Worldbinder (4 page)

“Damn,” Jaz swore, looking to Fallion, urging Fallion to fight. He added hopefully, “The men on the walls have ashen bows. Mine has a farther reach.”

“So,” Fallion said, “you’ll fire on the guards while I batter down the gate? I think your jokes are getting better.”

The group had not planned to stop at Coorm. They had more urgent business farther on.

Now they had to stop, Rhianna realized. They couldn’t leave these women to suffer. A woman alone might live a night or two here in the woods, but the strengi-saats would get her in time. Rhianna knew by the look on Jaz’s face that live or die, he would not leave Castle Coorm without a fight.

But Fallion seemed reticent.

What’s wrong with you? Rhianna wondered. We both know what it’s like to be children, to be held in the clutches of an enemy. Don’t you dare walk away from this, Fallion. If you do, I will stop loving you.

But Fallion looked to the west longingly, unsure.

He wants to mend the earth, Rhianna thought. The need presses him, and it breaks his heart to hold back, even for a worthy cause. He must weigh the risk that many might die during the time that is lost against the certainty that this one
will
die.

“All right,” Fallion said at last. “I’ll free your city. But afterward, we will have to redouble our speed.”

Relief flooded through Rhianna. I’m right to love him, she thought.

Fallion kicked some leaves into a pile, knelt over it, and sparked some flint against the hilt of his sword. The leaves were dry in midsummer and caught fire instantly. If Farion thought it strange that they took fire so fast, it did not show in her face. Only relief was revealed there.

In moments a fierce little blaze was going.

“Is your father well?” Fallion asked. “I have often missed his counsel.”

“His Dedicates were killed years back,” Farion said. “He lost his wit, his stamina, his metabolism. All of the lore that he once knew, it’s all gone. For a while, Lord Hale made him his fool, but now he is little more than a simpleton for me to care for. He fetches wood and can feed the cats, but he’s no use for aught else.”

Fallion grieved silently. In all of the realm there had not been a man who loved learning half as much as her father, Hearthmaster Waggit. Among the many ruins that Fallion had encountered in the week since his return to Mystarria, this one seemed to sadden him the most.

He peered into the flames for a long moment, and the Seal of the Inferno appeared, like a burning wheel, imprinted upon his retina. He pulled a log onto the fire. The dancing flames seemed to beckon him.

Off to his left a shadow moved, perhaps thirty paces from the fire. A strengi-saat. He peered in its direction, and the shadows thickened.

“Jaz,” Fallion warned. He picked up a stick from the fire and hurled it toward the shadow. The twig flipped end over end, hit something and blazed bright, revealing the strengi-saat.

It was a large one, perhaps eighteen feet from nose to tail, but had looked smaller as it bellied low to the ground. Its jaws were wide enough to carry a man whole, and its head was leathery and seemed to have scales instead of fur like that found on its back and belly. Ugly black hide stretched over a face as naked as a buzzard’s. It had no ears, only tympanums, round membranes the size of plates, just behind its enormous eyes. It whirled to race away.

Jaz fired. The arrow
plocked
into the monster’s chest, skewering a lung. Black blood gushed out in a fountain as the strengi-saat roared and began rolling among the pine needles. Rhianna shouted and rushed toward it, her
staff at the ready, and the monster leapt away, hoping to escape. It lunged off into the shadows, leaving Rhianna far behind. Fallion knew that it would only find a quiet place to die.

The sun had not yet risen, but the sky was growing light. In a moment, the bright disk would rise and hang like a shield upon the shoulder of the world. Fallion warmed his hands by the fire, let its energy seep into him for a few moments longer.

For the past year, he had been seeking to master the flameweavers’ arts in earnest. He could feel the energy building inside him, a hidden inferno. When he judged that he could hold no more, he abruptly stood and announced, “Let’s go deal with this Lord Hale.”

Far above Fallion a star shone so dimly that it could not be seen, a light so distant that even upon the darkest of nights it was only a hazy malformed speck in the vastness of space, unremarkable, unknown. Fallion had never seen the star, for only those with many endowments of sight could discern it. He had never gazed up from a meadow at night and wondered whether worlds spun in lazy circles about it. He had never dreamt that it might harbor people similar to his.

Yet upon that world a young man, not entirely human inform, faced challenges of his own….

    2    

The Great War was finally near an end, and mankind had lost.

The castle at Caer Luciare was now a last and lonely refuge perched on the sides of a mount. The forbidding wastes below were a rocky tumult. To the north, west and east, the ruins of ancient cities climbed above the scree. The vast oaks that had once refreshed this land were gone, tree and acorn, razed during battles with the wyrmlings, and now the fields boasted little but boulders,
weeds, and thistles. Only in a few distant fens could green still be seen.

Refugees had swelled Caer Luciare’s numbers to more than thirty-eight thousand. The High King himself had come after the fall of Gonart, and the Light of Dalharristan had resorted here with his family now for six years. And this past month alone, four hundred good Kartoche warriors with skin whiter than bone had journeyed north to take refuge among Caer Luciare’s ranks.

