The Wyrmling Horde (14 page)

“That way!” Daylan said, pointing to the southwest. “About a league.”

He called out to the Wizard Sisel. “Come here.” To the crowd he warned, “The rest of you, stay where you are.”

He glanced down at the failing child. Her breathing was slowing from moment to moment. Daylan told the wizard, “Cut open the sting. Suck the poison out. Keep her alive, if you can.” He gave the company a warning look. “And don't move. Don't take so much as a step from the trail or touch a flower, lest the bees attack. There are enough of them to wipe out our whole company!”

Then Daylan was off, racing through the grass.

The Wizard Sisel hunched over the girl and did as Daylan had said, sucking out the poison. He was a master at healing, and Talon had great confidence in his abilities. But Sisel fretted as he muttered incantations and gently rubbed a balm into the child's fist. “So hot. I've never felt a sting so hot.”

Talon peered around at the folks nearby. Most of them had been born serfs, and so were dressed in drab attire. They had never had an education, and did not know much about the world at large. But even the dullest of them knew that this was all wrong. One did not negotiate with honeybees, or make truces with them. One did not die for picking flowers.

Talon felt foolish and vulnerable. The netherworld held dangers that she could not have anticipated.

The emir stayed where he was supposed to, until he could endure no more. Slowly he edged to the child, and at last stood above the Wizard Sisel. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

The wizard shook his head no.

The emir sat down in the grass and held the girl's head in his lap, then smoothed back the child's tawny hair and stroked her cheek, making soothing noises.

The child's mother stood nearby, watching. Perhaps she would have comforted the child, but she was cradling one toddler in her arms while she clung to a bag that held everything that the family owned.

“Don't be afraid,” the emir whispered.

Talon felt curiously jealous of the emir's touch. She longed for him to stroke her that way.

The emir bent over the girl and brushed her forehead with a kiss. The girl kept wheezing, but closed her eyes, relishing the attention.

The cloud of bees continued to hover over the spot unnaturally, like an army at war.

It made Talon nervous. She had to pee, but dared not step off of the trail, lest the bees attack. So she held it in, and just stood, her heart pounding in fear.

“Wonder what happens if you run into wasps,” one of the folks down the line said nervously, then broke out laughing at his own inanity.

The little girl appeared to be sleeping peacefully now, and the emir just sat in the grass, singing softly to her for a long time.

It was almost an hour before Daylan returned, a few bees following at his back. The bees entered the angry swarm, and in moments it dispersed, with honeybees scattering in every direction, flying back into the clover and honeysuckle.

“Good news!” Daylan shouted as he drew near. “All is forgiven. Just keep to the trail. Move along!”

Up ahead, the group began to walk again, and as he drew near, Daylan knelt next to the emir.

“Is the child sleeping well?” he asked.

The little girl appeared to be sleeping peacefully now. The emir had kept up his singing the whole time.

“Sleeping?” he asked. “No. She died not half an hour ago.”

The girl's mother cried out, and Talon choked back a sob. Some angry farmer demanded of Daylan, “Why didn't you warn us about the bees?”

Daylan looked up at him, his thoughts seemingly far away. “Warn you? I did not think to warn you. I guess that I have known of bees all my long life. And of all the dangers here, this one seemed so small as to be almost insignificant.”

After a long march, thunder roared on the horizon at sunset, a continuous snarl with barks and growls like a pack of dogs fighting to the death. Towering clouds lumbered over the hills, threatening a storm that would unleash a fury unlike any that Talon had ever imagined.

Lightning flashed at the crowns of the thunderheads, strobing in a dozen places at once, and the hair on the back of Talon's arm and neck bridled with every flash. The clouds swore to unleash a torrent.

At Talon's side, Alun's war dogs whimpered at the sight of it, and backed off in alarm, peering ahead while their thighs quivered and their tails went fearfully still.

For a long hour the company had been marching toward some massive pine trees that towered above them like a mountain.

“Quickly,” Daylan Hammer cried. “We must get beneath that largest tree. Those clouds may be hiding more than rain!”

