Chaosbound (27 page)

It was one of the few words that Crull-maldor understood in the speech of these small folk; she'd grown weary of hearing it.

The wyrmling troops hesitated now, encircling the humans. Crullmaldor's scouts were rushing through the town, sniffing at each hovel, sometimes rummaging under a bed or scrutinizing an attic.

It took nearly twenty minutes for Yikkarga's captain to report, “The blood metal is not hidden here in the village. We found a wagon that smells of it, though, out behind that barn.” He jutted a chin toward a large building on the road north of town, near a small manor house.

“Go and search the woods and fields nearby,” Crull-maldor suggested. “You have done well. You shall be rewarded.”

Yikkarga had already found the owner of the manor, a ridiculous-looking man in a nightcap. His plump wife clung to his arm, while his three children groveled and tried to cower away.

The wyrmling lord Yikkarga loomed over the small folk, and stepped on the hand of a young boy of five or six to keep him from crawling off.

“He denies knowing anything about the blood metal,” Yikkarga shouted to Crull-maldor. “Shall I torture them?”

“I will handle it.” With a thought, Crull-maldor went whispering over the dry grasses of the field, using her powers to pull life from all around. The wyrmlings were masters of torment, but they could assault only the flesh. Crull-maldor could do more. As she neared the humans, the air grew frigid, and their breath steamed in the cold night.

The humans shrieked in terror and sought to back away. Crull-maldor wore a new robe of spidery black gauze, so that they might see her there in the moonlight, a hooded shadow.

She stopped near the family, reached out an ethereal finger, and pointed to the man's youngest child. “Tell me where you took the blood metal,” she commanded. Yikkarga translated her demand into the human tongue; the fellow sat with pale eyes made round by terror, pleading, “No! Please, no!”

His wife grasped his wrist and squeezed subtly, a warning for him to be strong, to keep silent. She glared up at Crull-maldor, determination in her piggy eyes.

Crull-maldor marked the woman for death. She was the strong one in the family, the determined one.

“Take the woman,” Crull-maldor said. “Let your men humble her.”

Yikkarga grabbed the woman by arm and jerked her from the little family circle. He tossed her into the street, ordered some men to begin carving off her kneecaps.

Cries of outrage rose from the humans. Women and children wept bitterly and turned away, while the little man in his nightclothes gibbered and cursed.

Suddenly Yikkarga dodged aside, just as an arrow came whizzing from the darkness.

There was a shout of warning, and Yikkarga pointed toward an inn. A dozen troops rushed the house, caught the assailant, and dragged him into the street. It was a young man with a longbow. He'd hidden in an attic.

It was a brief incident, and hardly slowed the woman's torture, but Crull-maldor marked it.

It is said that Yikkarga cannot die, that he is under Despair's protection, she thought. There was no warning that an arrow would come from the darkness. His back was turned to it. Yet he
knew
!

Now she knew, too. He could not be killed.

The wyrmlings turned their attention to the piggy woman, who was on the ground, wrestling with a couple of brutes.

“Tell them nothing!” the woman wailed.

Crull-maldor nodded to one of the men. He took a club and struck the human on her mutilated knees, causing such intense pain that the woman blacked out and fell silent.

The small human lord seemed to screw up his face, gather his courage, as if he imagined that he could withstand such torment.

Crull-maldor looked among the family members, searching for the next victim, settled on the youngest boy. There are things worse than physical torment. There is anguish that goes beyond heartbreak. Crush a man's hand and you cause him pain, but some tortures are profoundly more difficult to endure than physical discomfort.

Crull-maldor reached out to take the child, rend his spirit in front of
the whole family, when suddenly a young woman leapt into her path, a girl of twelve or thirteen, hatred burning in her eyes.

“Kill us all, if you want,” she shouted. “You'll never find the blood metal! It's gone—far away from here. And someday a lord will come, a powerful lord who will rid the earth of your kind! The oracles have seen it!”

Crull-maldor hesitated briefly, allowing Yikkarga time to translate.

