Aaath Ulber’s ribs cracked, and the air went out of him. He wrenched his arms up tighter, and clamped a hand over the wyrmling’s mouth and nose.
To strangle a man properly took time—two or three minutes. But a man could go unconscious in as little as thirty seconds. A man who was exerting himself in battle might go even faster.
But this wrymling had endowments of metabolism. He burned through his air more quickly than a normal man.
Ten seconds, Aaath Ulber told himself. I only have to hold on for ten seconds.
The wyrmling stepped forward and then leaned to hurl himself backward once again. Aaath Ulber knew that he could not take another blow like the last.
He kicked off against the wall, seeking to throw the wyrmling off balance. But the wyrmling did not fall. Instead he spun again.
He is not thinking clearly, Aaath Ulber realized. He’s craving breath.
The wyrmling shook his head, trying to break free of Aaath Ulber’s grasp, and tried to bite Aaath Ulber’s hand. He was almost out of the fight. His movements were slowing.
He reared back, tried to bash Aaath Ulber into the wall once more. But he was weakening, and when he drew back, he staggered. Aaath Ulber kicked backward striking the wall, and broke the wyrmling’s momentum.
He clutched all the tighter, and suddenly the wyrmling seemed to remember that he had a sword. He reversed the grip, struck blindly overhead, trying to slash.
But Aaath Ulber threw his own weight forward and used his elbow to impede the wyrmling’s attack. The sword blow never landed.
The wyrmling staggered forward and then fell. Aaath Ulber became aware that the crowd was chanting: “He-ro, he-ro, he-ro!”
He held on, kept strangling even though the wyrmling was down. When the creature went still, Aaath Ulber quickly grabbed its sword from the floor and lopped off the wyrmling’s helmeted head.
He raised it high as the crowd of barbarians chanted. Blood flowed liberally from the severed head, splattering down over Aaath Ulber’s shoulders. Many a man threw up his mug of ale, in toast to Aaath Ulber’s battle prowess.
Not that I’ll live long, Aaath Ulber told himself. I might be able to take a dim-witted wyrmling with only three endowments of metabolism, but the enemy has better warriors waiting in the wings.
“Toast!” the barbarians shouted, mugs held high. “Toast! Toast!”
They want me to drink from the wyrmling’s head, Aaath Ulber realized.
He paraded around the ring, blood dripping down upon him; he spotted Rain in the crowd.
A door suddenly opened in the wall, a man-sized portcullis that led into a dark corridor.
The men were still cheering, urging him to drink. Aaath Ulber opened his mouth and raised the head high, as if to let blood pour down his throat.
Then he smiled in jest and flung the wyrmling’s head into the crowd. He grabbed up the creature’s sword, took a torch from its sconce, and strode into the dim recesses, armed to meet his fate.
Rain had been dazzled by the spectacle. She huddled against a back wall, as far into the shadows as she could get, and now searched frantically for Wulfgaard.
She hadn’t been able to spot him earlier among the crowd. So many of the men looked similar.
She spotted Wulfgaard on the far side of the room, high in the shadows. He was huddled with several men, who cast their eyes about, as if they feared being watched.
They were a rough crowd, most of them younger men with murder in their eyes.
“Good show!” one old warlord muttered as he got to his feet. “That giant is fast. No wonder the wyrmlings want him.”
Another murmured, “Reminds me of myself, in my youth.”
There were guffaws, but no real laughter. The men looked worried, beaten. One of them glanced up toward Wulfgaard and whispered, “Do you think they can save him?”
“Don’t know if I’d want them to save a blackguard who wouldn’t drink to me,” the oldest of the men said.
So, Rain realized, Wulfgaard’s plan is an open secret.
She arose, and as the crowds thinned, she made her way across the room.
Wulfgaard looked up and fixed her with his eyes as she neared. He left his small band of warriors.
“A woman and a young man were taken by the wyrmlings tonight, during the moot. They were strangers to our town, both with dark hair. . . .”
Rain fought back a frantic impulse to scream. “That would be Draken and Myrrima,” she said in clipped tones.
