The Wyrmling Horde

Cullossax and Kirissa spent the morning hours in the depths of the forest shadows, walking in a large circle, crossing the same ground over and over to hide their trail. Their scent would be strong here. Twice they set up false trails, leading from their little circle, only to return, walking backward, step by step, into their own tracks. Then they carefully broke from the circle one last time and treaded along firm ground, beneath the alders.

It is not an easy thing for a five-hundred-pound wyrmling to hide his tracks. Cullossax and Kirissa did the best that they could, raking leaves over their trail, taking an hour to cross less than a mile. They found a small lake and waded across its length to a rocky beach, then climbed into some dense woods.

Even with the tree cover, the sun was blinding to a wyrmling, and often Cullossax had to hold Kirissa s hand as she blinked back tears of pain, unable to see.

Cullossax did his best to ignore his own discomfort. But as morning wore on, the sunlight striking down through the trees burned his pale skin until it turned red and began to welt; he winced at the slightest touch. His salty sweat only heightened the pain.

The two refugees were forced to strike north and west, their backs to the blinding sun, heading almost the exact opposite direction from where they wanted to go. At length they discovered a road. It was not a wyrmling road, broad enough for the massive handcarts that were used to haul meat and supplies. It was a dainty road, almost a trail, the kind used by small humans.

In the great binding, the road had been superimposed upon a trackless waste. Thus the human highway had a few thistles growing up through it, and places where it was broken by outcroppings of rock. But it was serviceable enough.

It wound down out of the hills.

Cullossax ran now through the heat of the day, ignoring the welts that the sun raised on his burned skin, warily following the old road.

Soon they reached a village, a hamlet for the small folk. Cullossax stopped at the edge of the trees and peered out at it, bemused.

Quaint huts with chimneys of stone rose among serene gardens. The walls of the cottages were made of mud and wattle, painted in blinding shades of white, with windows framed in oak. A couple of cottages still had their straw roofs attached, though most had been broken into.

Wyrmlings had already been here.

"Come," Cullossax said. "Let s see if we can find food."

He did not know what the village might hold. There was no sign of living animals-no cattle or pigs, though a few corrals showed that such animals had been here recently. The wyrmlings had taken the livestock as well as the villagers.

Cullossax hoped that perhaps one of the small folk might be hiding in the village still.

Flesh is flesh.

They ransacked the hamlet, tearing the roofs off of cottages, searching through barns. Kirissa found a few human weapons-carving knives and a small half-sword. Cullossax would have preferred some heavy war darts, or a great ax.

Some type of fowl scampered about the village green. "Chickens," Kirissa called them, but they darted away from Cullossax s grasp.

At last, he realized that there was nothing to eat, at least nothing in easy range.

"I will show you a secret," Cullossax said at last, and he took Kirissa to a garden. There he found a wide variety of plants. He sniffed at a round leafy thing, then hurled it away. But he picked some pods and pulled up a few red tubers.

"Eat these," Cullossax said. "Some will deny this, but a wyrmling can survive on plants, at least for a short time."

"I know," Kirissa said, surprising him. "On the old world, I ate plants all of the time. These green things are called beans. The tubers are beets. I like to boil them with a little olive, but they can be eaten raw."

So they squatted in a darkened stable, and Cullossax bit into his first beet, and laughed. "Look!" he said. "It bleeds! I have gutted fat soldiers that bled less."

The vegetables tasted terrible, of course. They tasted of dirt.

But they filled his belly, and the two rested in the barn, slathering themselves with water from a trough in order to cool their blistering skin.

An hour later Cullossax felt sick and bloated, until he emptied his bowels. The strange food did not suit him well. Afterward the barn stank so badly, he decided to leave. The two of them found human blankets and threw them over their heads and backs, to keep the sun at bay.

The rest of the day, they continued their run. The sun was a blinding demon, and as it began to settle to the west, once again Cullossax had to turn from his track. He headed south for a bit, then due east. They passed more towns and villages. In each one, the humans and livestock had all disappeared. Obviously, Rugassa s hunters were in a frenzy. Game had been scarce the past few years. Suddenly it was plentiful again.

Kirissa dogged along at his side, growing ever slower with each step.

This pace is killing her, Cullossax realized.

Worse, she is slowing me down. If I left her, the hunters on our trail would find her, and perhaps they would stop for a bit to amuse themselves with her.

That slight diversion might mean the difference between my death and escape.

