The Wyrmling Horde (18 page)

Personally, Despair suspected that it was the spirit of some great wizard—a wizard whose powers had split when the One True World shattered. But it might also have been some innate force within that One True World itself, a force that was constantly seeking to heal the broken worlds, to bind them back into one.

Few were the mortals who had ever seen the Earth Spirit.

But now, the creature showed itself to Despair.

“How can you have lived so long,” the Earth whispered, “and still not know me? I have not hidden myself from you. I make myself manifest in every breath of wind, and in every cool sip of water. I am the dark between the stars, and rocks beneath your feet. I am love and war and all righ teous longing. I am the grass on the hillside and the lion in its den.”

“You seek to bend me to your will,” Lord Despair accused.

“As you seek to bend me to yours,” Earth replied, “even though you swore to be my ally.”

Lord Despair was about to object, but he could feel a small presence in his skull, tiptoeing around. It was the consciousness of Areth Sul Urstone, the remnants of what he had been, still struggling desperately to regain dominance. Lord Despair had been aware of him. It was not uncommon. Despair was a parasite, vast and bloated. He had seized the young man's body, and in time the soul would weaken and die, and that feeling of being watched would leave.

It was Areth, of course, who had sworn vows to protect the Earth. And now, the Earth peered at Lord Despair, and she did not focus her eyes upon him, but past him, as if speaking directly to Areth.

“You swore to save the seeds of mankind through the dark time to come. Remember your vows, little one.”

Yaleen stepped forward, reached down to the ground, and picked up a pinch of soil, then stood and threw it. Lord Despair tried to duck away, but some soil struck him between the eyes. “The Earth hide you,” she whispered, “the Earth heal you. The Earth make you its own.”

Suddenly, in his mind, Areth reared up and tried to seize control.

Areth tried to raise his left hand to the square.

“Choose some of those people,” the Earth urged. “Certainly some are worthy of life? Look into their hearts. Search their dreams, and sift through hidden ambitions that even they do not know of. Peer into their pasts, and learn their loves and fears. Choose who shall survive the coming storm. Choose who will build the new world.”

Areth wrenched his neck and peered down over the parapet. There were so many people. They were so far away. They were like ants. He couldn't see their faces.

With a scream of anguish, Lord Despair roared and brought his hands down, clutching the edge of the parapet.

He woke and lay for a moment, beads of sweat upon his brow. Lord Despair gasped, the earthy dust of the floor filling his lungs.

Sweat stood out on his brow and on his upper lip, and his heart beat irregularly. In his dream, he had loved his people so much.

But Lord Despair loved no one. He fought back, tried to push the memory of it from his mind.

“My spirit shall not always strive with you,” Yaleen's voice seemed to whisper deep inside. “You have not chosen wisely. Use the power I have given you, or it shall be bestowed upon another.”

For eons Despair had wished to possess the body of an Earth King, and at last had found the opportunity.

But now he saw that with the power came a deep compulsion. It was time to begin saving the seeds of mankind.

Despair considered.

Dare I risk losing this power? No. The Earth demands a partnership, and its demands are light. It does not tell me who to choose, or why. Only that I must use my gift to ensure that some survive.

But whom shall I choose?

He had selected a few already in the moment when he'd taken this body. He'd done it not for love, nor because he desired their better welfare. He'd merely selected wyrmling lords, men that he could use as . . . alarms. When danger threatened them, he would know that an enemy was about to attack.

That is all that they were. He did not care for these creatures any more than if they were roaches.

But now Despair was being warned to begin the process in earnest.

I will not let Earth bend me to its will, he told himself.

  9  

Covet all good things. It is only by letting our lusts shape our actions that we can lay hold of every good thing.

 

—From the Wyrmling Catechism

Cullossax and Kirissa spent the morning hours in the depths of the forest shadows, walking in a large circle, crossing the same ground over and over to hide their trail. Their scent would be strong here. Twice they set up false trails, leading from their little circle, only to return, walking backward, step by step, into their own tracks. Then they carefully broke from the circle one last time and treaded along firm ground, beneath the alders.

It is not an easy thing for a five-hundred-pound wyrmling to hide his tracks. Cullossax and Kirissa did the best that they could, raking leaves over their trail, taking an hour to cross less than a mile. They found a small lake and waded across its length to a rocky beach, then climbed into some dense woods.

Even with the tree cover, the sun was blinding to a wyrmling, and often Cullossax had to hold Kirissa's hand as she blinked back tears of pain, unable to see.

Cullossax did his best to ignore his own discomfort. But as morning wore on, the sunlight striking down through the trees burned his pale skin until it turned red and began to welt; he winced at the slightest touch. His salty sweat only heightened the pain.

The two refugees were forced to strike north and west, their backs to the blinding sun, heading almost the exact opposite direction from where they wanted to go. At length they discovered a road. It was not a wyrmling road, broad enough for the massive handcarts that were used to haul meat and supplies. It was a dainty road, almost a trail, the kind used by small humans.

In the great binding, the road had been superimposed upon a trackless waste. Thus the human highway had a few thistles growing up through it, and places where it was broken by outcroppings of rock. But it was serviceable enough.

