord Hrath asked, “you’re suggesting that we poison the wyrmlings.”

Aaath Ulber sat, pondering. That was exactly what had happened earlier in the night. The lich lord had incapacitated one of the Earth’s chosen, it seemed. But it was the young Wulfgaard who had struck the killing blow minutes later.

If indeed the monster had been under the protection of an Earth King, then it had done the creature little good.

Incapacitate first, then kill at leisure.

“Yes,” Aaath Ulber agreed, “poison would be one way to go about it. . . .”

Aaath Ulber peered around the room. The villagers were preparing to flee, but he realized that the spectacle would only attract more wyrmlings.

“Tell your people to stay in their houses,” Aaath Ulber warned Warlord Hrath. “As well as we can, we must maintain the illusion that it is business as usual here. Give me endowments, and I can protect the village.”

“But . . .” Hrath objected. “What if the wyrmlings find out what we’ve done and attack? We’ll have no way to protect your Dedicates.”

“We’ll hide them in attics and cellars as best we can.”

“And if the wyrmlings attack in force? We have no castle walls here to repel them. We have little in the way of troops.”

“Just as a runelord who is mighty with endowments needs little in the way of armor, I will protect you. My shield will be your castle wall, and I will fight your battles.”

Aaath Ulber still had blood on his hands and garments when he took his endowments that night. Rain watched as the warlords of Internook built a vast bonfire, and its ruddy light stained the hairs of the giant’s head a deeper shade of red and accentuated the blood splatter upon his clothes. In the firelight the nubs of horns stood out upon his brow. As Aaath Ulber waited in the village street, a keg of ale for his throne, an old man brought forcibles from some hiding spot in a nearby village.

He’d wrapped them in oilskin and hidden them in a keg of cider vinegar. Now the skins stank, even from Rain’s vantage point forty feet away.

“Those wyrmlings don’t have a taste for vinegar,” the old man explained. “Hide them in a keg of ale, and you’re asking for trouble. But put them in vinegar, and a wyrmling will never bother them.”

He laid out the forcibles—sixty of them, a surprisingly large number.

So the ceremony began. Rain had never seen an endowment ceremony before. Her father had been a lord, a wealthy man, but even in his days the mines of Kartish had been failing, so she’d never seen a forcible.

So she watched in fascination as the ceremony took form. A huge crowd had gathered at her back, perhaps some five thousand strong, and folks peered eagerly. Some folks had come out of mere curiosity. Others had come to give attributes. All of them seemed to be prodding and pushing at Rain’s back, trying to get a better view.

The evening was taking on a spectacle, as if it were a festival day and someone had brought fireworks from Indhopal.

Now the old man took out his forcibles and inspected each by firelight. The forcibles were rods, much in shape and size like a small spike, a little thicker than the heaviest wire and about the length of a man’s hand. They were made of blood metal, which was darker red than rusted iron, and which tasted like dried blood to the tongue.

At the tip of the forcible was a rune, a mystic shape that controlled which attribute might be taken from a Dedicate and transferred to a lord. The rune was about the size of a man’s thumbnail, and though the shape of the rune did not mimic anything seen in life, the shape alone had an aura of power about it, a sense of rightness to it, that defied understanding.

Each forcible was made from pure blood metal, which was so soft to the touch that a chance scrape with a fingernail could dent it. Thus, the runes at the head were easily damaged during transportation, and the wizard who used them had to make sure that the forcible was pristine and perfect, lest the endowment ceremony go awry.

So the old man studied the rune at the tip of each forcible, and sometimes he would take a file and pry a little here, or file a little there.

As he worked, Aaath Ulber got up and spoke, hoping to gain the hearts and approbation of the people.

“I am no common man,” he called out to the crowd. “You can see that by my appearance. But what you cannot see is that I am two men, two who were united into one when the worlds were bound.”

At that, the crowed oohed and aahed.

“One of those two men you may have heard of, for I was the bodyguard of the Earth King Gaborn Val Orden in his youth. I was Sir Borenson, and fought at the Earth King’s right hand when the reavers marched on Carris. I guarded his back when Raj Ahten sent his assassins against our king when he was only a lad, just as I guarded his son, Fallion Orden, and kept him safe in Landesfallen for these past ten years.

“Foul deeds I have done in the service of old King Orden, deeds that bloodied my hands and soiled my conscience. You have heard that I slew Raj Ahten’s Dedicates at Castle Sylvarresta. More than two thousand men, women, and children I killed—in order to save my king, and our world.

“I did not shirk from bloodshed. I did not offer sympathy or condolences to those I murdered. It was a deed that shamed me, but it was a deed that I could not turn away from.

“I killed men that I had dined with and hunted with, men that I loved as if they were my own brothers. . . .”

Rain wondered at that. It was not the kind of thing that she would have bragged about. She feared Aaath Ulber, feared his lack of restraint, his raw brutality.

And here this crowd was, urging him on, empowering him.

“But that is only half the tale,” Aaath Ulber said, “for as I told you, I am two men bound into one.

“Aaath Ulber was my title on the shadow world that you saw fall from the heavens, a title that means Great Berserker. I was the foremost warrior among the men of my world, and more than two hundred wyrmlings have fallen beneath my ax and spear.

“Seven times did I plunge myself into the depths of wyrmling fortresses, and once when no one else survived, I made it out alone.

“I do not tell you this to boast,” Aaath Ulber continued, “I tell you this so that you will know: I plan to kill our common enemy. I will show no compassion, spare no child.

“I am two men in one shell. I have trained for two lifetimes, and gained skills that neither world had ever seen.

“I am stronger now than either man was alone—faster, stronger, better prepared.

“The wyrmlings fear me because I am the most dangerous man alive. I speak their language. I know their ways. I have breached their fortresses time and time again. The wyrmlings shall have nothing from me— nothing from us—but an ignoble death!

“This I pledge you: Those who grant endowments to me this day will strike a blow against the wyrmlings. I shall not faint, nor shall I retreat. Death to all wyrmlings!”

At that the folks of Ox Port cheered and raised their weapons, shouting war cries. Some women wept openly, while alewives poured mug after mug, and the men raised them in toast.

What better way to gain endowments, Rain thought, than to take them from drunken barbarians.

As Aaath Ulber finished, the old man held up a completed forcible and called out its name. “Brawn? Who will grant brawn to our champion?”

“Does he need any more brawn?” some warrior shouted, and many men guffawed.

“I am strong,” Aaath Ulber agreed, “but I go to face wyrmling runelords that are stronger still. A hundred endowments of brawn I need, no less! And I need them this night—for I must cleanse this island of our wyrmling foes!”

“Hurrah!” the men cheered, and a huge barbarian strode forward, eager to be the first.

The old man cheered and shouted, “Bless you! Bless you. May the Bright Ones protect you, and the Glories guard your back!” He clapped the barbarian on the shoulder and the ceremony began.

It was evident that the old man was not well practiced in the taking of endowments. His hands trembled as he began to sing, so that the rod shook. In some distant day, he might have been a facilitator to some warlord, a mage who specialized in taking endowments. But forcibles had become so rare in the past few years. Now he closed his eyes and began to sing a wordless song that felt strained and uncomely.

It was not words really, but repeated sounds—groans and humming, interspersed with sharp harking calls. There was music in his song, but it felt wild and unrestrained, like a driving wind as it coils through mountain valleys, blowing this way one moment, another way the next.

Rain grew lost in the song, mesmerized, until soon the chanting and humming seemed to be part of her, something flowing in her blood.

Just as she lost herself, she wakened to the smell of burning flesh. The old facilitator had taken the forcible and pressed it to the barbarian’s bared chest, and during the course of the song the metal had turned white-hot.

Hair scalded and flesh burned. The barbarian’s face was hard and stony, his eyes unfocused. He knelt, staring at Aaath Ulber while the facilitator branded him with the searing iron. Sweat streamed down the Dedicate’s brow, and his jaw quivered from pain, but he did not let out a sound.

Then the facilitator danced away, held up the hot branding iron. As he did, the forcible left a white trail in the darkness, a worm of pale white light that hung in the air as solidly as if it were carved from wood.

The children cried out “Ah!” and marveled.

The facilitator waved his forcible in the air, creating knots of white light, like a giant rope. One end of the rope was anchored to the barbarian’s chest, while the other end blazed at the tip of the forcible. The facilitator studied the light trail, gazing at it from various angles, and at last took the rod to Aaath Ulber.

The giant pulled open his own vest, revealing a chest that was much scarred—both from old battle wounds and from the kiss of the forcible.

The facilitator plunged the metal rod into Aaath Ulber’s chest, and in an instant the trail of white light that connected the two broke. The worm of light shot out of the barbarian’s chest like a bolt, and with a hissing sound it rushed toward Aaath Ulber. It struck the forcible, which turned to dust and disappeared, and for an instant the light seemed to well up in Aaath Ulber’s chest, threatening to escape. A white pucker arose on his skin in the shape of a rune, and suddenly the air filled with the acrid odor of his singed hair and the pleasant scent of cooked skin, so much like the scent of pork roasting upon a spit.

It is said that receiving an endowment, any endowment, grants the lord who takes it immense pleasure, and now Aaath Ulber’s eyes fluttered back in his head, as if he would faint from ecstasy.

His head lolled, and he nearly swooned.

But the fate of he who grants an endowment is not so sure. The giving of an attribute causes such agony that it cannot be described. Women claim that the pain of childbirth pales in comparison, and almost always the Dedicate who grants an endowment will wail in pain, sometimes sobbing for hours afterward.

But this big barbarian did not cry out. He did not even whimper. He merely sat stoically, beads of sweat breaking out on his brow, until at last he fainted from the effort of staying upright.

His strength had left him completely.

In a tense moment, everyone watched the barbarian to see if he still breathed. Too often, a man who gave his strength gave more than his strength: he gave his life. For when the strength left him, his heart might be too weak to beat, or his lungs might cease to draw breath.

But the barbarian lay on the ground, breathing evenly, and even managed to raise his arms, as if to crawl. He fell to his belly and chuckled, “I’m as weak as a babe!”

At that there was a shout of celebration, for if he could talk, then he would survive.

Thus the endowment ceremony began, with those who offered greater endowments leading the way. The greater endowments included brawn, grace, wit, and stamina, and granting them was dangerous business. A man who gave too much stamina was prone to catch every little fever that swept through a village. Those who gave up grace often cramped up on themselves; their muscles, unable to loosen, would either cause them to strangle for lack of air or to starve. Even those who gave wit might pass away, for in the first few moments after granting the endowment, a man’s heart might forget how to beat.

Thus, courageous men and women came to offer up endowments, and with each successful transfer the celebration deepened, for it was proved that the old man knew how to transfer attributes without killing his Dedicates.

Rain noticed a young woman at the edge of the firelight thrown from a torch, spreading salve upon one of the injured warriors who had helped fight at the arena. Rain went and borrowed some salve from her, a balm that smelled rich from herbs, and took it to Draken.

Gingerly, she placed the salve on his ear, where his captor had bitten it off. Draken did not jerk or start away when she touched him. Instead, he leaned into her, savoring her presence though it cost him pain.

She teased him, “You Borensons, with that odd gap where your ear should be: I do hope that our children don’t inherit the trait.”

Draken smiled up at her, his eyes gleaming, and pulled her close for a hug. He glanced around. All eyes were on Aaath Ulber, so he pulled Rain into the darkness in the shadows of a building and kissed her roughly.

For weeks now, on the boat, they’d been unable to find a place to be alone, had not dared kiss. Now he made up for it.

He kissed her lips, her cheeks, and hugged her so tightly that it took her breath away. He finally pulled back her hair, studied her in the weak light of the stars.

“I’m glad that the wyrmlings didn’t get your ear,” he said. “I’ve been longing to nibble on it.”

He leaned in, chewed on her ear, and the passion inside her flamed to life. He was hugging her, so that his whole body pressed against her. She felt his strong chest firm against her breast, and she ached to race off into the woods, into the shadows, to be alone with him.

But she knew that the time was not right. She wanted a proper wedding, with family and friends gathered around to witness. So after a time, they stole back to watch the endowment ceremony.

Myrrima was there, at the edge of the light, her face stony. She looked as if she had been beaten.

“Have you spoken to your mother?” Rain asked, wondering what was wrong.

“No,” Draken answered, clinging tightly to her hand. “Why?”

“She looks so sad,” Rain said, and suddenly she knew why. Aaath Ulber was taking endowments, endowments of metabolism that would kill him. It might not kill him in an instant, but they would shorten his life by de cades.

“Your father’s killing himself,” Rain said. “He’s sacrificing himself, and he didn’t even ask your mother’s permission . . . he didn’t talk to you, or Sage.”

Draken held silent for a while. “He has another family now, too. I guess that their need outweighs ours.” Draken sighed. “He’s sacrificing himself for both of his families.”

Rain bit her lip, appalled at the sacrifices this system of magic required. A few moments ago she had feared that one of the Dedicates might die in this process, and she’d felt relieved to see him survive. But now she realized that Aaath Ulber was the victim this night.

He would die from his wounds, even if the wyrmlings didn’t kill him. Nothing could save him.

Aaath Ulber grew mighty during the course of that night, and as he did, his appearance altered subtly.

With three endowments of wit, a new light shone in his eyes, a keenness to his perceptions. He would now learn more quickly and would not forget anything that he saw or heard.

As he garnered endowments of brawn, his back straightened and his massive bulk seemed to hang on him easily.

After taking endowments of stamina, the bruises and scrapes on his face began to heal in a matter of hours, and he grew more lucid despite the fatigue of the night.

With three endowments of grace, he began to move nimbly, with the ease of a dancer.

Two endowments of glamour made him seem younger and more handsome, so that even his scars appeared attractive; there was a new certitude to him, the kind of confidence that invites others to follow.

With endowments of voice, his tone seemed to become deeper and mellower, so that others were more inclined to accept his counsel.

After taking endowments of metabolism, his body began to speed, his breath quickening, his voice becoming higher. With ten endowments, he would be able run at a hundred miles per hour or more. With twenty endowments, he would even be able to run upon the surface of water.

But not all of the attributes he took that night produced a visible change. Some granted abilities that remained hidden.

Warlord Hrath himself gave up endowments of scent taken from dogs so that Aaath Ulber would be able to track wyrmlings and would be alerted to the presence of any that wandered near.

Endowments of sight would let him see more keenly than any owl so that he would espy enemies miles away, even in the darkness.

