The Wyrmling Horde r-7

by David Farland

  "I would join you in this quest," Connor said. "And it is with heartfelt thanks that I accept Alun s generous offer."

  The emir gave Connor a piercing look. Certainly he suspected Connor s motives. "I believe," he said dryly, "that Alun offered his dogs to me."

  At that moment, a man stepped forward, a wealthy merchant of forty years whose finery was perhaps unsurpassed in all of the warrior clans. His name was Thull-turock. In Caer Luciare he had been a wealthy merchant, but Talon recognized him as a man who had lived a double life. Upon Fallion s world, he had been a powerful facilitator, a man who made his living by crafting forcibles, choosing potential Dedicates for his lords and then transferring endowments.

  In a matter of two days, Thull-turock had risen to become one of the most influential men among the clans.

  He strode forward, with glittering eyes like a snake s, and shouted into the emir s face. "And how do you propose to regain this prince of yours without taking endowments? For surely you will not receive them from my hand."

  "I…" The emir stood, confused. Thull-turock had long been a friend, and had dined with the emir at the lords table many a night, reveling in the emir s presence, jesting with him. Now Thull-turock had turned against him.

  "I will not grant you endowments," Thull-turock repeated. "Once I called you friend, but I know you too well!"

  Talon was stunned. She thought, The Madocs seem to have corrupted more men than I thought possible.

  "What?" Tuul Ra demanded of Thull-turock. "Which of my good deeds do you decry?"

  "It is not your good deeds upon this world that I decry," Thull-turock shouted. "It was what you did upon the shadow world. It is what I suspect that you are destined to become that I decry."

  From an old woman at Talon s back came a shout, "Murderer!" From around the camp arose cries of "Fiend!" "Warmonger!" "Monster!"

  From the rage on various faces, Talon realized that hundreds of folks had evil memories of the emir, and a full third of the camp had heard rumors of what he d done on Fallion s world.

  Talon had lived on both worlds. She felt that she should know what was wrong, but right now, she was baffled.

  The emir only gaped in astonishment. His dark-skinned daughter, Siyaddah, came to his side defensively; tears sprang to her eyes, and she stood peering about like a wounded dove, shaken.

  "Wait!" Daylan Hammer cried, calling for quiet. He spoke to Thullturock in a soft and reasonable tone. "Does your law allow you to condemn a man for a crime that he has not committed? The emir is innocent. You know that! Look in your heart, and you must find him innocent."

  "Until now Tuul Ra has shown no desire to take endowments," Thullturock explained, "and so I have kept my silence. But you must know, I will not grant endowments to him. He must never taste the kiss of the forcible!"

  Daylan said in a soft tone, reasonably, "You think that a taste of the forcible will corrupt him?"

  "It has corrupted other men. It corrupted his shadow self. As a facilitator, I swore an oath never to grant endowments to a man that I mistrust."

  "The emir is made of better stuff than other men, I think," Daylan argued. "Surely you would agree?"

  Thull-turock growled, "You know what he did in Indhopal."

  Suddenly Talon understood-the Fiend of Indhopal, Raj Ahten. She had never met the man. Her father, Borenson, had helped kill him before she was born. Could the emir be the Raj s shadow self?

  It seemed impossible. Raj had been an old man when he d marched against the nations of Rofehavan.

  But had he been old, Talon suddenly wondered, or had his forcibles aged him?

  He d taken thousands of endowments of brawn, wit, and stamina, of course. And he d taken many endowments of metabolism.

  Like any man, he would have aged quickly afterward. If he d taken eight or ten endowments of metabolism, he might have grown old and died within a decade.

  Yet the emir seemed young to her-younger than Sir Borenson.

  Then, she realized, her father had taken endowments of metabolism, too. Both men had aged preternaturally.

  The emir stared at Thull-turock in blank horror. "What did I do on that other world?" he begged. "Tell me. Accuse me."

  "That was not the emir," Daylan argued, forestalling the inevitable revelation with a wave of the hand. "It was but a shadow, a creature that this emir could have become."

