Chaosbound (48 page)

She stood in the cold gray fog, her face tired and expressionless. Yet there was an inner peace that burned in her eyes, like a glimmering pool. She said loudly and evenly, “All who wish to live, spit on the ground, giving water to the earth, and come to the great hall.”

A single tear streamed down Myrrima's cheek and fell to the ground, her personal offering. She turned and marched east along the cobbled lane, heading toward the arena.

Warlord Hrath called to his people. “Go. She was a favored friend of the Earth King. Go with her. Take the Dedicates as well, all that you can find!”

So townsfolk came out of the mists bearing hundreds of Dedicates—all those who could walk or be carried.

Myrrima met the folks at the door, and splashed them with water from a bucket. “The waves wash you,” she said as she sprinkled droplets over the head and shoulders of each person. “The sea secure you. May water make you its own.”

She made sure that each person spit, and then bade the townsfolk enter.

As each person passed the threshold, a mist rose up at their feet and followed them into the arena, creating a dense fog.

It was not until Myrrima saw the Dedicates all herded together—blind and lame—that she realized just how many endowments had been given. More than eight hundred endowments had been granted in a town that hadn't had many more people than that in the first place. Obviously, most of the Dedicates were from nearby villages and farms. But even the hundreds of Dedicates that gathered in town did not make up the full score. Dozens were still on boats, far enough out from shore so that they could not be reached.

“Get our Dedicates all together,” Warlord Hrath said. “They will be easier to protect if they're all in one place.”

So the townsfolk made up beds down on the arena sands and in the tunnels. Men took up guard positions at the doors, and Warlord Hrath set their little champion Hilde up in the midst of the Dedicates. She was ringed by men and women who were blind and deaf. Those who had given grace were curled in little balls, their muscles spasming with no way to relax. Those who had given strength had gone flaccid and weak. Those who had granted their wit had become morons, drooling creatures that leaked into their own britches and found joy in the warmness thereof.

The arena became a madhouse, a sick ward, while mists and fog floated among the torches.

Children ran rampant.

No sooner had the doors to the arena been bolted and a few torches lit in their sconces than a cry rang out.

Some who had granted endowments of metabolism and fallen into a magic slumber suddenly wakened. Some who were blind could suddenly see.

“Lord Theron is dead!” a man shouted. “My lord has fallen!”

By ancient custom, when a lord died in battle, any who had granted endowments of wit to him would tell the tale of his fall, for such Dedicates had shared memories of their lord's last moments and could often recall bits and snatches of their lord's demise.

Thus, two men and two women rose up and cried, “Theron is dead, long live his memory!”

No sooner than they had spoken, than other Dedicates began to revive,
and cries rose up. “Lady Gwynneth has passed!” someone shouted. “Lord Brandolyn is gone!”

Too fast, Myrrima thought. Our champions are dying far too fast.

“They died in a cave,” one man cried, “while wyrmling giants towered over them.”

A small woman, old and frail, called, “They came, runelords of great power—five in number, to bar our lords' way.”

“They knew the name of Ox Port!” a young woman shouted. “They breathed out threats against the Dedicates here. They say that their champions are coming to take vengeance!”

“With a meat hook they grasped our Theron by the throat,” a handsome young man shouted. “With an ax they felled him.”

There was silence among the crowd, astonishment at the news, and Myrrima looked to Warlord Hrath. His eyes darted about as he studied the entrances to his arena, like a cornered animal.

“Our lord was a kind man,” the first of the sages said. “His last thoughts were of his wife and family. His last fear was for our safety.”

There was a deep silence during which Myrrima could hear her heart pounding and little else. She looked around the room. Draken had a nice long sword that Hrath had given him. Myrrima had a war bow and some arrows. Rain had a short sword, and Sage had nothing at all.

For long seconds, Myrrima waited for more of the Dedicates to revive, but none did.

Aaath Ulber is still alive, she realized. He has made it past the wyrmling guard by now.

But she knew that she could be wrong. He could have been knocked senseless, left bound and gagged. The fact that he was alive did not mean that he was safe.

In the Room of Whispers, Crull-maldor took reports of the enemy movements. “They're nearing the laboratories!” a voice shouted through one glass tube, while another warned, “They're in the butchery!”

The reports came so rapidly on the heels of one another that they
made no sense. “Which is it,” Crull-maldor demanded, “the laboratories or the butchery?”

But neither of her captains answered. By then, she surmised, both had been slaughtered, and now new reports issued from the communications tubes, a myriad of conflicting whispers.

The human champions were moving through the fortress with maddening speed; Crull-maldor could not keep up. In less than ten seconds they had cleared the butchery, she suspected, and spent another minute racing through the halls. It had been fifteen minutes since they'd breached the entrance.

“Drop all of the portcullises,” she said. “That will slow them down.”

The problem was that the humans had come in through the back gate and now were charging up through the warrens, level after level. The wyrmling horde could not use smoke to defend themselves from such an attack.

Though she might close the portcullises, each level was controlled from the level below. The humans would soon figure out how to open the gates above, and her tactic would barely impede their progress.

But that was all she wanted at the moment: to slow them.

Crull-maldor had not anticipated this attack. She had expected Aaath Ulber to be reasonable. Humans loved their families, would do anything to protect them. That much she knew.

Yet by his actions, Aaath Ulber had sentenced his own wife and children to death.

Already the humans had moved through much of the lower tunnels, slaughtering thousands of wyrmling women and children. Soon, they might reach her Dedicates' keep.

The humans would slaughter the Dedicates, of course. It was the rational thing to do, and once the Dedicates were gone, her wyrmlings would be left defenseless.