A few endowments of hearing would make ears sharper than a robin’s, so that he might hear a call for help from great distances.

So the night went, the barbarians bestowing Aaath Ulber endowments one after another, as fast as the old facilitator could manage, until he’d granted all sixty.

The barbarians of Internook were turning Aaath Ulber into a weapon fashioned from flesh and bone. They hoped to aim him like an arrow to the heart of their enemies, but Rain could not help but think how often arrows went astray.

The Dedicates were immediately hustled off to secret locations, for if the wyrmlings managed to find a Dedicate and kill him, the magical bond between Aaath Ulber and that Dedicate would be broken, and Aaath Ulber would lose the attribute that he so badly needed.

Thus some were carted off in wagons while a couple were hustled down to the docks and loaded into boats. Still others managed to hobble back to their homes or off into the wilderness to hide.

Sometime in the night, Draken rowed back out to sea to give word to Sage. At the first light of dawn he brought her to town.

Sage got off the boat and stood on the land, peering about at the trees and dirt, inhaling the scent of the forests above the village. The touch of clean earth revitalized her, lifted her spirits. She was happy to be back on land.

With the coming of day, messengers were sent to the east and west along the coast to bear the news with a warning from Warlord Hrath. “Be careful who you speak to. There are spies in the wyrmling employ. Tell the headman of each village and city what has transpired and beg their aid. But do not call for an open revolt against the wyrmlings yet. We dare not alarm them. Instead, we need more forcibles here, and we need the lord of each village to send a champion to join us. We meet tomorrow at dawn!”

Rain’s heart thrilled at the news, and she watched the proceedings with trepidation. The barbarians of Internook had always been enemies in her mind but now she found herself hoping for their success.

Lest a wyrmling patrol happen through town, Warlord Hrath had the young men take posts, surreptitiously acting as guards. They worked in barns and fields along the roads, with orders to whistle a certain song if any wyrmling happened along.

As the forcibles ran out and dawn blossomed, the crowds thinned, and sun came up a ruddy gold, with clouds on the horizon, their hearts blue and their edges lined with molten copper.

The old facilitator was weary, ready for bed, but Aaath Ulber had one more task for him. He pulled up his pants leg to reveal a welt, red and scarred with age. It was a rune that Rain had never seen before.

“When we get more forcibles, can you make a couple of these?” Aaath Ulber said.

The old facilitator knelt and studied the welt. He began to tremble nervously, then to laugh, giddy with excitement. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Yes,” Aaath Ulber said. “I got it in Inkarra when I was young. That, my friend, is the legendary rune of will.”

Rain studied the thing. It was an odd symbol that reminded her of a drawing of a thistle—with a central hub with many sharp spikes poking up from it.

A rune of will, it was said, multiplied most of a man’s abilities. Any man would be made stronger by it, faster, fiercer in battle.

But what will it do to Aaath Ulber, she wondered, a berserker who lost all consciousness in battle and became mad with bloodlust?

At that moment, there was a shout. “Leviathans! Leviathans in the bay!”

Everyone in town cheered and celebrated. There was a great blowing of war horns. The entire town turned out, rushing down the cobblestone streets.

Dozens of the great serpents were out in the water, eeling about. They roiled to the surface and the morning sun glinted off their silver scales, which were pocked with barnacles. The great males swam about with their fins rising up out of the water, some of their pectorals riding six feet above the foam.

Before the school of leviathan came the fish—huge schools that raced toward the shallows. As they neared the fish trap, they grew so close together that there was not an inch between them. Huge schools of red snapper and sea bass had gathered, their fins splashing the water white. Many of them leapt as much as a dozen feet in the air, struggling to get into the fish trap, and as always, not two hundred feet off shore, the leviathans circled ominously, thrashing and lunging as they took the largest fish.

Warlord Hrath studied the spectacle, beaming, and slapped Aaath Ulber on the back. “You’ve brought great luck to our village! We have not seen so many leviathans in years!”

Rain wondered how long the luck would hold.

24 A Desperate Plan

“Are you really going to attack the wyrmlings?” Draken asked his father that morning. “I mean, that wight of theirs, she helped you, right?”

“I’ll not be beholding to a wyrmling wraith,” Aaath Ulber explained to Draken. “She helped us for her own purposes, and I’ll have none of it. In fact, since she wants to make me her pawn, I want all the more to get rid of her. I’ll gut her along with the rest of her folk.”

Draken shivered. Dawn had come clear and cool, so much colder than the mornings back home in Landesfallen this time of year. He tasted a hint of ice in the air, and a bitter winter ahead. The sun slanted in through the village, casting blue shadows, and the smoke from cooking fires in the long houses clung near to the ground in the heavy air.

The men sat in the shade on the porch of an ale house, with the morning sun beating down all around them. Old Warlord Hrath seemed to be the leader of the town, but for the purposes of plotting this war, he had relegated a great deal of authority to young Wulfgaard.

The young man had brought a map from his house written on heavy parchment. The map itself might have been drawn fifty years ago, the parchment was so old and worn, but there were new markings painted here and there, and small notes written with charcoal.

The map showed the island of Internook, with its rough coasts and frozen tundra. But of greatest value was the information about the cities. Each city and village was shown in an inked circle, and beside the circle was a number in charcoal which represented the quantity of wyrmling troops assigned to guard that town.

In addition, a wash made of thin red paint showed where wyrmling patrols had been spotted.

“Not all of the figures are accurate,” Wulfgaard apologized. “I’ve got word from many of the towns along the coast, and from many of the farther villages, but I had to guess in some instances. Still, it is not hard to guess, if you know how many long houses are in a village. The wyrmling guards number only one to every one hundred of us.”

All in all, the map was a masterwork of intelligence gathering. Draken was impressed, as was Aaath Ulber.

But Draken had to wonder how one man might hope to secure the island, for it seemed that the island was covered in cities and villages. Hunting down the wyrmlings in each area might take weeks or months. And no matter where Aaath Ulber began his attacks, the wyrmlings would surround him.

But now Aaath Ulber put his finger on a dark blot some eighty miles south of them—the wyrmling fortress.

“Here,” Aaath Ulber said, “this is the prize. This is where we must attack.”

Some children ran past carry ing buckets. Aaath Ulber held the map on his knees, drew a long draught from a huge mug.

Draken wondered how many great battles had been plotted on the porches of ale houses.

The village was a riot. The fishermen were out on their levee with nets and spears, harvesting sea bass in great quantities. The women in town had taken up knives, while the children took the filets and soaked them in brine. The whole town had turned out for the harvest, and there was singing and rejoicing.

A carrion crow flew to the top of a merchant’s shop across the street and sat on a black iron weather vane. Warlord Hrath peered up at it and grimaced. The crow merely squatted on its perch, braving an afternoon wind that barely ruffled its feathers.

Aaath Ulber studied the map. “This wyrmling fortress,” he asked Wulfgaard, “have you found the bolt-hole for it?”

“Bolt-hole?” Wulfgaard asked. “There is none. There is only one way in, one way out.”

“The wyrmlings always have a bolt-hole,” Aaath Ulber explained, “sometimes more than one. A wyrmling warren is like an ant hive. The air within it needs to be refreshed. So there must be a second entrance somewhere. It has to be large enough for a wyrmling to get through, so it will have a roof of four or five feet at least. The bolt-hole will not be in sight of the main entrance, nor can it be at a higher elevation. Usually, it will be on the far side of a hill—not less than two miles from the main entrance, but often ten miles or more.”

“We haven’t seen anything like that,” Wulfgaard said. “Not a trace.”

“I’ll have to find it then,” Aaath Ulber said. “The wyrmlings will have it hidden. Rocks or brush might cover the entrance. But if you follow the wyrmling’s tracks . . .”

Aaath Ulber pointed out three large hills on a ridge to the west of the wyrmling fortress. “I’ll check here, behind this tallest hill. That’s a likely place.”

“I’d like to come with you, if I may,” Wulfgaard asked.

Aaath Ulber glanced toward Warlord Hrath, to get his input.

The warlord shrugged. “Wulfgaard here, he has a taste for blood.”

Aaath Ulber made a sweeping motion with his hand, from the eastern end of the island to the west. “We have hundreds of miles of coastline— and we know where the wyrmlings are stationed inland. We can’t clear all of this out. . . .” He frowned in concentration.

“Why can’t we?” Wulfgaard begged.

“It would warn the wyrmlings in the fortress,” Aaath Ulber said. “Each time that we kill a wyrmling, a couple of dedicates are freed. Those who have granted the dead wyrmling metabolism will wake from their slumber, someone who has given sight will regain his sight. This won’t go unnoticed for long, and the wyrmlings would retaliate, mount a campaign.”

Wulfgaard seemed not to have considered that.

“More importantly,” Aaath Ulber said, “by killing the wyrmlings, we’re endangering their Dedicates.”

“How is that?” Warlord Hrath asked.

“What do you think that the wyrmlings will do to a Dedicate that revives?” Aaath Ulber asked. “A man can never grant a second endowment, so they’re no use as Dedicates. They might be of some use as slaves—but there is nothing that a human can do that a wyrmling can’t. A slave would serve little purpose. But the wyrmlings have a taste for human flesh. I doubt that anyone who revives in the wyrmling dungeons will ever breathe fresh air again.”

Wulfgaard’s face paled in concern. “We can’t just slaughter the wyrmlings then,” he said. “Even if we wanted to, we can’t rise up against them without . . .”

“Sacrificing the lives of every man, woman, and child that they have already taken from you,” Aaath Ulber confirmed.

Warlord Hrath’s eyes flickered as he glanced up to Aaath Ulber. “There is really only one course of action then,” he suggested. “We should kill the Dedicates ourselves, take the wyrmling’s endowments from them. If we did, we’d leave the wyrmlings sunblind, as slow as commoners, and vastly outnumbered. We could take them then—even our old men could take them.”

Wulfgaard grabbed the map and threw it to the ground. “No!”

Draken looked up to Aaath Ulber. As Sir Borenson, he had killed Dedicates before, slaughtered them until the stairs on the Dedicates’ tower at Castle Sylvarresta ran with blood. There were songs sung about it still today.

Aaath Ulber shook his head and growled, “Now who is talking about sacrificing the lives of your people? By a conservative estimate, the wyrmlings have twenty thousand troops here on the land. Each of them has at least two endowments. The wyrmlings must have taken at least forty or fifty thousand of your people down to their lair.”

“More like a quarter of a million,” Wulfgaard said.

“By the Powers!” Aaath Ulber swore.

The number was staggering. It hinted at vast forces of enemies down in the warrens.

Aaath Ulber had never entered a wyrmling fortress of this size. He wondered if it was even possible to clear the monsters out of such a place with as few resources as he had.

Yet if he was to attack Rugassa, he imagined that this would be a good trial run. It would give him a chance to explore the wyrmlings’ lair, study their defenses, and learn more about the enemy.

Aaath Ulber asked, “A quarter million. Are you certain?”

“I’ve heard from people in fifty villages and cities,” Wulfgaard said. “If my estimates are right . . . then it is a quarter of a million at the very least.”

“So many can’t have given endowments yet,” Aaath Ulber suggested. “It would take four dozen facilitators working night and day to grant the endowments that have been given already.”

Unless the facilitators had taken endowments, Aaath Ulber realized.

He wondered. How many facilitators might the wyrmlings have? How many wyrmlings are in that fortress? If each warrior has only two or three endowments, does that mean that they have over a hundred thousand warriors?

That seemed to be too large a number.

Perhaps the wyrmlings are harvesting these folks, or merely executing those who present a danger.

Myrrima suggested, “The wyrmlings might be holding people captive until they have enough time to take their endowments.”

That sounds right, Aaath Ulber thought. It would accomplish two things: the wyrmlings could round up those most likely to revolt while ensuring themselves a stock of potential Dedicates.

But harvesting so many endowments would require forcibles. Did the wyrmlings have that much blood metal?

Aaath Ulber considered. They might be mining it here in the North, but it seemed more likely that they would rely on shipments coming in from Rugassa.

The thought sent chills through him. “If we could capture their forcibles . . .”

Suddenly, the worry over what to do with wyrmling Dedicates was shoved to the back of Aaath Ulber’s mind. There were more important tasks at hand.

Aaath Ulber pointed at the map. “I came to save human lives, not take them. There is only one way I can see to save the Dedicates. I’ll have to go down and kill their guards, then work my way up the tunnels, slaughtering wyrmlings as I go.”

Draken considered the plan. That would leave twenty thousand wyrmlings on the surface, wyrmlings that still had endowments, wyrmlings that would need strong men to fight them.

“We’ll need several champions,” Aaath Ulber said. It would be hard on these people to grant more endowments, but they would have to make the sacrifice. They’d have to scour the villages and farms nearby to find the needed Dedicates. “I’ll want good men with a hundred endowments each to clear out the wyrmlings runelords on the surface. I think that they’ll need twenty endowments of metabolism at the least. I’ll also need men with me down inside—to guard the wyrmlings’ hoard of forcibles, to guard the Dedicates, and to help me keep any wyrmlings from escaping. . . .”

Draken dared hope that he might be one of those who were granted endowments. He’d been in training with his father for weeks, practicing to kill wyrmlings. From the time that he was a child, Draken’s father had prepared him for this.

Warlord Hrath sat frowning, considering the plan. “This is dangerous,” he muttered. “If the wyrmlings on the surface get wind of what you’re doing . . .”

“They would wipe out entire cities,” Aaath Ulber declared. “They will wipe out cities, and there is little that we can do to stop them. But if the wyrmlings have as many forcibles as I suspect, we don’t have time to come up with a better plan. With every moment that we hesitate, they get stronger.”

Hrath shook his gray head. “A good plan is one that has a high chance of success—”

He was correct, of course. A new thought struck Aaath Ulber.

“If my guess is right,” Aaath Ulber said, “the strongest wyrmlings are down underground right now, giving in to their breeding frenzy. The wyrmlings have no love in them, but at this time of year a wyrmling bull becomes like a stag in rut. Its neck swells, its eyes become bloodshot, and its mind goes cloudy. The bulls fight each other for the right to mate with a woman, even if there are a hundred other sows waiting for the honor.

“With them in such a state, I should be able to slaughter their greatest lords wholesale. That means that the ones on the surface, for the most part, will be the weakest of their men, culls.”

Warlord Hrath shook his head. “And if you’re wrong?”

