Chaosbound (39 page)

No lord can hope to control the thoughts of his people, for as soon as he tries, they will begin to plot against him
.

—King Mendellas Val Orden

Draken woke in pain, a bit of water dribbling on his face. He sputtered, rousing from a dream of drowning, a dream in which a great wall of water was rushing through the canyon, sweeping away his home, his family, his life.

He flung his arms up protectively, and Myrrima whispered, “Be still. This is healing water.”

Almost instantly it seemed as if the water began melting into him, and his pains started to ease.

He peered up at her through swollen eyes.

“Mother,” he whispered through cracked and bleeding gums. He suddenly remembered the beating—wyrmling runelords pummeling him with bare fists, biting him. It had been mercifully short before he passed into unconsciousness.

He tried to take stock. His right ear burned, and he could feel caked blood all down his neck. Both arms felt as if they were broken, and at least one tooth was gone. Both eyes were nearly swollen shut.

All in all, he couldn't find an inch on his body that didn't hurt.

Myrrima had blessed some stale water from a bucket, and now she trickled it over his wounds.

They were in a dark room, like a warehouse, so deep in shadows that only a bit of starlight beamed through the slat boards.

“Are you all right?” he asked. His mother touched the right side of his face, felt his ear, and her touch was as hot as a bee sting.

“I've been better,” Myrrima said. “They bit off my right ear, too. Either wyrmlings like the taste of ears, or they're doing it to mark us. . . .”

“Slaves?” Draken asked.

A gruff voice came out of the darkness. “Shut up in there, you! No talking!” The voice was human, an old man.

A door squeaked open, and a codger came shuffling out of a darkened room bearing the stub of a candle in a mug. It hardly lit his way, but in its light Draken could see a row of cages to either side of him, each cage bearing three or four people. He'd had no idea that there was even one other person in the room, much less dozens. They looked to be young, most of them—girls and boys between the ages of twelve and twenty, at the prime of their lives.

“Shush your mouths.” The old man glared through rheumy eyes. He had white hair as stringy as worms, and a scraggly beard.

“Hey, what's going on in there?” An outer door opened, and a second man came in, bearing a brighter lantern. He was a big fellow carrying a knobby stick.

“These two were talking—the new ones!” the codger said, pointing at Draken.

The burly guard strode into the room. “Well,” he said, “did you tell them the rules?” The big man looked pointedly at Draken. “There's no talking, see, by order of the wyrmlings. Understand?”

The big fellow glared until Draken answered. “Yes,” Draken said.

The knobby club came whistling between the bars, striking him on the shoulder hard enough to leave a bruise.

“Understand?” the burly man said. “Tell me again.”

Draken held his tongue. He felt bitterly betrayed. Here were humans in the employ of wyrmlings. But one look told him that these weren't just any men. This fellow had a wicked gleam to his eyes, and he delighted in causing others pain. The meanness went so deep that Draken almost wanted to shrink away from the man's presence.

He has a locus in him, Draken suspected. That's why he works with the wyrmlings.

During the long ship's voyage, Aaath Ulber had warned the family about the loci. The wyrmlings sought to be possessed by them, and called them “wyrms.” According to their mythology, every man could prove himself worthy to bear a wyrm. Hence they called themselves wyrmlings.

But it was Fallion who had warned Draken against the creatures first. Fallion had read about them in his father's diary. He'd said, “Beware of evil. Do no harm to any man, if you can help it, unless you are reproving another for his wrongs. Some men are so evil that they need to be swept from the earth—those who would enslave or maliciously use you. There is no wrong in defending yourself against such evil. But beware of shedding the blood of innocents, for to do so aggrieves your own soul, and leaves you open to the influence of the loci.”

Draken peered up at his captors in silence.

“Ah,” the burly guard said, “the boy learns quickly.” He leered down at Draken for a moment, as if seeking some excuse to hit him again. He swung the club, and Draken dodged to the side.

