The Seedbearing Prince: Part I (28 page)

The shouting grew louder. Dozens of Suralose
men came bounding and running down the slope, driven by a fear of
something greater than the torrent.

“Run, offworlders!” A wild-eyed Suralosan
rushed past them so quickly his scarf trailed behind him like a
cape. “There’s safety in the stronghold!”

“I see something up there.” Dayn squinted
into the haze, which now billowed down the mountainside.
Wraith-like figures lurked through the smoke and fog. The fleeing
workers saw them too, and ran that much harder.

“Thar'Kuri?” Nassir asked without looking up.
He seemed intent on securing his pack.

“We would know.” Lurec's voice was tight.
“We’d feel them coming.”

One of the Suralose liftriders emerged from
the roiling fog as the rumbling grew louder. Cries from his fellows
on foot urged him on. “Rouse the guards!” Behind the liftrider, a
man on horseback shot out of the summit’s haze at a dead gallop.
The horse gathered itself and pounced. Metal flashed in the rider’s
hand as he bounded toward the liftrider. The Suralosan screamed. He
fell from the sky to thud limply in the snow. The horse arced past
him, the rider’s sword now wet with blood.

The horseman descended in a spray of snow
further down the slope. He wore leather armor, and brown fur
covered his body and hid his face. He looked at his handiwork, then
wheeled his horse back down the slope. Dappled white and sienna,
the fierce stallion gathered on powerful haunches and sprang some
ten spans into the air.

“Horsemen from the torrent?” Dayn said,
stunned. Light flashed around the horseman as his mount glided down
the mountain. More followed, whooping and shouting, cutting down
any fleeing Suralosans in their path. “Peace, they’re wearing
sheath!”

“Go down to the stronghold,” Nassir ordered.
The shaking grew ominously louder, but there were too few horsemen
to account for it.

The Preceptor looked up the slope in alarm.
“Defender, I must insist we stay together!” Dayn nodded in fervent
agreement.

“Can you use that twig, Shardian?” The
Defender jabbed a gauntleted finger at Dayn's silverpine.

“I...know all my forms. What about―”

“Quickly, show me Crane's Stance!” The
Defender's bark triggered a reflex born from hours of staff
training with Milchamah and Joam. Dayn snapped into the defensive
position, feet spread further than shoulder width. Satisfied,
Nassir spun on his heel. “Stay close.”

The Defender ascended the mountain with a
predatory gait. He reached for the pack strapped to his back, and
made a quick twisting motion. Dayn momentarily forgot the
pandemonium around him as Nassir pulled free the largest sword Dayn
had ever seen.

Lurec made a strangled noise at sight of the
hulking sword. “A sickmetal blade?” The ragged metal shifted
between black and deep blue, like a piece of midnight, wrought by
fire. The blade’s edge appeared sharp, but the rest of it looked
unfinished, more prone to rip and tear than cut.

Dayn's staff felt even more fragile as he
followed hesitantly in the Defender's wake. Perhaps fifty horsemen
charged down the slope, kicking up great gouts of snow as they
pursued the ice melters, whooping at the top of their lungs.
Nassir's confident advance did not slow.

“I don't know if my staff is...” Dayn looked
back toward the stronghold, wondering if they should flee with the
Suralosans. “Preceptor, you have no weapon. We―”

A shadow fell across Dayn's vision and he
looked skyward. A rider sailed straight toward them. Lurec stood
frozen as the stallion descended. Dayn tackled the Preceptor
without thinking, sending them both sprawling onto the slope. The
horse's hooves slammed into the ground where they stood just
moments before. The rider swore.

Powerful, rippling haunches and strange metal
horseshoes that gripped the ice with treacherous hooks filled
Dayn's vision. He nearly vomited at the thought of what the animal
might have done to his chest. The horse vaulted majestically into
another bound as the rider continued on down the mountainside.

“Well done,” Lurec gasped. “Well done.”

The two scrambled to their feet. Other horses
swept past, but the riders seemed more intent on reaching the
mountain's base. “They cannot hope to breach the stronghold walls!”
Lurec said.

“Shardian!” Nassir's warning shout bid them
to look up. The galloping horses were not the cause of the
thundering that shook the ground.