Talon had only a vague idea of what Daylan feared. She suspected that Darkling Glories might be riding in those clouds. She dared not ask him, but the worry in the immortal's brow was warning enough. Daylan urged the people forward, nearly forty thousand refugees from Caer Luciare. They were a hungry, tired lot, worn to a frazzle. Many were wounded from battle and so they limped along in bloodied bandages. Those who were healthy still bore what treasures they could—weapons or blood-metal ore from the mines at Luciare, food and household goods. For many a mother, the only treasures that she could bear were her babes.

The refugees began a slow jog, but Daylan urged them on.
“Run, blast you!” he shouted. “Now is not the time to dawdle. Run for your lives.”

He pointed to a rocky crag three miles ahead, covered in pine trees larger than any that Talon had ever imagined in her own world. Indeed, he singled out one vast pine, larger than the rest. Here upon this new world, the trees were great and venerable. A day here had not been time enough to let Talon grow accustomed to the change in scale. The great pines ahead rose high in the air, their tops hidden in clouds. Each tree's myriad branches splayed wide, so that each tree was half a mile at the base, creating a canopy that one could not see through. Talon could not guess how thick the boles of the trees might be, for they were hidden in utter darkness.

Since coming to this world, Daylan had been urging the refugees forward all day long, and from the early afternoon he had been rushing them toward this outcrop. There were other trees in the hills, but this site alone seemed to call to him.

Daylan shouted, “Hurry now! Death is upon us!”

Talon ran, with the emir just ahead and Alun behind. With Alun came his war dogs—fourteen large mastiffs, boiling around his legs. He did not have them leashed, and so they swarmed around him as if he were the leader of the pack.

The warriors ahead of Talon ran through tall golden grass that smelled of honey. Wildflowers nodded in the breeze, great red poppies that grew over one's head. Birds flew up from the grass at the people's approach, larks as bright as sparks from a forge.

Talon had never felt so invigorated, so alive. Her people had camped beside a stream at noon, where Daylan Hammer had begged the stream first for water, and surmised by something in its waves that the stream approved, or at least would relinquish a drink. The blistering cold water had tasted as sweet as nectar. The children had hunted for berries beside the stream, and found salmonberries on the shore
that somehow were more filling, more wholesome than any she'd ever known.

This world, this One True World, was more perfect than hers in every way.

But even it had its dangers. Ahead lay a perfect storm.

For half an hour they ran, while the storm rolled toward them. The boom of thunder grew louder, so that the earth began to shake with every peal.

Talon watched the outcropping of rock draw closer, saw the tops of the vast pines sway in the wind.

They had almost reached the trees when the storm began to unleash its fury. The wind rushed this way and that, lurching like a drunken man, and suddenly the storm front hit and the wind drove straight into the ground. Hail began to slash through the skies, huge balls as big as a child's fist. Women screamed and old men cried out in pain.

Ahead, the emir took the war shield from his back and raced to a young mother who ran in a crouch, trying to shelter her infant son from the hail. The emir held up his shield and ran beside her, protecting them the best that he could, while hail pummeled down.

Talon raced to the mother's other side, and walked with her between, all of them huddling beneath one shield, protecting the mother and child.

All around, every warrior in the clan did the same.

Beside Talon, an old man took a hail ball to the back of the head and then dropped like a stone, a streak of blood running through his silver hair. “Do you need help?” Talon cried, but the old man did not answer. Hail balls slashed from the sky like iron shot from a trebuchet, and Talon realized that in moments the man might be dead, if left here alone.

The emir gave his shield to Talon, and cried, “Get the babe to shelter!”

Then, mindless of the danger to himself, he stopped and began to drag the old man as best he could. War dogs swarmed around the emir curiously, sniffing at blood, looking fierce with their blood-red leather masks and spiked collars. The
dogs sniffed at the old man, but a few hailstones convinced them to abandon him and race for shelter in the trees.

“Hurry!” the emir cried to the refugees who scurried past him, but the refugees were already running as fast as they could.

