Worldbinder (36 page)

“I will inherit!” Drewish said. “I’m most fit to rule! First I’ll kill him, then I’ll take down the king!”

“Not if I get you first, you damned coward!” Connor roared, finally gathering enough wits to clear his war-hammer from its scabbard.

He tried to leap past Madoc to get at his younger brother, but Madoc stopped him with an elbow to the face. Connor staggered under the impact of the blow.

Drewish took the opportunity to lunge, his knife lashing at his brother’s throat, until Madoc punched him in the ear.

Both boys fell to the ground, beaten.

Warlord Madoc put one foot on Drewish’s shoulder, holding him down, while he grabbed Connor by the throat and wrestled him around to get a look at his wound.

Blood stained Connor’s back just above the kidney, but the wound did not look deep. Already the flow was clotting.

“Not too bad,” Madoc judged. “The armor foiled it, just by a bit.”

“I nearly had him,” Drewish spat, trying to struggle up to his feet. “But he ran away.”

Madoc glowered. It was bad enough that Drewish tried
to murder his brother. It was made worse by the fact that he had bungled it.

“Here’s the deal,” Madoc growled. “You will both live to reach Luciare. If either of you dies—either at his brother’s hand or at the hand of a wyrmling—I’ll kill the survivor. And, believe me—I’ll take my pleasure doing it. Understand?”

“Yes, father,” Connor sniveled, fighting back tears of rage.

Madoc stomped on Drewish’s shoulder. “Got it?” Madoc demanded. He swore to himself that if this one didn’t understand, he’d slash the boy’s throat with his own blade for being too slow-witted.

“Got it,” Drewish finally agreed.

“Good,” Madoc said. “When I get home, we’ll have a council, figure out how both of you can have a kingdom.” He thought fast. “There are these small folk that will need someone to rule them with an iron hand. They’ll need big folk to be their masters. It will require great work to subjugate them, to properly harvest their endowments. I need both of you alive. Understand?”

Both boys nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Good,” Madoc said. He heard screams along the castle wall, one of his men shouting, “Get them! Get them. They’re coming over the wall!”

“Now, drag your asses back home,” Madoc growled. “I’ve got a battle to fight.”

He turned and studied the castle wall, searching for the source of the commotion, even as a huge shadow fell over him, blocking out the starlight. An enormous graak soared over the fortress. And there he saw it, a kezziard’s head rising over the north wall, its face covered in a barding made of iron chains, its silver eyes reflecting the fires.

Warlord Madoc listened to his sons scuttle away even as his mind turned to war.

Now comes the hard part, he thought: staying alive.

    32    

“Why are they cheering so?” Jaz asked, for as they marched through the city gates, the warriors beat axes against shields and roared. Nor did the applause die, but kept growing stronger.

Talon leaned down and said softly, “Because you slew a Knight Eternal. They saw it, and even now there are tales circulating of how you slew another at Cantular. No hero of legend has ever slain
two
of them. The warriors of Luciare have often driven them back from the castle, and sometimes escaped their hunts. But never do they slay the Lords of Wyrm.”

As they entered the city, the warriors cheered Jaz and gathered around, then lifted him onto their shoulders and paraded him through the streets.

Fallion gazed up at the city in wonder. The streets wound up through the market district here, and higher on the hill he could see a stouter wall. Above them, the lights played across the whitened walls of the mountain, flickering and ever-changing in hue, like an aurora borealis.

Soldiers patted Fallion on the shoulder and would have borne him away, but Fallion shook his head and drew back. In his mind, the words echoed, “though the world may applaud your slaughter, you will come to know that each of your victories is mine.”

Fallion felt a wearying sadness. Once again, men applauded him for his capacity to kill, and he could not
help but worry that somehow he was furthering the enemy’s plans.

Fallion looked around; people were smiling at him, but they were strange people, oddly proportioned. He saw a boy that could not have been more than ten, but he was almost a full head taller than Fallion.

Shrinking back, Fallion felt very small indeed. He was a stranger in this land of giants.

Talon had said that men of the Warrior Clans had grown large over the ages due to selective breeding. But even the commoners here seemed massive.

The warriors’ seed has spread throughout the population, Fallion realized.

The king was marching up through the throng, the crowd parting for him like waters before the prow of a ship. He suddenly turned and called out, peering at Fallion.

