Worldbinder Part 19

"Just remember, they're more afraid of you than you are of them."

"Really?" Alun said. He couldn't imagine it.

"Nah," another soldier behind them laughed. "He's having you on. They're wyrmlings, d.a.m.n it, and you're just the sc.r.a.pings on their boots."

Greeves-that was the man's name. Greeves laughed too, and Alun found himself laughing just a bit. It felt good to laugh, knowing that you might die.

"Just remember, keep yourself hunched low," Greeves said. "Don't come at the enemy head-on. Veer to the right or the left. And when you lunge in for a stab, don't aim high. Pick a low target-a kidney or their knees. Then leap back. Got it?"

There was sudden shouting up ahead, troops jostling. Alun was in the rearmost third of the division. Suddenly he saw the High King and a dozen warlords off to the side of the road, peering ahead. Connor and Drewish stood at the king's back, and Alun peered at them fearfully, afraid that they would follow him, that they would slide a blade between his ribs in the heat of the battle.

He stumbled, tripping on the heel of one of the soldiers in front, and then he realized that a gray shadow loomed above them all. They had reached the fortress. They had seemingly reached it in an instant.

The ring of metal the cries of dying men suddenly came loud, echoing down from the stone walls. Alun was startled to find the battlefront so close ahead. He pounded along the road, and the soldiers beside him broke into song: What shall they say when the day is doneOf battles fought and glory won?I was first into battle,I struck fear in my foe,I was first to land a b.l.o.o.d.y blow!

Suddenly they were in a seeming canyon, walls rearing high above them on either side-the fortress. A heavy war dart came hurtling from the tower above, clanked against a man's helmet, and bounced away. Alun glanced up at the crenellated tower, tried to see the wyrmling that had thrown it, but archers along the street sent up a rain of arrows and the wyrmling dove for cover.

And then he saw his first bodies, human bodies, men of the warrior clan littering the roadside-spears and arrows in them. And then he was rushing beneath an arch, and there were huge doors that had been battered down, and Alun raced into a courtyard.

Everyone but him seemed to know where to go. Soldiers to the left fanned out to the left, those to the right went right. Alun couldn't see any sign of battle, but he heard cries in the mist all around him.

He hesitated.

"Out of the way!" a soldier shouted, shoving him aside.

A black arrow whizzed out of the fog, plunked into the neck of a fellow behind. Alun whirled, saw the man stagger back in shock, pull the arrow free. Blood gushed from the wound, but it wasn't much, and he looked at Alun and laughed, "I'll be all right." A second arrow plunged into the man's chest.

Alun decided that it was safer to be anywhere but here.

A huge warrior went charging past him, shouting a battle cry and bearing an ax in either hand, and Alun decided: I want to be behind that monster!

He gave chase, and soon he saw the warrior, tearing through a dark doorway ahead, his arms swinging like mad. A pair of wyrmlings blocked his way. They were larger than the human warrior, but they fell back before the onslaught, and Alun went racing into the building.

His warrior was ahead, across the room, doing battle at another doorway.

The dead littered the floor all around, both human and wyrmling. Apparently the wyrmlings had fought to secure the doorway, and the battle had gone back and forth. Alun glanced behind him, afraid that Connor or Drewish might have followed.

Someone cried, "Help!" and Alun peered into the shadows. A man was down, blood gushing from a wound to his chest. Alun moved to give aid.

He heard a growl, saw a wyrmling commander trying groggily to rise up from the heap on hands and knees, his black armor slick with blood. He was reaching for a small pouch tied to his war belt. His helm was cracked, and he had a deep wound to the scalp.

Not deep enough, Alun thought, and buried the pick end of his ax in it.

The wyrmling collapsed, still clutching his pouch.

Curious, Alun reached down, drew the pouch from the wyrmling's dead hand.

Perhaps there is some treasure here, he thought, imagining golden rings or amulets.

But when he opened the pouch, he saw only three crude iron spikes, rusty and bent, each about four inches in length.

Alun stared at them in wonder, for they were a treasure greater than gold. They were harvester's spikes-iron nails encrusted with glandular extracts drawn from those that the wyrmlings had killed. The extracts granted a man tremendous strength and threw him into a bloodl.u.s.t, at least for awhile.

A warrior came rushing in behind. He must have seen Alun finish off the wyrmling, for he shouted to Alun, "That's the way lad!" then stopped and peered at the spikes. "A harvester! You killed yourself a harvester. Use 'em up, lad. Good men died to make those."

