Chaosbound (31 page)

Now he had to broach the subject that most concerned him. “The warlords of Internook aren't bad folks, if you're one of them. But they breed like rats, and so for five hundred years they've been eager to hire their young men out as mercenaries. There are families here so poor that they raise children just to sell them. When a young man goes to war, he only receives wages after a campaign has ended, and if he dies in battle,
that payment goes to his family. Many a father and mother have sent out their sons hoping for nothing more than to get gold from it, and to see their children all slaughtered.

“So the folk of Internook have gained repute over time for their brutality, for their warrior's spirit. The rest of the world sees them at their worst. But I think that in their own homes, they may not be so bad. . . .”

Rain spoke up, choosing her words slowly and carefully, her voice hinting at barely subdued rage. “What the warlords did to us cannot be forgiven or ignored. Their reputation for brutality is well earned. What's more, I do not believe that such folk could go to Mystarria and act like monsters without losing something of their souls. War hardens a man, and in Internook, their folks have been growing hard for generations.” She gave Aaath Ulber a stern look and said, “You do me a disservice by telling comfortable lies.”

Aaath Ulber was surprised by her impassioned outburst, but he was learning that there was more to this girl than met the eye.

More to the point, he could not fault her logic. The folk of Internook had grown hard over the centuries, and perhaps Rain was correct.

“Don't worry about me,” Rain said. “I've taken the worst that the warlords are likely to dish out.”

Aaath Ulber peered into her clear eyes and saw something frightening there: death.

She's been raped, he realized. Probably more than once.

Aaath Ulber felt more than a little worried. Had he known what she'd endured, he would not have allowed her to come.

So he rowed on in silence. The folks of Internook were great eaters of fish, and as the boat neared land, he saw many a fisherman's coracle hugging the shore. The fishermen didn't dare go far in the thick fog.

The blowing of the horn guided him to port, and at midmorning he tied up at the docks.

The port was like many here in Internook. A river had carved a channel into the bay, a channel broad and deep. But the barbarians had hauled in huge rocks and blocked most of the old bay off, forming a funnel that
pointed into the shallows. The mouth of the funnel ended with several iron columns interspersed about two feet apart.

In the summer, leviathans—great serpents of the deep—sometimes came in near shore, driving large schools of fish before them: salmon and cod, mackerel and bass. The fish would swim for safety toward the shallows, and be driven down the long throat of the funnel into the bay. Once they were in, the barbarians could drop boards through slats, locking the fish in while the iron bars kept the great serpents out. Thus, the fishing grounds here in Internook were remarkably bountiful.

The fog still held, and so Aaath Ulber was shielded from faraway eyes. He got up and whispered, “Remember, keep well behind me. When you can't see me any longer, that's the sign to start following. I'll take care to make plenty of noise, so that you'll know where I am.”

He checked his head wrap, then lumbered out of the boat, onto the docks. He began to whistle an aimless tune as he strolled, his heavy feet thumping on the wooden planks.

Here near shore, the sea smelled differently. The fishermen would gut their catches in the afternoons, tossing the offal to the crabs in the bay. So the clean salt smell of the sea had heavier overtones of death and decay.

He passed a few women mending fishing nets on the docks, and as he did, all eyes peered up at him. As he feared, no one as massive as he could hope to make his way through town undetected.

He nodded politely, grunted as he passed, and his face flushed as he felt their stares follow.

At last the wooden docks met the land, and stairs climbed some fifty feet, scaling a rock embankment. He thumped up the stairs. There were fish stalls all about, the heart of the village's market, and people filled the streets in droves.

For barbarians, he decided, the village was surprisingly well kept. The streets were clean and well cobbled, and the market stalls were painted in bright colors—canary, crimson, deep forest green. Each stall served as the front of a home, and the houses were so close together that many of them shared common walls, thus conserving heat. Wildflowers seemed to sprout up from any little patch of dirt at the front of the houses.

But farther up on the hill, enormous longhouses could be seen shrouded in fog, each ringed with tall picket fences. Cows ambled about up there, while chickens and geese scratched in the yards. Each long house was made from huge beams, and served as a fortress for the families that lived inside.