“Hah!” the fellow laughed at his game, then spun and sauntered out the door, slamming it closed.

The codger with stringy hair stood thoughtfully for a moment, stared down at Myrrima. He whispered, “If you're nice to me, things will go easier for you.”

Myrrima held her chin up, and Draken could see the blood crusting on her. It had run in rivulets down from her ear, following the line of her cheek, and all along her neck. She shook her head no.

The old man hissed at her, his eyes suddenly blazing with rage and madness, then went tottering away.

Draken felt it from the codger too all of the sudden, a darkness to the soul so profound that he cringed. The man had a locus.

For a moment, Draken used the retreating light to seek a way out of his cage. The bars were thick, and straps of metal were woven into the roof and floor below, reinforcing the wooden slats. It was the kind of cage
that was sometimes used to haul pigs aboard sailing vessels, to be killed for meat.

There was no straw on the floor beneath them, nothing to lie on. But they lay down, each of them on their left, and Draken put his arm beneath his mother's head so that she could use it as a pillow.

They did not speak any longer.

In the distance, a dog was woofing aimlessly, as if to entertain itself, while closer by the waves lapped against the docks. At least he could hear the lapping from his good ear. The water nearby smelled of death.

To the south, a wolf began to howl, and in a few moments a chorus of them rose.

They sound as if they're on the very edge of town, Draken thought. There's not a goat or calf that will be safe tonight.

“What do you think they'll do to us?” Myrrima whispered.

Draken pointed out the obvious. “We're in a cage. They plan to ship us out.”

“Aaath Ulber said that wyrmlings use humans as meat?” Myrrima asked.

Draken shook his head. “Not just humans. They'll eat anything that walks, swims, or slithers on its belly. Won't touch birds though—don't like feathers in their mouths. They won't be eating us,” Draken said. “They're shipping us south, to harvest our endowments.”

We're such fools, Draken thought. We should have known that there would be wyrmlings here. It has been weeks since the binding. That was plenty of time for the wyrmlings to create runelords and send warriors afar.

But the truth was that Draken hadn't been certain what he would find. He'd hoped that his own people would make use of the blood metal. He'd hoped that the wyrmlings would have been defeated by now.

“Aaath Ulber's hopes are dashed,” Draken said with certainty. “All of his people—gone. . . .”

“Don't give up yet,” Myrrima said. “Until we have done all that we can do, we cannot give up hope!”

“How many guards do you think?” Draken whispered. “Have we seen them all?”

“Who knows?” Myrrima whispered in return. “Lie still. Listen, and we'll see what we learn.”

Draken stilled his breathing. The wolves were howling closer now. They'd been concentrated to the south, but now he heard one chime in from the west, as if a huge pack of them were raiding the outskirts of town.

The sound made him shiver. He'd heard tales of the dire wolves that haunted this land. The creatures were cruel and ruthless, and many a man who raised a weapon to fight them was dragged off and eaten.

A long eerie cry went up just down the street.

The wolves are close! he realized. They're rampaging through town.

Suddenly there were shouts outside the door to the warehouse, the gruff guard calling, “Who goes there! What's the meaning of this?”

The old codger raced from his little guardroom in the warehouse, bearing his stub of a candle at nearly a run. He reached the front door, swung it open. Draken rose up, saw men in the street bearing torches and axes.

A familiar voice bellowed, “What kind of man betrays his own people to the wyrmlings?” Aaath Ulber reached the broad door, and the two guards barred his way.

“Wise men,” the burly guard said, “men who aren't so dumb as to piss against the wind. You would do well to join us. . . .”

A crowd drew up behind Aaath Ulber, ringing the guards. Rain stood at his back, her face stern but pale with fright, bearing a torch. At the fringes of the crowd, young men were howling like wolves. Firelight gleamed from naked blades.

