Worldbinder Part 39

"I don't want them."

"Then bring them," Warlord Madoc said. "I'll wear them proudly. Come on. We've got a war to finish." He whirled and raced through the tunnels, outdistancing his companions as he searched for a target for his wrath.

In Emperor Zul-torac's observatory, Areth Sul Urstone lay in a fetal position, groaning in pain, watching the destruction of his city.

Suddenly the snarl and boom of thunder drums went silent. All of creation seemed to pause on the brink of ruin as the Death Lord raised a spidery hand, then turned his cowled head toward Ruga.s.sa, as if seeking permission to put an end to mankind.

"Will you concede?" the Emperor hissed. "Your soul, the life of your spirit, in exchange for the city?"

Areth knew that the Death Lord only awaited the Emperor's command. Such wights, being less than half alive, could communicate across the leagues, whisper thoughts to the spirits of one another. It was for this reason that Lady Despair had elevated them in position, giving them charge of her armies.

They are waiting only for me, for my word, Areth knew. It is in my power to save my people, or to let them die. He let out a whimper of pain and despair.

Rhianna landed upon a parapet above the city, where High King Urstone knelt above the body of the wounded Fallion, examining the splotch of blood smeared over Fallion's ribs. The thumb-lanterns here had blown out, apparently when the great stone doors that concealed this place had fallen. Now the parapet was open to the cool night air. Stars rained down light, sprinkling it liberally over the gray stone. Flowers, overflowing from gray pots, gleamed like starfish in the darkness, perfuming the night air. Pennyroyal petals and seeds had been strewn upon the floor, giving a heavenly scent.

This would be a pleasant place to die, she thought.

Rhianna gasped, sweat streaming from her face after the short flight, and peered down at Fallion, her heart burdened with worry.

Down below, the thunder drums had fallen silent. Rhianna had seen the huge battering rams that the wyrmlings carried through the city, entire trees felled just for this purpose, bound with iron rings, fitted with bra.s.s heads shaped like snarling lions. With a single thrust of each battering ram, sparks and fire had flown out, and the great iron doors had shattered, torn from their hinges.

There was nothing to stop the wyrmlings from taking the city now. It had no defenses left. The warriors that held the tunnels were too few in number. They might slow the wyrmlings for an hour, but that was it.

Dawn was still an hour away. The eastern skies were brightening on the edge of the horizon, washing out the stars.

King Urstone spoke. Rhianna did not understand his words, but she understood the tone. He pointed to the east.

"Take him and go," King Urstone said, "if you can carry him. Save yourselves. There is nothing more that we can do. The city is lost, and I wish to die with my people. The wyrmlings will be inside within an hour, and nothing can save us."

Rhianna nodded. "Give me a little while more." She knelt and gently touched Fallion's wound. He had already fainted from loss of blood, and it was just beginning to clot. To try to move him would only cause the wound to break open. She didn't dare risk it.

With a heavy heart, High King Urstone nodded, then took a fighting stance above Fallion's body and just stood above him, battle-ax gripped in both hands, on guard. "I will watch with you as long as I can."

Vulgnash studied the three as he plunged from the clouds, and his heart filled with glee. They were unaware of him until the instant that he landed in a rush of wings, standing upon a stone railing above them.

High King Urstone roared and whirled, his battle-ax swinging at Vulgnash's legs. The movement seemed painfully slow. With five endowments of metabolism, Vulgnash easily leapt above the blow and still had time to cast a spell that drained Fallion of precious heat, chilling his body to near death.

The air on the parapet suddenly turned to ice, and fogged from the mouths of Vulgnash's enemies. The flowers in their pots began to rime with frost.

Rhianna shouted and batted at Vulgnash with her staff.

He knew that weapon. It was a deadly thing. He had tried to curse it into oblivion, and he had imagined that it would be rotted by now, full of wood worms, but the staff still glittered in the starlight, hale and deadly.

The relic was a curiosity. He was amazed that it held such power, and at some future time, he hoped to study it further.

Vulgnash stepped aside, and Rhianna's blow connected only with stone.

"Be gone, foul beast!" King Urstone roared, twisting his battle-ax to come in for another blow.

Vulgnash smiled. With his endowments of brawn and metabolism, he felt stronger and swifter than ever before. He had just made a flight that should have taken all night in less than two hours.

Soon, he thought, I will be Lady Despair's most trusted servant.

