The Seedbearing Prince: Part I (17 page)

“I don’t see how.”

“There’s refuge ahead, with a little luck. We
need to get distance between us and those things. You ready to
bound more?” Little escaped the farmer’s notice. Dayn stretched out
his ankle, it would begin to swell soon if they did not keep
moving.

“I’ll be fine.”

Nerlin turned, squatting to bound again. A
voidwalker burst from the shadows to pluck the farmer right out of
the air, one hand gripped tightly around Nerlin’s neck.

“No! Let go of him!” Dayn sprang forward
without thought. He swung his staff with all the force he could
muster. The blow bounced off the voidwalker’s black armor. The
brute did not even notice.

“My brother thinks you degenerates are
special.” The voidwalker leered at Nerlin. His massive hand
engulfed the farmer’s neck, twisting Nerlin’s head from side to
side as though checking him for blemishes. “I think you are frail,
and your pathetic world only spins by chance!”

Nerlin drew just enough breath to spit in the
voidwalker’s face.

The brute snarled, and slammed him into the
ground. Dayn struck at him again. The voidwalker swept his arm
around casually. Dayn flew back, crashing into a redbranch
trunk.

The voidwalker wasted no more words. He
picked Nerlin up, drew him high overhead. His left knee rose, ready
to break the farmer’s back. Not knowing what else to do, Dayn threw
his staff. The voidwalker shifted scornfully. The staff missed the
cruel face by inches.

“Watch closely, degenerate. This is the
easiest way to feed you to a fleshweep.”

But Dayn never intended to hit the
voidwalker. His staff had sailed past, and into the shadowy center
of a vortex of silk. The redbranch around it began to tremble
violently.

The voidwalker sensed the movement and
turned. A gravespinner flashed out of the den, taller than a man’s
knee. Its mandibles dug vainly at the black armor, and it skittered
back from a kick. Then the spinner began to climb. Its barbed,
spindly legs crawled up the torso in an instant to find the
voidwalker’s unprotected neck.

With one arm the voidwalker tore the spinner
away from his shoulders, then threw it into the trees with such
force the leg tore off in his hand. The den began to vibrate again.
Another spinner rushed out. The voidwalker threw Nerlin toward the
den’s mouth, and he landed in the silk. Wide-eyed and stuck, but
alive.

“In your pack, get a knife!”

Dayn ripped open his pack. The second spinner
ignored him and pounced straight for the voidwalker. The brute
caught the spider in midair and tore it in half. Dark blue entrails
sprayed over the ground.

“Peace take you, boy! Quit fumbling and cut
me out! Cut me out!” Nerlin’s voice grew shrill with panic. More
spinners rushed over him, at least five, all heading straight for
the voidwalker. For the first time, Dayn saw fear in the gray man’s
eyes. “What do you think they’ll do when they finish him off,
curtsy for us?”

A light drew Dayn’s attention back to the
pack. The Seed, glowing red. Next to it lay a small belt knife.
“I’ve got it!”

“Moridos!” The voidwalker shouted as Dayn
rushed toward Nerlin. Dayn did not look back. He spit on the blade
and set to cutting the gravespinner threads for all he was
worth.

“That’s it, that’s it!” The silk was frayed,
in a way they were fortunate to be caught in older dens. Dayn
finally pulled Nerlin free, then wrenched at his staff. It came
loose of the gravespinner den on the first tug.

“Moridos, I’m here!” Gravespinners covered
the voidwalker, his hands were stained with their guts. For every
one he crushed, two more appeared to take its place. “Brother, help
me!”

“Let’s go,” Dayn urged. A spinner sunk its
mandibles into the voidwalker’s shoulder above the armor. He
screamed.

“Moridos!”

Distant crashing to the south jerked them
into action. They scooped up their packs and bounded in the
opposite direction. They left the voidwalker screaming, as the
gravespinners set about cocooning him into the redbranch.

Dayn and Nerlin bounded perhaps half a mile,
driven by blind fear. Nerlin’s ragged call drew Dayn up short. “May
Shard be forever kind to her sons,” Nerlin rasped. “Look
there.”

A bowl-shaped valley stretched before them
for miles, cradling the ruins of some ancient city. Crumbling
towers and spires rose from the mist, forming a forest of broken,
shadows.

“What is this place?” Dayn whispered.