Wulfgaard bit his lower lip, peered down at the floor. “We will have to work fast if we are to save them.”
“But the wyrmlings,” Rain said. “How will you fight them?”
“With these,” Wulfgaard said. He pulled up his shirtsleeve to reveal white puckered scars upon his arm—runes of brawn, grace, stamina, and a single endowment of metabolism.
It was not much to fight a wyrmling with, but Wulfgaard’s cohorts looked both dangerous and determined.
“When will you strike?” Rain asked.
Wulfgaard studied his men. There were seven of them. The arena had nearly cleared. He gathered his courage and said, “What better time than now?”
With that, he nodded to the men. A huge warrior with blond locks stood up, pulled a short sword from his boot, and strode down toward the arena. He glanced back at his men. “Right, you men saw how it’s done: no hesitation, no standing about. Now let’s go free these wyrmling gents from the cruel vicissitudes of their mortal existence.”
The others produced weapons from the folds of their sleeves, from inside vests and boots, then followed in line, swaggering killers out for a night of fun.
“Wait,” Rain said before Wulfgaard could follow them. “Don’t you have a plan?”
“There are already men outside the doors to make sure that no wyrmlings escape,” Wulfgaard said. “We know the ground. Most of us have been playing in this arena since we could crawl. Grab a torch.”
When they got to the fighting pit, each man took a torch, then jumped into the arena. One of them picked up the dead wyrmling’s shield, and the men made their way into the dark passage, running swiftly and silently, hot on Aaath Ulber’s trail.
The passage was a simple affair chiseled through sandstone. It led some hundred feet from the arena, climbing up a gradual slope to a large room littered with cages. Some were mere boxes that might hold a wolverine. Others were huge affairs massive enough for a snow ox.
Aaath Ulber could not recall having been here before. The wyrmlings had dragged him to the arena in a daze, and then wakened him by jabbing a harvester spike in his leg.
The only light came from his torch and from the powdery stars that shone through a high open window. Four wyrmlings were in the room, all dressed in battle armor. One jutted his chin toward the largest cage, which was taller than a man and made of thick iron bars. Bear dung littered the bottom of it.
“Into your cage, human,” the wyrmling muttered.
Aaath Ulber stood for a moment, sword in hand, and considered his alternatives.
“You’re good,” a wyrmling said, giving a feral chuckle, “but not that good.”
Instantly the wyrmling blurred, moving so fast that he defied the eye. Before Aaath Ulber could react, the sword was plucked from his hand. A simple shove left him tumbling into the cage, sprawling into the bear dung, and then the iron door clanked shut.
The wyrmlings laughed.
Aaath Ulber got to his hands and knees, looked up at the wyrmling that had shoved him. The creature had to have eight endowments of metabolism, more than even Aaath Ulber could hope to best. Aaath Ulber picked up his torch from the floor and asked, “You sent a fool to fight me! Why?”
“Everyone in those seats has seen a man die,” the wyrmling answered. “We want them to see hope die. But it hurts a bit more, if it is nurtured first.”
A cold wind suddenly swept into the room, sending a chill up Aaath Ulber’s spine. It was a sensation he’d felt only three times in his life.
A wight had entered the room.
He peered up, licked his lips, searching for the creature. But he could not see the ghost light that sometimes announced the dead. This one was keeping to its shadow form.
The wyrmlings in the room seemed not to notice. They were accustomed to the presence of wights.
A wight, Aaath Ulber reasoned, will be their leader. . . . It will keep away from the torch.
Aaath Ulber looked toward the torch. It had begun to gutter, as if in a high wind, struggling to stay lit.
“I don’t plan on dying easily,” Aaath Ulber said, rising to his feet.
22
THE ESCAPE
In battle, one must always seek opportunities to strike, but a wise man creates his own opportunities.
—Sir Borenson
Crull-maldor reached the arena only moments before Yikkarga, and spotted humans outside the door ready to ambush any wyrmling that sought to escape.
She flew in unnoticed above them, drifting through the high open windows, floating like a wisp of fog, then rose up into the rafters to hide among the huge oaken beams.