“Then maybe we’ll all die,” Aaath Ulber said, trying to make light of the situation. “But then, we’re all bound to die someday.”

He raised his mug of ale in salute and laughed heartily. The barbarians of Internook were a violent people, given to war. Hrath raised his own mug, and Wulfgaard did the same, and men all around gave a cheer.

“So,” Hrath asked, “you hope to kill all of the wyrmlings down in that hole?” The old warlord could not keep the edge of doubt from his voice. For one man to kill so many, tens of thousands, did not seem possible. Even a powerful runelord can make mistakes. Even Raj Ahten himself was bested by lesser men.

“I do,” Aaath Ulber confessed. The giant rose to his feet and paced a bit, deep in thought.

Myrrima peered up at him, her sharp eyes piercing. “Even their children?”

“Every lion grows from a cub,” Aaath Ulber said. “I cannot leave any alive.”

“Are wyrmlings lions?” Myrrima asked. “You told me once that they may have come from human stock—just like you, just like me.”

“They have no love, no sense of honor.”

“Will you slaughter the babes in their cradles?” Myrrima asked. Gorge rose in Draken’s throat at the thought. “Or will you bash in the heads of their toddlers? You want to protect us, and that is good,” Myrrima urged. “But where does protection end and vengeance begin? Where does honor meet dishonor?”

Aaath Ulber stood deep in thought. His face was a mask of revulsion.

He is a ship that has lost its mooring, Draken told himself.

Aaath Ulber looked to Warlord Hrath for counsel. The warlord shrugged.

“Leave the babes and the children,” Hrath advised, “any child smaller than a grown man. Perhaps some folks of Internook can take care of the babes. If any of the older children need to die, we’ll take care of it.”

Aaath Ulber sighed. “All right, I will spare the children that I can— and gladly. But I’d hoped not to do all of the killing with blade work. The wyrmlings often have the makings of smoke or water traps in their warrens. I’d hoped to use their own infernal devices against them.”

“Blade work will be the only way,” Hrath agreed.

Wulfgaard said evenly, “I want to be the one to guard our people in the underworld! My betrothed will be among the Dedicates.”

Aaath Ulber whirled. “If our warriors get killed down there, you understand that you can’t just let the Dedicates live. Our fallback plan must be to kill them all, to strip the wyrmlings of their advantage. Could you do that?”

Wulfgaard gulped, hung his head. “I could kill them all but one,” he protested.

Aaath Ulber peered hard at him and whispered, “That’s not good enough.”

Draken pondered. Could I do it?

Cold reason suggested that he should be able to.

I wish these people no harm, he told himself, but neither do I know them. I would care for no one down there, and I would spare no one. A man who gives an endowment to my enemy is my enemy, and his life is forfeit. Every man, woman, and child down there knows that.

“Perhaps I should be the one guarding the Dedicates,” Draken suggested.

The giant Aaath Ulber stared hard at Draken, his brow furrowed in thought.

“The boy has a good point,” Warlord Hrath put in. “It would be better if it was not one of our people down there, lest pity stay their hands.”

“Draken,” Rain argued, “you can’t do this. You can’t leave me behind. You have promises to keep.”

She was right, of course. He too was betrothed, and he could not just forsake Rain. He didn’t dare take the endowments of metabolism needed.

“I’ll go,” Wulfgaard said. “It’s not your battle. I’ll go, even if it means that I must kill my beloved.”

The wyrmling patrol reached Ox Port at eleven that morning.

They were announced by the town guard, of course. A young man pitching hay from a loft on the hill began to sing:

It was the signal that wyrmlings had arrived, and Rain’s heart began to hammer.

But Aaath Ulber took the news in stride. He glanced up toward the loft, and the young workman jutted his chin to the west, dropped his hand by his side, and held down three fingers.

“Looks like it’s time to earn my keep,” Aaath Ulber said, as he rose from his seat on the steps of the pub. He dusted off his pants and told Warlord Hrath, “I’ll need some rope.”

“You’re going to try to take them alive?” Hrath’s disbelief showed in his eyes.

Aaath Ulber grabbed a rock from the ground. It wasn’t large, perhaps only a pound, but his intent was obvious. “Every time I kill one of those wyrmlings, it frees several Dedicates—and sends them to their deaths. There are better ways to handle our enemies.”

He’d hardly finished speaking when the wyrmlings came round a bend, striding down the cobbled road in full war gear, bone-white armor and helms. Their heads swiveled back and forth as they marched through town. They were obviously searching for the wyrmling guards who were supposed to be watching the village.

Aaath Ulber walked toward them casually, head bowed. Few folks were on the street. They were all down in the bay, catching fish, cleaning them, salting them, preparing them to smoke.

So it was that Aaath Ulber sauntered up to the three. They bridled when they saw him, recognizing him for what he was, and one wyrmling looked as if he might turn and run for help.

Aaath Ulber merely stepped aside so that they could pass. The wyrmlings seemed confused by his actions. They halted, not daring to turn their backs upon him. One glanced ahead, as if fearing that more men of Caer Luciare might bar the way, when Aaath Ulber attacked.

He leapt in a blur, fists raining blows upon his opponents, pummeling them with no weapon greater than a stone.

Aaath Ulber didn’t have his full complement of endowments yet. He wanted twenty of metabolism, but the town had only seven forcibles left. The others had all been used up, and he wasn’t likely to get more soon.

But his endowments proved sufficient. Within two seconds he knocked all three wyrmlings down. One had a split helm, another gushed blood from his eye.

Aaath Ulber relieved the monsters of their weapons. One of them kept struggling to get up, and Aaath Ulber kicked him hard enough to break a few ribs, and put him back down.

It took nearly half a minute for Wulfgaard to fetch some rope from the pub. Then the men bound the wyrmlings and a dozen volunteers helped drag them back to the arena, where Aaath Ulber locked them in cages that had been made to hold bears.

“Shall we kill them?” Warlord Hrath demanded.

Aaath Ulber merely smiled. “Kill them? I’m going to take endowments from them. The brawn of three wyrmlings is not easy to come by.”

25 Water’s Warrior

A mile upriver from Ox Port, Myrrima climbed into a clear freshet and washed the weapons for the folks of the city. It was early morning still, just past dawn. She’d slept little during the night, yet somehow she felt renewed. The touch of water often lent her strength.

Birds were in the woods around her, flycatchers dipping to catch linnets that erupted like droplets of amber from a fallen alder across the river, and nuthatches and songbirds that chattered in mountain hawthorns.

The rune that she drew upon each club and blade was not one that had a name. She’d dreamt it once, long ago, in a nightmare where she battled a wight.

The dream had come on the heels of her own encounter with such a monster, an encounter that nearly left her dead.

The symbol that she drew was a rune for severing ties—ties to family, ties to friends, ties to the flesh, ties to the world.

Myrrima had never shown it to others. Things of such weight, she felt, were sacred. They came from the Power that she served, and were given only to her, to help her fulfill her purpose.

I am Water’s Warrior, she told herself as she blessed the weapons, and I have been called to war.

She wondered what her part should be in the coming battles. Her own weapon of choice had been the yew bow, a good length of strong heartwood, mottled red and white, with a bit of cat gut for a string.

For her arrow, she preferred a medium-sized shaft, one thin enough to get good distance but light enough to travel far. If she wasn’t fighting reavers, she’d want one with an iron tip that flared wide, a broad head that could sever arteries and slice through flesh.

She had not practiced her bow skills in weeks, not since the flood had taken her home. Indeed, she’d more or less given up on archery practice over the years.

She wondered now if she had done wrong.

Water had called her to war, but what part was she to play?

Perhaps all that I need to do is what I am doing now, she thought— blessing these weapons so that others may fight.

She’d dreamt that she had left war behind. She was at a point in life where her children were nearly out of the home. She’d hoped to plant herself in her little valley back in Sweetgrass and let the children grow around her, building their own cottages on the borders of her farm. She’d looked forward to playing with her grandbabies and passing down the lore of child-rearing to her children and their spouses.

But my life is at an end, she thought.

Borenson was gone, gone as completely as if he were dead. The last vestiges of him were hidden somewhere inside the giant Aaath Ulber, and by the end of the day, Aaath Ulber would take his death in endowments.

Twenty endowments of metabolism he required. With so many, he would live his remaining years in a flash. Two or three years he might survive, as measured by the seasons.

But during that time, he himself would move twenty times the pace of a normal man. Each day would seem stretched to him.

He’s gone beyond my reach, she thought. What once remained of my husband has left me forever, traveling not across the far reaches of the land, but across time, where I cannot follow.

Such thoughts filled her mind as Myrrima washed each axe and spear, dagger and sword, and then set them in the sun to dry, with the rune side up.

The sun needed to dry the weapons. The runes would be spoiled if wiped with a human hand.

When she finished, she stood with the sunlight at her back, and peered down at the mass of blades. Hundreds of them lay spread out upon the ground, all of the weapons in the village of Ox Port.

Among them were many fine bows, and whole quivers full of arrows.

Is this all that Water wants of me? Myrrima wondered. Or dare I go to war?

Already, Myrrima’s magic had saved them twice on this journey. She wanted to go into the wyrmling lair, to fight by Aaath Ulber’s side.

Yet she knew that she didn’t have the physical strength or speed for such an ordeal.

A horse whickered, and she glanced up to the road. A pair of young men sat in a wagon, waiting for her to finish. They looked to be fifteen or sixteen, about Draken’s age. Bright, young, full of hope. Their future stretched out before them.

She shouted up to the boys, “Almost done. When these weapons are dry, we’ll be ready to load. When you pass them out, tell the own ers not to wipe the blades before they go into battle—and not to wipe blood off of them in the thick of it.”

The young men nodded, and Myrrima went to a plain bow that looked to be fit for her size. She picked up an arrow from the ground, the gray goose feathers of its fletching still wet. She smoothed the fletching, nocked the arrow to the string, drew the bow to the full, and took aim at a knot on the tree.

The bow felt too strong for her. She could not aim it easily.

Or perhaps I am just too weak, Myrrima thought. A few days of practice, and my arm would grow used to it.

She let the arrow fly, and missed her knot by only an inch.

Myrrima looked up at the young men and thought of Sage, only fourteen years old.

If Myrrima was to go with Aaath Ulber that would mean she would leave Sage behind, a child abandoned by both of her parents. There was Draken and Rain, too, and Myrrima hoped to see Talon and Fallion, Jaz and Rhianna.

I am a mother, she realized. That is not a station that I dare abandon. I made a pact with my children before they were ever conceived, that I would be their champion, their bastion and hope. I promised to be their guide and companion.

Aaath Ulber was leaving, forging ahead down a path from which no man could ever return, and Myrrima decided to let him go.

He had not counseled with her or the children before taking his attributes. He had not explained his reasoning to her.

Perhaps he plans to say good-bye before he goes into the wyrmling fortress, Myrrima thought. He’d need to say his farewells to Draken and Sage and Rain.

Time to let him go forever, she thought, while tears streamed down her cheeks and she added her water to the ground.

26 A Gathering of Heroes

The day seemed longer than normal to Draken. Young men went out in the morning, and by noon none had returned.

Then folks began to trickle into Ox Port. One old farmer carried a load of horse manure on a cart drawn by a reindeer, and when he gained the inn, he reached into the muck and brought out thirteen forcibles.

Not long afterward, other gifts began to arrive. A young woman came into town riding a donkey, her hooded green robe pulled low, looking tired and haggard. She had no sooner reached the inn than she threw off her robe and leapt from the donkey’s back, vaulting high in the air.

She was a runelord who had taken endowments in secret, of course, come from some nearby city.

Other heroes from surrounding villages and cities began pouring in that evening.

None of them looked like the kind of men that Draken had expected. Each nearby town sent someone, but the warlords of Internook required only three things from their champions: First, the champions needed to be the most skilled warrior in his or her village. Among the runelords, great strength was not required, for with a single endowment of brawn a man wanting for strength could be made strong. Similarly, a man who lacked for dexterity could take endowments of grace, and those who were slow might have metabolism bestowed upon them.

So the warlords sought out those who had developed their fighting skills.

The second thing that the warlords required was self-sacrifice, for as Aaath Ulber told them, “All who fight this day will die.” Oh, they might not die in battle, but they would be forced to leave behind families. Fathers who aged twenty years in a single season would leave their small tots behind, orphaning them.

For those who had raised their families, the sacrifice was less. So it was best if the volunteers had no loved ones at all.

But the truth was that the warlords were unwilling to give endowments to a hermit or a recluse, for they believed that a man who had no connection to others of his kind was imbalanced, and was likely to become a danger in the far future.

Last of all, the champion had to be strong of heart. He or she needed to be merciless, firm in conviction.

So the heroes were chosen—nine in all. The folk of Ox Port chose Wulfgaard as their champion, and as forcibles began to dribble into town, the old facilitator granted the boy endowments.

Of all the champions, only Wulfgaard was young and male. The rest were older men, past their prime. But they’d spent many years dueling with the ax and spear. Three of the four older men were masters of arms who had schooled younger men for war, and the rest of the champions were young women who had been trained as bodyguards, for all across the world, the blade women of Internook were considered to be among the finest of warriors and were often employed by the wealthy to watch over young maidens.

So the wyrmlings, who did not send women into battle, had not properly gauged the threat posed by the women of Internook.

By nightfall, more than one facilitator had “wandered” into town. Folks from nearby villages and cities also came, “to help harvest fish.”

So the facilitators went to work, granting endowments all night long, hoping that they could bestow enough attributes upon their champions to put a stop to the wyrmling threat.

Long the facilitators sang into the night, while forcibles flashed white hot and left serpents of light in glowing trails.

Aaath Ulber coerced endowments of brawn from two of his captured wyrmlings, and took sight from the third, while the old facilitator in town managed to file down nine forcibles of will, granting one to each champion.

By night, folks sneaked into town through the woods. Most came only to gawk. The great champion had come in fulfillment of the wyrmling prophecy—rousing the hopes and fears of the barbarians.

The mood in town was like a festival, with folks singing, celebrating, and dancing in the streets. The townsfolk were cooking fish over an open fire, and selling muffins and hot roasted hazelnuts.

Someone even brought out a pennant and ran it up a pole—the red flag of Internook with a white circle, representing the fabled Orb of Internook that Garth Highholm had carried to war against the toth.