Well behind the charging horsemen, a
monstrous boulder careened down the slope and straight for Nassir.
The surface glowed red with heat, and great gouts of steam hissed
out from where it churned through the snow and ice. The whole thing
easily reached the height of the Dawnbreak Inn. A pockmarked band
of metal encircled the boulder’s width, fixed in place as it
rolled. Coiling cables looped from the band to the very top. A lone
rider there directed the boulder, seated within a metal cage. He
rested above the mass of stone like some strange spider perched
upon a spinning egg. It descended upon them with a speed that made
Dayn's knees go to mush.

“Siege implement! Avoid it!” Nassir's shout
floated back to his ears. The Defender had already moved away from
the rockrider's path. Dayn moved to follow, but the Preceptor just
stared at the oncoming device with a slack face.

“Come on!” Dayn cried, yanking at him
roughly. Lurec pulled out of his trance to hasten after him. With a
roar that swallowed all other sound, the rockrider swept past them.
They staggered drunkenly in its wake. Dayn could not imagine a wall
thick enough to survive the impending collision.

The Preceptor's eyes bulged in sudden warning
as he looked past Dayn's shoulder. “Dayn...”

Instinctively Dayn ducked. A sword whistled
through the air above him, and he heard a grunt of effort. Dayn
spun around, hands trembling on his staff. The horseman's attempt
to remove Dayn's head nearly pulled him from his saddle. The
chestnut mare struggled to regain her balance.

Dayn rolled smoothly and rose behind the
outstretched rider as the man sawed savagely on the reins in an
effort to right himself. He was already too late. Dayn swung
fluidly into Sun's Rise and Fall, arcing the end of his staff
toward the base of the horseman's neck. The man spilled from his
mount like a ripped sack of milkwheat.

The agitated horse shook off the rider’s
nerveless grip and began a confused trot down the slope, following
the melted trough left by the boulder. Dayn stared at the man who
lay unconscious at his feet.
Milchamah told us never to do that,
except for when animals attack. Never against a man.

“You saved me again, Shardian,” The Preceptor
said as he approached. He looked more closely when Dayn remained
still. “You’re not hurt. I believe that Defender will leave us here
if we tarry. Better to take our chances at the stronghold below.
What’s wrong?”

“I've never...I didn't mean to...” Dayn's
hands shook as he looked down at the motionless form lying before
him upon the ice.
Oh peace, I don’t think he’s breathing. Get
up!
The weakness of the ground on this world made Dayn stronger
than he ever thought possible. He wanted to throw his staff as far
away as he could.

“Come, lad,” The Preceptor said, more gently.
“We must hurry.”

A new rumbling grew beneath their feet, and
they peered anxiously up the slope. Although the torrent appeared
to have ceased falling from the sky, a second guided boulder
approached.

Dayn nodded bleakly as he searched for the
Defender. Nassir steadily trudged upslope, three hundred yards
distant.
He did leave us, just like Lurec said. So much for
being my protector.
“We should stay together,” Dayn mumbled.
“Besides, all of those horsemen are down there. Is that really
where you want to go?”

“Peace, no!” Lurec said. “But would you
rather us follow that madman? Look!” He pointed up the slope.

The Defender stopped, almost as if he heard
Lurec's words. Another rockrider rushed toward him, moving even
faster in the runnel created by the first. To Dayn's disbelief, the
Defender charged. “He’s going to be crushed!”

Just before the boulder's shadow swallowed
him, Nassir bounded. He surged into the air so powerfully he seemed
to fly rather than leap, floating with a deadly grace, arms raised
and sword held ready.

The Defender timed his bound masterfully. The
boulder swept harmlessly underneath him. In a moment of shock, the
rockrider fumbled at his rein-like controls before Nassir crashed
into him. The two pitched from the boulder’s top and fell. The
boulder spun crazily past Dayn and Lurec, following a drunken angle
away from the stronghold. They ran toward the Defender, who had
already regained his feet.

Dayn quickly outpaced the Preceptor. By the
time he reached Nassir, the Defender had roughly tied the
rockrider's arms behind his back with wingline. One of his eyes was
swollen shut, and blood covered most of the honey-colored skin of
his face. Nassir tensed at Dayn's approach, displeased by his
presence.

Dayn swallowed, wondering if the man’s
bleeding came from the fall or the Defender. The rockrider looked
at Nassir’s sword fearfully, jammed blade-first into the snow.

Lurec wheezed to Dayn's side, taking in the
scene with wide eyes. He accosted the captured man angrily. “Why
have you done this? This attack has broken a treaty nearly four
hundred years old!”