Cages were strewn everywhere down below, making many a dark nook for her to hide in, and wyrmling guards surrounded one iron cage in particular. There, with a torch in hand, squatted Aaath Ulber.
Crull-maldor tucked herself into a shadow in the rafters above the door. For several minutes, she was entertained by the wrymling guards below, as they ridiculed and tormented the human. But true to their orders, they did not harm him.
The attack on the guards came swiftly. Nearly a dozen humans rushed silently out of the arena tunnel, their torches blazing a warning to the wrymlings.
Her troops instantly took a defensive stance. Wyrmlings drew their weapons and roared in warning. As they did, the guards at the door opened it a crack and rushed in, so that the wyrmlings were set upon both before and behind.
Rain was the last in line, and though she sprinted with all her might, Wulfgaard and the others drew far ahead. She heard shouts and metal ringing as sword met sword long before she reached the cage room.
By the time that she did, the battle was in full swing. One wyrmling was down, one human beheaded, and two men wounded. The men were attacking in a well-ordered pack, four humans to a wyrmling. Some were striking high, others low. They went at it with a fury she’d never seen before, men screaming and throwing themselves into the fray, taking no thought about how to attack or where to defend.
There was no hesitation. Rain could see that despite their evident lack of planning for this specific battle, they’d been training for weeks, preparing for the time when the confrontation would come.
Yet one of the wyrmlings surpassed all their skill. As Rain entered the room, a wyrmling captain roared a battle challenge and swung a mighty ax.
Two men dodged the blow, but a third took it full in the chest. The others leapt in, trying to eviscerate the monster, but it was so fast that it merely swatted the men aside.
Two other wyrmlings had their hands full, and this one roared and struck out with an iron boot, the motion a blur, and snapped the back of one warrior from Internook.
The huge wyrmling roared in delight, then stepped back, leaving a clear killing field before him, and with a snarl invited his three remaining opponents to do battle.
The men hesitated, and in that moment two more men went down. The battle was quickly turning.
Wulfgaard raced toward the captain, threw his torch at the monster’s face. The wyrmling stepped back, and in that moment Aaath Ulber struck. The wyrmling had drawn too close to Aaath Ulber’s cage, and Aaath Ulber lunged through the bars and grabbed the monster’s belt, then pulled with all of his might.
The wyrmling was thrown off balance. Instantly Wulfgaard lunged in and struck with his long knife, slicing into the wyrmling’s groin. Blood boiled out from the captain’s leg. Wulfgaard had hit a femoral artery.
The wyrmling batted with his shield, and Wulfgaard went hurtling some thirty feet and crashed into an iron cage. The wyrmling howled then, a primal scream of fear, and his men lunged in, trying to get closer. With the three of them side to side, they presented a fearsome wall.
But now Aaath Ulber reached up and got the captain in a strangle-hold. The monster threw down his sword and struggled to use his free hand to break Aaath Ulber’s grasp.
The human warriors in the band hurled themselves on the wyrmlings, stabbing and roaring. One man reached the wyrmling captain and plunged a poniard into his side again and again, striking through his ribs. The other wyrmlings were similarly wounded, but managed to stand and fight.
Suddenly there was a snarl at the door, and a huge wyrmling in full battle array filled the doorway.
Three young guards were there, and they whirled to confront the beast. In an instant the monster used a meat hook to grab one young man by the neck and jerk him from his feet. He used a heavy curved blade to slice through a second man, then ran the third through and lifted him into the air.
He hurled the corpses across the room, knocking one of the human defenders away from his target.
Eight endowments of metabolism he has, Rain thought. There was no way that we can defeat such a horror.
Her heart sank, and the blood seemed to freeze in her veins. Time stood still. She saw the huge wyrmling, imperious and cruel, seeming to grow as it took in the battle before it.
It spoke in the human tongue. “Fools! No man can kill me, for I am the chosen of the Earth King.”
Rain did not do it consciously, but she sank to her knees, hoping that the wyrmling might see some reason to spare her. Of the humans in the room, she alone had not struck with her weapon. She had no place in a battle among runelords.