Warlord Hrath forbade the playing of pipes or drums, for it was too dangerous. As Warlord Hrath complained, “Loud music will attract attention. We might as well blow our war horns and sound an alarm for our enemies!”

He could not stop the celebration completely. The joy in town was like a strong winter’s tide, eroding the stones of despair on the beach, pulling them back in to deep waters.

Surely, Myrrima thought, this bodes ill.

Yet no wyrmlings came before dawn.

In the wee hours of the night, well before dawn, Aaath Ulber selected the weapons that he would take with him into the wyrmlings’ lair. He carried his old war hammer, the one that High King Orden had bestowed upon him ages ago. Along with it he took various daggers and wyrmling war darts, and a bastard sword that was too small for him.

Then he went to his family to say good-bye.

“Stay here,” he said. “Keep well. I will have little Hilde remain in the village to protect you all from harm, but you’ll need to be on the alert for wyrmlings too. Long and bloody will be this day, before I return, and when I do, I myself will see to the cities and towns hereabouts.”

“And if you don’t make it?” Draken asked.

“You will know the moment of my death when my Dedicates arouse. If you see that happen, know that I loved you.”

At that, Sage’s eyes welled up. “Don’t I get a choice in this?” she asked.

“Sometimes life doesn’t give us choices,” Aaath Ulber said, cupping a shoulder in each of his palms as he stared into her eyes. “The folks of Internook are looking for a hero, and apparently they think I’m the one to follow.

“So I must lead. And lest you forget, I had children on the shadow world. What has happened to them, I do not know, but I fear the worst— as I fear for all of our people.”

Aaath Ulber clapped Draken on the back. “Be strong,” he said. The young man had not been given a single endowment. But like his father, he was ready to fight wyrmlings with only the strength and talent he’d developed himself over the years.

Myrrima wondered how long it would take to clear out the wyrmling fortress. With twenty endowments of metabolism for each warrior, Aaath Ulber’s champions should each be able to butcher a thousand wyrmlings in an hour. But how many wyrmlings would be in that hole?

And what kind of man would Aaath Ulber be if he returned alive? She had seen Sir Borenson after he slew the Dedicates in King Sylvarresta’s Keep. The deed had left him only half alive, wounded to the core of his soul.

She could not imagine that this would be any easier, though he argued that he could do it.

She peered hard at Aaath Ulber and asked, “Why is it that when you runelords want to save a life, you feel that you must take a life?”

Aaath Ulber said sadly, “There is no other way to free the Dedicates, as well you know.”

At five in the morning, with the clear stars still glimmering above, the champions headed east toward the wyrmling fortress.

Even as they left, the facilitators kept up their songs so that attributes might be vectored to Aaath Ulber and his warriors.

27 The Door

The wyrmling fortress was Aaath Ulber’s goal. He let Wulfgaard lead them on a run through the starlight, racing a hundred miles in less than two hours. The roads along the coast twisted among hills dark with stunted pines.

A little inland, farms graced the land, long houses built among the hills. The folk of Internook all had a few milk cows and goats to supply for their family’s needs, and so there were trails aplenty.

The champions wore no armor, so they ran swiftly and easily through the night.

Aaath Ulber marveled at the power he felt. He was growing old. A couple of months ago if he’d thought of rising from his seat, he would have weighed his options to decide if he really needed to move. His age, his lack of strength, his lack of energy—all had been an impediment.

But with his new endowments, he found himself moving freely. With brawn and stamina, he had more than enough strength and energy to perform any task that he needed. With an endowment of will, there was no barrier to his desire. To think was to move.

To think of running was to run. So Wulfgaard led the champions through the hills, where they raced as quietly as possible, avoiding branches that might lie in their path. They bounded over brush piles and rocks like wild deer.

Years ago, Aaath Ulber had borne enough endowments so that he knew what to expect. When running at a hundred miles per hour, the body is often tricked. To him it seemed that he was merely sprinting.

But when he crested a small hill, his body would sometimes take flight, so that he would find himself leaping forty or fifty feet before he touched ground once again.

Often as they ran, they spotted deer and foxes along their trail, fleeing for cover. But they seemed to move slowly, as if in a dream, and Aaath Ulber could have easily brought them down.

No one saw them as they ran in the predawn. Wyrmlings were about, but as Wulfgaard had promised, they kept to the towns and villages and main roads, guarding the vast majority of the human population. They were not worried that men might be racing through fields and hills by night.

It was said that sometimes the wyrmlings sent out roving patrols, but Aaath Ulber’s champions met none. Perhaps the troops only moved in daylight now, when humans were most likely to be abroad.

Or perhaps Aaath Ulber was lucky.

When they neared the wyrmling fortress, Aaath Ulber paused and sent two champions to guard the front door outside the pinnacle, to keep the wyrmlings from escaping. By then, the sun was cresting the horizon.

Then the remaining six champions raced off through the countryside, seeking the wyrmlings’ hidden entrance.

Aaath Ulber merely sprinted into the rugged hills where he suspected that he might find a wyrmling trail, some fifteen miles west of the fortress, and followed his nose.

It is said that a hound dog’s sense of smell is sixty times more powerful than that of a man. Aaath Ulber had taken endowments of scent from three dogs, and like a wolf that can smell blood on the wind at five miles, he caught the odor of wyrmlings easily enough.

The scent carried him down out of the mountains, into a steep vale. By the time that Aaath Ulber reached it, the sun had risen, casting its silver light among the blue-shadowed hills.

The land here was almost too rugged for homesteads, but Aaath Ulber found a couple of rustic shacks that had belonged to goat herders and woodsmen.

All of the homes were empty. The wyrmlings had swept through the valley, ridding it of anyone who might have witnessed their patrols marching along the river.

At one shack, a pile of human remains revealed the fate of the poor inhabitants. Human arm and leg bones were scattered about in the front yard, the last resting place of a young family, and tooth marks showed that the wyrmlings had gnawed them well.

The wyrmlings’ scent led the champions to a shallow river, its bed graveled with rounded stones. Northern pines brooded along the shore, dark and stunted, growing so close together that a man could hardly walk through them.

The woods were soundless. No squirrels scampered up trees. No jays ratcheted. No stags bounded from the deep grass by the river and went leaping into the forest with their antlers rattling among branches. The only sound was the occasional clacking of a dragonfly’s wing as it hunted along the reeds.

“We’re getting close,” Aaath Ulber whispered to his champions. “The smell is growing strong.”

So the champions stopped and fed in silence, pulling rations from their packs—good white cheese with hard rinds, fresh bread, cooked fish that was still warm from the fires.

To an onlooker, it might have seemed as if they paused only for a minute there, but as Aaath Ulber’s body measured it, it seemed close to half an hour that they rested.

He knew that his men would need their energy. The coming day would be long and bloody.

When he finished, the champions ran. They did not run on the land, but over the surface of the water. With so much speed, it was easy enough to do.

Aaath Ulber had always wanted to try such a feat.

The water held beneath their feet well enough, but it was hard to get purchase, and harder still to change course. One tended to slide too easily, and stopping was all but impossible. It was much like running on ice, or upon spongy moss, but after a few moments, Aaath Ulber caught the hang of walking on water.

It required him to plan his turns. He could twist his feet a little, use the soles of his shoes to turn like a rudder. Starting required that he take little stutter steps, digging his toes into the pliant water, so that he splashed all of those who ran behind. To stop, he learned to dig his heels in, so that the resistance of the water slowed him.

As he splashed about, the water erupted beneath his feet in slow motion, the droplets hanging in the air like diadems.

All in all, he found water walking to be both a challenge and a joy.

The river gave a decent cover for the wyrmlings’ trail, for the water washed most of their scent away, and the stones in the streambed hid most of their tracks. But on the banks of the river one could smell dung and urine among the pine needles and leaf mold. In some places in the river, one could see huge footprints, twenty inches long and eight wide, there along sandbars and the muddy shore where the wyrmlings had marched.

So Aaath Ulber and his heroes raced over the water, negotiating the ripples of rapids, moving faster when the channel deepened into still pools.

Here and there, large brown trout fed, rising to leave rings of silver on the surface, and Aaath Ulber recalled days in his childhood when he would have had nothing more pressing than to sit and catch one.

The river channel led straight into the wyrmling fortress, three miles from where he’d joined it. The river itself poured out of a cavern in the rocks. The hole was tall and wide.

At the opening, the rock walls were covered with deep green moss. Tiny fairy ferns erupted from the cave wall in abundance, wild clover honeyed the air while a few wild blue mountain orchids on the riverbank gave off a scent like night and longing.

The party stopped for a moment, and Aaath Ulber sank into the water as they searched for any sign of wyrmlings in the woods at their side, or in the tunnel ahead. Aaath Ulber saw none, heard none. But he could not believe that the path ahead was unguarded.

He stopped, and the morning air was still and quiet, in the way that only the deepest woods can be. A strong wind tugged at his back, racing down into the cavern. It was as if the earth was inhaling endlessly.

“There is an old saying on my world about wyrmling fortresses,” Aaath Ulber told the others. “ ‘If it’s easy to get in, it will be impossible to get out.’ Beware, my friends: There are traps ahead.”

“Should we light a torch?” one of the champions asked.

Aaath Ulber shook his head. “It will foul our air. The wyrmlings use glow worms to light the ceilings and fire crickets to spark on the floors. The white skin of the wyrmlings themselves is faintly luminescent. We should have enough light to see by, even to fight by.”

Each of the champions had taken five endowments of sight, four of hearing. Aaath Ulber hoped that it would be enough to match the heightened senses of wyrmlings that had been raised in the dark for generations.

They raced into the long tunnel for nearly a quarter of a mile, running now on the water again. The channel was narrow and deep, the water as cold as ice.

Overhead, limestone formations dripped minerals, bands of yellow and white. Bats squeaked and clung to the roof.

Suddenly, a quarter of a mile in, a wonder was revealed: Aaath Ulber slowed and looked up in amazement. The cave widened into an underground lake, and overhead a great roof opened, perhaps fifty feet up. Glow worms by the tens of thousands lit the ceiling, and as Aaath Ulber peered at them with his wyrmling’s eyes, they seemed like constellations of stars glimmering in an eternal night.

Almost he dared stop, but the water was deep and he did not want to sink. So he merely slowed, plodding at perhaps eighty miles an hour, lost in glory.

The channel continued on, three more long miles, before suddenly it stopped. The river came cascading from a freshet above, and went churning off down the channel. But beside it was a wide roadway that had been carved with pick and awl—a tunnel.

The sour stench of wyrmling flesh issued from it, as if it was the lair of an old boar bear. Aaath Ulber could smell rotting flesh and bones.

He halted, raised a hand to warn the champions behind him. He could smell wyrmlings near, too near. He almost felt that he should be able to reach his hand out into the darkness and touch them.

He rounded a corner.

He expected a door here, a portcullis perhaps, or maybe a sliding wall of stone.

But the door before him was made of flesh. Wyrmlings stood guard, a wall of them: tall men with axes and battle hooks. They were broad of shoulder and great of belly.

They glowed faintly from their own inner light, and Aaath Ulber felt surprised that he could see so well by it. There were glow worms on the ceiling and walls, and now that there was a floor, a few fire crickets erupted in sparks at his feet.

The guards were not dressed like normal wyrmling warriors. They wore no battle armor carved from bone, no ornate helms or shields. They wore only loincloths to hide their ugly flesh—and their war scars, hundreds of scars from the kiss of forcibles.

Their leader halted, raised his ax to bar the way. “Halt,” he said in common Rofehavanish. “You cannot pass.”

Aaath Ulber had suspected that the wyrmlings would have their Raj Ahten, but he had not expected to find one so soon.

Yet he saw not one champion, but five of the wyrmlings ahead.

“Are you sure of yourself?” Aaath Ulber asked. “Certainly you’ve heard of the prophecy?”

“You have entered the lair of the lich lord Crull-maldor,” the wyrmling said, “from which no man has ever returned. She knows your plans. She sat in on your councils.

“Did you not see the crow on the roof across the street as you plotted our demise? She saw your maps, heard your plans. While your pitiful little facilitator secured a few endowments for you, ours granted us thousands.”

Aaath Ulber hesitated. These wyrmlings were dangerous. Among the humans, Aaath Ulber had been the greatest of their champions in personal combat. But his people had numbered only forty thousand. If Aaath Ulber guessed right, there were more than forty thousand wyrmlings in this hole.

“Did you come to parlay with us?” Aaath Ulber demanded. “Or to fight?”

“Both,” the wyrmling admitted. “Crull-maldor bids you turn away from here. The emperor is the one you want. He has your people in thrall, those who are left alive.”

“I understand,” Aaath Ulber said. “She doesn’t dare try to kill him herself, so she wants me to do it.”

“Yes,” the wyrmling said. “Here is her offer: Turn away now, and she will let your Dedicates live. She will take no action against you.

“But if you forge ahead, she will punish you. She knows where your Dedicates are hid in Ox Port—every boat, every barn and cellar. Forge ahead, and they will not live out the day, for already our champions are at their doors!

“Nor will your wife Myrrima, your daughter Sage, or your son Draken survive the day. Forge ahead, and Crull-maldor will lay waste to your family and to all that you love.”

Aaath Ulber froze in indecision, and could have stood wavering for a year. He knew well that he could not turn back. There can be no bargaining with wyrmlings.

To accept their offer was suicide.

Yet he worried that to go forward would cost him dear.

They’re bluffing, he told himself, more from hope than certainty. And even if they’re telling the truth, I dare not turn back.

This is the moment that every man dreads, Aaath Ulber realized. This is the moment when all of the future hangs in the balance. At the end of this fight, either these wyrmlings will be destroyed, or all that I have loved most will be gone.

He feared that both might be true, that he could not really win this fight.

There is a saying in Caer Luciare: Frustration is the father of wrath. A killing rage awoke in Aaath Ulber.

The berserker fury had always been strong in him, but now it came as a flame blossoms when the bellows blow upon it in the heart of a forge.

It was hot, furious. Aaath Ulber feared this wyrmling, for the creature knew too much about him. Certainly, the wyrmling’s threats held an element of truth.

Yet Aaath Ulber roared a battle challenge, held his war hammer high, and rushed into the throng of wyrmlings at full speed.

Behind him, five heroes gave a battle cry and charged in at his back.

28 In the Dedicates’ Keep

Dawn came silver and splendid to Ox Port, yet Myrrima’s heart felt heavy with foreboding.

