Trail of the Black Wyrm - Chris Pierson

by Dragonlance

The Keeper had rotted. His skinless flesh had mummified, pulling taut and shrinking to a black husk over his skeleton. Here and there it had split, laying bare his bones. Tarry sludge dripped from the sockets of his eyes, from the stumps of his hands and feet. His fate was monstrous, even worse than what the death-priests of Thenol inflicted on their enemies.

  “Azar,” she wept. “Oh, gods, Azar, I’m sorry. It’s my fault—”

  BE SILENT, spoke the yaggol, and she was. She didn’t open her eyes, only listened to the wheezing as the Watcher regarded the shriveled thing the Keeper had become.

  “You held the key to glory,” the Watcher said. “All the power of Old Aurim was in your grasp—and you threw it away. Why? Not for the woman, I’m sure—no one would be that stupid. It was for some memory of virtue, wasn’t it? Some vestige of nobility.

  “I can sense your mind through the yaggol, Azar of Suluk. I understand now—you were never one of us. Oh, the Rainward Kings were clever, to send you into our ranks. They can cling to that cleverness when their palaces and fiefdoms burn. Perhaps, once Maladar forges his new empire, he will give me the ruins to govern.

  “But you, you who were called Keeper, who were second among us, next to the Master himself … now your part in this saga must end. The Brethren await. The Slayer’s knife is sharpened. You will be the last to die upon the altar before the final ritual. Your blood will bring forth the Emperor. Ironic, is it not? Your death, accomplishing the very thing you swore to—”

  Even when it was done, Essana wasn’t quite sure how it happened. She didn’t see it, but she heard it all—the sudden gasp from the Watcher, putting an end to his gloating. The two screams that followed—one tongueless and filled with rage; the other rising and rising, breaking in pain. A hideous, wet crunch, stopping the second scream. Spattering—blood, warm on her face. A body falling to the floor.

  She opened her eyes.

  It shouldn’t have been possible: the Keeper was a ruin of a man, and four yaggol surrounded him, their minds locked with his. Unprotected by the cha’asii’s magic, he shouldn’t have been able to budge, much less cast a spell. And yet, drawing on some awesome reserve, he had. The proof was the Watcher’s corpse, sprawled backward on the ground. The head was a pulpy mass, crushed like a walnut in a man’s fist. Bits of blood and brain flecked the walls.

  It was Azar’s last act of defiance. Now the yaggol moved in, an instant too late, and the hanging mummy went limp, its strength gone. They seized him and tore him down from the chains, the hooks ripping through his flesh as he tumbled to the floor. Bones broke, but he didn’t notice. He had lost consciousness. Essana hoped, as they dragged him from the cell, that he would never, ever regain it.

  They brought her along too, as she knew they would. She had witnessed every other sacrifice atop the temple, since the dragon bore her here. This would be no exception.

  Mist, bloodied by Lunis, blanketed the jungle as the yaggol dragged her up the steps to where the remaining Brethren awaited. They were three, now: with the Watcher’s body cooling in her cell, only the Master, the Slayer, and the Speaker remained. Nor was there any sign of Gloomwing, which was strange; he had been present for every bloodletting before.

  She wondered about that—but not for long, for there was another figure on the rooftop, and the sight of him stole her breath away. Her son stood next to the Master—no longer dressed in the cassock he’d worn earlier, but clad in black, a hood covering his head. She felt a spike of panic, wondering if the Brethren had cut off his face—then calmed down when she saw the brown arc of his chin beneath the cowl.

  He was taller, dwarf-height … perhaps eight or nine years old, still aging fast. In less than a month, at this rate, he would be grown. And then.…

  She shuddered, her eyes flicking toward the altar. Azar lay upon it, looking like a thousand-year-old corpse dug out of a bog. She would never have believed he was still alive, but his limbs twitched and shivered upon the stone. Above him loomed the Hooded One. Maladar’s hunger hung about the statue, like the tingling before a thunderstorm. He wanted the Keeper’s life, more than any of the elves the Brethren had brought him.

  “Bring her,” beckoned the Master.