Talon, who had been separated from Fallion in the crowd, called out the translation, from several yards away, leaping up to catch a glimpse of Fallion. “He thanks you for your help, and regrets that he must now go prepare for battle. He says that the wyrmlings will attack before dawn.” There was a question implied in that last bit. He needed help, Fallion realized, and wondered if Fallion would give it.

Fallion drew his sword, dismayed at the rust building upon it, and put its tip to the ground. He walked forward, and the crowd parted until he stood before the High King. Fallion knelt upon one knee, bowed his head, and said, “Your Highness, my sword and my life are yours to command.”

The king answered, and Talon translated, “Your sword and your life are yours to keep. I will not command your service, but I welcome your friendship—and that of your people.”

“That you shall have,” Fallion said.

The king smiled then, warmly, and a wistful look crossed his face. He whispered into the ear of the Wizard
Sisel, then turned and strode up to the castle, his cape fluttering behind him.

Fallion retreated from the throng, tried to find a place in the shadows, away from the crowd, but the Wizard Sisel sought him out. “The king will be taking counsel with his troops. He has battle plans that must be seen to. But there are matters of great import to both of you that must be discussed. He wonders if you and your friends would like to refresh yourselves, perhaps wash up, and then meet him in his council chambers for a meal.”

“Tell him that I would be honored,” Fallion said.

Sisel headed through the throng. Reluctantly, Fallion and the others followed him up the winding streets, through the merchants’ quarter. The air was perfumed with the honeyed scent of flowers, for beneath every window was a flower box where blossoms of pink or yellow or white grew in a riot, streaming down from the second-story windows like waterfalls. Flowering vines sprang in curtains from mossy pots that hung from the lintels. Great bushes struggled up from pots beside the doors, and small forests rose up just behind the houses, while ivy climbed every wall. Lush grass and colorful poppies rioted at the margins of the road.

Life. Everywhere was life. Fallion had never felt so … overwhelmed by plants. It was almost oppressive. Even in the steaming forests of Landesfallen, flying among the trees upon his graak, he’d never felt so dwarfed.

And as he passed through the gate to the upper levels of the city, light was added to the foliage. Three vast tunnels opened as portals into the mountain. The mountain walls were paneled with huge stones, all limed a brilliant white, while runes of protection were embossed in gold there upon the walls outside of each tunnel.

Beneath each portal squatted a golden brazier, perhaps eight feet across, where pure blue-white lights flickered and played like lightning, sometimes changing hues to soft pink or fiery red.

They were fires, but they had no source. Fallion reached out with his senses, tested them. There was no heat there, only a piercing cold.

“What are those lights?” he asked Talon.

She hesitated, as if he had asked her something crude. “The soul-fires of those who died guarding this city. They come each night, and guard it still.”

Fallion veered to get a closer look as they passed under the arch, but Talon grabbed his sleeve and pulled him away, giving him a silent warning.

“I want a glance,” he said.

“Peering into the light is considered to be both disrespectful, and dangerous—” Talon said, “disrespectful because you would only witness the refuse of their souls, and dangerous because … seeing their beauty, you would long to become one of them. Leave those sad creatures to their duties.”

Light and life, Fallion realized. Sisel had said that he protected the city with light and life.

Then they were under the arches, into the tunnels, which grew dark and gloomy. The tunnels were lit by tiny lanterns that hung from hooks along the wall. Each lantern was blown from amber-colored glass and held a pool of oil beneath it. The oil traveled up a wick to a tiny chamber, where a candle-sized flame burned. Fallion had seen similar lanterns from Inkarra. There they were called “thumb lights,” for each lantern was no longer than a thumb.

The throng broke up, warriors retreating to their own private halls, and Talon led Fallion’s group down a long passage. The ceiling lowered and the hallway became almost cramped.

The mountain was a warren, a dangerous warren, for portcullises and dangerous bends were strewn all along the way. If it came to fighting, Fallion could see where an army could fight and then fall back, always defending from a well-fortified position. The wyrmlings with their great height would be at a disadvantage in such tight quarters.

We should be safe here, he thought.

    33    

“You failed?” Lady Despair asked.

Vulgnash knelt upon the parapet beneath Fortress Rugassa, the smell of sulfur clotting the air in the chamber as the unbearable heat rose up from the magma. The great wyrm had risen beneath him, its maw working as it spoke.