The RuneLords

by David Farland

  Tempest's heart pounded. He needed a protector. There was only one thing to do--call upon the knights in the ring to form a new head. But no, he realized, that would not do. The Dedicates in the castle were widely dispersed. He did not have time to find them, speak to them all.

  He needed to break the serpent ring, slay a Dedicate so that the serpent would form a head.

  Across the hill, Raj Ahten made a pulling gesture with his hand, as if to yank clouds from the sky. Hundreds of mastiffs began racing for the castle in a black wave, their red masks and iron collars making the mastiffs a horrendous sight, their commander barking in short yaps.

  Now the Frowth giants hoisted the great siege ladders, two giants to a ladder, and loped for the castle at a seemingly slow pace, yet covering four yards to the stride. Black behemoths struggling in the night.

  Tempest did not have time to explain to another what needed to be done. He turned from his post above the gate, and ran for the stairs.

  "Captain?" one of his men cried, as if worried that Tempest had become a craven coward in that moment.

  Tempest had no time to explain. A shout rose across the battlefield as three thousand of Raj Ahten's archers raced forward, hurrying to give cover fire against the castle walls.

  Tempest glanced over his shoulder before descending the stone steps. Raj Ahten's Invincibles raised their shields and charged. At their head, fifty men raced with a battering ram, a giant iron wolf's head at the ram's end. Tempest knew little of siege magics, but he could see that the iron wolf's head was bound with powerful spells. Fire glowed in its dead eyes.

  Though the drawbridge had fallen open, Tempest's men had hastily set a wooden mantelet--a frame of timbers--just inside the green. The ram would smash into the inner defenses. Behind those defenses, Longmot's mounted knights had become restive. They held their great lances at the ready, helm visors down. Their horses shifted their weight from foot to foot, eager to charge.

  Raj Ahten's Invincibles raced forward, the earth thundering beneath their iron-shod feet, pounding under the hail that began to fall more earnestly. These Invincibles were men with great endowments of stamina and brawn and metabolism.

  Giants loped ahead with ladders, Invincibles with their ram. Arcane powders strewn from the balloon hung over the castle gate now, like a gray hand of doom.

  For a moment, Tempest hesitated behind the ramparts inside the gate, wondering if he should stand with his men or hurry forward to slay Shostag.

  Across the fields, Raj Ahten's artillerymen let catapults fly...

  Raj Ahten watched approvingly as the catapults let fly shells bearing mineral powders of sulfur, potash, and magnesium that would mix with other salts in the cloud above the castle wall.

  The firing of these shells was timed so that they would stream through the skies at the same moment his battering ram drew within a hundred yards of the drawbridge.

  In the darkness and hail, the bowmen on Longmot's walls saw the catapults fly, and dropped for cover, losing the precious second they needed to choose a target from among Raj Ahten's Invincibles.

  For long years Raj Ahten had nurtured his flameweavers, feeding them. On the mountains south of Aven, fires burned constantly so they might appease the Power that the sorcerers served. His flameweavers were, Raj Ahten believed, the most fearsome of their kind on earth.

  And these flameweavers had made great studies in the use of explosive fires. It had long been known that when wheat and rice were poured into their granaries, the flame of a small lantern could ignite the air with explosive force. Miners pounding out coal deep beneath the mountains of Muyyatin had long known that coal dust would spark at the touch of their lamps, sometimes exploding so ferociously that entire passages within the mine would cave in.

  For generations, people had raised borage flowers to give them courage, and children had delighted in throwing the dried stalks into the fire to hear the popping sounds they exuded as they exploded.

  But no one had considered how to benefit from the explosive force of such agents. So Raj Ahten's flameweavers studied the phenomenon, learned to prepare and grind and mix the powders.

  Now Raj Ahten watched in awe and satisfaction as years of nurturing his sorcerers and financing their grim study paid off. The skies all around went blacker than the deepest night as the final ropes of fire twisted down from heaven. Hail plummeted from the air, and the sound of thunder raged overhead.

  The huge bonfire where the flameweavers stood with the beings they summoned suddenly snuffed out like a candle, the green walls collapsing, the creatures within drawing all light and heat into themselves.

  The skies remained black, and in that sudden total darkness, no archer could have seen his target to shoot. For ten seconds, the skies gave no light.

  Atop the castle walls, Orden's knights performed one last defiant act. They broke into a grim song.

  Under the cover of that shadow, Raj Ahten's troops continued to race for the walls.

  As the bowmen on the castle rose to shoot at unseen attackers, a blinding light shot from the center of the flameweavers' infernos.

  The sorcerous blast roared like a living sun from flameweavers and salamanders, and a green flaming wave of fire swept from the hilltop, raced toward the castle.