  The yaggol shoved Essana forward—and toward her son. She stared at the boy, but his gaze fastened on the Hooded One and the pathetic thing on the altar. She wanted to rush to him, to call out to him, but the yaggol prevented her, forcing her thoughts away. She turned instead to face the Master.

  “Another of your Brothers is dead,” she said. “And where is your pet wyrm? You’re running out of allies.”

  The Master regarded her from the depths of his hood. There was hate in his gaze, of course, but something else as well: a glimmer of fear. He, too, had expected Gloomwing to be here for this important ritual. The Master didn’t know what had happened to the dragon, any more than she did.

  “Don’t let’s compare allies, milady,” he said. “You’re about to lose the last of yours.”

  “You lie. There is my husband.”

  “Lord Forlo will not save you. I doubt he even knows where you are.”

  She regarded him, eyes narrowing. “Oh? Then why are you afraid?”

  The Speaker and the Slayer glanced at each other, surprised. The Master glowered, then nodded to the yaggol. Essana had an instant to brace herself before a blast of nausea drove her to her knees. She heaved, trying to vomit, but her stomach was empty.

  “This is the last rite you will observe, Essana of Coldhope,” the Master said. “But not the last you shall attend. When the time comes, when the vessel is ready to accept the Faceless Emperor … then it will be your turn to lie upon the altar. Your blood will flow in his name.” He started to turn away, then looked back at her, his voice sharp and vicious. “And it will not be the Slayer who wields the knife.”

  Essana stared at him, at the child by his side. The Master laid a gloved hand on the boy’s shoulder and led him away.

  She stayed where she was, unable to move, as the terrible ritual began. Her mind dark with horror, she watched the Brethren gather by the altar, chanting orisons in Maladar’s name. Her son didn’t join in, but the boy watched in fascination as the Slayer strode to the Keeper’s side, the long knife glittering in his hand. A light rain began to fall; clouds swallowed the red moon.

  “Come forth, Great One,” proclaimed the Speaker. “Your time is at hand. Accept this offering; let it give you strength. Come forth, lord of Taladas, emperor of us all.”

  “Blood for the Faceless,” declared the Master. “Blood for Maladar!”

  The Keeper didn’t struggle; the yaggol’s minds gripped him tight. He lay as placid as a lamb as the Slayer raised his blade to the statue then laid it against his throat. He made no sound as the edge drew across, parting flesh, scraping bone. Essana wept as the blood flowed free. She watched Azar die.

  The Slayer gathered his blood in the skull bowl and poured it at the statue’s feet, as he had done so often before. This time, however, there was a difference—a blurring around the Hooded One that made her want to rub her eyes. Power seethed atop the temple, making the air swelter. Sparks burst in the air. The Slayer stepped back, and as one the Brethren bowed their heads.

  And Maladar an-Desh, the Faceless Emperor, the Sleeper in the Stone, came forth.

  It was only a shade of the man, a pale ghost in the exact image of the statue, bound to the black stone by ropes of gray mist, yet it was him. There was no doubting it, no mistaking the evil that poured from that spectral figure. Beside him, even the Master seemed insipid, a feeble mockery of his malevolence.

  “I am risen,” he spoke in a voice that rolled like distant thunder. “Now I hearken to your call, my faithful. But you are fewer than I expected. What of the rest?”

  The Faceless glanced at one another, uneasy. “The Keeper lies before you, Great One,” said the Master. “He betrayed us, and death on the altar was his reward—but he murdered the Watcher before we could kill him. The Teacher died at the hands
of our enemies, in the vales of Marak. As for the wyrm … his fate we do not know. He flew forth some weeks ago and never returned. I fear he has been slain.”

  “A pity,” the specter said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “But you three are enough for what remains. Have you the vessel?”

  The Master leaned down, speaking softly to the boy, who stepped forward. For the first time, Essana heard her son speak, and his voice wrenched her heart. The tone was flat, devoid of feeling. He had a Rainwards accent, like the rest of the Brethren.

  “I am the Taker. My body shall be yours.”

  Maladar gazed down on the boy, his eyes flashing, then rounded on the Brethren. “A child? I cannot dwell in one so young. My power would rip him apart!”

  “He will not be a child then,” the Master said. “He will be grown, worthy of your presence. His father was a mighty warrior. There is strength in him.”