“Here now,” the guard said, seeing the mood of the crowd. “Don't you dare touch us! You kill one of us, and a thousand townsfolk will die. The wyrmlings will raze this whole district!”

Someone in the crowd guffawed. “We've already done all the wyrmlings in town, and brought death upon ourselves. I don't suppose the wyrmlings will give a damn if we poke a few holes in your wrinkled hides.”

“See these men?” Aaath Ulber roared, nodding toward the guards. “They tell you that they're wise, but I'll tell you what they are: wyrmlings. They've got the souls of wyrmlings. Not all wrymlings are monstrous to behold. Sometimes the monsters hide inside.”

The burly guard lunged toward the crowd, sword flashing, and struck at Rain. She stepped back, and the blow went wide, slashing a young boy in the ribs.

That was the wrong thing to do. Aaath Ulber let out a primal shout, and his eyes lost all focus as he attacked in a berserker's rage.

He slashed with a wyrmling's ax in a great arc, sweeping the blade through the guards, lopping them in half just above the waist. Blood sprayed from the wounds, but before either man could fall, Aaath Ulber leapt forward, throwing his weapon down, and grabbed their torsos.

Holding a gruesome corpse in either hand, he shook the men, screaming incoherently at first, then shouting, “Where's my wife? Where are you keeping her? Where's my wife, damn you?”

Blood seemed to rain over the crowd, and the corpses spilled their guts. White intestines, wine-colored livers, stomachs and kidneys, spleens and lungs all emptied. Aaath Ulber hurled the corpses against the door of the warehouse and stood for a moment stomping and kicking the offal like a madman, roaring in his rage.

“Here now,” some burly warrior called. “You've killed them, I think.” His voice was soothing and calm.

Aaath Ulber stood for a long moment, trembling and shouting, muttering under his breath, until he regained his senses.

As one, the warlords of Internook let out a cheer, then Rain rummaged among the offal, looking for the keys to the cages.

But the townsmen didn't wait. They rushed into the warehouse with axes and fell upon the cages, chopping through locks, bending bars, doing whatever they had to in order to set their people free.

In the aftermath of the battle, Aaath Ulber returned to the arena and quickly began to strip armor from the wyrmlings. The creatures were so heavy that it took three men to get off their bone mail. Afterward, they pulled off the creatures' leather jerkins to see their chests. Aaath Ulber hoped to learn how many endowments each wyrmling had, and in what mix, so that he might better gauge the danger that they presented.

But a quick survey showed that the wyrmlings did not have the scars left by forcibles on their chests and backs. Instead, the marks were found on the tops of their feet, beneath their iron boots.

The mix surprised Aaath Ulber. Their leader had the most endowments—nine of metabolism, nine of stamina, three of sight, two of scent, two of wit, one of voice, and two of hearing.

It was an odd mix in some ways.

“Where is grace and brawn?” Rain wondered aloud.

“They don't need brawn,” Aaath Ulber said. “They outweigh humans by six hundred pounds, and a swat of their hand will take your head off.”

“Plus, how much more strength would they get if they took brawn from a common human?” one older barbarian asked. “Not much, I'll tell you. Nor would they get much grace.”

That was true, Aaath Ulber knew. As far as the wrymlings were concerned, they wouldn't want to waste forcibles in taking endowments for so little return.

Each of the other wyrmlings in the group were enhanced only with a few endowments—two each of metabolism, two of sight, and a couple of stamina.

“They need our sight to see in the daylight,” Aaath Ulber reasoned, “and they want our speed and stamina so that they can move fast and run far.”

“Good news,” one of the barbarians said. “They shouldn't be too hard to kill.”

But Aaath Ulber saw the wisdom in their choice. Most of the endowments that they were garnering were lesser endowments—sight and metabolism. Taking the sight from a man would leave him blind—unable to fight, or to escape from the wyrmling dungeons. And taking an endowment of metabolism would put the victim into a magical slumber from which he could not wake until his lord died.