Worldbinder

BENEATH THE UGLY STONES

“King Urstone is groping for eels,” Warlord Madoc told his sons that night. “This plan of his-rescuing this otherworld wizard-it’s a vain hope. He is only forestalling the inevitable.”

“The death of his son?” Drewish asked.

“Aye, the death of his son,” Madoc said. The army had bedded down in the caves, but Madoc and his lads were in a small vale beneath the shadows of three huge sandstone rocks, each looking like some monstrous face, twisted and grotesque.

“You would think that Urstone would have forgotten him by now,” Connor said. “You would think that he’d have given him up for dead.”

“Mmmmm,” Madoc grunted in agreement. “It’s a point of honor with him. He wants to be seen as a man of compassion. He can’t let it be said of him that the wyrmlings love their children more than he does. It would make him somehow…callous, tainted.”

“Do you think the wyrmlings do love their children more than we do?” Connor asked.

Madoc scratched his painted chin thoughtfully. “A mother bear will do anything to protect her cubs. A wyrmling is no different. They have the instinct, and they’ve got it strong. Zul-torac is as bloody-handed a wyrmling that has ever led a war, but still he loves his daughter, and she is made all the more precious by the fact that he can bear no more.”

“Can a wyrmling really love?” Connor asked.

“Not in the way that humans do,” Madoc said. “But they have feelings-greed, fear. What they call love is bound up in those. Greed because they want to possess a child, to own something that is an extension of their lusts. Fear because they believe that children confer upon them a sort of eternal reprieve. They give their children as servants to Lady Despair in an unending succession, and so long as their lines continue, they believe that she will not punish them in the afterlife.”

Madoc didn’t really know much about such things. He had never really studied wyrmling philosophy. He was only repeating snatches of lore that were repeated around the campfire. He had never quite understood why the wyrmlings failed to wipe out Caer Luciare. Kan-hazur was just a worthless wyrmling child in his estimation. It only made sense that Zul-torac would hunt down the last of mankind, even if he had to hack his way through his own daughter to do so.

Yet for a dozen years now, the wyrmlings had let the city go. Never had it been attacked in force. The only incursions came from wyrmling harvesters that haunted the wood and fields outside the castle, taking only the unwary.

Yet Madoc had developed a theory as to why the wyrmlings didn’t attack, a theory so monstrous, he had never dared to speak of it openly, a theory that had been borne out-in part. Only now did he voice his concerns.

“My sons,” he said. “There is a good reason that the wyrmlings have spared us. They need mankind. Their harvesters need our glands to make their foul elixirs. King Urstone has never thought this through, but the wyrmlings would not dare to kill us all. Instead, they let us live, like pigs fattening in a pen, waiting for the slaughter. It isn’t our hostage that has saved us for so long. It is…necessity.”

Drewish smiled and gazed up into the air. Obviously, the idea amused him. “If we are but animals waiting to be harvested, why not cage us?”

Connor laughed. “Because it takes work to feed a pig, to keep him caged. Why not let the pigs feed themselves?”

“The caged animal is easier to kill.”

“There’s no sport to hunting a pig in its pen,” Madoc said with a smile. “And the wyrmlings are nothing, if not lovers of blood sport.”

It was true. The wyrmlings were bred for blood-lust. Without men to hunt, they would quickly begin slaughtering themselves. Madoc knew that the wyrmlings could indeed harvest glands from their own kind-but that would soon lead to bloody war.

Connor seemed uncertain. “Are you sure this is true?”

“Certain,” Madoc said. “My men captured a harvester last winter. It was only with fire and the tongs that I could pull the truth from him.

“And five weeks ago, we took another, and did him until he told the precise same tale.”

Madoc took a deep breath, gave the boys a moment while he let the information settle in. “Now, there are these little folk abroad. A village here, a village there. How many of them could there be?”

“Thousands,” Drewish guessed.

But Madoc gave him a knowing look and shook his head. “Millions, tens of millions. On the other world, there was a great kingdom in the north, the land of Internook, that was filled to overflowing. To the east, there were hordes of millions in Indhopal. In this world, there was a rare metal, used to make magic branding irons called forcibles, and with these, the lords of the land would take attributes-strength, speed, intelligence, and beauty from their vassals. Such lords became men of unimaginable power.”

Madoc held up a bit of red stone, showed it the boys in the starlight.

“What is that?” Drewish asked.

“Corpuscite,” Madoc said, “what the little folk called blood metal in their own tongue. It is used to make forcibles. It was rare in their world. But it is not so rare in ours. There is a hill of it near Caer Luciare. Already I have miners digging it up.”

He let the implication sink in. From Drewish’s unappreciative look, it was obvious that the boy didn’t understand the full implications of the discovery, but soon enough, he would.

Madoc was quickly learning that there were others like himself, hundreds who had lived separate lives on both worlds. Soon enough, he would find someone among the clan who had been a facilitator on otherworld, a mage trained to transfer endowments, and then Madoc would be in business.

“It is only a matter of time before the wyrmlings discover this, too,” Madoc said. “It is only a matter of time before they realize what our warriors might do if we unite these small folk under a single banner and lead them to war. It is only a matter of time, before they realize the threat that we pose, and try to smash Caer Luciare into oblivion!”

“What shall we do?” Connor asked.

Now was the moment for Madoc to speak his mind openly. “King Urstone is a fool, too weak to lead this people. So long as his son is held captive, he won’t risk attacking Rugassa. We must…eliminate the king.”

“How?” Drewish asked with a tone of relish in his voice.

“In the heat of the battle, tomorrow, when no one is looking,” Madoc said, “it would be a good time for a spear-thrust to go astray.”

Connor seemed shocked by the idea. He had always been a good lad, in Madoc’s opinion. Sometimes, such decency can be a fault.

“Stick with me,” Madoc said, “and someday soon, you shall rule a nation.”

“Which one of us?” Drewish asked.

Connor turned to him in obvious confusion. “Me, of course. I’m the oldest.”

“And I’m better able to lead,” Drewish countered, leaping to his feet, a dirk ringing from the scabbard at his knee.

Connor yelped, leapt back, and drew his own dagger. His jaw tightened and his muscles flexed as he prepared for battle.

Madoc stood up, placing himself between the two, and glared at Drewish dangerously, as if begging him to attack.

“Two kingdoms,” Madoc promised. “One for each of you.”