  “Hmmm,” the Emperor mused. He wasn’t convinced, but finally he nodded. “What you say had best be true. I shall be wroth if I cannot use him. Now, what of the sacrifice? Whose blood shall he spill at my feet?”

  The Faceless parted, and the ghost’s eyes fell upon Essana.

  “His mother,” said the Master. “Newly rid of him. She gave birth but five-and-twenty days ago and pines for him still.”

  At this, Maladar seemed impressed. He nodded, his eyes glinting. “That is cruel,” he said. “You impress me, my thralls. The grief she feels when the blade bites will make me all the stronger. I can almost taste her life.”

  “I am glad you approve, Great One,” said the Master. “The day will come soon. When the black moon is full, two weeks hence, we shall gather here again, and the deed shall be done.”

  Essana slumped, burying her face in her hands. Two weeks. Barreth, she thought, oh gods, where are you?

  Chapter

  29

  KE-CHA-YAT, NERON

  Eldako nearly died, in spite of everything. Forlo had never seen a man so badly hurt, who still somehow managed to survive—not in more than two decades in the Imperial Legions, fighting hobgoblins and the Thenolite dead. The shock of the elf’s wounds alone would have been enough to kill most soldiers—and then there was his maltreatment by the Maws, and the difficult journey back to the cha’asii tree town. And always, there was the threat of his wounds rotting. Forlo had been in lands like these; you could die of black-blood from a cut while shaving, much less burns over a third of your body. But Eldako lived, through three nights of fever in the Grandmother’s hut, while the ancient elf chanted over him, made him drink sour tea, and burned pungent leaves to her ancestors.

  Finally, on the third morning, the fever broke. He lay quiet and still, no longer raving about tentacled horrors in the dark … no longer dreaming of being back in his home in the Green, hunting hill-bear with his father. He was here again, now again, his remaining eye no longer glazed with delirium. Shedara sat by his side; she’d barely been away from him since they’d brought him back. She held his good hand as Forlo entered the sick hut and perched on the edge of the merkitsa’s spruce-bough bed. Hult arrived soon after. He stayed standing. Yu-shan, the ancient crone, bowed her silver head and departed, leaving them alone.

  “I did not think we four would be together again,” Eldako said. His voice was slurred and rough, its beauty stolen by the dragon’s acid. “Yet here we are, almost at the end.”

  “Almost,” Shedara said, squeezing his hand.

  She smiled, but there was a deep sorrow in her eyes. Forlo understood why. He and Essana had looked at each other that way, just before he rode out to face Chovuk’s horde. There was love between these two, but it was love without hope. They all knew Eldako’s time in the world was precious.

  “The cha’asii will help us,” she went on. “They’ve hated the Maws since the eldest days. They’ll do what they can to fight them—and their new masters.”

  Forlo nodded as she spoke. They had spoken to the Grandmother while Eldako hovered at death’s brink. They’d learned the history. Once, the akitu-shai had enslaved the elves, forcing them to build a great empire in these woods, until the cha’asii learned how to break the power of the Maws’ thoughts. Great wars were fought, and the empire crumbled as both sides nearly wiped each other out. This was many thousands of years before the First Destruction, in the days when Forlo’s ancestors had been barbarians, no more civilized than the Uigan. Since then, elf and Maw had lived among the ruins alongside one another, under an uneasy truce broken by skirmishes and murder.

  That had changed two summers ago, with the dragon’s coming. Gloomwing had not long been in Neron before he started attacking the elves—always small villages and hunting parties, never war bands who could put up a fight. He had killed many cha’asii, but other elves simply went missing.

  Finally, a warrior of the elves, one of Yu-shan’s sons named Te-kesh-ke, managed to track the wyrm, back through miles of jungle, to a valley where several old temples stood—monuments of the Maws’ old empire, crumbling and engulfed by the jungle. From a distance, hidden among the taller tree tops, Te-kesh-ke had watched as Gloomwing brought his prisoners to the sacrificial altar atop the tallest pyramid, an edifice the elves called Akh-tazi.

  At this point in the tale, Yu-shan’s face grew dark and troubled. “My people …” she said, tears shining in her eyes. “There were men there—not elves, but humans, from what land I do not know. They laid my people on the altar and bled them to death. Strong cha’asii died, screaming, at the hands of men without pity … or faces.”