It wound down out of the hills.

Cullossax ran now through the heat of the day, ignoring the welts that the sun raised on his burned skin, warily following the old road.

Soon they reached a village, a hamlet for the small folk. Cullossax stopped at the edge of the trees and peered out at it, bemused.

Quaint huts with chimneys of stone rose among serene gardens. The walls of the cottages were made of mud and wattle, painted in blinding shades of white, with windows framed in oak. A couple of cottages still had their straw roofs attached, though most had been broken into.

Wyrmlings had already been here.

“Come,” Cullossax said. “Let's see if we can find food.”

He did not know what the village might hold. There was no sign of living animals—no cattle or pigs, though a few corrals showed that such animals had been here recently. The wyrmlings had taken the livestock as well as the villagers.

Cullossax hoped that perhaps one of the small folk might be hiding in the village still.

Flesh is flesh.

They ransacked the hamlet, tearing the roofs off of cottages, searching through barns. Kirissa found a few human weapons—carving knives and a small half-sword. Cullossax would have preferred some heavy war darts, or a great ax.

Some type of fowl scampered about the village green. “Chickens,” Kirissa called them, but they darted away from Cullossax's grasp.

At last, he realized that there was nothing to eat, at least nothing in easy range.

“I will show you a secret,” Cullossax said at last, and he took Kirissa to a garden. There he found a wide variety of plants. He sniffed at a round leafy thing, then hurled it away. But he picked some pods and pulled up a few red tubers.

“Eat these,” Cullossax said. “Some will deny this, but a wyrmling can survive on plants, at least for a short time.”

“I know,” Kirissa said, surprising him. “On the old world, I ate plants all of the time. These green things are called beans. The tubers are beets. I like to boil them with a little olive oil, but they can be eaten raw.”

So they squatted in a darkened stable, and Cullossax bit into his first beet, and laughed. “Look!” he said. “It bleeds! I have gutted fat soldiers that bled less.”

The vegetables tasted terrible, of course. They tasted of dirt.

But they filled his belly, and the two rested in the barn, slathering themselves with water from a trough in order to cool their blistering skin.

An hour later Cullossax felt sick and bloated, until he
emptied his bowels. The strange food did not suit him well. Afterward the barn stank so badly, he decided to leave. The two of them found human blankets and threw them over their heads and backs, to keep the sun at bay.

The rest of the day, they continued their run. The sun was a blinding demon, and as it began to settle to the west, once again Cullossax had to turn from his track. He headed south for a bit, then due east. They passed more towns and villages. In each one, the humans and livestock had all disappeared. Obviously, Rugassa's hunters were in a frenzy. Game had been scarce the past few years. Suddenly it was plentiful again.

Kirissa dogged along at his side, growing ever slower with each step.

This pace is killing her, Cullossax realized.

Worse, she is slowing me down. If I left her, the hunters on our trail would find her, and perhaps they would stop for a bit to amuse themselves with her.

That slight diversion might mean the difference between my death and escape.

He decided to leave her behind. Yet he did not act upon that impulse, not yet at any rate.

Kirissa grew light-headed and at last she swooned. He picked her up and carried her for an hour while she slept.

I am going to need a miracle, he thought.

And at last he found it. He entered a town that rested upon the banks of a clear, cold river. To the due east he could see a human castle with pennants waving in the breeze, not four miles off. Sentries of the small folk were marching upon the ramparts.

Off to the west, Cullossax heard a bark, the sound a wyrmling guard makes to let others know that he is awake.

Apparently, Cullossax's kin had not been able to take the castle yet. But an army was near, hiding in the shade of the woods.

I will need to keep away from the trees, he thought.

Cullossax spotted a large skiff on the banks of the river, large enough to hold a wyrmling tormentor and a girl. He
checked the boat quickly, laid Kirissa inside, and then shoved the craft out into the cool water.

The current was not the rampaging torrent that he might have wished. The river was almost too shallow for such a heavily laden boat. The crystal stream rolled over mossy rocks, and glinted in the afternoon sun. Water striders danced on its surface, and trout rose to take the mosquitoes that dared come to rest. A few swallows darted along the river, taking drinks.

But otherwise the lush willows growing along the bank provided a screen from any prying eyes.

The boat carried them along, making sure that Cullossax left no scent, letting him and the girl escape even as they took their rest.

Cullossax startled awake well past dark.

Kirissa had risen, and now she worked the oars, streaming along. The boat scudded against some submerged rocks, which scraped the hull. That was what had wakened him. The river was growing shallow.

The landscape had changed dramatically. They were away from the lush hills and the pleasant towns, with their groves of trees.

Now, along both banks, a thin screen of grass gave way to sandstone rocks, almost white under the starlight. There were no shade trees, no hills.

“I've heard of this desert,” Cullossax said. “It is called Oblivion. There is nothing to eat here but lizards, along with a few rabbits. This must be the Sometimes River. It winds through the wastes for many leagues in the wet season, but the water sinks into the sand out in the wastes, and only rises again occasionally. To the east of here is the hunting grounds—the land of the shaggy elephants.”