Worldbinder

THE HUNTER AWAKES

Gongs were tolling in Rugassa, their deep tones reverberating among the rocks in the fortress, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere, thundering up from the center of the earth.

Upon the toll, Vulgnash awoke in the tower crypt, and with a powerful kick threw off the lid of his coffin.

Gripping its sides, he inspected his rotting flesh. His skin had dried, becoming gray and leathery, and his flesh had cracked and wrinkled. Maggots had burrowed trails through his arms.

How long, he wondered, since last I walked the earth? He had hoped to remain dead for eternity this time.

But Lady Despair summoned him, and he rose at her bidding. He had promised his service to the Great Wyrm, whether it be in life, or in death, and now he had to answer the call.

Besides, he would rather be summoned into the presence of Lady Despair than into that of the Emperor.

From the condition of his hands, he imagined that it had not been long. Three years since last he woke, perhaps five, no more.

Yet Vulgnash felt as if he had been pummeled. Every muscle in his body ached; he had seldom felt so weak.

He climbed from the coffin, and stood for a moment, staring down through a tower window. People rushed everywhere a thousand feet below him, like beetles in a dung hill.

The fortress was in ruins. Walls of black basalt looked as if they had split during an earthquake.

He peered out beyond the city gate, to see if the fortress was under attack, and stared in awe. There was a strange and wondrous change in the land: a forest stood out on the plains before the castle. The plains should have been barren. Last he knew, they were burned twice yearly so that no army could draw near without being seen.

But here was a forest of hoary pine trees that looked to be a thousand years old. And strange birds flew up out of it, like none that he had ever seen before.

How long? he wondered. A thousand years? It can’t be. My flesh would have turned to dust, and I would be beyond the power even of Lady Despair to call.

And now the gongs were sounding, announcing that the Great Wyrm demanded his presence.

Vulgnash swore, strode to his closet, and drew on a crimson robe to hide the ruin of his face, then went striding down the stairs, into the great hall.

He felt so weak, he needed sustenance; and so as he entered the great hall, where servants went scurrying about in terror, their eyes wide in fright to see him, he grabbed a small girl of eight or nine.

“Your life is mine,” he whispered, then placed five fingers upon her skull-one between her eyes, two upon each of her eyes, and his thumb and pinky finger upon her mandibles.

At this touch, the girl’s blood turned to ice water in her veins, and she wet herself.

The girl tried to withdraw in terror, but his fingers held to her flesh as if it were his own. Some of the servants that saw groaned or looked away in horror; one cried out the girl’s name in mourning, “Ah, little Wenya!”

With a whispered incantation, the girl’s passions-her longing for life, her hopes and ambitions-and the fire in her soul that drove them were drawn away.

The spell went to work, and the girl’s flesh, rife with water, began to sag and putrefy, even as Vulgnash’s own flesh gained heft and a less unwholesome color.

When he was done, he let the girl fall away, a dry and rotting husk. He felt refreshed, but not refreshed enough. He would need to feed on others before he regained his full strength.

But the gongs were tolling, and he had no time for it.

He grabbed a torch from a sconce, then went striding down to the lower levels. Powerful guards cringed in terror as he passed, for they knew what Vulgnash was.

The black basalt tunnels were cracked and broken, and often the passageway was littered with rubble and boulders. Vulgnash waded through or climbed over as the need took him.

Is this why she summoned me? he wondered. A mere earthquake? But no, he knew that there must be some greater threat to the realm.

In his weakened state, the race left him drained.

The great fortress of Rugassa was built upon the crown of a volcano, and his spiraling journey downward felt like a plummet. All the while, the gongs grew louder, more insistent, until at last he had gone far enough, and the corridor opened into the audience chamber.

Two others had arrived before him and stood at each side of the chamber like an honor guard, robed all in crimson. Thul and Kryssidia were their names.

She has summoned three of the Knights Eternal, Vulgnash realized, a full quorum. Great need must be upon her.

A platform jutted out above a lake of boiling magma, which heated the room like a blast furnace. Tunnels high up allowed the hot air to escape, while lower vents, one of which sat directly behind the platform, allowed cold air to rush in.

Thus as Vulgnash reached the end of the platform, he found himself at the mouth of the vent, a chill wind whirling all about him, making his blood-red cape flutter like a caged bird. Without the refreshing wind, no mere mortal could have withstood the heat of this place. Even Vulgnash would have succumbed in time. He peered down, hundreds of feet below, into the pool of magma.

“Lady Despair,” Vulgnash cried. “I hear your summons, and obey.”

The lake of magma below him was red hot. Suddenly it boiled madly and the lake began to rise. Molten stone churned, and the level kept rising, until it seemed that the platform itself would be swallowed by magma.

Then the mouth of the great wyrm appeared, rising from the molten flow.

She was a hundred yards in diameter, and her mouth, which had five hinges, each jaw shaped like a spade, could have swallowed a small fortress.

She rose up, and magma streamed off of her.

Vulgnash dropped to one knee and bowed until the bony plate on his forehead touched the hot floor.

A great rushing voice filled the room. “Speak, Vulgnash. I feel that your mind is clouded by questions.”

Vulgnash dared hardly admit it to himself. He was not used to questioning his master. But he could not hide his thoughts from the Great Mother. The wyrm that was within him spoke to her, revealing his deepest secrets.

“How long?” he asked.

“Four years, since last I summoned you.”

“But…there is a forest growing outside the gates,” Vulgnash objected. He knew that he had to have slept for centuries.

“A great and strange thing has happened,” the wyrm said. “The world is changed, made anew by a powerful wizard, named Fallion Orden. He has combined two worlds into one, his and ours. He is our enemy. He must be dealt with.”

That any one wizard could have such power seemed unimaginable. “You have but to command me, my master, and I will throw myself into battle no matter how fearsome the foe. But…how do we fight such a creature?”

“Have no fear,” the Great Mother said. “I brought Fallion here by design. In his world, his power was great. But in this new world…he cannot withstand you. He is a flameweaver, talented in some ways, but he is only a child in his understanding…”

Vulgnash smiled, his lips pulling back to reveal his overlarge incisors. If there was one thing that he understood, it was the weaving of flames. He had been mastering his skills for millennia.

The Great Mother continued. “Take the three into the woods south of the ruins at Caer Golgeata. You will find a golden tree there. Destroy it, root and limb.

“You will also find humans, small in stature, led by the wizard Fallion. Bring him, and prepare his spirit to receive a wyrm.”

Vulgnash knew that powerful enemies sometimes required wyrms of great power to subdue them. Knowing which wyrm was to take him might make a subtle difference as to the type of tortures Vulgnash would use to prepare the victim. “Is there a particular wyrm that I should prepare him for?”

The answer struck Vulgnash with awe.

Lady Despair answered, “I may well possess him myself.”