The sun rose; the cocks crowed and strutted about on the streets and the roofs of the houses. The cows lowed and begged to be milked; the birds twitted in the bushes and sang their morning calls, the males warning one another from their trees.

But this was not to be a normal day. A war was about to erupt, furious and deadly. Myrrima could feel it in the pit of her stomach, a cold dread that left her guts and muscles in a tangled knot.

She took her borrowed bow and an arrow, and stood at the margin of the road, waiting for . . . something.

Each time a crow cawed in the trees, or a horse whinnied, it set her on edge. The mood was infectious.

The celebrations died abruptly after Aaath Ulber and his champions left, and everywhere throughout town, men and women by some instinct began taking up defensive positions, just in case. Thus archers hid in the lofts of barns, while men loitered in their doorways with clubs and swords handy, everyone casting furtive glances up the roads.

The facilitators were still singing in the town square, adding attributes to the heroes by giving endowments to their Dedicates, thus vectoring more attributes to the champions.

There was a sense of urgency to their songs. War was about to break.

Myrrima studied the scene and wished that there was some spell that she could cast. But she was a water wizard, and there was little that she could do but summon a fog to blanket the town.

Almost without thought she did it, pulling clouds of mist in from the sea. At first the mists sparkled in the sunlight, but so great was her fear that the fog soon became great indeed, blocking out the rising sun.

Shortly after dawn, when Aaath Ulber had been gone for an hour, Myrrima whispered into the ears of Warlord Hrath. He peered at her skeptically for a moment, then nodded.

Hrath turned to the crowd, clapped his hands, and called for attention. “People,” he shouted, “people of Ox Port, lend me your ears! We have an announcement—” He turned to Myrrima.

She stood in the cold gray fog, her face tired and expressionless. Yet there was an inner peace that burned in her eyes, like a glimmering pool. She said loudly and evenly, “All who wish to live, spit on the ground, giving water to the earth, and come to the great hall.”

A single tear streamed down Myrrima’s cheek and fell to the ground, her personal offering. She turned and marched east along the cobbled lane, heading toward the arena.

Warlord Hrath called to his people. “Go. She was a favored friend of the Earth King. Go with her. Take the Dedicates as well, all that you can find!”

So townsfolk came out of the mists bearing hundreds of Dedicates— all those who could walk or be carried.

Myrrima met the folks at the door, and splashed them with water from a bucket. “The waves wash you,” she said as she sprinkled droplets over the head and shoulders of each person. “The sea secure you. May water make you its own.”

She made sure that each person spit, and then bade the townsfolk enter.

As each person passed the threshold, a mist rose up at their feet and followed them into the arena, creating a dense fog.

It was not until Myrrima saw the Dedicates all herded together—blind and lame—that she realized just how many endowments had been given. More than eight hundred endowments had been granted in a town that hadn’t had many more people than that in the first place. Obviously, most of the Dedicates were from nearby villages and farms. But even the hundreds of Dedicates that gathered in town did not make up the full score. Dozens were still on boats, far enough out from shore so that they could not be reached.

“Get our Dedicates all together,” Warlord Hrath said. “They will be easier to protect if they’re all in one place.”

So the townsfolk made up beds down on the arena sands and in the tunnels. Men took up guard positions at the doors, and Warlord Hrath set their little champion Hilde up in the midst of the Dedicates. She was ringed by men and women who were blind and deaf. Those who had given grace were curled in little balls, their muscles spasming with no way to relax. Those who had given strength had gone flaccid and weak. Those who had granted their wit had become morons, drooling creatures that leaked into their own britches and found joy in the warmness thereof.

The arena became a mad house, a sick ward, while mists and fog floated among the torches.

Children ran rampant.

No sooner had the doors to the arena been bolted and a few torches lit in their sconces than a cry rang out.

Some who had granted endowments of metabolism and fallen into a magic slumber suddenly wakened. Some who were blind could suddenly see.

“Lord Theron is dead!” a man shouted. “My lord has fallen!”

By ancient custom, when a lord died in battle, any who had granted endowments of wit to him would tell the tale of his fall, for such Dedicates had shared memories of their lord’s last moments and could often recall bits and snatches of their lord’s demise.

Thus, two men and two women rose up and cried, “Theron is dead, long live his memory!”

No sooner than they had spoken, than other Dedicates began to revive, and cries rose up. “Lady Gwynneth has passed!” someone shouted. “Lord Brandolyn is gone!”

Too fast, Myrrima thought. Our champions are dying far too fast.

“They died in a cave,” one man cried, “while wyrmling giants towered over them.”

A small woman, old and frail, called, “They came, runelords of great power—five in number, to bar our lords’ way.”

“They knew the name of Ox Port!” a young woman shouted. “They breathed out threats against the Dedicates here. They say that their champions are coming to take vengeance!”

“With a meat hook they grasped our Theron by the throat,” a handsome young man shouted. “With an ax they felled him.”

There was silence among the crowd, astonishment at the news, and Myrrima looked to Warlord Hrath. His eyes darted about as he studied the entrances to his arena, like a cornered animal.

“Our lord was a kind man,” the first of the sages said. “His last thoughts were of his wife and family. His last fear was for our safety.”

There was a deep silence during which Myrrima could hear her heart pounding and little else. She looked around the room. Draken had a nice long sword that Hrath had given him. Myrrima had a war bow and some arrows. Rain had a short sword, and Sage had nothing at all.

For long seconds, Myrrima waited for more of the Dedicates to revive, but none did.

Aaath Ulber is still alive, she realized. He has made it past the wyrmling guard by now.

But she knew that she could be wrong. He could have been knocked senseless, left bound and gagged. The fact that he was alive did not mean that he was safe.

In the Room of Whispers, Crull-maldor took reports of the enemy movements. “They’re nearing the laboratories!” a voice shouted through one glass tube, while another warned, “They’re in the butchery!”

The reports came so rapidly on the heels of one another that they made no sense. “Which is it,” Crull-maldor demanded, “the laboratories or the butchery?”

But neither of her captains answered. By then, she surmised, both had been slaughtered, and now new reports issued from the communications tubes, a myriad of conflicting whispers.

The human champions were moving through the fortress with maddening speed; Crull-maldor could not keep up. In less than ten seconds they had cleared the butchery, she suspected, and spent another minute racing through the halls. It had been fifteen minutes since they’d breached the entrance.

“Drop all of the portcullises,” she said. “That will slow them down.”

The problem was that the humans had come in through the back gate and now were charging up through the warrens, level after level. The wyrmling horde could not use smoke to defend themselves from such an attack.

Though she might close the portcullises, each level was controlled from the level below. The humans would soon figure out how to open the gates above, and her tactic would barely impede their progress.

But that was all she wanted at the moment: to slow them.

Crull-maldor had not anticipated this attack. She had expected Aaath Ulber to be reasonable. Humans loved their families, would do anything to protect them. That much she knew.

Yet by his actions, Aaath Ulber had sentenced his own wife and children to death.

Already the humans had moved through much of the lower tunnels, slaughtering thousands of wyrmling women and children. Soon, they might reach her Dedicates’ keep.

The humans would slaughter the Dedicates, of course. It was the rational thing to do, and once the Dedicates were gone, her wyrmlings would be left defenseless.

This man could destroy me, Crull-maldor thought. All of my years of work will have been wasted. Lord Despair will punish me, drain my soul.

Crull-maldor did not know what happened to the consciousness of a spirit once it died. There were two kinds of death, the death of a body and the death of a spirit. Despair knew how to kill both.

Yet it was whispered among the liches that life never ended. At the death of the body, the spirit wandered into its own world. At the death of the spirit, it was said that the consciousness traveled beyond the spirit world, into a realm of mist. There, life continued, but a life unfathomable to her.

She did not know if she believed in life beyond the spirit world. She suspected that the death of her spirit would be the end of her.

Crull-maldor considered whether to attack Aaath Ulber herself, but dared not try it. He moved too swiftly for her now, and he bore weapons that could destroy even a lich lord. But Crull-maldor was poised to put an end to the threat. All that she had to do was kill Aaath Ulber’s Dedicates.

This is just a race to see who can slaughter whose Dedicates first, she reasoned.

Crull-maldor reached out with her consciousness and touched the mind of one of her fell warlords, a man named Zil, who had hundreds of endowments to his name.

She saw through his eyes: a wooded glen of dark pines, just outside Ox Port. He was upon a tall slope, looking down, and Crull-maldor could see a great wall of fog overtaking the village, rolling in from the sea.

With Zil’s endowments of hearing, the sounds of the town came preternaturally clear: the shouts of children, the songs of the facilitators as they garnered endowments.

All around him, his troops hid, crouching motionless in the shadows.

“Take your runelords into the village,” Crull-maldor whispered. “Now is the time. Cut down every human in the village.”

Zil barked one short command to his troops. “Kill!” and the wyrmling runelords went leaping out from under the trees, racing toward town, silent and deadly.

The red haze melted from before Aaath Ulber’s eyes gradually, even as he continued to fight. He leapt on the back of a falling wyrmling soldier, slit the man’s throat, and rode him to the ground. Wyrmling women and children were crying out in terror, trying to flee. But the corridors ahead were packed, and they could not run fast enough.

Indeed, they were like a wall before him, a wall of flesh that blocked his own progress.

His arms ached from fatigue, as did his lungs and back. Great hunger assailed him, and he nearly collapsed, his head spinning from exhaustion.

Instead, he dropped to one knee and just squatted, gathering his breath.

“Aaath Ulber,” Wulfgaard whispered. “Are you hurt?”

Aaath Ulber checked himself visually; he was drenched in blood. He wiped it from his eyes, felt it running down his arms and face like sweat. At first he thought that it was all wyrmling blood, but then he noticed a pain in his right bicep. A wyrmling had caught him with a meat hook. There were smaller slashes on his chest, scoring through his leather jerkin, and scrapes on his face and knuckles. He had enough endowments of stamina to withstand such wounds, and he would heal from them by sunset, if all went well.

“I’m good enough,” he said, as memories washed over him. He recalled the threats made against his wife and family, and his stomach knotted. Beyond that, everything was vague—charging through tunnels lit by glow worms, the sound of screams, wyrmlings dying at his hands by the thousands, mothers and children with heads cleaved by the ax, babes dashed against the floor. “I am well,” he said in despair. “I am well.”

His muscles were quivering, trembling. He turned and glanced at Wulfgaard. A warrior named Anya stood at his back. Both were covered in gore.

Behind them the passage was choked with bloody bodies, wyrmlings bathed in red, many of them still twitching or flailing their legs.

“Where are the rest of our troops?” Aaath Ulber asked.

Wulfgaard ducked his head, peered at the ground, and whispered, “They now ride in the Great Hunt, may their spears be sharp and their aim be true.”

“We need to stop and eat,” Anya begged Aaath Ulber. “You were the one who said that we should eat and rest every hour or two.”

Aaath Ulber grunted. He felt weak and wasted. He’d never imagined a hunger that ran so deep. A runelord can fight for hours on end, but not without food. It takes energy, and already Aaath Ulber’s fat stores were depleted.

Anya threw off her pack and pulled out some bread, roast chicken, and blueberries. It would take only a minute in real time for them to eat, to catch their breath. But in that minute the wyrmlings would have some time to regroup.

“How long was I out?” Aaath Ulber asked. “How long have we been fighting?”

“Five hours, I think,” Anya said.

“Six, by my guess,” Wulfgaard answered.

Time was a relative thing for them. Each had a different mix of endowments, and each had his own sense for the passage of time. Down here in the wyrmling hole, there was no sun to measure time by, only wild guesses.

Aaath Ulber had never been trapped in a berserker’s rage for more than half an hour. But this time he had been gone for hours?

I am undone, Aaath Ulber thought. Taking that endowment of will was unwise.

Yet he could not undo the damage.

It was too long to have gone without eating, and so the warriors fed.

“Where have we been?” Aaath Ulber asked.

“Endless warrens,” Wulfgaard said. “There are several tunnels that run parallel to one another. Most of them house workers. We found the breeding cavern. You were right, there were thousands of wyrmlings in it, but they were not . . . properly attired for battle.”

Aaath Ulber had heard the rumors of course—naked wyrmlings driven mindless with lust. But no human had ever really witnessed such a thing. The tales all came from captured wyrmlings.

Aaath Ulber only vaguely recalled the sight—wyrmlings by the hundreds, naked and wrapped in one another’s arms and legs, mindless in their breeding frenzy.

“Our main goal,” he said, “should be to find their Dedicates.”

After the Dedicates were secure, he didn’t care what happened to the rest of the wyrmlings. He’d try to set fire traps, let the smoke smother the wyrmlings in the chambers above.

“They can’t be far,” Wulfgaard reasoned. “You can’t hide a quarter of a million people down here.”

Aaath Ulber agreed.

So they wolfed down their food and chugged their ale. No wyrmling dared to attack. The creatures were running up the tunnels, struggling to escape. They screamed and trampled one another, leaving dozens injured and dead in their wake.

It made for less work for Aaath Ulber.

Inside five minutes as Aaath Ulber’s body measured time, he finished feeding. The others were not done yet, and he studied them. They were moving slower than he.

The folks in Ox Port know of our plight, Aaath Ulber realized. They’re vectoring endowments of metabolism to me. I’m moving faster than my companions.

How much faster? he wondered. Twice as fast? No, he didn’t feel that he was moving that much faster. But it seemed that he had more endowments of metabolism than the others, five or ten more.

He glanced at a fallen wyrmling woman lying nearby. Her tunic had been slashed in the back, revealing her pale skin. A pair of scars showed on her back.

Aaath Ulber pulled at the fabric, ripping it, to display the scars better. Runes of metabolism had been burned into her flesh.

“All of them have endowments,” Anya said, “even the babes.”

Aaath Ulber took out a stone and began to sharpen the spikes on his war hammer, expertly pulling the oilstone at an angle.

He pondered the implications of wyrmling babes and mothers taking endowments of metabolism. An entire wyrmling hive living at three times the speed of a normal man? What would it lead to?

He imagined miners hauling ore from the ground at three times the normal rate, and smiths hammering out blades. He imagined babes growing at three times the normal speed, while mothers spawned two or three wyrmlings in a single season.

The implications were enormous. They’ll outwork us, outbreed us. They’ll create . . . a society that will overrun ours.

What had Gaborn said? “Their armies will sweep through the heavens like autumn lightning?”