The man looked at Lurec dispassionately. “We
fight for the Eadrinn Gohr. Your treaties don’t concern us,
Ringman. Gharin the War King does as he will within the Belt.”
Dayn's eyes widened. He knew the Eadrinn Gohr scoffed at trade, but
he could not imagine they would attack another world directly.

The man's defiant glower faltered somewhat at
Nassir's dismissive grunt.

“Gharin was murdered in his sleep two months
ago, and no Eadrinn Gohr man ever spoke with your lilting tongue.”
Nassir flipped the man onto his back, then pressed his boot down so
hard on the man's chest that his ribs popped. Nassir made no effort
to reach for his sword, but turned toward it casually, as though to
remind the man it was well within his grasp should he need it.

He removed his mask. “I have not taken your
life, so you know who I am. You would be wise not to twist your
words, Aran.” The rider licked his lips nervously as the Defender
gave him a wolfish grin. “No amount of sheath can save you from
me.”

Lurec looked at the man in disbelief. “You’re
from Ara?”

Equally stunned, Dayn could recall little of
use about the world. Arans traded fine glasswork and other
luxuries, but relied heavily on the Belt for the most basic of
goods, including food. This man certainly looked like no artisan,
but no matter how he snarled at Nassir, he did not make a
convincing marauder, either.

“Which seats stood for this attack?” Nassir
pressed, but the Aran man said nothing. The Defender ground his
boot down harder. Dayn shared an uncomfortable look with Lurec. He
had imagined Defenders to be unyielding warriors, but never cruel.
But then I never thought one world would attack another, not before
today.
How does a Defender sworn to protect
all
of the
worlds act then?

Nassir looked ready to provide an answer by
reaching for his sword. The Aran's one good eye bulged in alarm,
but he still held his silence with tight-jawed contempt.

Lurec threw up his hands. “Peace, Defender!
Will we stand here until he freezes to death?”

“Any Beltbound who will not claim his own
world may be in league with voidwalkers,” Nassir stated flatly.
“Our mission could be of more import to them than I thought.”

“Voidwalkers?” The Aran choked out a laugh.
“A precious sort of madness grips you and your Ring.” Nassir's fist
clenched around his sword.

“He’s bleeding badly,” Dayn said. The Aran
frowned at him, and Nassir blinked. To Dayn's relief, he released
his sword.

“We make for the stronghold. Get up.” Nassir
released his boot and the Aran's face brimmed with a sort of
gasping triumph. Nassir hoisted him up roughly by his bound arms.
Dayn noticed how the man worked his fingers feverishly, to keep
from freezing in his bonds. “Certainly the Overlord will be glad of
another prisoner to interrogate. A cold man, bred for this world. I
know him well. He'll want to oversee the matter personally.”

The Aran's triumphant look vanished
instantly. Nassir gestured down the mountain with his sword before
returning it to the scabbard behind him. The captured Aran picked
his way glumly down the slope, careful to avoid slipping. Dayn
resolved to help the man to his feet should he stumble. He doubted
either Ringman would.

An eerie silence marked their descent after
the torrent and rockriders. Below them, a gaping hole lay in the
stronghold’s dome where the first boulder breached the wall. Red
stains in the ice and still bodies made for a sorrowful path down
the slope. The Aran's face tightened as they drew near, and he kept
his gaze upon his feet. There were no signs of movement outside of
the stronghold.

Pain touched Lurec's eyes whenever they
rested upon another Suralose victim of the assault, and the
Defender's face hardened in cold anger. Dayn changed his mind about
helping the Aran up if he fell after all.

An Old Saying

So the Regent took the farmer from Badai to Ista
Cham, and all over the Belt people cheered him and called the
farmer prince. The Regent vowed he shall never work another day,
but the farmer returned to Shard after that, lest the Regent insult
him further.

-from Mari’s Lessons, a collection of Belt stories
from Badai

T
hey moved down the
slope quickly, even with Nassir dragging his Aran captive along.
The way leveled off in front of the stronghold entrance, the only
visible opening in a pale dome half-buried within the surrounding
ice. There were no signs of fighting, which struck Dayn oddly after
the chaos that ruled the mountain just moments before. A slight man
wrapped crown to heel in thick furs rushed out to meet them,
calling out in an anxious voice.