  “The Teacher and his brothers,” Shedara had said.

  “A thousand plagues upon them,” the Grandmother replied. “There were six in those days; they are fewer now. But I will say more of that later.”

  Things had gone on like that, for years, according to Yu-shan. Every few weeks, Gloomwing would return, slaughtering scores of elves each time, then carrying the survivors east to the temple. Te-kesh-ke put together a war band with the intent of assailing the temple and putting an end to the dark rites, but when the elves marched on Akh-tazi, they found that the Maws were in league with the men there. Te-kesh-ke died on the temple steps, along with all but three of his warriors. These returned to Ke-cha-yat to tell of the slaughter. Since then, there had been three other assaults, but none had succeeded. Between the men’s magic and the Maws’ powers, the cha’asii had been defeated again and again.

  Finally, in the autumn, something new happened. Gloomwing vanished for more than a month, and the elves had dared to think he was gone for good … but one night, not long after the three moons rose full together, he had returned from the north, bearing two things.

  “A statue,” Shedara had murmured.

  Forlo had glanced at her, nodding. “And a woman.”

  This surprised the Grandmother only for a moment. They had already told her their tales, what had brought them here. She went on with hers.

  After the dragon’s return, his attacks grew more daring and frequent. Gloomwing kidnapped more and more elves, and the Brethren cut their throats and offered blood to the statue while they forced the woman to watch. The winter rains came, and still this went on, while the woman … Essana … grew larger and larger with the child she carried. Dozens more cha’asii perished on the altar, victims of the Faceless.

  Then, one night when the winds blew cold from the north, one of the hooded men came to Ke-cha-yat. He appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the town and demanded to speak with the cha’asii’s leader. The tribe’s warriors balked, but in the end Yu-shan came down from her hut. He called himself the Keeper and asked their help. He knew they had charms that could block the fell thoughts of the Maws, whom he called yaggol. He had one with him, and asked for another—and for help. He was a spy, and he meant to help the woman escape. If he didn’t, the Brethren would take the baby and kill her afterward.

  This made the Grandmother angry, for the Keeper had allowed many elves to die. What made the woman’s life more important?
<
br />   “Not her,” the Keeper had explained. “The child. They will use it to free a powerful evil from the statue, so it can walk the living world again. I cannot let that happen. They must be stopped.”

  Hearing all this, Forlo had risen, feeling ill and dizzy, and left to walk alone around Ke-cha-yat. Hult tried to follow, but Shedara warned him not to, so Forlo wandered the town, his eyes turning east toward the temple.

  The Keeper’s rescue attempt had ended in dismal failure, according to Yu-shan, and he himself had disappeared. Essana remained at Akh-tazi, and the sacrifices continued … until one night, not long before Forlo and the others reached the Neroni coast. There was a terrible storm that night. Forlo, having returned to listen to the Grandmother as she concluded her tale, remembered seeing that storm in the distance, remembered that night well.

  The night his son was born.

  He was too late. Essana might well be dead by now, their child lost. He rued every lost day since they left Coldhope, especially his captivity in Kristophan. If he could have slain Rekhaz again, he would have done it gladly.

  The storm night was the last of the sacrifices, Yu-shan said. The next day, Gloomwing had come to the coast, to investigate the strange boat there, and the cha’asii had had their revenge at last. The dragon’s skull hung from the branches before Yu-shan’s hut now, glaring down over the town. His death had avenged thousands of elves … but the grief remained … and the loss. It would always be there, as long as the cha’asii lived here.

  “So they will aid us?” Eldako murmured. “They will help us against these Crawling Maws?”

  “They’ll help,” Shedara said. “And they’ve given us these.”

  She reached to her neck and pulled out a talisman, made of crimson feathers and turquoise, carved with whorls and zigzags. Hult showed his; jade, like Nalaran’s amulet, with white feathers. As Forlo produced his own, blood-red jasper and black plumage, Shedara produced a fourth. It was glistening opal, ringed with feathers as yellow as gold. A crack ran through its center. Eldako managed something like a smile as she slid the leather thong over his head.