And it would cost the wyrmlings virtually nothing. One does not have to feed a Dedicate who has given an endowment of metabolism. One does not have to give him drink or worry about his escape. Such folk simply fall into a magic slumber until the day when their master dies.

It is said that those who give endowments of metabolism still breathe, but it happens so slowly that Aaath Ulber had never seen it. It is said that their blood still flows. But their rest is like hibernation, except that their sleep is deeper than that of any bear.

It took nothing to maintain such folk. All that you had to do was to make sure that the rats didn’t gnaw at their flesh. A few rat terriers in the Dedicates’ Keep handled the job.

The monumental horror of the wyrmlings’ scheme struck him.

The only way that such a society could exist was if the wyrmlings continued to take endowments from the humans.

They’ll take metabolism from us all, Aaath Ulber realized. That’s what they’re doing here on Internook: taking endowments as fast as their facilitators are able. They each have two endowments now, but in a week they’ll each have three, then four or five. Where does it all stop? When the wyrmling cows are dropping nine of their calves a year, or ten?

In a month, he realized, we could reach that point. In three months, the wyrmlings could each have fifty endowments or more.

His people would not be able to compete against such monsters. There would be no war—not even a hope of war—not if a wyrmling child matured to adulthood in a single year and spawned a dozen more of its kind!

He looked to Anya and Wulfgaard in alarm, speechless.

“Yes,” Wulfgaard said. “We see it, too. We found their armory, where they carve armor from bones. They use reaver horns to make their awls. The children were making armor for themselves, the women too. The whole wyrmling nation is preparing for war.”

“What did you do to the children?” Aaath Ulber asked.

“We left the smallest of them alive,” Wulfgaard said, “as planned. I didn’t know what else to do.”

With an edge of hysteria to her voice, Anya said “They’ll put us all to the forcible. They’ll take metabolism from each of us—from every man, woman, and child.”

There were four million people in Internook. Aaath Ulber had imagined that he had enough barbarians to defeat the wyrmlings. But now he considered how the wyrmlings might see them. These four million people weren’t rivals, just cattle ready to be slaughtered. Four million people were not foes, they were potential Dedicates.

The wyrmlings’ plan was so diabolical that Aaath Ulber felt sickened. He realized something else. Thousands of men and women on the island had been forced to grant endowments to the wyrmlings’ children, and those men and women could not be freed until the wyrmling children were dead. This bloody task would fall to him. The very thought of slaughtering babes—even wyrmlings—nearly left him unhinged.

Killing innocents, Aaath Ulber considered. Is this the subtle trap that Lord Despair has set for me?

How can a man slaughter a babe without doing irreparable harm to his soul?

Aaath Ulber closed his eyes. Will I be a hero if I do what must be done? Or will I become food for a wyrm.

He could see no way past this.

I’ll have to go back and kill the children and babes, he realized.

But before I become food for a locus, he vowed to himself, I will strike a blow against the wyrmlings from which they can never recover!

Aaath Ulber finished sharpening his blades and then leapt to his feet. “We must find the wyrmlings’ Dedicates’ keep,” he said solemnly. “We cannot rest again until we have claimed it.”

Wulfgaard’s eyes flashed to Anya, as if asking if she would be up to the challenge. As one the three gave a cry and set off.

Aaath Ulber led the way, racing through the warren’s tunnels. Some wyrmlings were on the floor, trampled and wounded. He left them to the care of Wulfgaard and Anya, and considered: He was searching for Dedicates, and housing a quarter of a million would be hard under normal circumstances. But a sleeping body doesn’t require much space.

So he ran ahead, rounded a corner, and spotted citizens fleeing.

But off to his right was a wide side tunnel, and in some dim recesses he glimpsed a brilliant white light.

Aaath Ulber wheeled and raced down the tunnel, into a broad chamber. The limestone ceiling was hung with stalactites. Water was seeping along the walls, leaving the room humid.

Aaath Ulber felt a cool chill, the presence of wights. His breath came out as fog, and ice fans glinted on the ceiling. Across the room he spotted forty or fifty shadowy wights wearing nothing but shimmering black spider cloth.

Some began to whisper and hiss as they cast hasty spells.

He reached to his belt and pulled out some wyrmling war darts—heavy iron darts that weighed roughly a pound each. He tossed four at once, letting them fan out across the room.

The war darts screamed into the wights’ ranks, ripping through robes and vaporous flesh.

A dozen wights shrieked at their touch, giving off a piercing wail. A foul green-black cloud erupted as the creatures unraveled. The cold iron blessed by Myrrima’s spells made for a fatal combination.

Several wights lunged toward a far door. Aaath Ulber pulled a dagger and hurled it into the crowd.

Two wights erupted in a foul smoke, while others rushed away.

He raced into them, drew his longsword, and danced among them, taking them with ease, careful not to let one touch him.

He felt a cold wind at his back, whirled to find a wight floating toward him, shadowy hands extended.

Aaath Ulber slashed at it, and the wight exploded into noxious fumes. A cold wind seemed to drive through Aaath Ulber, freezing his heart, but the wight was gone.

He whirled and peered about. He could not see any more of the wights, but he wondered how he’d missed that last one.

They could be tricky. A wight must hide from light by day, but any shadow will do—a snake hole or the crack under a rock. They can fold themselves into extremely small spaces.

Nowhere in this room was safe.

He studied the room: it was a laboratory where wyrmling sorcerers worked. There were iron spikes on one table and crucibles filled with vile secretions nearby. The wyrmlings had been making harvester spikes here.

Over on one wall hung a pair of artificial wings, in the process of completion. The bones of the wings looked to be carved from the bones of a world wyrm, but the wights had stretched the skin of a graak over their frame, and now long pipes made from arteries and veins climbed the wall like vines and carried blood to the wings, so that they might grow. The heart of some large creature was lying in a wooden tub half full of blood, pumping nutrients to the wings.

All of this Aaath Ulber took in during a single glance, but one thing above all caught his attention: a cloudy white orb that sat on a table, emitting a flickering light.

“The orb!” Wulfgaard called. “The Orb of Internook!”

Aaath Ulber did not know whether to believe it. He didn’t trust such luck. The orb was a thing of legend, a relic said to hold tremendous power.

Erden Geboren himself had brought it from the netherworld in ages past and had bestowed it upon one of his friends.

But as with all relics, thieves had sought it. Hundreds of times over the centuries the orb had disappeared, only to be recovered a few de cades later.

As far as Aaath Ulber knew, it had not resurfaced in the past century.

“Is it,” Anya asked, “is it real?”

Aaath Ulber approached the thing, peered into it. The ball looked to be of clear crystal, shot through with clouds. But the clouds inside the ball swirled slowly, much as clouds will float on a summer’s day.

If it isn’t the Orb of Internook, Aaath Ulber thought, it’s something equally as mysterious.

He glanced around the room, spotted dozens of artifacts in the making. He recognized all of the other wyrmling creations, but had never seen anything like this.

“It’s the orb, all right,” Wulfgaard said. “See, it sits upon a human cloak. The wyrmlings were afraid to touch it. So they brought it here to study.”

Aaath Ulber peered down. A rich green cloak with hems of cloth of gold served as the resting place for the orb; the cloak had a gold cape pin upon it shaped like a hawthorn leaf. It was something that a fat lord might wear.

“The wyrmlings have been raiding our homes,” Anya said, “taking everything of value—gold, weapons.”

“Well,” Aaath Ulber said, “it looks as if they found something better than gold.”

He leaned close and studied the orb, saw that its surface was inscribed with fine lines—graceful runes that danced along the surface. But he’d never seen runes like these.

He grabbed the orb, wrapping the cloak over it protectively, and hefted it.

The orb sparked when his finger grazed it, sent out a pulse of bright light. The air crackled from static electricity as fiery butterflies whirled about him, then dove into his flesh. His muscles cramped and burned at their touch.

“It punishes you,” Wulfgaard said.

The orb was not enormous. It seemed to be a foot across. But as Aaath Ulber bundled it tightly in the robe, he felt the ball shrink at his touch, as if fleeing from him.

In a moment it was only four inches in diameter, and it went as black as night.

“What did you do?” Wulfgaard demanded.

“Believe me,” Aaath Ulber said, handing the thing off to Anya, who immediately pulled off her pack and began to stuff it in, “I have no idea what I’m doing. But we don’t have time to figure out this mystery now.”

“There are tales of the orb calming the seas for our warships—” Wulfgaard said.

“And hurling storms against enemy fortresses,” Aaath Ulber said. “If you can figure out how to unleash a storm against this fortress, be my guest.”

Anya whispered, “Tellaris used it to guide her daughter’s spirit back from the land of the dead.”

Aaath Ulber knew strange legends about the orb. There were hints of a curse. Too often those who sought to own it wound up dead.

Of course, he thought, the same could be said of any man who owned a fine horse, too. The world was full of thieves who would gladly slit your throat for something like this.

“Move on,” Aaath Ulber ordered. “We’ve got to find those Dedicates, and time is wasting. . . .”

“Myrrima,” Rain said, her face filled with concern, “I think that I should row out to the Borrowbird. A battle is coming. Sage should go with me. It will be safer there.”

Rain’s heart pounded. The revived Dedicates had warned that wyrmlings knew the name of Ox Port. That meant that they would be here soon. A man with ten endowments of metabolism could easily run sixty miles an hour. At such a speed, the wyrmlings couldn’t be more than an hour and a half away. Probably, they would be here much sooner.

Can we even make it? Rain wondered.

Fleeing sounded like a good idea right now—not just for Rain, but for all of them.

“Won’t you come with us, Mother?” Sage asked.

Myrrima smiled grimly and shook her head. With a jut of her chin she motioned toward the collected Dedicates. “I can’t,” she explained with infinite sadness. “These are your father’s. Someone must protect them.”

There was a runelord guarding the room, the young woman Hilde. But Rain understood what Myrrima meant. She couldn’t just leave the Dedicates in a stranger’s care.

Draken growled and drew his sword. “Nor can I leave.”

Rain studied his face, so full of resolve.

“Aaath Ulber is not your father,” Rain pointed out to Draken. “You don’t owe him your life.” She pleaded with Myrrima, “Nor is he your husband.”

“You’re right,” Myrrima said. “Perhaps there is only a tiny piece of Borenson left in him, a small corner of Aaath Ulber’s mind. But even if he is only a ghost of a memory, I must remain faithful to him. I know that now.”

“As must I,” Draken said.

He gazed into Rain’s eyes, and there was so much pain in his gaze, so much concern. “Please,” he said. “If you must go, go!”

Sage wept and she threw her arms around Myrrima, gave her a hug. She came to a decision. “I want to stay, too, Mother.”

Rain glanced toward the door in a near panic. Time was wasting. She admired the family’s dedication to one another, but she didn’t want to die for Borenson’s memory.

Myrrima looked at her daughter Sage; the love in her face had grown fierce. “Stay with us then. We can all watch your father’s back together.”

They’ll die trying to save what is left of Sir Borenson, Rain realized. She wondered if Borenson had indeed been such a great man. Was he, or anyone, worth such a sacrifice?

A distant cry rose from far down the street, a woman’s wail of fear and pain. The wyrmlings were coming.

Rain didn’t trust Myrrima’s magic. It was said that water wizards had uncanny powers of protection, but they were not foolproof. A powerful mage could see right through the wizardess’s ruse, as could a person with a strong and focused mind.

Some folks in the arena cried out in alarm, they glanced about in a panic, as if seeking the closest exit.

Myrrima stood at the door and blocked their escape. “Hold!” she called. “No one may leave. The enemy is here already. They are searching the town. We are hiding, hiding in a mist of our own making. No enemy can find us here. Avert your eyes from your enemy, and they shall avert their eyes from you! They will not see you!”

Before she finished her last words, there was a boom at the door to the arena. A wyrmling ax cleaved through it, shattering the wood and creating a wedge of light.

Myrrima whirled to face the threat.

Faster than a heartbeat, a second blow rang upon the door, and then a third; the wreckage of the door flung open.

A huge bull wyrmling stood for an instant, glaring into the arena.

Children gulped in terror.

Myrrima faced him. She looked down to the floor, and the wyrmling’s eyes followed.

The wyrmling was breathing rapidly. A dozen endowments of metabolism he had to have had.

The wyrmling bull peered about the room, and his eyes seemed glazed, unfocused, as if he wandered through a waking dream.

Suddenly a cry rang out in the arena. One of the Dedicates had awakened, and she called out in a wail, “Alas, our lady Anya has fallen in battle!”

Rain stifled an urge to curse and brought her short sword ringing from its sheath as she waited for the wyrmling to charge.

Aaath Ulber roared in pain as a wyrmling runelord’s ax sliced into his scalp, chipping bone from his skull.

The blow knocked him back a pace, and he staggered, head reeling. He tried to find his feet.

He’d reached the Dedicates’ keep. Unfortunately he’d found the wyrmling guards, too—enormous bulls who were scarred by hundreds of forcibles.

One of them rushed into the breach and lunged with a meat hook, snatching Anya from her feet. She writhed and her bright blade flickered forward like the tongue of a serpent, but the huge meat hook had caught her in the back of the neck. The wyrmling shook his fist, and neck bones snapped. Anya’s head lolled crazily.

The wyrmling hurled Anya against the wall as Wulfgaard gave a battle cry. The boy lunged with his own sword and plunged it beneath the wyrmling’s arm, so that it ran up the bone and bit deep into the creature’s armpit. Hot blood erupted from the wound, and Wulfgaard danced backward.

Aaath Ulber charged, knocking the dying guard away, and saw Dedicates ahead. In the dim light thrown by ten thousand glow worms on the roof high above, he saw men and women stacked like cordwood, three or four deep.

Alarm bells had begun to sound, huge gongs that tolled solemnly. The wyrmlings had tried to slow Aaath Ulber down by closing the portcullis gates, but he’d spotted gear boxes below, and soon discovered that he had to open each box in order to clear the level above.

But he’d found the wyrmlings’ treasure.

The room was filled with Dedicates. Many were still sleeping, but others were now awake—men and women freed from their endowments.

Unfortunately, the keep was also filled with wyrmlings. The wyrmling workers were trundling about with great swords, taking the heads off of anyone unfortunate enough to rise.

Bodies lay thick on the floor.

With a rush of bloodlust, Aaath Ulber buried his war hammer into the chest of a wyrmling runelord, then leapt in the air and kicked the head off another.

The path opened.

Wulfgaard rushed into the room, eager to find his betrothed.