The fellow s.n.a.t.c.hed one of the spikes from Alun's hand, and Alun thought that he was stealing it. He protested, "Hey!" and turned to confront the fellow, just as the man shoved the spike into Alun's neck, piercing the carotid artery.

And the dried fruit of the harvested glands surged through Alun's veins.

His first reaction was that his heart began to pump so violently that he feared it would burst. Then his mouth went dry and he felt nauseous as blood was diverted from his stomach to his extremities.

And then the rage came, a rage so hot that it drove all thoughts from his mind. Blood pounded in his ears like the surging of the sea.

He let out a blood-curdling cry, grabbed an extra ax from a fallen comrade, and suddenly found himself charging through a mist of red, leaping over fallen foes, lunging past warriors of the clan.

A wyrmling suddenly appeared before him in a doorway, a huge creature with an ax, his face covered with beastly tattoos, his oversized incisors hanging out like fangs. He wore thick armor and wielded a battle-ax and a shield. Alun felt no fear.

Somehow, in the haze of war, Alun saw a flash, and for an instant it was Drewish that stood before him.

Alun went mad with blood rage.

I am immortal and invincible, Alun thought in a haze, and he leapt high in the air. The wyrmling raised its shield defensively, but the harvester's spike in Alun's neck had given him super-human strength. He swung an ax, cleaving the shield in two, striking through, and burying his ax into the wyrmling's skull.

As Alun's weight hit the falling monster, Alun saw three more wyrmlings in the shadows behind it.

Good, there are more! he thought, laughing in glee.

And so he fought in a haze of red. The battle was like a dance, him leaping and twisting in the air, swinging his ax.

Some conscious part of his mind warned: Watch your back. They still want you dead!

But that was the last conscious thought that he had.

Sometime later, an hour, two perhaps, he came out of the haze. He was in a room, a barracks, where only the tiniest crack of light shone through a single door.

He still had one ax, though the head had broken off of the other and he held its haft in his hand. He was swinging his good ax into the corpse of a wyrmling, screaming, "Die you cur! Die, you d.a.m.ned pig!"

There were a dozen wyrmlings sprawled on the floor, each of them hacked to pieces.

Several human soldiers were standing in a doorway, peering at him and laughing.

Alun's heart still raced as if it would explode, and his arm felt so tired that he did not think it would heal in a week. He had a bad gash on his forehead, and blood was flowing down over his eyes. And the other soldiers were laughing at him.

"Here now," a commanding voice said, "that's enough of that, lad. You killed 'em already." The soldiers guffawed.

Alun peered up in shock. It was a captain.

"I killed them?" Alun asked, not believing his ears. But the memories rushed through his mind, ghoulish apparitions.

The captain walked up, pulled the spike from Alun's neck, and gave him a bandage to staunch the wound.

"You're lucky-" the captain said, "a little fellow like you, fighting like a harvester." He held up the b.l.o.o.d.y spike. "It gives you strength and speed and murderer's instinct, but it was made for a wyrmling that stands eight feet tall and weighs five hundred pounds. You took a monster's dose. You're lucky that your heart didn't explode."

Alun suddenly felt weak. The glandular extracts were leaving his body, and it was all that he could do to stand up. He was breathing hard, gasping for breath, and cold sweat dimpled his forehead.

The captain shouted orders to the men, "Clean this place out! Leave no door unopened, no cubby-hole unchecked. Be sure of every enemy. The king wants the heads off of them. Bring them out into the light of day, and throw them in the courtyard."

So the grisly work began. Alun spent the next fifteen minutes feeling sick, staunching the flow of blood from the gouge in his forehead, wrapping his head up in a b.l.o.o.d.y bandage, and hacking the head off of a dead wyrmling and lugging it out of doors.

He tried to remember how he had gotten the wound, but could not account for it. He tried to remember where his helmet had come off, but never could find it.

He discovered that the troops had entered a barracks, had caught the wyrmlings sleeping. Many of them did not even have their armor on.

When he was finished, he was a b.l.o.o.d.y mess, and the captains came through and counted every body, then went out and counted every head.

The king and the warlords came now, admiring the heads stacked in a pile. Connor and Drewish were still there, at the king's back. Neither of them had bloodied themselves in battle.

Drewish leered at Alun, seeming to enjoy the spectacle of him wounded.

Imagine how he would laugh to see you dead, a little voice whispered in Alun's mind.

"Two hundred and fifty," the captain reported to the warlords. "That would be five squadrons, even."

"And of our own dead?" King Urstone asked.