Already he had begun to figure out new ways to twist forcibles. In Ruga.s.sa, torture was considered both a science and an art. And tonight, Vulgnash had advanced the science to new heights. He had created special forcibles for Areth Sul Urstone. By binding a rune of touch to a rune of empathy, he'd created forcibles that not only let a lord feel more strongly, but feel the tortures that the runelord's Dedicates endured.

In the days to come, Vulgnash felt certain that he could raise the art of the runelords to heights that had never been dreamt of on Fallion's world.

Now Vulgnash was eager to test his new-found strength in battle.

"Come with me," Vulgnash said softly to those who stood between him and his prey, "and I will lead you to the land of shadows."

The High King swung his ax, and Vulgnash leapt out and swiftly kicked the elbow of the king's left arm. The ax went flying from his hand, over the parapet and into the darkness.

Rhianna shouted a war cry and swung her staff at Vulgnash's waist. To Vulgnash the blow seemed laughably slow.

He reached down with a foot and kicked the High King, whose brows were still arced in surprise, shoving him into the path of Rhianna's blow.

The great staff slammed against Urstone's head with a snapping sound, as if it had hit stone. The king's helmet shattered and a fine mist of blood sprayed out from the back of his head. Urstone fell. His body slumped over the railing.

Rhianna only stopped, heart pounding in horror at what she'd done.

Vulgnash leapt from the railing, his movements so fast that his speed was blinding.

He's a runelord, Rhianna realized.

She swung her staff. The Knight Eternal dodged, and the staff struck the ledge with a jolt. He kicked her arm, and the staff tumbled over the parapet.

He smiled down at her, and Rhianna stood gasping. She had no weapon that could touch him. He knew it. Her only hope was to go after the staff.

But in doing so, she would leave Fallion alone, unprotected.

Fallion. All that the Knight Eternal wanted was Fallion.

Rhianna swiftly pulled a dagger, then put it to Fallion's carotid artery.

"Leave," she demanded. "Or so help me, I'll kill him."

This is what Fallion would want me to do, she thought. Fallion feared that his powers would be turned to evil. He knew what Lady Despair wanted. She wanted Fallion to bind the worlds into one, all under her control.

Vulgnash hesitated, studied her, and Rhianna dug the blade into Fallion's flesh.

The Knight Eternal spoke, his thoughts whispering into her mind. "You love him more than your own life, yet you would kill him?"

"It's what he would want."

"It would please me to see you take his life," Vulgnash said.

She studied his eyes, and knew that he meant it. Yes, he wanted Fallion, but he also wanted to see Rhianna commit this one foul deed.

He's testing me, Rhianna realized. My pain amuses him.

Vulgnash did not move forward, and for a long moment he stood waiting. There were shouts from the tunnel behind Rhianna, accompanied by the frenzied yap of a dog.

She dared not turn away from the Knight Eternal.

"Rhianna," Warlord Madoc cried. "Hold it. Stop."

Warlord Madoc raced up at her back, keeping his distance from Vulgnash. For a moment he studied the scene, the Knight Eternal held at bay by a woman willing to sacrifice the man that she loved, King Urstone slumped over a railing, the back of his head smeared with blood.

"Get back from him, girl," Warlord Madoc said. "Let me handle this." He spoke to Rhianna in her own language.

Then he spoke to Vulgnash in the wyrmling tongue. "You need us," he told the Knight Eternal. "Your harvesters need humans to prey upon. Leave us in peace, and we will be your va.s.sals."

"The land is filled with humans now," Vulgnash said. "Great will be our joy as we hunt them and harvest them. We need you you no more." no more."

"Still," Madoc said. "I propose a truce: a thousand years. Give me a thousand years, and I will prepare these people to be your servants. We will join you, and Lady Despair whom you serve. If not, we'll take the life of the Wizard Fallion, and you can go back to her empty-handed."

Vulgnash knew the will of his master. For decades she had been plotting this, and right now the future balanced upon a precipice. Sometimes he could hear his master's thoughts, like whispers in his mind.

He glanced off to the north, straining to hear the will of Lady Despair in this matter. At last, he felt her touch.

Tell him what he most wants to hear, she said. Vulgnash smiled. she said. Vulgnash smiled.

"Lady Despair agrees to the trade."

Warlord Madoc took the news hard, felt the breath knocked out of him. It was almost more than he could have hoped. Yet, now that the wyrmlings had agreed, he wasn't sure that he liked the truce. He wasn't sure that he could trust the wyrmlings. They might take Fallion and simply raze the city.

And even if the wyrmlings kept to the bargain, what then? Mankind would survive, but they would fall under the shadow of Ruga.s.sa, and his children's children would serve his enemies.