“Terabin Round.” Nerlin said. He cocked his
head for a moment, listening for pursuit. Only gravespinner
infested lands could offer such total silence. Nothing sounded
behind them, not even a cricket's chirp.

“Not all of the great cities were in the
Highlands. This was one of the largest cities in the World Belt,
thousands of years ago. Right here in the Mistlands.” Nerlin picked
his way down the slope, moving with new confidence. He kept his
voice low and spared sharp looks for Dayn whenever one of his
exhausted steps sent loose rock tumbling down the slope.

“None of my lessons from the Elders speak of
this place,” Dayn said. The ruins appeared to offer little safety.
“We can't be that far away from Wia Wells, and I've never seen this
on a map. Why would people leave?”

“There's more to history than what an Elder
sees fit to tell you, boy,” Nerlin replied gruffly. “The torrent
could fall on some worlds in the Belt, those days. The people
searched out cliffs that could shelter them better, in places like
Greenshadow and Sheercrest. Otherwise, this might still be the
capital of Shard.”

“Misthaveners sure wouldn't like to hear
that.”

“No, I imagine they wouldn't.” Redbranch
stopped well short of a once proud wall, which lay in ruins beneath
the mist, crunching underfoot. In past glory, the city easily held
ten times the splendor of Misthaven. “I was a bit of an explorer in
my day, before Shard saw fit to slow me down.”

Dayn heard a hollow wooden
thunk.
He
could not see below his knees in the mist, but knew Nerlin had
tapped his wooden boot. “Makes you wonder, doesn't it? How
different things would be if Shardians lasted longer here? Maybe we
would boss all the councils around, and Misthaven would be the
village with bad luck.”

The notion almost made Dayn laugh. He
wondered how much exploring Nerlin had done in his past. “Are there
other cities like this on Shard?”

“Not a one. I never meant to cut through the
nidus to reach this place again. I approached it from the northern
side, years ago. There’s good land all around here, enough for Wia
Wells, Southforte and Kohr Springs combined. But Terabin Round
might as well be on another world, with all of the gravespinners
surrounding it.”

Dayn nodded, his eyes fixed on the ruins. The
buildings were all crafted from the same white stonework, which
glittered proudly in the moonlight. Only a few of the taller
structures still stood, with crumbling holes in their upper
heights, large enough to fit a wagon through. Dayn supposed those
were old wounds from the torrent.

“I mean to thank you for back there,” Nerlin
said. “I’ll meet my end one day, but watching my bones get sucked
out of me like soup is the last way I’d choose. I almost feel bad
for that thing chasing us.”

“That’s because you didn’t see what he almost
did to you,” Dayn said. “And think nothing of it. If it weren’t for
you, we’d never have gotten away from them on the road. Were
they...in your head, too?” Nerlin nodded. “How did you free
yourself?”

“I honestly couldn’t say. The only thought
that came into my head was remembering how badly my wife wanted to
plant, before the fever took her. Twelve years ago, and I’m still
sitting on fallow ground. I thought to myself, ‘you can’t die on
this road. What would she think?’ I suppose that’s what kept them
from splitting my head open, I didn’t want them to badly enough.
She helped me remember it wasn’t my time to go.”

“Peace keep her wreath,” Dayn said quietly.
They fell silent for a while, taking in the broken city.

Even in ruin, Terabin Round held more
grandeur than Misthaven could ever hope for. Buildings were
sometimes crowned with domes, or precise six-sided spires. Dayn
felt a connection to this place he could not explain, and found
himself constantly angling his neck upward to see the heights of
every tower they walked past.

Nerlin led him across a main thoroughfare
wider than the Wustl Square. Every so often he gave Dayn a
considering glance. They heard no sound save their own breathing
and muffled footfalls.

“You’re not as soft as I thought,” Nerlin
said finally. A collapsed building lay in their chosen road, with
no clue as to whether it fell yesterday or a hundred years ago.
Jagged stone of every size filled the street. As Nerlin slowed to
pick the easiest way through the rubble, his next words took Dayn
by surprise. “You truly mean to cut your luck in the Course of
Blades?”