Talon jogged forward with the shield held high, sheltering the mother.

Up ahead, the first of the warriors reached the tree line and raced under the branches, leading in the women and children, then sprinted back with shields held high to gather other refugees.

Lightning boomed and the earth shook. Rain began to fall among the hail, slashing like knives.

Balls of frozen ice struck Talon in the back, and one shattered against her shoulder. She cursed at the pain and ushered her charge under the trees, panting and wet.

Under the pines, it was as dark as night and as still as a tomb. The smell of leaf mold was overwhelming, and huge yellow mushrooms, like misshapen heads, dotted the forest floor.

Talon turned to see if anyone else needed her help, and saw hundreds of men of the war clan bringing people in, including ten dozen folk that had to be dragged or carried.

The emir carried the old man under the branches and laid him down on a soft bed of pine needles. Then he grabbed the shield from Talon and raced back out into the storm.

The Wizard Sisel had the poor folks laid just beneath the great pine, and there he bent over the injured, treating them as best he could.

In green robes that looked more like roots that had grown together than any cloth spun by human hands, the wizard looked like some strange fungus.

Racing out into the storm, the emir found a child, a young boy crying and bloodied from hail, and raised his shield above the lad and brought him in.

By the time he returned, nearly everyone was under the shelter of the tree. Dozens lay on beds of needles, wounded or dead.

Talon stood with her mouth agape, amazed to see that even a couple of minutes in a summer storm here could be so devastating.

She knelt beside the emir and studied the young boy. He was still breathing fine, but the child stared at the dead in shock. The emir spoke to him, gently calling out, until the boy was able to focus once again. But still the boy sat in a daze.

“Where is your mother, boy?” the emir asked. The child looked to be no more than six or seven years old. He had curly blond hair, and deep brown eyes. He had the strong features of one of the warrior caste.

“Gone,” the child said, eyes growing wide.

“Gone where?”

“I don't know. She's been gone for two days. My da went off to fight the wyrmlings, and he didn't come back either.”

Talon considered. The child's mother must have disappeared when the worlds were bound. If she had merged with her shadow self, there was no telling how many hundreds or thousands of miles away she might be. At this very moment, she was probably teary-eyed and desperate to get home.

Like my own father, she told herself. Sir Borenson would be desperate to reach her.

As for the boy's father? Well, there were plenty of corpses along the outer walls of Caer Luciare.

“Tell you what,” the emir offered. “I'll be your big brother for a while. I can take care of you. Are you hungry?”

The child knew better than to talk to strangers. He hesitated for a long moment, then admitted that he was hungry. The emir offered him some cheese from his pack.

The Wizard Sisel came to their aid, stood over the child for a moment, then reached into the pocket of his robe and pulled out a handful of moss, which he used as a compress to stop the boy's bleeding.

In the gloom under the trees, Daylan raced ahead, calling, “Quickly now! Quickly—everyone into the cave!”

Talon could see nothing ahead but blackness, no sign of a cave. Still, she got up and followed the sound of moving feet, until suddenly a brilliant light shone out up ahead.

Up on the hill, between the boles of two vast pine trees, Daylan stood holding a star in his hand. Its brilliant light cut through the shadows, revealing a sanctum here among the woods.

He stood beside the boles of twin pines that seemed almost to grow out of the same root. Each bole was hundreds of feet in diameter. Carved into each tree was the face of a man, with solemn eyes and a serene expression. Leaves of oak stood in place of his hair and beard.

It was an ancient symbol, and feared among the folk of Luciare. But on Talon's world it was a welcome sign. It was the face of the Wode King.

The carved faces on each bole seemed to peer inward, and each hovered above Daylan, dwarfing him, for each of the images was sixty feet tall.

But the Wode King did not seem frightening on this world. Instead, Talon felt comforted by the images, as if they exuded an aura of tranquility.

Daylan pushed on an outcropping of jagged gray stone, and suddenly a hidden door swung in, revealing a large round hole, like a burrow, tall enough for a man to walk through.