Still, he hoped, in a thousand years, our children might multiply and become strong. The wyrmlings were notoriously hard on their sp.a.w.n, and the mortality rate for wyrmling children was high. Madoc could only hope that his own descendants might win back their freedom.

Rhianna had her back to him, and she was peering up at the Knight Eternal resolutely, ready to slit Fallion's throat at a moment's notice. Warlord Madoc gave her a light kick to the back of the skull, and she went tumbling forward.

Madoc could hear the sounds of running feet and that d.a.m.ned dog barking in the tunnel behind him. His companions were drawing near, but came forward only slowly, unsure what to do.

"Take him," Madoc told Vulgnash.

"No!" Talon cried at his back, and came lunging out of the tunnel.

The Knight Eternal moved with blinding speed, dropped, and seized Fallion's sleeping form, like a cat pouncing upon a bird. In an instant he rose up, reeled and dove over the parapet.

Wings flapping madly, Vulgnash carried his prey into the sky.

Warlord Madoc whirled to meet Talon. The girl charged him with her small sword. She did not strike fear into him. She was, after all, only a child, one of the small folk at that, and Madoc had decades of practice to his credit.

She lunged with a well-aimed blow, but he slapped it aside with the flat of his ax, then punched her in the face. He outweighed the girl by nearly a hundred pounds, and Talon flew back and crumpled from the blow.

Siyaddah and Alun were right behind her. Siyaddah dropped the wings that she'd been dragging, and pulled a weapon as she stalked toward him. "Wait!" Madoc cried. "I can explain. I'm buying our lives here, saving the city."

And it was true. The wyrmling armies had halted outside the city gates. The thunder drums had hushed, and the wyrmlings waited as if in antic.i.p.ation.

"We heard," Siyaddah said. "We heard the bargain that you made. But I'd rather die than honor it."

They leave me no choice, Madoc realized. He could not leave witnesses to his unholy trade.

Madoc glared at her. "Stupid girl. If you'd rather die, then you shall."

Behind him, he heard a groan and some small movement.

Siyaddah stepped forward to duel, her gleaming shield held clumsily at her side. She wasn't a tenth the warrior that Talon had been.

Alun only held still at her back, the gawking lad who had been willing to sell his people out for nothing more than a t.i.tle. Madoc wasn't worried about him.

But suddenly the boy hissed a command, "Kill," and unleashed his war dog. The beast leapt at Madoc in a snarling ball of fury, going for Madoc's throat.

Madoc brought his ax up, hoping to fend the dog off, and stepped backward, just as something sharp rammed into his back.

He peered down and saw a dagger there just below his kidney. Rhianna's small, pale hand gripped it. With a grunt she twisted the blade and brought it up in an expert maneuver, slicing his kidney in half. White-hot pain blinded Madoc.

He did not have time to cry out before Siyaddah slammed into his chest and sent him tumbling over the parapet.

Rhianna dropped and knelt in shock.

She crawled to the end of the balcony, her arms shaking, her legs and knees feeling frail. She climbed the balcony wall and peered over the parapet, into the starlight, and far in the distance, she saw leathery wings flapping madly. The morning air was beginning to brighten, dulling the stars. The Knight Eternal was carrying Fallion away in a frenzied blur, like some great bat.

He has endowments of strength and speed, Rhianna realized. He's flying faster than I ever can. Her arms trembled as they tried to bear her weight. Her stomach was turning, and she felt ill, on the verge of collapse.

How fast is he going? she wondered. A hundred miles per hour, two? How far will he get before dawn? Will he reach Ruga.s.sa?

She'd barely been able to manage the flight to the parapet a few minutes ago. And in her current condition, she couldn't manage even that. Even if she had been able catch up with Fallion's captor, she was no match for him.

He's gone, she realized. Fallion's gone. Maybe forever.

Rhianna looked down, her heart breaking. She saw Madoc's form sprawled on the pavement hundreds of feet below, broken, ringed by wyrmlings who hacked and stabbed at the corpse, making sure of it.

She turned back to her friends. The parapet was a grisly mess. Talon was out cold. Rhianna could see that she was breathing steadily, but though Rhianna crawled to her side and called her name, Talon would not wake.

Siyaddah went to High King Urstone and stood over him for a long moment, seeking signs of life. She studied his face, then leaned over his back, trying to hear his heartbeat through his armor. At last she put her silver buckler to his face to see if he was breathing.

After a moment, she let out a sad cry and tears rolled down her cheek.