  "And yet," Thull-turock countered, "it seems that there is a pattern to things. In Indhopal, Raj Ahten was the most powerful lord of his time. In this world, the emir is much the same-a man with an unnatural talent for war."

  "And so you fear that he will become another Raj Ahten?"

  "I cannot help but see the potential," Thull-turock said.

  "Don t be afraid to give him endowments," Daylan said. "It is true that the kiss of the forcible corrupts many, but it will not sway the emir."

  "So say you," Thull-turock argued. "But Raj Ahten loved the forcible, and craved it like nothing else."

  The emir stepped between the men, and raised his hands in surrender. "Thull-turock, if you do not trust me to take endowments, then I will not. But I cannot go back on my oath. I must free Areth Sul Urstone."

  "And if you were to try to break into Rugassa without endowments my friend," Daylan said gently, "it would be suicide. Even with your talent, I fear that you could not stand against a Runelord."

  Daylan looked to Thull-turock pleadingly. "The emir is unlike his shadow. He is mature, and wise. But Raj Ahten was only a child when first he felt the ecstasy of the forcible." Daylan turned to Thull-turock and asked, "How many children have you heard of who can resist the forcible, once having been subjected to it? It is a heady wine."

  Thull-turock mused, "A man who will become a sot will do so no matter how old he is when he begins to drink."

  "Perhaps," Daylan said. "But we are not talking about wine here-we are talking about greed, and vanity, and lust for power. That is what destroyed Raj Ahten. But who has seen such vices in the emir?" Daylan reached into his tunic and pulled out a small book with a doeskin binding. "I found this among Fallion s effects. It is the Earth King s own journal. It reveals much about Raj Ahten and how he fell." Daylan raised the book overhead and spoke to the crowd. "Raj Ahten was a young man of fourteen, lusting for power, when he first tasted the fruits of the forcible. He had seen reaver attacks in his own land, reavers slaughtering his friends and father; ancient guardians revealed to him that the reavers were going to rise from the earth in force and that he was among the few who had the means, the strength, and the will to stop them-"

  "Much as our emir hopes to save the world from the wyrmling horde," Thull-turock put in.

  "But with one difference," Daylan countered, "The Raj was but a child, filled with a child s daydreams. And he was surrounded by sorcerers, flameweavers that pandered to him and aroused his lusts.

  "The emir is no child," Daylan continued. "He has held power-held it and lost it again, so that its allure has faded. Now he rejects your honors. He does not ask to be your king. He asks only for the boon of saving the best man among you.

  "He has learned the price of leadership. He does not ask to direct these people, rather only that he be able to restore the rightful leader to power.

  "How can you argue against that?"

  Thull-turock inclined his head, thinking. He took a step away from Daylan Hammer, and peered off into the dim recesses of the cavern while he considered. "Both Raj and the emir were convinced that they were doing what was right when they started down this path. And Fire whispers to them, seeks to claim them. Surely you cannot ask me to grant endowments to someone that you know to be a flameweaver."

  "Is he a flameweaver?" Daylan asked. He turned to the emir. "I have never heard such."

  The emir could have lied, Talon thought. But he admitted softly, "I have some small skill. I can keep smoke from following me at the fire, and I can twist flames if I want. But I have never sought that power, and in fact I shy away from it. It fills you wi
th a hunger that can never be fulfilled, and so it must be shunned."

  That satisfied some, but others remained unconvinced.

  "Raj Ahten became the greatest flameweaver his world had ever known," Thull-turock said. "In the end, he lost his humanity."

  "But our emir has not gone down that path," Daylan countered. "If I were you, I would rejoice that our Emir Tuul Ra has this gift. If we are to rescue Fallion Orden and Prince Areth Sul Urstone, we will have need of a flameweaver. Vulgnash has consummate skill in the art, and he has endowments to boot. Thus Fallion has proven helpless against him. But perhaps Fallion and the Emir Tuul Ra together…"

  Daylan let the thought hang in the air. "But we cannot rely upon their skill alone. We have no way of knowing how many endowments Vulgnash has garnered; we must suspect that he will be one of the wyrmlings greatest champions.