Aaath Ulber bumbled through the market, peering at giant eels that hung from hooks in one stall; he stopped to watch one merchant toss a load of crabs into a huge boiling pot. Everywhere, fishmongers called out, “Cod, cod—so fresh he's still wiggling!” or “Shark, shark—eat him before he eats you!”

But it wasn't fish that Aaath Ulber wanted. He was looking for fresh vegetables, perhaps a young piglet.

He stopped for a moment, heard voices up the street to the north, other merchants hawking their wares.

He worked through the crowd, trying not to step on anyone. Everywhere, people stopped to gawk. Most didn't even bother to hide their stares.

So he strode along, still whistling. He stopped for a moment at a cross street, took an instant to look back, to see if he could spot Rain. But there were too many faces in the crowd, and he didn't dare search for long.

So he moved forward, hoping that she could see him well enough.

At last he reached a vendor who sold produce—fresh blackberries from the woods, wild mushrooms, hazelnuts, honeycomb—and a smattering of herbs from the garden—leeks and parsnips, carrots and tulip roots.

He grunted and mostly pointed at what he wanted, feigning an accent when he was forced to barter. He paid too much, giving the woman a plain golden ring for a good deal of food, then tucked it in a makeshift rucksack.

He moved on, stopped to buy that piglet he'd been hungry for. He found a nice fifty-pounder, traded it for some steel, and then tucked it up under one arm. The pig squealed like mad. It had been castrated in the not-so-distant past, and apparently feared that Aaath Ulber might try it again.

There is nothing that attracts attention like a giant in the marketplace holding a squealing pig, Aaath Ulber discovered. Every eye turned to him, and it seemed that folks two hundred yards down the street all stopped to stare.

So Aaath Ulber held the pig and scratched its head, trying to soothe it with a few soft words.

He wanted to get back to the boat now, but there was so much more that he wanted here in town. He was hoping for some nice pastries for Myrrima, or perhaps a new dress, anything to put a smile in her eyes. And he wanted cloth to make new clothes for himself and everyone else on the ship. But mostly, his family needed news—and weapons.

So he quieted his piglet, then kept on walking. After purchasing four loaves of bread, which went straight into his rucksack, he found that his piglet stopped squealing altogether and amused himself by sniffing at the sack and grunting quietly.

At last he found a man in a stall who sold knives of all kinds. He stopped.

The man was old—astonishingly old. His face was lined and wrinkled, and his red hair had all gone silver long ago. He wore a beard cropped short, and dressed in robes appropriate for a merchant—not so rich as to garner envy but not so poor as to earn disdain.

Yet there was wisdom in his eyes, and he moved quickly enough when Aaath Ulber stopped to study his wares.

“Do you sometimes feel that something is missing from your life, good sir?” the merchant asked. “Perhaps it's a knife—something to butcher your pig there? Or would you like to see something larger, something more appropriate to a man your size?”

Aaath Ulber peered at the merchant's wares. There were long knives with notched blades for cutting bread, and small knives that a woman might use for peeling apples. But what interested Aaath Ulber most were the knives against the back wall. There was a pair of fine dueling knives—not too fancy, mind you. It wasn't the polished steel that you might find in Heredon, with silver finger guards and scenery etched into the blades.
They were cheap, sensible—the kind of knives that some warrior lad might take into battle.

“Do you have anything larger?” Aaath Ulber asked. “A man my size needs a blade to match.”

The old merchant eyed him for a long moment. “It's not pigs that you're wanting to kill,” the fellow mused. “I don't have much call for real weapons, you understand, but I have something that might interest you. . . .”

He turned and went to the display case on the far wall, then pulled out a hidden drawer beneath. It opened to reveal a tall sword, the kind that the barbarians here favored—nearly seven feet long. Few men were big enough to wield such a blade, but Aaath Ulber thought it just a bit too short. He knew that he couldn't afford it.

Yet the old man laid it on the display table in front of him. “You'd have to travel many a mile,” he promised, “to find its equal.”