“It is the prophecy again,” he said. “The humans have heard of it, a tale of a hero who will bring down the emperor. They have stolen the blood metal in the hopes of bringing it to pass.”

Crull-maldor peered up at Yikkarga. He couldn't be trusted. He served the emperor—him and a hundred runelords more powerful than any that she had kept.

The emperor had sent them out of fear. Apparently, things had changed in Rugassa. Lord Despair had begun creating gates to the shadow worlds, assembling a vast army. Great swirling clouds of darkness now blanketed the entire southern realm, and beneath those clouds creatures called Darkling Glories flew, scouring the land for signs of enemies, while troops from a dozen worlds kept watch upon the ground.

Amid those troops was a race of hideous creatures called Thissians, led by their chaos oracles, who could catch glimpses of the future.

They had seen something, a threat coming from the north, from her realm: a warrior bold and powerful bent on destroying the emperor, with a pair of sorcerers at his back.

Forewarned by prophecies of his doom, the emperor Zul-torac had sent these crack troops to the Northern Wastes, instructing them to find the human champion—and kill him.

But when Crull-maldor asked for a description of this warrior, Yikkarga was evasive.

He's trying to make me look bad, she thought.

It was an old trick. The emperor could not demote Crull-maldor without giving a just reason. Lord Despair would never approve it.

So the emperor was trying to embarrass Crull-maldor. The emperor had demanded that Crull-maldor hunt down and execute the humans' hero. Yet he sabotaged her efforts.

“He is a large man,” Yikkarga had reported, “with red hair.”

But here in the North, red hair was nearly as common as teeth. Millions of humans had it.

Yikkarga was withholding information, Crull-maldor felt sure. He knew more about this warrior, much more.

So the emperor played his little game. When the emperor's men caught their champion, Crull-maldor's humiliation would be complete. The emperor would remove Crull-maldor from her post. Yikkarga would replace her.

But more was going on here than met the eye.

The emperor is a fool, Crull-maldor thought. In the process of hunting for a human hero, by asking too many questions, Yikkarga's men were about to empower the very man they were sent to destroy.

For now the small folk were seeking out blood metal and hoarding it, saving it for the day when their savior would appear.

The girl stood defiantly before Crull-maldor, as idealistic children so often do. The lich ordered Yikkarga, “Ask her if this warrior has a name.”

The girl answered, and Yikkarga translated, “The hero has no name, but she says that her people will know him when he comes.”

Crull-maldor wasn't so sure. Even if Yikkarga had learned something important, he would not reveal the information.

Indeed, that was the problem. Any information that these humans revealed would benefit only the emperor's men.

So Crull-maldor reached out and seized the young woman, placing a shadowy thumb and pinky finger each on the girl's mandibles, the middle finger in the sacred spot just above and between the eyes, and a finger each upon the girl's eyes.

Instantly the young thing froze, and a whimper wrenched from her.

The humans all cried out and mourned, some backing away while the father fought to draw near, to comfort the girl.

Then Crull-maldor took her. A thin wail rose from the child's throat, even as spirit matter escaped through her nostrils in a streaming fog. Crull-maldor drew out her hopes and dreams, all of her secret ambitions and her love—emptying her like a bowl.

The child whimpered and trembled as Crull-maldor drained her, but she could not break away. She was trapped like a boar upon the end of a spear, trembling and straining but unable to escape.

The energy from the child was sweet, as sweet as flesh fresh after a kill.

She died with a feathery wail rising from her throat, her lips quivering, beads of sweat upon her brow, and a haunted look in her eye.

Crull-maldor broke off the attack early. The girl had died inside, but Crull-maldor left her with her heart still beating.

The girl managed to sway on her feet for a moment before she crumpled to her knees. There she just stared forward in a daze.

She was a hollow shell. She would never speak again, never eat.

Her family would try to restore her, to feed her, but it would take days until she died.

“Raze this village as an example to the humans,” Crull-maldor growled.

The wyrmling troops cheered. Even Yikkarga rejoiced, and the sound of it brought a smile to Crull-maldor's lips.