"Fifty and four."

"Not bad," someone whispered in the line beside Alun, but he saw the king's face, saw him mourn. He had too few warriors as it was. He regretted losing even one man.

"And what of the Knights Eternal?" the king asked.

"No one saw any sign of them," the captain confirmed.

King Urstone nodded, looked worried, and then the troops headed across the bridge.

By then the fog was lifting, and Alun found that he was unaccountably hungry. The long run of the day before, a sleepless night, the hot work-all combined to build his appet.i.te.

So they raced across the bridge, and Alun was surprised to see the water so high, the trees and wreckage floating down the muddy river.

They reached the far sh.o.r.e, found the drawbridge down. Their own men cheered their entry, and Alun realized, We've taken it! We've taken Cantular!

It was the first real victory for mankind in many years, and the cheers were bounteous, over-excited.

Like boys who have bloodied the nose of a bully, Alun thought, not knowing that the fight has just begun.

"Search every building!" the king shouted. "Look in every house, every market stall. I want word of the Knights Eternal, and of their prisoners."

The king and his counselors went striding down the street, heading toward the east end of town. The men began to fan out, searching in every direction. Alun just followed the king, striding along in his wake. He was afraid that someone would stop him, make him go and do some real work, but no one did.

They reached the markets, found the stall where the battle had taken place. It wasn't hard to find. The walls of the home here had peeled back, and the roof had been thrown off. There were scorch marks on the wooden platform where the battle had been fought.

The king and the warlords climbed the platform, looking around. Alun didn't feel comfortable following them up there, and so he went to the side of the house. There were some rags draped over a bush, and he stood by them for a second.

Clothes, he realized. Too small for our people.

He peered into the bushes, saw a leather backpack behind the clothes and a sword on the ground.

"Your majesty," someone shouted. "I found something."

Alun grabbed the sword, saw a marvelous battle-staff lying nearby. He grabbed it and the pack, and began stuffing it with clothes. Then a couple of other soldiers were there beside him, combing the bushes for more.

Alun raced up onto the platform, and dropped the spoils there on the scorched wood. Others were doing the same. More clothes, some packs, a bow made of reaver horn, and arrows.

The men laid out the goods on the ground, and the Emir of Dalharristan bent to inspect them. "Don't draw those swords. Don't touch anything. We don't know what kind of curses might be laid upon these things."

He looked first at the bow of ruddy reaver's bone, using the toe of his boot to flip it over. "There are no glyphs upon it," he said, "at least not that I can see."

The Wizard Sisel reached down with his staff, bent so low to the floor that he almost touched it with his head. He sniffed at the bow. "But there are blessings on it," he said. "It is clean. I can smell the virtue in it."

The king looked at the wizard doubtfully. "But the power to bless has been lost. That is old magic!"

"Not on the world where these come from." Sisel peered at the sword as Alun lay it down. "Draw that blade, young man."

Alun did. The steel was lighter than steel should be, and gleamed like polished silver. "A fine blade," Sisel said. "Their steel is better than ours."

Sisel peered up at the soldiers all around him. "No one use that blade, at least not against a common foe. There is a blessing on it. Save it for the Knights Eternal, or better yet, the emperor himself."

"Who will carry this sword?" High King Urstone asked.

None of the lords dared step forward, and Alun dared not offer to keep it. But the High King smiled at him. "Sir Alun, is it not?" the High King asked as if they had never spoken. "You are our new...Master of the Hounds?"

"Aye, milord."

The High King looked up to the b.l.o.o.d.y rag tied around Alun's head. "You look as if you've acquitted yourself admirably in this battle. Were you able to draw any blood?"

Alun fumbled for something to say, his mouth working aimlessly. Some soldier nearby guffawed. "He did more than draw blood. He slew near a dozen."

There were gulps of astonishment from the gathered lords, and Alun saw Drewish, there at the king's back, glare at him dangerously.

"Proof once again that it is not just the size of a warrior that determines the battle," Sisel said, exchanging a look with the king.

He's talking about the small folk, Alun realized. I wonder what has been said?

"Well then," High King Urstone said gently, "it looks as if we have a new champion among us. Will you do the honor of bearing this sword until we can return it to its rightful owner?"

Alun gripped the sword experimentally. It was strong and powerful and light in his hand, not like the heavy axes that he had been forced to bear. "Aye, milord. It would be an honor."

The king smiled. He studied the marvelous staff, with its gems set near the top, and runes carved along its length. He peered up at the Wizard Sisel. "Would you take this?"