Aaath Ulber nodded, but did not pick it up. Between a rucksack over his shoulder and a pig under one arm, there was not much that he could do.

He peered down at it appreciatively.

“You've an accent,” the old man said. “Where do you hail from?”

Aaath Ulber grunted, “To the east—Landesfallen.” He glanced back over the crowds, spotted Rain's dark green cloak. The girl was standing near some boys who were play-fighting with sticks. Aaath Ulber turned away quickly.

The old man fixed him with a stare, and nodded appreciatively. Aaath Ulber prepared for the old fellow to hit him with a barrage of questions: “How are things on the far side of the world?” “Did you have a pleasant voyage?” That sort of thing. But the old fellow simply got worry lines in his eyes, leaned forward, and whispered, “They're looking for you, you know.”

Aaath Ulber was certain that the old man had him confused with someone else.

“For me?” Aaath Ulber asked. “How could that be?”

“Don't know,” the fellow whispered secretively. “There's a giant—
sailing from the northeast. That's all that I've heard. But they're asking for you.” Then he peered straight into Aaath Ulber's eyes and urged, “Take the sword!”

“I . . . don't have that kind of money,” Aaath Ulber said honestly.

But the old man smiled gamely, the look of a soldier who had fought for far too many years. “The price is cheap, to the right man. All that I ask is a wyrmling's head!”

Aaath Ulber wasn't surprised that the man had heard of wyrmlings. “What news do you have of them?”

The old man's eyes suddenly went wide, and he hissed, “Watch your back! They're here!”

A woman cried out, perhaps a hundred yards behind, and a deep growl rumbled through the crowd—a wyrmling curse.

Aaath Ulber straightened, whirled. Two wyrmlings came striding through the crowded market like small hills.

Wyrmlings in broad daylight! Aaath Ulber realized in dismay.

He'd never seen such a thing. The sun blinded wyrmlings and could burn their pale skin.

They wore helms and ring mail ornately carved from the bones of a world wyrm, so that it was the color of yellowed teeth, and their flesh and hair was as white and as unwholesome as maggots.

They'd seen him already, and one shouted in the tongue of Caer Luciare, “You!”

The wyrmlings rushed him, shoving commoners aside, and the crowd could not part fast enough.

They have endowments! Aaath Ulber realized. Each of them had at least two endowments of metabolism, he guessed, by the speed of their movements.

He didn't have time to run. He could hardly hope to fight. The wyrmlings streaked toward him.

He dropped his rucksack, reached behind himself, and grabbed a wicked fish knife from the table. Its blade was narrow and long. He figured that it would fit nicely between the chinks of a wyrmling's armor.

He grabbed the handle, held it in his palm, with the blade flat against the inside of his wrist.

His heart was pumping loudly in his ears, and Aaath Ulber's thoughts came swiftly. He studied their weapons. Each had a battle-ax sheathed to his back, and each wore a pair of “daggers” on his hips—each dagger the size of a bastard sword. One carried a long meat hook, and both had heavy iron war darts tucked into their belts. Aaath Ulber noticed how the wyrmlings peered about, their heads swaying from side to side. They were alert for danger, watching the crowd warily. Though they homed in on him, he could tell that they expected trouble.

I can use that fear against them, he thought.

I can't hope to beat two wyrmling runelords using normal tactics.

He didn't have an endowment to his name anymore. He couldn't match these monsters—not in speed, not in size, not in strength. But perhaps he could hope to outwit them.

Sir Borenson had studied the fighting styles from a dozen countries, and had mastered them all. Aaath Ulber suspected that he'd have to pull from Borenson's hoard of knowledge to win this fight, show these wyrmlings some tricks they'd never seen before.

The wyrmlings neared him. It had not been five seconds since he'd spotted them.

“You there!” one of the wyrmlings shouted. “Come with us!” He reached behind his shoulder to grab the huge battle-ax sheathed on his back.

Aaath Ulber picked that moment to strike. He hurled his pig at the monster's head. The pig squealed in terror, lofted into the air. The wyrmling's eyes went wide, and he reached up to swat the pig away.