He decided to leave her behind. Yet he did not act upon that impulse, not yet at any rate.

Kirissa grew light-headed and at last she swooned. He picked her up and carried her for an hour while she slept.

I am going to need a miracle, he thought.

And at last he found it. He entered a town that rested upon the banks of a clear, cold river. To the due east he could see a human castle with pennants waving in the breeze, not four miles off. Sentries of the small folk were marching upon the ramparts.

Off to the west, Cullossax heard a bark, the sound a wyrmling guard makes to let others know that he is awake.

Apparently, Cullossax s kin had not been able to take the castle yet. But an army was near, hiding in the shade of the woods.

I will need to keep away from the trees, he thought.

Cullossax spotted a large skiff on the banks of the river, large enough to hold a wyrmling tormentor and a girl. He checked the boat quickly, laid Kirissa inside, and then shoved the craft out into the cool water.

The current was not the rampaging torrent that he might have wished. The river was almost too shallow for such a heavily laden boat. The crystal stream rolled over mossy rocks, and glinted in the afternoon sun. Water striders danced on its surface, and trout rose to take the mosquitoes that dared rest on the surface. A few swallows darted along the river, taking drinks.

But otherwise the lush willows growing along the bank provided a screen from any prying eyes.

The boat carried them along, making sure that Cullossax left no scent, letting him and the girl escape even as they took their rest.

Cullossax startled awake well past dark.

Kirissa had risen, and now she worked the oars, streaming along. The boat scudded against some submerged rocks, which scraped the hull. That was what had wakened him. The river was growing shallow.

The landscape had changed dramatically. They were away from the lush hills and the pleasant towns, with their groves of trees.

Now, along both banks, a thin screen of grass gave way to sandstone rocks, almost white under the starlight. There were no shade trees, no hills.

"I ve heard of this desert," Cullossax said. "It is called Oblivion. There is nothing to eat here but lizards, along with a few rabbits. This must be the Sometimes River. It winds through the wastes for many leagues in the wet season, but the water sinks into the sand out in the wastes, and only rises again occasionally. To the east of here is the hunting grounds-the land of the shaggy elephants."

He thought for a long moment. The hunters on his trail would find it hard to survive in this waste. So would he and Kirissa.

The blazing sun shining off the rocks would blind them by day, and the few lizards would offer no food. The lizards would hide under rocks during the night, when the wyrmlings were accustomed to hunt.

Away from the river, water might be scarce-or even impossible to find.

"Give me the oars," Cullossax said.

He steered the boat toward shore. When he found a place where rock met water, he landed the boat and had Kirissa step out.

He considered setting the boat adrift, but knew that it might only travel a hundred yards before it beached. He didn t want it to be found, and did not know what attributes his pursuers might possess. Would they have noses strong enough to track a man by scent?

Many scouts had that skill, and the Bloody Fist recruited only from among the best.

But he knew that the rocky slopes would not hold his scent for long. If he was to escape, this was the place to do it.

So he took his iron javelin and punctured the hull of the boat. He threw in a few heavy stones, then waded out into the deepest part of the river, and made sure that the boat sank.

Then he climbed up out of the water, and the two set off once again, racing over the sandstone.

The valley here had once been a land of great dunes ages ago. The sand had compacted into stone, leaving a gentle slope that looked sculpted, as if waves of water had lapped away at it. It was an easy trail to climb, and even a heavy wyrmling left no tracks.

They ran through the night, heading south. The rocks still carried the heat of the day, and it radiated up from the ground, keeping the temperature warm.

It was a comfortable run.

Dawn found them staring down into a great canyon where sandstone towers rose up, strange and twisted hoodoos, creating the illusion of mystical castles along the canyon walls, while other pillars seemed to be grotesque wyrmlings, standing guard.

In the valley below, amid the tall grass alongside a great lake, a herd of shaggy elephants could be seen grazing-creatures twenty-five feet tall at the back, their pale fur hanging in locks, their enormous white tusks sweeping over the grass like great scythes.

Nearby, herds of hunting cats lazed in the shade of twisted oak trees, waiting to take the young and unwary from the herd of shaggy elephants.

"Will those cats attack?" Kirissa asked.

"We d make an easier meal than an elephant," Cullossax replied. "But I d worry more about the elephants. They fear us, fear our hunters, and the bulls will attack if they see us two alone."

Cullossax felt nearly dead. The sun had burned his pale skin, causing boils and chills; the lack of meat combined with their monumental run had left him famished and weak.

