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
* * *
A LITTLE VENGEANCE
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.
Vulgnash knew what he was thinking. Dozens of his Dedicates had been mutilated, their arms and legs removed, and Fallion could not tell if he had any appendages.
“Fool,” Vulgnash hissed. “Without arms or legs, you look like a worm. Squirm for me. Squirm for your master.”
“No, please!” Fallion called, trying to wriggle, trying to see if he had arms.
Vulgnash merely set a foot upon his forehead and held his head back so that he could not see.
“You thanked my master for letting you feel the pain of his subjects. So as your reward, he has cut the arms and legs off of thousands of them, and he has let you feel their pain. Would you like to see them?”
Suddenly Fallion lashed out with his senses, tried to pull heat from the walls of the cell. But the stone was cold and held almost no heat at all. Fallion’s was a pitiful attempt at escape.
Vulgnash pulled the heat from Fallion once again, sent him deep into a swoon.
That should hold him for a few more hours, Vulgnash thought. And he will dream. . . .
Vulgnash stalked out of the dungeon, found Kryssidia, and took his last four forcibles to the chief facilitator. It did not take fifteen minutes for the facilitator to round up some small folk and rip the sight from two of them. The effect at first seemed minimal. He could not see any better in the darkness, but now the glow worms on the wall gave off a color he’d never seen—a dim green.
With the last two forcibles, Vulgnash took more endowments of metabolism, and told Kryssidia to meet him in his chambers.
Quickly Vulgnash raced up through the tunnels, climbing the stairs, like a caterpillar winding its way up a twig, until he reached his own spartan quarters, where his crypt lay.
The sun was dying on the horizon, a bloody thing dropping toward its grave. Red clouds scudded along the sky line, promising a coming storm.
For the first time in his life, Vulgnash looked out upon a world of color—blues and purples in the sky, grays and tans and greens in the forests.
So this is what a human sees, he thought in wonder.
The endowment had worked well enough. The daylight annoyed him, but it did not hurt as much now. It was bright enough so that the idea of flying repelled him, but darkness would be here soon.
He went to his closet, got a fresh red ro
be, and strapped on a sharpened long sword as black as obsidian.
He halted for a moment near the door to his own parapet and glanced longingly at his own tomb.
Ah, he thought, to sleep.
Vulgnash felt at peace. Torturing Fallion had salved his wounds, fed some of his need for vengeance.
But more than that, he felt secure knowing that he would be going into battle with Despair at his side.
As a Knight Eternal, Vulgnash had never been truly alive. He had no soul, and could not harbor or feed a locus. Thus, there was no way that he could communicate across the leagues with Despair, as the Death Lords did.
But now Lord Despair was displaying some new power.
He can speak to my mind, Vulgnash realized, with the powers of an Earth King, though he cannot hear my thoughts.
This development delighted Vulgnash. It almost made him equal to the Death Lords, and it raised his value to the master. At the same time it afforded him some privacy.
But an onus was upon Vulgnash. His master would be angered if he took too long to punish the Fang Guards.
Kryssidia came shortly, and the two of them raced to the nearest window and leapt from the tower, unfolding their crimson wings and taking flight.
They swooped low, so that the shadows of distant mountains covered them, and flew madly above the trees, careering this way and that, using their own momentum to hurl them forward faster and faster.
Day faded to dusk, and dusk surrendered to darkness.
As he flew even with Kryssidia, the Knight Eternal apprised him a little better of the situation at Caer Luciare. The Fang Guards were taking endowments, and they thought themselves powerful enough to challenge the empire. They were led by an egotistical fool named Chulspeth who did not know yet that Despair had taken physical form and now dwelt at Rugassa. Nor of course would Chulspeth be aware that Despair had gained unheard-of powers, the protective gifts of an Earth King.
Vulgnash knew Chulspeth. He was the leader of the Fang Guards. Vulgnash had personally chosen the man for the honor of being the first to take an endowment of bloodlust.
Once again, Vulgnash thought, I have not served my master well.
Kryssidia grew hungry, and the Knights Eternal slowed their flight for a time, veering from their course as they hunted. They found a small settlement where a little smoke from evening cooking fires hung in a haze.
It was a guard post of some kind for the small folk, a mountain village with nothing but a wall made of wood. Guards paced about in towers.
The Knights Eternal swept into the village, dodging arrow fire as they came. They spotted children playing in the street, children that leapt up in terror at the cries of their parents.
Vulgnash swooped low and scooped up a toddler on the wing, and Kryssidia did the same. The parents screamed frantically and chased after them, shaking their fists and hurling curses.
We are like jays, robbing the nests of lesser birds, Vulgnash thought as he placed his hands over the squirming boy’s face and began to drain him. Child or adult, the spirits of these creatures provided the same amount of nourishment. So he and Kryssidia drained their prey, then let their corpses, their empty husks, rain from the sky.
Moments later, he heard his master’s voice in his mind. When you finish punishing my enemies, return with all haste. Bring back more blood-metal ore for forcibles.
“Yes, Lord,” Vulgnash whispered to the wind, for he knew that his master could not hear him.
As they neared Caer Luciare, Vulgnash heard his master’s voice in his mind once again. Careful, my friend. Careful. The enemy has set a trap. When you land, they will attack. It is not with a sword that you can win this battle.
Vulgnash signaled to Kryssidia with a slight tremor of the wing, and both of them veered to the left and landed in the woods.