  "Thus, the emir may be our only hope. And he will need to have more than just endowments-he must begin to develop Raj Ahten s mastery of Fire."

  Talon had been inclined to give the emir a chance, to judge him on his own merits. But suddenly she found her heart thrilling from fear.

  "This is madness!" Thull-turock exclaimed. "You would create a new Raj Ahten?"

  "Not all flameweavers are evil," Daylan said. "There are men who have mastered their passions to such a degree that Fire could not control them. In ancient times, some of these men were more than monsters. They became vessels of light, pure and radiant, filled with wisdom and intelligence and compassion. They were great healers. Fire revealed the future to them, and hidden dangers, and thus they were a boon to their people.

  "Hence, they were called the Bright Ones, and even today, the ignorant people of Fallion s world call all men of the netherworld such, not realizing that thereby they are bestowing false honors upon many." Daylan jutted his chin toward Lord Erringale, and Talon knew that he, too, must be a skilled flameweaver. "Of all Bright Ones, the man you call Fallion Orden was perhaps the greatest."

  "My little Fallion?" Thull-turock asked in astonishment.

  "Has been born time and again," Daylan said, "a thousand times over. For eons he has sought a way to bind the worlds, and finally he has succeeded.

  "If the Bright Ones prophecies prove true, great things are at hand: a war that will rage across the universe, and that, if all goes well, could end with all of the worlds reuniting into one perfect whole, where death will be but a memory, and all pains and wants vanquished.

  "That world is what Fallion seeks to create. That is what our enemy hopes to thwart-or to sieze."

  The emir had been listening carefully, and now he seemed lost in thought. Talon knew what Daylan was asking of him. He would have to sacrifice much. By taking endowments, he would be giving up his life in service for his fellow men. By studying the lore of flameweavers, he would be giving up his life in service to Fire.

  It was a slippery tightrope to try to walk. No man can serve two masters. Raj Ahten had failed miserably.

  How could the emir hope to do more?

  "Daylan," Thull-turock said, "if you think there is nothing to fear from the emir, then you are mad!"

  "No," Daylan said. "I am not mad. But I am desperate, and one might reason that desperation is its own kind of madness. Certainly, too often it leads to folly. But only in taking this desperate course can we hope to win a nearly impossible reward.

  "But I must tell you, Thull-turock, that I believe that your fears are not justified. It was neither the love of the forcible nor of flames that Raj Ahten succumbed to in the end. At the very last, Raj Ahten demanded that others call him by a new name-Scathain, Lord of the Ashes. Have you heard this?"

  "I have heard that he went by that name," Thull-turock said. "What of it?"

  "That name is well known here in the netherworld," Lord Erringale said loudly, his voice cutting through the room. He gazed down, held his hands reflectively. "It is the name of a powerful locus, a wyrm if you will. Among the loci, Scathain was second-in-command to Despair herself. Many worlds has that one destroyed."

  This news seemed to discomfit the emir more than anything that had been said. He was at a disadvantage in the argument, for he could not have known what had happened with Raj Ahten. But he understood the lore of wyrms.

  "If this is true," the emir reasoned, "then when your Raj Ahten was killed, his wyrm did not die with him! How do we know that this Scathain will not seize me? How do we know that I am not already host to a wyrm?"

  Around the circle, there were cries of agreement. Talon glanced at Drewish Madoc and saw the young man s eyes glimmering insanely. He loved this. He loved watching a good man be destroyed.

  "Consider this," Daylan called to the crowd, "the emir is a generous man, a giving man, and a courageous one. He has always spoken the truth in my presence, so long as it is polite to do so and not too hard for his hearer to bear. His word has ever been his bond. He is faithful to his people, and has no lust for honor, no craving for wealth.

  "A man who is infected with a wyrm doesn t retain such virtues. And Scathain is one of the most sinister of all wyrms. Even if Scathain had entered the emir and tried to hide his lusts and deceit, he would not be able to do so for long.

  "The emir is pure. No wyrm has taken him. And so long as he remains pure of heart, none can, not even one so powerful as Scathain."

  At that there were also cries of agreement. Daylan Hammer had assuaged nearly all of Thull-turock s concerns, and Talon could feel that the crowd was swaying toward Daylan s cause.

