Worldbinder

THE GATHERING OF THE HORDE

The night filled with snarls and roars as new troops joined the wyrmling horde camped on the plains below Luciare.

Soldiers had been gathering from the east and the north. The great giant graaks had come just after midnight, with the Knights Eternal in their wake. And there was word that a wyrmling host had slaughtered a human army at Cantular. Each new addition had been a cause for celebration, until now.

The troops that joined the camp now wore black robes with the symbol of the great wyrm emblazoned in red-a circle with a world wyrm rising from it. But they also wore black helms and had their cape pins adorned with the skulls of wolves, covered in silver foil. These were the emperor’s elite troops, the fang guard.

Their skin had gone gray, and their faces had the emaciated look of those who are more dead than alive.

They growled and shoved as they made their way through the throng, clubbing or kicking lesser warriors who were too slow to move out of the way. Their eyes had gone red with rage, and the air felt stifling with menace.

The Death Lord watched as the fang guard leader approached, his face distorted by wrath. He glared up at the Death Lord, who had been standing upon a pinnacle of rock, peering out over his wondrous army.

“Fourteen fang guards reporting for duty,” the captain said.

The Death Lord did not like the looks of him.

“Grovel,” the Death Lord commanded. It was only right that such creatures debase themselves before him.

The captain lowered his neck slowly, as if it were made of steel and he could bend it only with great difficulty. His eyes blazed.

There is something wrong with these troops, the Death Lord realized. The whole world seemed to have turned upside down. There were forests where there should be none. Some of his troops had vanished during the great change, and others now claimed to recall other lives lived upon another world. Two of the men had even shown marvelous powers, gained from wondrous runes.

What had become of the fang guard? Obviously, he thought, the emperor has placed some spell upon them, to make them more feral. Perhaps it was an experiment, with some new type of harvester spike. Still, he thought, I cannot allow them to show insubordination.

The Death Lord leapt thirty feet to the ground so that he could stand before the captain, his black robes fluttering as he landed.

He reached out to the captain, his hand but a shadow that escaped from his robe, and raked the captain lightly between the eyes with a single fingernail.

The captain’s gray skin flayed wide, and blood oozed from the wound.

The captain struggled to retain control, but his wrath would not let him. He trembled and shook from head to foot, as if straining to keep from lashing out.

He should have showed no emotion at all.

What a waste, the Death Lord thought, realizing that he would have to kill the soldier. Then the Death Lord uttered a small curse.

With a sound of shredding, the captain’s flesh began to rip from his body. Skin peeled away like parchment. His robes and armor were rent as if by some great beast.

There in the pale light, the Death Lord suddenly glimpsed runes upon the creature’s pale skin-runes of strength, speed, stamina, and bloodlust.

Ah, the Death Lord realized, our master is experimenting with some new magic. He must have sent these reinforcements only hours ago!

That seemed almost impossible. They would have had to run hundreds of leagues in a single night. But the Death Lord could not deny the evidence.

And I, he thought, have killed one of her special tools. I will have to hide the deed, for it is too late to stop.

Again and again the tearing came. The captain roared and fell to his knees, naked, while skin continued to flay, exposing fat and muscle. In a moment he pitched forward and lay silently twitching as the peeling continued.

The Death Lord peered upward. A layer of clouds sealed the heavens, blocking even the starlight. Upon the mount, just four miles away, Luciare shone with intense brightness, lit by lesser spirits.

The Death Lord had far more than he needed in the way of armaments, men, and spells to take the castle. There would never be a better time for a bloodbath.