The Wyrmling Horde (41 page)

Despair reached down to her tunic, opened it slightly. She had runes of power branded there, just below her neckline.

Vulgnash had said that Fallion was traveling in company with two girls and a young man, another of the small folk. So Despair had suspected that one of his companions might come to his rescue, but he had not expected the two girls.

What luck! he thought. I have one of the girls, and Vulgnash will capture the other. Surely he loves one of them—perhaps both. What would he give up, in order to save them from the tormentors?

He reached down and stroked the girl's cheek. Such a precious thing.

“Keep them all alive,” Despair said, “until I have a chance to question them.”

“Even this one?” a guard asked, kicking the wyrmling girl. Her guards had let her break free for just an instant in the battle, so that a wight might take her.

Despair considered. Of them all, it seemed least likely that Fallion would have forged a relationship with a wyrmling. But one never knew.

In the binding of the worlds, many folk had merged with their shadow selves—humans as well as wyrmlings. Had Fallion known this girl's shadow self? Is that why the girl had turned against her own kind?

“Keep her alive, too,” Despair said.

“Will our dungeon hold them?” a guard asked.

“The cells were made to withstand even the toughest
wyrmling warriors,” Despair said. “And though some of these may have the strength of ten men, their bones are as brittle as ours. They won't be able to batter down the iron doors, and even the smallest of them could not squeeze between the bars.

“Still, put only one captive to a cell. Search them thoroughly and remove any weapons. Then chain them securely; allow none of the guards to get near their cells. Vulgnash alone will be their jailer.”

At that Despair hesitated. Vulgnash was off chasing the winged woman, and would soon return either with or without her. Despair hated consigning Vulgnash to such a mundane task as guard duty. But prisoners such as these demanded his skills.

Despair dared not let common troops near the Runelords.

Yet . . . there were other duties that Vulgnash needed to attend to. There was the uprising at Caer Luciare, where the foolish Fang Guards were taking endowments from their kin, believing that they could best Despair.

They had to be punished. Despair considered sending his troops, captained of course by his chosen warriors. But the Earth warned against it. None of his lords could withstand the new powers that had arisen at Caer Luciare—none but Vulgnash.

So Vulgnash would have to go. Despair needed to regain control of the blood-metal mines, for he sensed a coming danger. Not today, not even the next. It might be days away—a week. But an attack was coming.

There was nothing for it. Despair needed Vulgnash to pull double duty.

The guards lifted the prisoners and carried them down to the dungeons. Despair followed, to make sure that none of the captives woke or tried to escape.

Once they were all stripped of weapons, and shackled in their cells, Despair stopped to check on Fallion.

He was dead asleep, with the frost still riming his lips. The room was bone-numbingly cold.

Fallion cried out in his sleep, “No! Not that!”

Despair smiled and wondered what the tormentors were doing to the boy's Dedicates. Fallion had been given another hundred endowments of compassion. Right now, the tormentors were in the process of removing the excess body parts from Fallion's Dedicates. Despair had told the tormentors that in his opinion, any body part on a Dedicate was to be deemed “excessive.”

“Sleep, my little friend,” Despair whispered. “All too soon, we will wake you to your horror.”

Lord Despair left the prisoners to their cold cells, took a thumb-lantern, and went stalking to his throne room with his head bent, his brow furrowed, to await Vulgnash's return.

The glow worms that adorned the ceilings and walls did not give enough light for his all-too-human eyes.

In his throne room he took reports from his facilitators. Despair had garnered his allotment of a thousand endowments, and Fallion had been given his. A test had been run on a wyrmling, to learn if by taking an endowment of sight from a human, he might abide the daylight. The results were good, but not impeccable.

This pleased Despair. He ordered more endowments, but found that his supply of blood metal had been exhausted, so he sent his chief facilitator away, promising to get more ore soon.

Afterward, he went to his map room and brooded.

If my enemies are taking endowments, he realized, they must have Dedicates. All that I need to do to ease the danger is to send my troops to slaughter those Dedicates.

He considered the map, but it was of little use. So much had changed in the binding. His scouts were going out by night, telling of cities that had sprung up where none should be. His troops had already vanquished everything that they'd seen. But a hundred miles from Rugassa, all was unknown.

He did not have enough Knights Eternal to scout the lands nearby.

Lord Scathain will lend me some aid, he thought. A few thousand Darkling Glories should suffice.

His earth senses warned of dangers far off. That news gladdened him. Nothing would disturb his preparations for days.

Or is the danger really so far away? he wondered.

By sacrificing one of his chosen, he had disappointed the Earth Spirit that loaned him its powers. He knew that. He had felt the spirit withdraw from him, and when it came time to fight, he had felt it difficult to advise Vulgnash of danger.

It was a warning from the Earth Spirit itself. If Lord Despair did not submit to the Earth's wishes, he might lose his protective powers.

He could not let that happen.

In the future, I cannot let one of my chosen people die, Despair decided. I must heed Earth's every whim for the time being, regain its trust. I must act the perfect Earth King.

But it galled him. Lord Despair was on the verge of seizing control of worlds. Who was this Earth Spirit to tell him what to do?