“I did. I mean I do. Peace, I don't know what
I mean!” Dayn grimaced. “A week ago, that's all I wanted.” The
farmer waited as though he would actually hear him out, so Dayn
continued. “There will never be an Attendant from Wia Wells again,
thanks to me. The Village Council won’t see me fit to haul water
after this. One day, I could have gone to Montollos for the staff,
but now...coursing doesn't even seem like a good idea anymore.”

“Time will tell,” Nerlin replied. He abruptly
turned left into a side street, leaving Dayn to wonder at his
private thoughts. Crumbling walls lined the narrow way, threatening
collapse at any moment. Nerlin knew his way around, and took pains
to follow a circuitous route.

“You don't think we've escaped them, do you?”
Dayn’s heart sank when the farmer shook his head no.

“You heard them in the redbranch. They don’t
bound, boy. Every offworlder I know of labors on Shardian ground.”
Nerlin scratched his chin. “They didn't look tired at all to me. No
bet on if the spinners slowed them down, either.”

“I hope they’re both wrapped in silk for
good,” Dayn said. He did not remember seeing any cuts on the skin
of either voidwalker after the redbranch.
They may not even
breathe,
he reminded himself. The Defenders in the Square did
not tire after fighting a fire, and quelling a riot. If those were
ordinary men, what further strengths did the voidwalkers
possess?

Nerlin stopped and peered into the recesses
of a building with somewhat sturdier walls. “We'll wait here until
morning, and then strike out again. Let the gravespinners do what
they do best.”

“But the Ringmen will be gone by then!” Dayn
protested. Things would get better, once he was rid of the Seed. He
clung to the notion, regardless of how foolish it seemed. “You
heard the voidwalkers, back on the road. The village might have
been burned down because of me! If we don’t get it back to Lurec,
all of that was for nothing.”

Nerlin kissed his teeth in exasperation.
“They warned me you were stubborn, but this is bordering on
rock-stupid. I'd wager those Preceptors couldn't jump a transport
fast enough after their little picnic in the Mistlands.” He eyed
Dayn's pack. “Whatever that thing is, it's not worth waking up in a
cocoon. And if those fine fellows from the road survive, I intend
to see them coming from a good long way off. We wait.”

“Morning, then.” Dayn said reluctantly. He
followed as Nerlin dipped inside. He really had no other choice,
these wilds were completely unknown to him.

Little of the building's interior revealed
itself to Dayn's eyes, but at Nerlin's call he padded toward some
stairs near the wall. Most of the second floor and upper walls had
given way under the weight of the collapsed roof, but a portion
remained intact enough to walk upon.

The entire top now lay open to the stars, but
more importantly, they could see nearly half a mile in every
direction across the ruins. Old char marks marred the white rock in
one corner, proof of Nerlin's past campfires.

The farmer saw him notice and shook his head.
“Not tonight.” Dayn pulled his cloak tighter and suppressed a
shiver. His clothes were sodden after running through the mist, and
Terabin Round's white stone seemed to suck the heat from his body.
Without panic surging through him, aches and pains announced
themselves throughout his limbs, and every cut and scrape bickered
for attention.

“This is yours,” Nerlin said. He thrust the
spare pack toward Dayn. “I'm tired of carrying it.”

He returned to his silent watch of the
surrounding ruins as Dayn opened the bag. His eyebrows climbed as
he took in a harness, wingline...
my coursing gear!

“I don't understand,” Dayn said numbly. “I
could get skinned just for having most of this.”

“Your father gathered what he could from the
Dreadfall,” Nerlin replied. “He doesn't know a lick about coursing,
but there are good cliffs near Greenshadow. He thought this might
help your summer pass quickly.”

Dayn closed the pack, flooded with guilt over
his father's parting kindness. “He would have let me go if I'd only
asked,” he mumbled. Laman had even packed the sealer. “He stood by
me at every turn. He let me train with Joam, and my mother hates
the staff, Nerlin. I made him look like the biggest fool in the
Mistlands.”

“The Village Council is a fine assortment of
fools,” Nerlin said judiciously. “But Laman is one of the most fair
minded farmers I’ve known. You could have done better by him,
boy.”

“I will.” Being rid of the Seed loomed that
much more important in his mind now. “As the mist rises, somehow I
will.”

The Leap Point

The Seedbearer laughed and rain fell to quench the
forest. Seeds sprouted and took leaf to catch his footfalls, and
flowers bloomed when he came near, in case his gaze might fall on
them.