Aaath Ulber glared at the wyrmling workers, so intent on slaughtering the Dedicates as they woke, and a red curtain lowered in front of his eyes.

With an animal howl, he waded in among the dead and rushed the wyrmlings.

Warlord Zil stared uncomprehendingly into the humans’ arena at Ox Port. It was a strange building, with thick walls all around but open to the sky.

Inside, hot springs rose from the ground in an emerald pool, with roiling mist rolling off in waves.

A few beech trees grew beside it, and wild birds flitted among the branches, chirping and singing.

Zil wondered at it. It looked like some kind of sanctuary, a walled bath where a human lord might soak beneath the trees and meditate.

Or perhaps the barbarians performed sacred rites here, made some sort of offerings to Water.

There were trees, he saw, but there was no place to hide. The bath was empty.

He heard a cry of alarm. Almost it sounded like a human voice, and he turned his head. At last he realized that it was only the warning bark of a tree squirrel.

The wyrmling bull sniffed the air like a dog trying to catch a scent, and Draken waited for him to charge.

Suddenly there were cries down the street. The wyrmlings had found some more victims. The wyrmling whirled and disappeared, blinding in his speed.

Other wyrmlings flashed by, half a dozen runelords at least, and few spared more than a glance into the arena.

Cries rent the air all through town as the wyrmlings took those who had remained in their houses.

But the death brigades passed by the arena—and the vast majority of the townsfolk.

Silence fell over the village, and a minute later the town’s facilitator called out, “More endowments for Aaath Ulber! Who will grant him speed for his journey this day?”

The rest of the facilitators also began to cry out, hoping to heap endowments upon Aaath Ulber in his moment of need.

In the Room of Whispers, Crull-maldor learned the bad news.

“The humans are gone?” she cried.

Captain Zil stood at the far east end of the village. His men had made their sweep. She could see through the captain’s eyes as the men finished searching some long houses, then peered off to the woods.

“The smell of humans along the roads is strong,” Zil explained. “We think that they might have fled into the countryside.

“We have been through every house, every shop. The humans are gone.”

Crull-maldor took the news and tried to remain stoic. The humans had already taken her Dedicates’ keep. She could not hold them off.

Alarm bells were tolling. Her wyrmlings were fleeing the lower levels, seeking to escape through the main entrance. Her own people were opening the portcullises now, retreating mindlessly.

But the front gates were guarded too, and human runelords there slaughtered anyone who tried to escape.

Crull-maldor considered her options. “The humans cannot have gotten far,” she said. “Search the woods to the east. Perhaps they have escaped to the next town.”

With that, Zil and his wyrmling runelords bolted off to the east in a vast line, sweeping the woods for any sign of the fleeing humans.

Crull-maldor broke off communications. Her wyrmling champions had been slaughtered, and she suspected that in a few moments, the humans would execute her Dedicates, weakening her grasp upon the island.

Dozens of her lich lords were already dead.

More importantly, the humans would find her forcibles there in the Dedicates’ Keep, at least ten thousand of them.

She was only glad that there were not more. Lord Despair had promised to send them, but none had reached her yet.

I am undone, she thought. There is nothing left for me to save.

She had offered Aaath Ulber a trade, and he had refused. He had betrayed her hopes.

She took little comfort in the knowledge that Aaath Ulber would destroy the emperor.

Still, she thought, when the emperor is gone, I may manage to win his place.

The hope was faint, and even as the thought came to her it dwindled to nothing. No, she could not believe that she’d take the emperor’s place any longer. Only one thing was left to her. She promised herself: Aaath Ulber . . . I shall take my vengeance.

29 The Lich’s Touch

In the Fortress of the Northern Wastes streams of blood spilled down the hallways where corpses formed small dams and diversions.

After the Dedicates’ keep was cleared of its wyrmling assassins, there was no one left to stop Aaath Ulber.

A cask of forcibles he found there, ten thousand, all stored in a box hewn from granite. It was a great treasure, enough to endow powerful champions, and Aaath Ulber dared hope that it might be the key to saving mankind.

Yet the wyrmlings were still strong. More than a hundred thousand Dedicates lay in a slumber.

Aaath Ulber stopped at the door while young Wulfgaard searched among the Dedicates for his betrothed. He found her at last, lying facedown upon the floor in a puddle of her own blood.

Wulfgaard flipped her onto her back. Her face had gone white, drained, but blood stained her lips.

A rune of metabolism had been branded upon her forehead. It sat in a circle, a shapeless mass that somehow still pulled at the mind, begging to be recognized.

She must have wakened, Aaath Ulber thought, when we slew the wyrmling that took her endowments.

Wulfgaard lifted her in both arms, then peered up to the roof of the cavern and let out a long wail. He held her body high, as if begging the world to bear witness.

There will be no winning this war for that lad, Aaath Ulber thought. He might take vengeance, he might kill the wyrmlings, but that will be the end of it.

Aaath Ulber gave him a few minutes to sob and to mourn, as measured by his body. But in that time the sun had moved less than a minute in its journey across the sky.

The moment was used in preparation. Aaath Ulber threw away some of his blades, and sharpened some wyrmling weapons.

As he did, he planned how to finish it.

The wyrmling fortress was designed much like an ant’s nest. The lower opening, well hidden, let air vent into the warrens.

But the wyrmling bodies heated the atmosphere, so that warm air rose up through the tunnels—to finally escape at the upper entrance.

Killing the wyrmlings now would be an easy matter. All that Aaath Ulber needed to do was clear out the upper tunnels. He knew that the wyrmlings here defended their fortress with firetraps, and suspected that he would find such traps hidden on the floors above him. All he’d have to do was light them, and let the smoke carry death through the tunnels above.

Aaath Ulber ate his lunch, rested. Half an hour he gave himself. He needed no more than that. He had enough endowments of stamina so that he would no longer require sleep. Instead, he only stood as runelords do, staring away at some private dream.

With so many endowments of wit, he found that remembering was easy. Even incidents that had occurred before he’d taken his endowments seemed to be easily recalled.

So he stood in that room of death, eating a bit of cheese and bread from his pack, lost in a fond memory.

He recalled the first time that he’d met his wife Myrrima, in a small city in Heredon. She’d taken endowments of glamour from her sisters and her mother back then, endowments that had been all but impossible to purchase.

Thus, she’d combined the beauty and poise of four gorgeous women into one. Her hair had been dark and silky, and the pupils of her eyes were so dark they almost looked blue.

The sight of her had left him speechless with desire. He’d wanted to know her name. He’d wanted to hold her hand and walk with her.

But it was his lord, Gaborn Val Orden, who had introduced them, and had suggested that they marry. It was a strange moment, one that always left him with wonder.

Why did Gaborn do that? Aaath Ulber asked himself. It wasn’t part of Gaborn’s nature to go about acting as a matchmaker.

Gaborn himself claimed to have done it by inspiration. He’d felt that it was the Earth’s will.

But why? How has our union benefited the Powers?

He could not be certain. He often felt that some grand destiny awaited him and Myrrima, but he knew not what.

Perhaps that destiny will not be borne out by me but by my children, he suspected.

Or perhaps the great deed is already accomplished. Myrrima and I protected both Gaborn and Fallion in their youth. We nurtured them, kept them safe from assassins. That deed was well done.

Yet he wanted something more. He wanted to know the very moment when he fulfilled his destiny.

Perhaps it would not be some great thing that he accomplished. Perhaps it would be a deed so insignificant that mortal men would not even note it.

He turned his mind from the thought. Nothing could be gained by pondering such things, and he feared that in doing so, he might be giving sway to false pride.

So he focused instead on the memory of Myrrima, as fair as a rising moon, as brilliant as a diamond. An old man’s voice whispered in his mind.

Aaath Ulber woke, feeling invigorated. He judged that half an hour had passed by his body’s time, and that was enough.

“Let’s finish it,” he called to Wulfgaard.

The young man knelt on the floor beside his betrothed. Tears streamed down his face, and a terrible rage filled his eyes.

I don’t even know the girl’s name, Aaath Ulber thought. I guess that it doesn’t matter anymore.

Wulfgaard jerked his head toward the sleeping Dedicates. “Maybe we should kill the rest. Who knows what the wyrmlings are doing, or what they’re capable of? How many heroes might they have up on the surface? They could be laying entire villages to waste. And you and I are the only two men left down here to stop them.”

That was the crux of the problem. Aaath Ulber’s gut warned him that this battle hadn’t been won yet. A lich can communicate across the leagues. The lich lord Crull-maldor knew that he was here. She’d warn her captains, and the wyrmlings would attack the cities and village on the surface.

The only way to stop them was to kill their Dedicates.

Aaath Ulber had rejected that plan once before. But he’d hoped to have more champions with him still. Now he recognized that he was walking on the edge of a knife, and he did not know which way he would fall.

“I didn’t come down here to murder Dedicates,” Aaath Ulber argued.

“I’ve sworn to clean out these warrens, and let the folks aboveground worry about themselves.”

Wulfgaard glared. Aaath Ulber could see that he wanted vengeance, and he believed that the only sure way to get it was to slaughter their Dedicates.

“Are you weary of battle?” Aaath Ulber goaded him. “Are you so tired of fighting?”

“No!” Wulfgaard denied.

“The best way for you to get your vengeance,” Aaath Ulber said, “is to kill the wyrmlings—not your own kind. I’m sure that many of the young ladies down here are betrothed to others. Would you do to their men what the wyrmlings have done to you?”

Wulfgaard looked fierce. Rage and pain had left him on the edge of madness. He refused to answer.

“Let’s do this the hard way,” Aaath Ulber said. He wanted Wulfgaard to go out and slay wyrmlings, but he knew that they couldn’t leave these Dedicates unguarded.

Aaath Ulber was the better warrior. That meant that he’d have to clear the warrens, leaving Wulfgaard here to watch over the Dedicates . . . and fester.

“You stay here with your betrothed,” Aaath Ulber said. “Make sure that your actions honor her.”

With that, he turned and plunged into the wyrmling tunnels.

The next hours seemed to be a nightmare, with Aaath Ulber slaughtering all that came his way. He spared no one, and only one time did a wyrmling give him pause.

He was in the crèches, where wyrmling women tended their babes. He was forced to slaughter them all, the children as well as adults, for to leave the young ones alone, without adults to tend them would be to protract their deaths.

As he raced into a small side cavern, a woman who was tending a dozen toddlers whirled and spoke to him in Rofehavanish, with a strange Inkarran accent. “Please?” she begged.

He halted, expecting her to say more, but she seemed not to know any more Rofehavanish.

He wondered where she had learned that word. While tending the Dedicates? Or was she like him, two people united in one body?

He thought to ask her, but the answer would not alter what had to be done, so he slit her throat and moved on.

The cries of the dying followed Aaath Ulber into the Room of Whispers, where he halted, and stood warily.

All around him, he could hear voices—wyrmlings crying in pain, wyrmlings shouting orders, the distant tolling of bells.

The room was empty now, a simple dome. Three glow worms on the ceiling provided a dim green light, and all around the room were little silver rings pounded into the stone. Glyphs surrounded each ring, and a hole in the center let sounds escape.

Through the holes, Aaath Ulber heard the whispers.

A cold chill shot up his spine. He whirled, expecting to find a lich at his back. A whisper came from one of the holes, some wyrmling commanders shouting to a panicked crowd, “Get back! Get back to your holes. There is no escape!”

The floor beneath him vibrated to the sound of a gong.

The room was chill.

He peered up, found the hole where the sound had come from. The ring around it was marked with the three glyphs—the Eater of Souls, the number two, and the naked skull.

Aaath Ulber’s breath fogged from the cold, and he whirled again.

A wight was nearby. Nothing stood in the entrance.

He spotted a bit of glittering spider cloth on the floor and slashed it with his sword, lest the wight be hiding in its shadow.

Then he whirled again. “Show yourself!” he commanded.

A whisper came to him from one of the holes above. “You have seen me before,” a wyrmling said in the tongue of the men of Caer Luciare.

“I know you,” Aaath Ulber shouted, “Crull-maldor.” It was said that there is power in knowing a lich’s true name, but Aaath Ulber did not feel powerful.

“Alas,” the lich wailed in mock sorrow, “you know my name!” She chuckled softly, and the sound of her voice faded. Aaath Ulber knew which tube it was coming from, and he pulled a war dart, jammed the barb up the hole.

A moment later, he heard the whisper again issuing from another hole on the far wall. “You have touched me,” Crull-maldor said. “You have pricked me deeply, and now I shall prick you.”

Aaath Ulber whirled, for he felt a cold wind brush his back. But there was nothing there.

She’s trying to get behind me, he reasoned. She’ll come out from one of her damned holes. But which?

In the protracted silence that followed, he knew that she was moving, racing through dim hallways, struggling to take him unawares.

He began to circle nervously, his head swiveling this way and that, as he searched for a shadow that would rise behind him.

He caught a dark blur in the corner of his eye, whirled, and saw a mist rising into one of the holes.

“Come out here!” he roared. “Let us finish it now!”

“What is the hurry?” the lich asked reasonably, her voice a dim whisper from the far corner of the room. “They say that vengeance tastes sweetest when it is served stale.”

Aaath Ulber circled slowly, whipped his blade behind him in a dance.

A whisper came from a tube. It was distant, so dim that a man without endowments could never have heard it. “Watch your back, little man. I shall touch you yet. In an hour when you are less watchful, in a way that you do not suspect, I shall freeze your heart. . . .”

Aaath Ulber hesitated, waiting for the lich to return, but the room began to regain warmth, and he felt certain that it was gone.

It would be hiding from him somewhere, coiled like an asp beneath some stone.

He turned and raced from the room, up a corridor. The level above was empty of wyrmlings. They were clearing out, fleeing for the surface.

Near one guard house he found a huge stone vat that smelled of tar. He pulled off the heavy lid and peered in. The tar was mixed with bits of some noxious weed. The odor was more than foul; it seemed to corrode his very throat.

There was a torch in the guard shack, and a piece of flint.

Aaath Ulber held his war hammer above the torch and struck the handle with the flint until a spark caught in the dry moss that was wrapped around the head of the torch. He blew it until the torch blazed to life, then threw the torch into the vat.

Flames leapt from it, licking the ceiling, and heavy black smoke boiled from the infernal pot.

Aaath Ulber turned and stalked down into the depths of the wyrmling fortress as the smoke boiled out, filling the tunnels above.