  "It may be," Daylan said loudly, addressing the crowd, "that the only reason that the raj succumbed to a wyrm had more to do with the raj s ignorance than his weaknesses. The lore of the loci had been all but lost upon his world."

  "They knew nothing of the loci?" Lord Erringale asked, astonished.

  "The knowledge of loci was purposely hidden from the populace thousands of years ago. There was a time on Fallion s world when those suspected of harboring a locus were executed summarily, and many innocent men and women died; much evil was done in the name of self-preservation.

  "The folk of Luciare have had similar purges, though never to the same extent.

  "And so that knowledge was concealed."

  "Thus a man who might have been a great ally on Fallion s world succumbed to a wyrm, never suspecting that such a creature even existed. The raj took one misstep at a time, heedlessly bumbling down the path of destruction, until at the very last he became so filled with rage and lust for power that he could not withstand the wyrm when it seized him."

  There were looks of astonishment on people s faces. From birth, Talon s mother Gatunyea had instilled a fear of evil in her. Talon had been trained to fear nothing so much as the thought that she might someday be seized by a wyrm.

  Daylan said at last, "So, it will not happen to the emir. He has known of the existence of wyrms since childhood, and he has ranged far to avoid the danger."

  The facilitator clasped his hands behind his back, and peered down at the ground. "I don t like this," Thull-turock said. "I don t like the way we re rushing into this. The emir needs to be tested in so many ways. Yet you urge me to hasten to make forcibles."

  "We have no choice," Daylan said. "Our enemies have set the timetable. Already the wyrmlings are digging up a mountain of blood metal and have sent their first shipment to Rugassa. The journey there will take them three nights-perhaps less, since they will be in a hurry to please their lord.

  "Think what will happen once the emperor gets those shipments: he ll begin creating his own champions in earnest. And who will he grant the endowments to?"

  "The Knights Eternal," Thull-turock said, as if chilled by the thought.

  "The emperor has millions of people that he can use as Dedicates. What s more, Rugassa lies close to the borders of Beldinook. By now, the emperor is already getting acquainted with his new neighbors. What do you think he will do with the small folk?"

  In the old days, Talon knew, the wyrmlings would have just butchere
d them, harvesting their glands for their fearsome elixirs or simply using their bodies for meat. They would not even have considered taking slaves. But in this new world, the wyrmlings would put the small folk to better uses: they could put them to the forcible, take their attributes.

  "I see," Thull-turock said.

  "We cannot let that happen. We cannot let any forcibles reach Rugassa. We must act swiftly. We must have a war party take endowments and be ready to leave tomorrow-at the latest. And we cannot fail! My heart warns me that we may get only one chance at this, one chance to save ourselves before the wyrmlings take their mountain of blood metal and seize control of the world for all time."

  "A single day is not much time to grant endowments."

  Daylan said, "Our champions won t need a full complement. They won t need to be battle-ready. We only need them to get started. We can pass more endowments to them as they travel, vectoring them through Dedicates. Erringale s people will help you make the forcibles."

  "How many shall we send into battle?" Thull-turock asked.

  "We will need some men to help carry those that we rescue. We ll need others to act as point and rear guards. At a minimum, we need four champions, probably five. I would like more, but it would stretch our resources to try to endow so many. I would invite the Cormar twins," Daylan suggested. "They already have some endowments and they proved themselves at the battle for Caer Luciare. I would like to go, too, for I have a few endowments to my credit. That leaves only two openings. The emir is the best man for the job…"

  Instantly, Talon knew that she had to be among that war party. Fallion was more than just a friend to her. He d been raised as her brother, and she loved him dearly. It was only right that she go with the rescue party.

  Thull-turock said, "You sent Fallion s woman, Rhianna, to seek for Dedicates among the small folk. Can we afford to wait for her to return?"

  "I sent her mainly to forewarn the small folk," Daylan countered, "so that they can protect themselves from the wyrmling troops. We must hinder the wyrmlings any way that we can. It may be that the small folk will offer us some support, but we cannot rely upon them, and we dare not wait."