But in that instant, as all hope left her, she saw a shadow descend from the rafters. At first she thought that a black cat was leaping onto the wyrmling, but suddenly the shadow shined—a blue-gray ghost light revealing the form of a woman. She landed beside the wyrmling champion and leered down upon the battlefield.
Instantly, the temperature in the room dropped by fifty degrees, and the breath fogged from Rain’s mouth.
The wight was smaller than the wyrmling champion, almost dainty in comparison. She was ancient, with flabby breasts and forearms. Her flesh was rotting from her body, but it was not her physical appearance that caused much alarm—a sensation of intense malignant evil filled the room, as if all the maliciousness in the world was made flesh in this creature.
“Wight!” Aaath Ulber shouted in warning. The humans all stepped away from their wyrmling opponents to face this darker foe.
None of the men in the room had weapons that could harm a wight. It took cold iron to wound one. A weapon blessed by a water wizard would sever it from the mortal realm, but such a blow could only be struck with a price—for the man or woman who struck the blow would likely die from touching the wight.
Rain’s weapon had been blessed by Myrrima.
She pulled her dagger, shouted to the other men, “Get behind me!”
She couldn’t hope to take on both a wight and the wyrmling lord, but she couldn’t refuse the challenge.
She shifted her weight, tried to relax, and made ready to spring at the slightest provocation, as Aaath Ulber had taught her.
But at that instant the wight turned and smiled up at the wyrmling lord, a feral smile filled with hate. As swift as thought, she reached up and touched his shoulder.
“Yikkarga,” the wight whispered. “Come!”
The wyrmling lord lunged backward, stricken, and snarled like a wounded dog. The touch of a wight could kill most men. But it only wounded the wyrmling. Its arm fell and dangled uselessly; the meat hook dropped from its hand.
Ice rimed the creature’s bone armor, bright as frost, and its hot breath steamed from its nostrils. It froze, stunned for a second, and the wight leapt to attack.
She rammed her hand into the wyrmling’s face, a thumb and pinky touching each of its mandibles, the middle finger between its eyes, d
irectly over the brain, and the remaining fingers each covering an eye.
The wyrmling tried to swing its sword, but did so in vain. Its sword arm waved feebly, the wight swaying from its reach, and the behemoth stood in a daze, then dropped to one knee.
A thin green vapor began to pour from its mouth. The wight leaned forward and inhaled briefly, draining the life force from its victim.
Then she backed away. The wyrmling lord’s eyes were as white as ice, soulless and empty. Its face was slack, devoid of consciousness.
The enormous wyrmling captain was all but dead.
The wight turned to Rain and whispered, “Finish him, my pet. Banish his spirit with your blade, lest he report your deeds to his master, even in death.”
Then the wight turned to Aaath Ulber. “With this gift I free you, as a token of my goodwill. The emperor fears you. He fears the death you bring. Go now, and take it to him. Serve me well, human, and you shall be rewarded.”
In that instant she faded, the dim light going back to shadow, and it seemed to leap through the doorway and go vaulting up to meet the stars.
Rain trembled, and the hand that gripped her knife felt weak.
If the fallen wyrmling lord had spoken the truth, he was under the protection of an Earth King. Rain tried to understand how such a thing might happen, but all reason failed.
One thing she knew—the wyrmling before her was wounded. Perhaps it could have fended off an opponent bent on its demise, but it hadn’t been able to fight off a wight—one who did not seek its death, but only to wound it.
Perhaps the wyrmling has a locus in it too, Rain reasoned. Or maybe the touch of this blade really will destroy its spirit.
“Do it!” Aaath Ulber urged from his cage. Rain peered over at him. He was still gripping the wyrmling captain, holding him by the throat, though the wyrmling sagged in ruin.
The other two wyrmlings were failing, too. Both of them were down, bleeding from many wounds.
Human warriors lay ringed about on the floor. Blood was everywhere.
Rain held her ground, glared at Aaath Ulber. “Am I some lich lord’s pawn? I’ll not kill at that creature’s command. It has a locus in it.”
Chaosbound Page 25