Everyone said that the warlords were preparing for some fierce assault against the evil that dwelt in the north, at Rugassa.

Had you been walking the tower at Caer Luciare that morning, you might have seen Alun, a young man of nineteen who still seemed far more a boy than a man, down on the green outside the gates amid a swarm of dogs. The hounds around him bayed excitedly at the promise of the hunt, while mastiffs woofed.

Alun knelt with his neck and back bent like a willow frond as he groomed an old hound. Alun was a gangrel, he was, with a crooked nose, stick-like arms, and a head and hands that were too meaty for his body. His leather trousers and red wool tunic were matted with hair and smelled of dog.

The dogs looked fierce in their masks and cuirasses of boiled leather, their wicked collars bristling with spikes. Yet the nubs of their tails wagged furiously, belying their fierce appearance. Their tails wagged despite the fact that some of the dogs knew that they would die this day as the warriors scoured the forest, hunting for wyrmling “harvesters.”

There weren’t enough dogs for the hunt, Alun knew, not enough healthy ones. He had others in the kennels, limping on mangled paws or with bellies ripped open; right now he was preparing to send Wanderlust into the fray.

“What do you say, love?” Alun asked the hound as he combed. He wanted her to look nice, in case she died today.

Wanderlust was old. The black hair on her snout had gone gray. Her joints were swollen, and as Alun held her muzzle, peered into her loving brown eyes, and strapped on a fighting collar, she barely managed a slow wag of her tail, as if to say, “Another battle? I’m so weary, but I will go.”

At first glance, she didn’t look like much of a dog. But Wanderlust was more than a common hound. Her mother was a sand hound, a breed so named for its sandy color, renowned for its good nose. But her father was a brute, descended from three strains of war dog. Wanderlust was almost as large as a mastiff, and she had a warrior’s heart. Even in old age, if she smelled a wyrmling, she would be first to the fray.

Alun put on Wanderlust’s mask, as red as a bloodied skull. He had fashioned it himself, and it reminded him that all too soon there be nothing left of her but a skull. If the wyrmlings didn’t get her, age would.

A hound named Thunder rushed up and bayed in Alun’s face. Alun gave Thunder a stern look, warned him to go sit, then Alun twisted over to dig in his big rucksack for Wanderlust’s cuirass.

A shadow fell over Alun; he looked up. Warlord Madoc stood above him, a tall man in his forties, astonishingly big-boned and broad at the chest. He was a powerful man, as relentlessly bred for war as any of the dogs in Alun’s care. His bald head was painted in a red war mask, though he had not yet donned his armor. At his back were his twin sons, Connor and Drewish, both eighteen, in masks of blue. Alun drew back reflexively, for Drewish had often kicked him.

“G’day, milord,” Alun said. “Nice day for a hunt.” He nodded toward the wastes. The rising sun sprang above the fog-shrouded vales, staining the mist in shades of rose.

“Fagh! I grow weary of hunts,” Madoc groused, his tone equally full of fatigue and disgust. He nodded at Wanderlust. “Sending the old bitch out?”

“Aye, milord.”

Warlord Madoc grew thoughtful. “You’re grooming her for her burial. She deserves such honor. But I have a more vital task for her today—and for you, I think.”

“Milord?”

“Master Finnes tells me that your dog has a nose so strong that she can track the trail of a quail a day after it has taken to air—even if it flies over open water.”

“True enough,” Alun said, his heart suddenly pumping, excited to hear that Wanderlust might get a reprieve.

“Then, I need you to track …
someone.
”

Alun wondered whom. He had not heard of any criminals that had escaped the dungeons or highwaymen hiding in the wastes. No one dared stray outside the castle these days. “Who, milord?”

“Swear on your eyes and your hands that you won’t tell?”

That was a serious oath. If Alun broke it, Warlord Madoc would require his eyes and hands as payment. “I’ll nay tell nobody.”

“I want you to track Daylan Hammer.”

“Milord?” Alun asked, surprised. Daylan Hammer was a hero. No, he was more than a hero, he was a legend, not some common criminal to be hunted and spied upon. Tales of his exploits stretched back for centuries. It was said that he was immortal, that in his youth he had traveled to another world, where he had drunk a potion that somehow let him cheat death. Some thought that he might even be from another world. He could not be killed, yet he had a habit of disappearing for decades on end, then showing up again. He had come to Caer Luciare last summer, at the end of the month of Wheat, and had been wintering all season.

“You heard aright,” Madoc said. “Daylan Hammer has a habit of abandoning the hunt, taking off into the wastes alone. There is a pattern to it. If I’m right, he’ll leave the hunt today. I suspect him of foul deeds. I need to know where he goes.”

Alun must have looked worried. At the very least, he did not know how to answer.

“Are you up to the task?” Madoc demanded. “Would you risk the wastes alone, with nothing but that dog?”

“I’m—not afraid,” Alun said. “Wanderlust will warn me if there is any danger about.”

“Do this for me,” Madoc said, “and I’ll make you Master of the Hounds….” He fell silent, letting this sink in. “With the title comes your freedom and a grant of all of the rights owed to a warrior of the clan….”