“Our master bids us go in with fire,” Vulgnash said, and without preamble he kicked a few dead leaves into a pile, along with some wind-fallen twigs, then used a portion of his own body heat to give birth to a small flame.
He let it lick at the leaves for a few moments, growing in power and might, then twisted the flames so that they took a small alder. A warm breeze nourished the flames until soon they raged and leapt up the tree, and from there began to spread through the detritus on the forest floor.
Vulgnash strode into the midst of the burgeoning inferno and basked in the heat, like a lizard in the morning sunlight, until the inferno did not just warm him but permeated his flesh.
Then the two Knights Eternal rose into the air and went winging up the mountain.
The dead wyrmlings from the recent battle were strewn about, littering the ground where they had fallen. To be left upon the battlefield was considered a great honor, and it was the wyrmling belief that any warrior left thus would rise up from the battlefield, weapons in hand, on that day when the Great Wyrm made flesh cleave to rotten bones and brought forth her honored warriors for the last great battle at the End of Time.
The three great arches of Luciare were no longer lit by the spirits of the human ancestors; vulgar glyphs now adorned the bone-white walls, signaling that this was wyrmling territory.
No proper guard seemed to be watching the doors. Perhaps there was no one left who could. Kryssidia had described the scene inside while on the wing—fallen wyrmlings strewn about the great hall, each with an endowment wrung from him, until few were left standing.
Never had Vulgnash heard of such abandonment, such debauchery.
Vulgnash settled on the ground at the mouth of the central arch, and called out, “Chulspeth, come!”
No one stood at the door, but after a long moment, a voice cried out, high in pitch and fanatical.
“Am I a cur to be commanded so?” From the sound of his voice, Chulspeth had taken too many endowments of metabolism—perhaps twenty or more. Though he tried to slow his speech so that it might be better understood by common folk, it sounded squeaky and high, with strange lapses.
“You’re not a cur,” Vulgnash said, hoping to sound reasonable, hoping to lure his enemy into the open. “I honored you, and respected you. You were the first of our master’s servants to taste the kiss of the forcible. It is rumored that you now crave it like wine, and you have lost all composure. I have come to reason with you, to offer you a chance to serve our master once again. You could be his most valued warrior.”
“I would rather serve a bull’s pisser than our craven emperor!” Chulspeth squeaked. Still there was no sign of movement from within the fortress.
“The emperor no longer rules Rugassa,” Vulgnash informed him. “Despair has taken flesh, and now walks the labyrinth among us.”
The news should have inspired a proper sense of religious awe in Chulspeth, or even fanatical zeal. Instead, there was only a yelp, followed by a snarl and a threat.
“I do not fear Despair!” Chulspeth cried. “What are you, Vulgnash, nothing but a serving boy, bringing your lord dinner one moment, then pleasuring him the next? You should have a place of honor beside your lord, not groveling at his feet.” Now Chulspeth tried the inevitable bribe, one that Vulgnash had heard a thousand times before, though it varied in particulars. “You, Vulgnash, should dwell with us. You would be welcome here. You would have honor among us, and be a great lord. The finest food would be yours, the finest women.”
A soft chuckle rose from Vulgnash, cool and deadly.
“I do not desire such things,” he said. “And it would not be an honor to be counted among you. Lord Despair has come among us, and he has strange powers, unheard of among mortal men. I fear that if I were among you, he would crush us all beneath his heel, as if we were mice.”
Chulspeth roared in anguish.
Attack! Despair’s voice raged in Vulgnash’s mind. Vulgnash raised a hand, prepared to unleash a fireball.
Suddenly, from the recesses of Caer Luciare, Chulspeth rushed from the shadows. Never had Vulgnash imagined such speed. Chulspeth came sprinting from the darkness, running at well
over a hundred miles per hour, a black iron javelin in his hand.
Vulgnash hurled a fireball, white-hot and roaring in its fury. It was the size of his fist when he hurled it, but as it traveled it expanded in size, so that it was a dozen feet in diameter when Chulspeth came bounding through it.
For a heartbeat, Vulgnash imagined that his foe would simply race through the flames unscathed, like a child leaping through a campfire.
But Chulspeth hesitated an instant before it struck, long enough to hurl his iron javelin.
The javelin hurtled through the flames faster than any ballista dart. With hundreds of endowments of brawn to his credit, Chulspeth’s attack was devastating. The javelin struck Vulgnash in the chest at dead center and hit with such force that it passed cleanly through him.
No matter, Vulgnash thought. This flesh will knit back together in time.
Then Chulspeth bulled through the fireball.
He might have done better to dodge it.
Perhaps Chulspeth did not imagine that the flames would be as hot as they were. Or maybe with so many endowments of stamina coursing through him, he imagined himself to be invincible. Or it might have been that the endowments of bloodlust he had taken had merely driven him mad.
For whatever reason, Chulspeth leapt through the fire and came roaring out the other side, his flesh blackened and oozing, his clothes blazing like an inferno. The fire wrung cries of agony from him, yet he charged toward Vulgnash, half-sword drawn, eager to battle to the death.
Flee! the Earth King’s warning came.
Vulgnash flapped his wings, lunging into the air like a bolt of lightning, and though Chulspeth leapt to meet him, the bones of his legs snapped from the exertion, and he fell far short of his desired target.
Soaring high, Vulgnash left the High Lord of the Fang Guards there on the ground, sputtering and burning.
Now Vulgnash dove toward the central arch of Caer Luciare, where the remains of his fireball had blackened the pale archways and melted the gold foil.
The Wyrmling Horde Page 30