As he passed the Room of Whispers, he stopped for a moment, heard the hacking coughs of wyrmlings and the panicked cries from the rooms above.

He would let the smoke do his killing for him.

With a heavy heart, he turned back. There were wyrmling children still down below, babes whose only crime was that they had been born wyrmlings, that they had been given endowments.

It was time to punish them for those crimes.

30 A Season of Promise

The collapse of the Wyrmling Empire in Internook came swiftly.

As Myrrima had feared, the wyrmlings took vengeance in some places. Wyrmling death squads marched through the streets in a dozen cities, led by powerful runelords, and wyrmling war horns announced the attack on the fortress all across the land.

But in the uprising that followed, the humans vastly outnumbered the usurpers. Most of the wyrmling warriors had but three endowments of metabolism. They were fast, but not faster than a marksman’s arrow.

From the smoke and ashes of the great fortress Aaath Ulber came, and he raced across the land, scouring the coasts to the east. Three other human champions survived, and they raced to the west.

Songs would be sung of them that night, about the giant Aaath Ulber who wore robes woven from blood and traveled the earth in boots formed of gore.

By mid afternoon Aaath Ulber caught the wyrmling champion Zil some twenty miles east of Ox Port, where the wyrmlings were setting fire to a village.

It is said that Zil begged for his life, and offered to serve mankind. But Aaath Ulber would not trust the creature, and so he slew Zil with the sword, slicing his throat close against the jaw, so that the wyrmling’s lying tongue plopped out and jerked about on the ground.

Then Aaath Ulber hurled the wyrmling champion onto a bonfire that raged, the remains of some lord’s fine manor.

By dusk, Aaath Ulber was a blur racing through all the cities along the coast and headed north into the wilderness, to clear out the wyrmling mines.

With the evening, the barbarians of Internook were singing and feasting. The human captives were coming home from the fortress, and folks from Ox Port sent wagons drawn by fast horses to speed them on their way.

The evening came warm and clear that night, with stars raging in the heavens, and the folks of Internook thought to celebrate.

But Draken wondered aloud to Myrrima, “Why are they celebrating? Internook doesn’t have enough forcibles to protect itself. The wyrmlings will surely come from their fortresses to the south, and they will punish these people.”

Myrrima was at the feast, picking out bread for their journey. She anticipated that Aaath Ulber would be back by dawn. “Celebrate life while you can,” Myrrima said, “for death comes all too swiftly. The folk of Internook know this.”

She picked up a loaf of barley bread from a table, the sweet color of dark honey, and squeezed it experimentally. Then she turned to Draken, and the words that came from her now seemed to be wrung from her heart: “You should marry Rain tonight. Prudence might tell you to wait, but my heart says that you should marry her and enjoy your time together while you can.”

Draken stared at her in disbelief. He looked so young. He was fifteen, going on sixteen. He was hardly more than a child.

“But, I’ll need to buy land, build a house, get everything ready to support a wife.”

“That can come later,” Myrrima said. “The two of you can work together. It will be hard, but it can be done.”

“I’m not old enough,” Draken objected.

“Age cannot be measured in years alone,” she told him. “You fled the locus Asgaroth with us when you were but a child. You’ve flown with the Gwardeen, and faced the wyrmlings. Such things age a boy and make him wise before his time. You’re more of a man than someone twice your age.”

“Father would never agree,” Draken said.

“Aaath Ulber? He’s not here to stop you,” Myrrima said.

She hated to admit it, but Draken’s father was gone now. Borenson had been transformed into a monster, a hero, a creature of legend. Like a dragonfly emerging from the bones of its nymph form, he had taken a fearsome visage.

“Your real father, Sir Borenson, would have agreed with me,” Myrrima said. “He was a man who loved to see people happy.”

Draken nodded slightly, “Yes, I think he would have agreed.”

So Draken married that night at the feast, while Aaath Ulber was still scouring the wilds. He married in the style of the barbarians of Internook.

In front of the entire village, he and Rain stood next to the fire, and Warlord Hrath bound their wrists together with strong cords. He gave Draken a fine ax, for his right hand, and Rain a bottle of wine for her left, and then had them repeat their oaths.

Draken found himself shaken at the power of the ceremony. The nearness of Rain, the warmth of her touch, the anticipation that he felt—all combined to send him shivering. He hardly recalled the words of the oath. He peered at his mother on the far side of the fire, saw her eyes tearing with joy, while little Sage stood holding her hand.

Draken promised to love Rain for the rest of his life, and to bed no other woman. He promised to nourish her and her children, both belly and soul. He swore to protect her and sustain her, through daylight and darkness, through the warm spring rains and the bounty of summer, until winter’s icy touch released him.

When Rain took her vows, they barely registered in his mind. They were much the same as his, but he recalled an odd phrase, one that he’d never heard in a wedding ceremony, for Rain swore to “scold him only when he needs it, and to nag him not at all.”

When the vow was finished, he took her in his arms and kissed her. The townsfolk raised their mugs of ale and shouted a great salute. There were cheers of “Blessed be your bed!” and “Health to you; wealth to you; and great be your joy!”

Then he found himself striding away from the group, still bound to Rain. Warlord Hrath warned him, “Don’t untie the knot until dawn. It will bring you bad fortune!”

So together they went down to the docks and got into their away boat, and with each of them holding an oar, they rowed at a leisurely pace out to the Borrowbird. The ocean was calm that night, as calm as a summer pool, and the starlight reflected from its muzzy surface.

They climbed into the ship, which was still at anchor, and peered up at the sky. A crescent moon hung above the water, and in the distance a seabird cried.

Draken kissed his wife then, and peered into her eyes.

Her face was not the most beautiful that he had seen, he thought. She was fair enough, but not like some of the great women of legend.

He did not love her any less for it. Instead, he yearned to hold her, to cling to her.

He kissed her, and in moments he found himself playfully tugging at her clothes. He could not get his own shirt off, for the ties that bound him to Rain kept them on.

“I think this is some sort of barbarian joke on the newlyweds,” he said. “Let’s cut the knot.”

“No,” Rain begged. “Leave it be. I like being bound to you.” She hesitated for a moment and said, “Let’s cut the clothes off instead.”

And he did.

Aaath Ulber raced through the night from village to village, slaughtering wyrmlings as he went.

They could not have escaped him even if they had tried. With his endowments of scent from hounds, he could smell the peculiarly rancid odor of their fat, even from miles away.

So with each city or village that he searched, finding the wyrmlings was not hard, and with so many endowments of metabolism to his credit, dispatching them was no harder.

He had grown weary of killing. He longed to stop, but he had to tell himself that with each wyrmling that he slew, he was freeing another four or five Dedicates.

I have not found myself, as the Earth King asked, he realized. I am more lost than ever.

He only hoped that Myrrima might help him. The touch of a water wizard could heal a man—even his blackened mind. So many times in the night when he’d wakened in the past, suffering from intolerable dreams of slaughter, Myrrima had healed him.

He only hoped that she could heal him now, in his darkest hour.

For the rest of the world, it was only a single night. But Aaath Ulber suspected that he had some thirty or forty endowments of metabolism now. He could run two hundred miles in an hour, and time for him stretched on limitlessly.

The work of that day seemed to him to be endless.

Yet as he ran, each time that he stopped in a tiny hamlet to dispatch a single wyrmling, he wondered, What have I won?

I’ve wiped out a minor fortress in the frozen wastes, he thought—one that was poorly equipped and run by a leader who was too evil and petty to be efficient.

It is not the same as what I will face in Rugassa.

In Rugassa they had mountains of blood metal. In Rugassa the emperor ruled, and beneath him there had risen some false Earth King. In Rugassa the skies were filled with Knights Eternal and Darkling Glories.

What we’ve won here, he thought, is nothing.

So he raced across the country through the long night, and his mind was not easy. His imagination conjured the nightmares he would have to face in Rugassa.

Sometimes he worried about Crull-maldor. The lich had managed to evade him, and even now he feared that she might rise up from the ground on the trail in front of him or materialize at his back.

She had sworn her vengeance.

Yet as the long night drew on, he finished his circle of eastern Internook, and raced back to the fortress one last time to meet with the other champions.

As he crested a hill a few miles from the fortress, he glanced out to sea and spotted a fleet of wyrmling warships—three in number, making their way toward shore.

The vessels were huge, with enormous square sails stained like blood.

Supplies for Crull-maldor, he wondered, or fresh troops?

It didn’t matter. He would have to finish the wyrmlings, lest news of the uprising reach distant shores.

So he stopped for a bit and fed himself on wild blackberries, then he raced downhill, hit the rocky beach, leapt out from shore, and poured on the speed as he reached the water.

Running at two hundred miles per hour, he raced over the sea, slipping and thrashing. The sea felt springy under his feet, but it was more solid than the stream had been. He wasn’t sure if the salt in the water made the difference, or if it was because he had more endowments.

So he raced over the uneven surface of the ocean, bounding over waves and flotsam.

The ships drew nearer, and the size of them impressed him. The planks on the hull were perhaps sixteen inches wide and looked to be four inches thick. The mainmast towered a full hundred feet above the water.

He could see the wyrmling steersman at the helm, and Aaath Ulber appeared so quickly that the creature was barely able to register surprise before Aaath Ulber leapt twenty feet into the air, up to the prow, grabbed on to the heavy railing, and sprang lightly to the deck.

In less than a minute he dispatched all of the wyrmlings aboard, turning it into a ghost ship.

While checking the hold, he discovered the ship’s purpose: It carried treasure, stone boxes filled with forcibles, more than three hundred and fifty thousand of them. They were made of good blood metal, and the heads had already been filed down into runes of metabolism.

Of course, Aaath Ulber realized. The wyrmlings to the south are better supplied with forcibles. It took them weeks to send shipments to this worthless little outpost.

In exultation, Aaath Ulber raced to each of the ships, slaughtered the crew, and secured the treasure.

As he rode toward the rocky shore, he dreamt of what this might mean.

There were Dedicates to be had here in Internook, and there were warriors fierce and strong.

He stood at the helm of the lead ship, and shouted toward the shore, “The Wyrmling Empire shall be ours!”

Myrrima was treated to a room in the village inn that night, a fine room with a straw bed covered in quilts, and a pillow made from goose down.

The innkeeper, a matron in her fifties, built a small fire in the hearth, even though it was not cold, and she’d left wine and cheese on a nightstand.

It was long past midnight when Myrrima prepared for bed. She used a basin filled with warm water to take a sponge bath, and she promised herself a real bath on the morrow—in fresh clean water, out in the river.

She put on her night-robe and then sat before a bureau mirror combing out her long hair. She smiled to herself.

One of my children is married to night, she thought. With luck, a grandchild will soon be on the way.

A cool wind blew through the room, and she suspected that the door must have blown open. She glanced toward it as a mist floated up through the crack.

A wyrmling hag materialized, her skin cracked with age, her body somehow formless and distorted.

In a panic, Myrrima pushed back in her chair. Her only weapon was her bow and arrows, arrows blessed to kill even a lich. But she’d leaned her bow upon the bed, on the far side of the room.

The wyrmling hag towered above her. Myrrima heard words in her mind: Come with me, to the land of the dead.

Myrrima thought swiftly. She had no endowments to her credit. Her spells were useless without water nearby.

But a touch from her blessed weapons would banish a wight. Myrrima grasped the handle of the dagger strapped to her hip.

The lich lunged, a shadow blurring in its haste.

Myrrima’s dagger cleared the scabbard and she felt more than saw the wight’s attack. A cold pain lanced through her wrist, freezing her hand at its touch, so that the blade fell from numb fingers.

Myrrima whirled and leapt across the room for her quarrel of arrows just beyond the bed.

A thrill of ice raced up her spine as the wight caught her, and then a dagger of cold seemed to impale Myrrima, cutting through to her heart.

With a gasp, she fell onto the bed, and all sight, all sound began to fade.

Sage! she thought, wishing for one last moment with her child.

It was not an hour past dawn when Aaath Ulber reached the village of Ox Port, along with the rest of the heroes in tow.

The morning sun blazed golden in the heavens, and a few clouds on the horizon merely caught the rays and seemed to lend the sky some of their own color.

The birds were singing in the trees, and squirrels and chipmunks at the edge of town raced about, hiding seeds in their middens in preparation for the coming winter.

The heroes came pulling handcarts, bearing treasures from the wyrmling hoard: forcibles from their ships, oculars to see afar with, gold, and more.

The handcarts could not hold it all, of course. Most of the treasure had been left behind, and much of value was still to come—hundreds of thousands of Dedicates rescued from the darkness.

Young Wulfgaard bore one of the greatest of the gifts: the fabled Orb of Internook, blazing in his hands so brightly that it looked as if he held a splinter from the sun.

Most of the heroes were glad of heart, laughing, and Aaath Ulber expected the townsfolk to erupt in song.

Yet as he neared the edge of Ox Port, he sensed that something was wrong, and when he saw Warlord Hrath looking grim and sullen, he knew before the words were spoken.

“There was an attack,” Warlord Hrath said. “A lich came to town. The innkeeper heard your wife fall, and nothing more. When she went up to check on her, Myrrima was lying beside her bed with ice on her brow. Nothing could be done.”

Aaath Ulber stood for a moment, shocked into disbelief.

“I am so sorry,” Warlord Hrath said. “We initiated a search, all through town.”

Aaath Ulber sank to his knees. No course of endowments now would make him strong enough to stand, and with his perfect memory he heard Crull-maldor’s words ringing in his ears: “I shall touch you yet. In an hour when you are less watchful, in a way that you do not suspect, I shall freeze your heart.”

She had touched him, he knew, and he feared that it was not over.

“Draken? Where are Draken and Sage?”

“I’m here, Father,” Sage said, stepping out from the crowd. “Draken is with Mother now, watching over her body. He’s been with her most of the night.”

His children were alive, at least for now, he realized. But it was only a matter of time before the lich returned.

“Take me to my wife,” Aaath Ulber said. Sage grasped his hand and led the way.

With so many endowments of metabolism, it seemed that Sage moved as if in a dream.

Aaath Ulber could smell the sweet scent of Myrrima’s skin long before they neared the inn.

His mind was black, and his eyes were blind with grief.

He felt lost, more lost than he had ever been in his life.

But he relished the touch of Sage’s hand. Too soon this war would lead him to distant shores, to dangers that he could not fathom. He wanted to walk with her, hold the hand of his child, one last time.