Raze the village, Crull-maldor thought, and the people will scatter and tell what we have done. The humans will become even more enraged, more determined to destroy us, and perhaps they will create the very hero that the emperor fears.

Thus, I will turn the tables on him, and see him destroyed.

It was on the lonely march back to the fortress that Lord Despair communed with Crull-maldor—for the first time in nearly two hundred years.

The lich lord was floating among pale gray boulders that glowed eerily in the light of a thin moon. A slight breeze blew, so that she could nearly catch it and float on it, propelled by its strength alone. In the distance, foxes yipped and barked, while nearby the mice rustled among the thin grasses. The land was dying, succumbing to the curse of the lich lords, and so the stalks of wild oats were dry. As the mice scrabbled about, the reedy voices of grass betrayed their presence.

Then Despair came. He took Crull-maldor's mind, much as she might
seize that of a crow, and he filled her consciousness with a vision of his presence.

Despair could take many forms, Crull-maldor knew. Male, female, old, young, human, wyrmling, beast. They were the same.

He came to her in the guise of a human this time, one of the true humans of Caer Luciare, with nubs of horn upon his brow. He was clean-shaven, with flashing eyes and a regal look, and he wore black robes with diamonds sewn into them, so that they caught the starlight. He stood upon a parapet, upon a tower in Rugassa, so that in the distance forests loomed above the castle walls, dark and brooding.

He smiled in greeting, and peered right through Crull-maldor's soul, penetrating all of her evil designs, all of her little schemes and betrayals, and then dismissing them with a shrug.

“I know you, little lich lord,” Despair whispered. “Though you feel alone and forgotten, I remember you still.”

Immediately, Crull-maldor dropped to the ground, prostrating herself before her master. “As I remember you,” Crull-maldor hissed, “and honor you.”

“Is it honor to spar with your emperor?” Despair demanded; fear lanced through Crull-maldor. “Is it honor to withhold the blood metal that he demanded?”

“Forgive me, milord Despair,” Crull-maldor said. “I kept back a part of the blood metal only to serve you better, so that we might conquer the humans in this realm.”

Despair glared at Crull-maldor for a long moment, then broke into a hearty laugh. “You amuse me, my pet,” he said. “Long have you and the emperor sparred from a distance, and in this you have done well. Both of you are stronger now because of it.

“But the time has come to put aside your differences. A war is coming, one that will span the universe. You are my great wizard, and I will lean heavily upon you.

“In securing the North, you have done well. But more needs to be accomplished. I need warriors, runelords of great power. But I need more.
I will need weapons and armor by the score. Your people must work faster. Give endowments to all of your people—to every man, woman, and child. Give them ten endowments of metabolism each.

“Begin with your facilitators, so that they might grant endowments more quickly. Then move to your warriors.

“Do you have enough blood metal for this task?”

Crull-maldor thought quickly. She had seventy thousand wyrmlings under her command. It would take a pound of blood metal for each ten forcibles. She would need seventy thousand pounds just to grant metabolism. But her warriors would need more than just speed.

“My lord,” Crull-maldor confessed, “I have but twenty thousand pounds of blood metal.

“Fear not,” he whispered. “I shall send more soon. I must secure Rugassa and the blood metal mines at Caer Luciare first. Then you shall receive your rations.

“Go in among the humans, and harvest them as you have been doing. Strip them of endowments, so that even those who are unwilling to serve me shall find themselves converted to our cause.”

Crull-maldor was struck by a thought. “Milord, if our people take ten endowments of metabolism each, it will create vast logistical problems. With seventy thousand wrymlings here in the North, we struggled to feed ourselves. But with so many endowments, our people will need ten times as much food to eat. . . . The land cannot support it.”

The more that Crull-maldor listened, the more frightening Despair's proposition sounded. By granting all of his people endowments of metabolism, he would give them great speed. The endowment itself would boost all of the metabolic processes. It would speed up the body so that the wyrmling runelords would move at ten times their normal speed. Thus, in one year they would accomplish as much as they might have in ten years.