This man could destroy me, Crull-maldor thought. All of my years of work will have been wasted. Lord Despair will punish me, drain my soul.

Crull-maldor did not know what happened to the consciousness of a
spirit once it died. There were two kinds of death, the death of a body and the death of a spirit. Despair knew how to kill both.

Yet it was whispered among the liches that life never ended. At the death of the body, the spirit wandered into its own world. At the death of the spirit, it was said that the consciousness traveled beyond the spirit world, into a realm of mist. There, life continued, but a life unfathomable to her.

She did not know if she believed in life beyond the spirit world. She suspected that the death of her spirit would be the end of her.

Crull-maldor considered whether to attack Aaath Ulber herself, but dared not try it. He moved too swiftly for her now, and he bore weapons that could destroy even a lich lord. But Crull-maldor was poised to put an end to the threat. All that she had to do was kill Aaath Ulber's Dedicates.

This is just a race to see who can slaughter whose Dedicates first, she reasoned.

Crull-maldor reached out with her consciousness and touched the mind of one of her fell warlords, a man named Zil, who had hundreds of endowments to his name.

She saw through his eyes: a wooded glen of dark pines, just outside Ox Port. He was upon a tall slope, looking down, and Crull-maldor could see a great wall of fog overtaking the village, rolling in from the sea.

With Zil's endowments of hearing, the sounds of the town came preternaturally clear: the shouts of children, the songs of the facilitators as they garnered endowments.

All around him, his troops hid, crouching motionless in the shadows.

“Take your runelords into the village,” Crull-maldor whispered. “Now is the time. Cut down every human in the village.”

Zil barked one short command to his troops. “Kill!” and the wyrmling runelords went leaping out from under the trees, racing toward town, silent and deadly.

The red haze melted from before Aaath Ulber's eyes gradually, even as he continued to fight. He leapt on the back of a falling wyrmling soldier, slit the man's throat, and rode him to the ground. Wyrmling women and children were crying out in terror, trying to flee. But the corridors ahead were packed, and they could not run fast enough.

Indeed, they were like a wall before him, a wall of flesh that blocked his own progress.

His arms ached from fatigue, as did his lungs and back. Great hunger assailed him, and he nearly collapsed, his head spinning from exhaustion.

Instead, he dropped to one knee and just squatted, gathering his breath.

“Aaath Ulber,” Wulfgaard whispered. “Are you hurt?”

Aaath Ulber checked himself visually; he was drenched in blood. He wiped it from his eyes, felt it running down his arms and face like sweat. At first he thought that it was all wrymling blood, but then he noticed a pain in his right bicep. A wyrmling had caught him with a meat hook. There were smaller slashes on his chest, scoring through his leather jerkin, and scrapes on his face and knuckles. He had enough endowments of stamina to withstand such wounds, and he would heal from them by sunset, if all went well.

“I'm good enough,” he said, as memories washed over him. He recalled the threats made against his wife and family, and his stomach knotted. Beyond that, everything was vague—charging through tunnels lit by glow worms, the sound of screams, wyrmlings dying at his hands by the thousands, mothers and children with heads cleaved by the ax, babes dashed against the floor. “I am well,” he said in despair. “I am well.”

His muscles were quivering, trembling. He turned and glanced at Wulfgaard. A warrior named Anya stood at his back. Both were covered in gore.

Behind them the passage was choked with bloody bodies, wyrmlings bathed in red, many of them still twitching or flailing their legs.

“Where are the rest of our troops?” Aaath Ulber asked.

Wulfgaard ducked his head, peered at the ground, and whispered, “They now ride in the Great Hunt, may their spears be sharp and their aim be true.”

“We need to stop and eat,” Anya begged Aaath Ulber. “You were the one who said that we should eat and rest every hour or two.”

Aaath Ulber grunted. He felt weak and wasted. He'd never imagined a hunger that ran so deep. A runelord can fight for hours on end, but not without food. It takes energy, and already Aaath Ulber's fat stores were depleted.

Anya threw off her pack and pulled out some bread, roast chicken, and blueberries. It would take only a minute in real time for them to eat, to catch their breath. But in that minute the wyrmlings would have some time to regroup.

“How long was I out?” Aaath Ulber asked. “How long have we been fighting?”

“Five hours, I think,” Anya said.

“Six, by my guess,” Wulfgaard answered.

Time was a relative thing for them. Each had a different mix of endowments, and each had his own sense for the passage of time. Down here in the wrymling hole, there was no sun to mea sure time by, only wild guesses.

Aaath Ulber had never been trapped in a berserker's rage for more than half an hour. But this time he had been gone for hours?

I am undone, Aaath Ulber thought. Taking that endowment of will was unwise.

Yet he could not undo the damage.

It was too long to have gone without eating, and so the warriors fed.

“Where have we been?” Aaath Ulber asked.

“Endless warrens,” Wulfgaard said. “There are several tunnels that run parallel to one another. Most of them house workers. We found the breeding cavern. You were right, there were thousands of wyrmlings in it, but they were not . . . properly attired for battle.”

Aaath Ulber had heard the rumors of course—naked wyrmlings driven mindless with lust. But no human had ever really witnessed such a thing. The tales all came from captured wyrmlings.

Aaath Ulber only vaguely recalled the sight—wyrmlings by the hundreds, naked and wrapped in one another's arms and legs, mindless in their breeding frenzy.

“Our main goal,” he said, “should be to find their Dedicates.”

After the Dedicates were secure, he didn't care what happened to the rest of the wyrmlings. He'd try to set fire traps, let the smoke smother the wyrmlings in the chambers above.