He could not go on.

Wearily, he spotted a crack in some rocks ahead-and led Kirissa to safety. The crack was formed when a cliff face had broken away from a great rock. It left a narrow trail, perhaps two hundred feet long, through the rock. On the far side, he could see starlight.

It was not as good as a cave, but the shelter would have to do. He wedged himself into the rocks, and then pulled his blanket over his head to hide from the rising sun.

"Rest," Kirissa said. "You kept guard over me yesterday, I ll keep guard today."

Cullossax closed his eyes, and soon fell away into an exhausted sleep.

"Help!" Kirissa shouted, seemingly only seconds later. "We ve been found."

Cullossax woke with a start. He tried climbing to his feet. Ahead of him, Kirissa stood with his javelin. A wyrmling scout was just in front of her, lying on the ground, snarling in rage, dragging himself toward her.

Cullossax found his feet, tried to shove his way past Kirissa, but the crevasse was too narrow.

"Damn you, woman!" the wyrmling scout snarled. He bore a wickedly curved knife for cutting throats, its blade a jet black, and he was dragging himself heavily across the ground, leaving a slimy trail of blood.

He could not gain his feet. It took a moment for Cullossax to realize why: one of his legs had snapped in two. Adding further to his wounds, a couple of small human knives were lodged in his belly.

A depression in the ground nearby showed where Kirissa had dug a hole, creating a mantrap for him to step into, and then had buried a pair of daggers in the hard ground for him to fall upon.

Yet the wounded tormentor fought on. He had crawled a dozen yards, moving as quickly as a snake, and still he tried to make his way to Kirissa.

She held him at bay with the javelin, but just barely. The wyrmling lunged back and forth. Two endowments of speed, three he might have had. Cullossax could not be certain. But if the scout had had room to maneuver, he d have easily lunged past her slow parries.

Cullossax pulled his own dagger from its sheath behind his neck, and hurled with all of his might. The wounded scout tried to dodge, but the blade took him full in the face.

Kirissa lunged for the killing blow, impaling the tormentor through the ribs, and then leaned into her javelin with all her weight, pinning him down. The scout struggled fiercely, and it was not until Cullossax himself leaned into the spear that the scout began to slow. Soon it was only his legs that jerked and twitched.

"We ve got to get out of here," Cullossax hissed. "This was their leader, the fastest of them. But the other two cannot be far behind."

Cullossax dared not go back out the way that they had come. The other tormentors were probably rushing toward the entry now.

So he grabbed Kirissa s hand and pulled her through the crevasse, out the back side of the rock.

The sun was just setting behind them. A bat squeaked overhead and flitted away.

On the far side of the crevasse, a steep cliff led down into the wastes of the shaggy elephant.

There was only one way to go: down the slope, past the sandstone hoodoos, and into the vale, filled with hunting cats and elephants.

Cullossax leapt down the cliff and tried to keep his feet as he descended in a cloud of dust and scree.

At the bottom of the cliff, Kirissa stopped for an instant. A long, piercing howl sounded from the rocks above.

They turned and glanced up to see two wyrmlings in the shadows, not three hundred yards behind, both wyrmlings dressed in black tunics.

"Run!" Cullossax shouted.

The chase began in earnest.

Cullossax sprinted until he thought that his heart would burst, and then he ran some more. Through the thick grass he and Kirissa charged, grass so tall that it reached Cullossax s chest, and he worried whether the grass might harbor hunting cats.

Thin clouds had drifted overhead during the day, creating a bloody sunset that died and darkened into full night within an hour.

At the end of that hour, the hunters had still not taken them. He could see them pacing behind, yet they did not press forward.

He wondered if they were wounded. Perhaps in tracking him across the open desert of the day, they had gone sunblind and still could not see well.

It might be that they re afraid of you, he told himself. But probably not.

No, he decided, this is the first part of the torment.

A wyrmling torment was not just a punishment-it was a rite, sacred and profound. It was society meting out justice.

My hunters have endowments of speed and strength, and I do not. They could rush in and take me at any moment. But now they hold back, and laugh. They plan to run us into the ground.

He passed a large herd of shaggy elephants to his right, and worried that the bulls would attack. But they only formed a living wall, standing tusk-to-tusk, to bar Cullossax s way to their calves.

After two hours, Kirissa was reeling from weariness. Even her good wyrmling breeding would not let her go on forever. Her steps became clumsy and she staggered almost blindly.