It was late afternoon when Vulgnash returned, with the Darkling Glory at his side. The two seemed to have become fast friends. Quietly they approached Lord Despair's throne.

The throne itself was a massive thing, with a back that rose ten feet in the air. It was carved from the bones of a world wyrm, and thus was yellow-white, the color of aging teeth.

Vulgnash strode into the room, head down. His wings were raised in salute, but Lord Despair noticed that they were not raised to the full. He looked weak, submissive. The Darkling Glory stood at his back, glaring.

“I have failed you, my master,” Vulgnash said. “The girl escaped. I followed her as far as I could, until I began to go dayblind.”

For a long moment, Lord Despair sat in disbelief. He'd felt certain that Vulgnash would catch the girl. In part he felt that way because he had supreme confidence in Vulgnash's abilities. In part he'd felt certain because he sensed a complete lack of danger.

The girl
could
be a threat, but he cast his mind about, and once again he felt sure that his empire was secure. There would be no attack upon him for days.

“Do not worry,” Despair said at last. “There is no harm done.”

“The girl could pose a danger,” Vulgnash objected. “She is a powerful Runelord. She could gather an army and return.”

“If she does,” Despair said, “we shall have another chance to catch her. Won't we?”

Vulgnash looked up, thoughtful.

Despair assured him, “She will not attack soon—not today or tomorrow or the day after. Of that I am certain. She fears us.”

“But . . .” Vulgnash said. “This one has taken many endowments.”

“Of course,” Despair said. “And she will try to get more—which means that it is all the more important that we secure our ore at Caer Luciare. Right now, that is my greatest concern. The Fang Guards there have rebelled, and now refuse to send me forcibles. I want you to punish them, with finality.”

“I will leave at dusk,” Vulgnash promised.

“I have a better idea. Do you have any more forcibles?” Vulgnash had been toying with them in his cell while he guarded Fallion, creating new designs for his master. It was he who had devised the rune of compassion. “A handful is all.”

“Make a pair of forcibles with a rune of sight. Then force the small folk to grant endowments to you and Kryssidia.”

“My lord?” Vulgnash asked.

“The small folk see well in full sun. I had a facilitator do a test while you were hunting. Once a human gives an endowment of sight, our wyrmlings will be able to abide the daylight.” Vulgnash smiled, his huge canines showing.

“Thank you, master,” Vulgnash said. But he did not leave. Instead he dropped to one knee. “There is another matter. . . .”

“Which is?”

“While following the girl, we saw reavers, a great throng of them. They are a little more than two hundred miles from the fortress. If they stay their course, they could reach us tonight.”

“They pose no threat,” Despair said. “Most likely they will turn aside. The Earth gives me no warning.” He was growing tired of worrying. “Go to the dungeons before you leave, and make certain that our prisoners are secure, one last time.”

“Very well,” Vulgnash said.

The Knight Eternal rose from his knee and went stalking from the room, his wings raised more proudly. That left only the Darkling Glory there before the throne.

“Well now, my friend,” Despair said, “let us go and have some dinner, and we shall consider how best to conquer a million million shadow worlds.”

  21  

All men should strive to be cunning and strong. The Great Wyrm will take vengeance upon those who prove to be weak and foolish.

 

—From the Wyrmling Catechism

Vulgnash felt a peculiar craving. The dead are not subject to most human passions, at least not to the same degree as humans. Hunger they feel as a primal craving for life force, one that makes every cell in their bodies ache with need, much as a choking man burns with need for air. But there is little place in them for lust, or vanity, or compassion.

So this craving annoyed him. It was an ache for vengeance. The human woman had escaped him, had shown him to be weak in front of Lord Despair.

Vulgnash had seen his lord's displeasure.

The dungeons again, he thought, as he climbed down the winding stone stairs. I will be forever in the dungeons.

He yearned to be off on some more dangerous assignment. Watching over the Wizard Fallion had its dangers, it was true, but Fallion posed little threat.

Vulgnash went to the dungeons, found Fallion there. The floor was rimed with frost, and now snow fans were forming on the bars and walls. Fallion was out cold. Sound asleep, nearly comatose.

The rest of the prisoners were much the same. Talon lay still, barely breathing. The wyrmling girl appeared to be dead. Daylan Hammer's breathing was equally shallow. Only the emir seemed to be breathing heavily, and he groaned in his sleep as if at a nightmare.

Vulgnash tried rattling the doors. They were solid iron
and each weighed a thousand pounds. He could not move them. The locks were secure.

Vulgnash paid one last call upon the Wizard Fallion.

He was firmly chained by a leg to the wall.

Vulgnash decided to have some fun with him. He took a cot from another cell, and took some old rope, then bound Fallion's arms and legs so tightly that it would cut off the circulation.

Then he dragged a cot into the cell, laid Fallion upon it faceup, and held Fallion's head back so that he could not see his own body.

He gave Fallion just enough heat to warm him so that he began to revive. Fallion came awake, regaining consciousness in fits and starts, so that he muttered and shook, trying to rouse himself.

When consciousness reached him, Fallion simply lay there on the cot with growing horror on his face. He struggled and tried to move his arms and feet, but could get no feeling.