Still they ran.

A hill loomed ahead, a small hill on the rolling plains, and Cullossax told himself, I will climb that hill, and I can go no farther.

But Cullossax had one last hope. As a tormentor, he was allowed to carry a harvester spike to use in an emergency. It was in a pouch, hidden inside his belt.

In a battle, he would have jabbed the spike into his carotid artery so that the precious secretions on it could be carried quickly to his brain. Now he elected to use it more cautiously. He pulled the tiny bag from his belt and rammed the spike into his palm.

In seconds he felt his heart began to pound as adrenaline surged into him, granting him a second wind. His eyes misted, and a killing haze settled over them.

So he pounded through the deep grass, blazing a trail for Kirissa, until he neared the hill.

The hunters came for him then, howling and laughing in sport, rushing up behind.

They were almost on him now. He could practically feel their hot breath on the back of his neck. He was almost at the top of the hill. There was just one steep rise between him and the far side.

"Run!" he shouted to Kirissa. "It is me that they want."

He whirled to meet the tormentors, pitting the old magic of the harvester spike against the new magic of the Runelords.

Kirissa ran like the wind, and Cullossax wheeled on his foes. The wyrmlings that raced toward him hardly looked like men. Their faces were pocked and reddened from sunburn. Their eyes were glazed from physical abuse.

The men raced toward him at three times the normal speed, but the harvester spike had worked its magic. Time seemed to have slowed for Cullossax, dilating as it will when the passions run high.

He raised his javelin and feinted a thrust to one man s face, but instead hurled it low, catching the harvester in the hip. The man snarled in pain.

The fellow lunged at Cullossax, hurtling through the air like a panther.

The harvester spike was no match for endowments. Cullossax tried to dodge, but the man plowed into him anyway.

Cullossax was a big man, larger by far than most wyrmlings.

I do not have to kill him, Cullossax thought, only wound him.

He grappled with his attacker, pulling him in close, grabbing him in a bear hug and then crushing with all his might.

He heard ribs snapping, smelled the tormentor s sweaty clothes, saw the wyrmling s eyes widen in fear.

Then the attacker wrenched his arm down with surprising strength, and drew the black knife from its scabbard. Cullossax knew what the man was trying to do, and tried to stop him by hugging him tightly, holding his arms against his chest, but the attacker was too strong, too quick.

Cullossax felt three hot jabs in quick succession as a knife snicked up into his rib cage. Hot blood boiled from his wounds.

I do not have to kill him, Cullossax thought, only wound him.

With all of his might, Cullossax jerked his arms tight, snapping his attacker s back.

The knife came up, slashed Cullossax across the face, and then Cullossax hurled the tormentor away.

He stood for a moment, blinded by his own blood. The man that he d wounded with the javelin had pulled it free, and now was limping toward him.

Blood bubbled in the cavern of Cullossax s lungs, and he grew dazed. His head spun.

The wounded tormentor hurled his javelin, catching Cullossax in the sternum, just below the heart. The power of the blow, combined with his own dizziness, knocked Cullossax backward.

Cullossax lay on the ground, gripping the javelin.

He missed my heart, Cullossax thought. He threw too low. But it did not matter. His lungs had been punctured, and his life would be over in a matter of seconds.

His heart was pounding, and his tormentor laughed at him in derision, when suddenly Cullossax realized that he heard the thunder of hooves rising through the ground.

He heard Kirissa shout something strange, "Gaborn Val Orden!" The name of her Earth King.

And suddenly he realized that they had reached human habitations.

Kirissa must have dashed over the hilltop just as a phalanx of horses crested from the other side.

Cullossax wrenched his neck and peered up the hill. He d never seen horses before, not like this.

These were blood-red in color. They wore steel barding on their heads and chests, and the metal masks made their faces look hideous and otherworldly.

Their riders were just as terrifying-wild human women with frightening masks and long white lances. Some of the women bore torches, and the horses red eyes seemed to blaze in the fierce firelight.

Their captain saw the three wyrmlings and shouted in some strange tongue. The riders charged toward the lone scout who was still standing, lances lowered.

Cullossax s eyes went unfocused then, as the wyrmling assassin met his fate. His death cries rent the air, a wailing sound like a dog dying.

Grinning in satisfaction, Cullossax faded toward unconsciousness.

Run, Kirissa, he thought. Perhaps when all the worlds are bound as one, we will meet again.