  In the sudden rush of light, one could see the terrified faces of Longmot's defenders. Brave boys unmanned, brave men trembling but still defiant.

  As the wave of flame traveled inexorably toward Longmont, it touched the arcane powders in the sky.

  Then the whole arch above the gate roared into an inferno. Raj Ahten's powders exploded in a cloud of fire that rose like a mushroom some hundred yards at the base, slowly ascending a mile into the air. The concussion threw defenders from the walls like rag dolls. Many fell, stunned. Others staggered back in abject terror.

  But the great green wave of flame was not a mere spark to touch off the explosive powders. It was much more than that.

  The wave of green fire smote the castle walls, washing over hundreds of defenders who still stood.

  On the crowded walls, away from the initial explosion above the arch, warriors were crammed shoulder to shoulder in ranks six deep. The green flames rolled over them like the roaring waves of the sea.

  Longmont had been the perfect castle for Raj Ahten to use his powders on. Its south face was but a hundred and twenty yards wide. Defenders had concentrated along the upper wall-walk in that hundred yards.

  Raj Ahten's flameweavers incinerated perhaps some two thousand men. As the mushroom cloud rose, Raj Ahten's flameweavers now fell unconscious into the ruins of their own bonfire. No flames leapt in the remains of the fire. No smoke rose, for the flameweavers had drained the vast majority of the energies from it, and in an instant the great blackened logs had incinerated, become ash. So now the flameweavers lay dazed among the hot coals.

  But the white-hot salamanders suddenly leapt, as if freed from a cage, rushing hungrily toward the castle.

  The scene before the castle gate was a pandemonium. Under the cover of darkness, Raj Ahten's giants had made the wall. Raj Ahten's archers unleashed a hail of deadly arrows--a hail that proved almost unnecessary--while his Invincibles began to race up ladders to the tops of the battlements.

  No defenders stood on that south wall now. The explosion and waves of fire had all but emptied the wall-walk.

  The castle gate stood undefended. The east tower was a smoking ruin. But within the west tower, a few men tried one last trick. King Orden's men unleashed a rain of burning oil, pouring it down runnels within the tower. Stone gargoyles above the gate suddenly spewed the vile stuff as Raj Ahten's troops raced in with their battering ram.

  Some of Raj Ahten's men faltered under the heat of that oil, but such was the speed of the men running that the head of the ram still struck the mantelet behind the castle gate.

  All the energy of the spells bound within the wolf's head exploded against the mantelet, sending timbers of wood splintering in all directions. Def
enders behind the mantelet shrieked and died under the onslaught.

  And in Raj Ahten's mind, a peculiar flame began to dance.

  He knew that he should restrain himself now, that it was wrong to destroy men so ruthlessly. It would have been better to use those he could, take their endowments. These men had virtues and strengths that should not have been wasted in such a brutish fashion. Their ugly, fleeting little lives could have been converted to a grander purpose.

  Yet the smell of burning flesh suddenly enticed Raj Ahten, left him tingling in anticipation. Against all his better reason, he hungered for destruction.

  Cedrick Tempest had been standing behind the mantelet, racing between two warhorses toward the Duke's kitchens, where Shostag lay hidden, when the green wave of flame touched the battlements and a great ball of fire filled the sky overhead.

  Fortunately, he'd been staring down, running away from the blast. The heat and energy of it shoved him face-first into the paving stones, so that his helm bent close to his head. For one moment, he'd felt the searing heat of the blast crisp his clothing, burn his skin at a touch. Then he tried to draw a breath in the hot wind of the fireball's passage.

  Horses kicked and fell under the impact of the blast. One of them landed half atop him, the body of a knight crushing him.

  For a moment, Tempest fell unconscious. Found himself crawling among the stones, among the fallen horses. Men and parts of men rained from the castle walls, a gruesome storm of burned bodies, destroyed flesh.

  In that moment, he gazed about in horror as a blackened boy plopped at his head, an arm fell near his hand. He knew then that he would not survive this day. Three days past, he'd sent his wife and children to Castle Groverman, hoping they'd be safe, hoping he'd live to see them again. He remembered how they'd looked as they left--his two toddlers riding the back of a goat, his wife carrying their babe in her arms, his oldest daughter trying to look mature, her lips trembling as she stifled tears of fear.

  Tempest looked up to the castle walls, on the west. The walls were nearly empty. Those men still up looked dazed, confused.

  Suddenly, a flaming white salamander leapt up on the merlon of the south tower, gazing about. Tempest hid his face, lest the pearly orbs of its eyes touch him.

  A second, smaller explosion sounded fifty yards behind him. Tempest tried to scrabble to his knees, looked back. Raj Ahten's Invincibles had just hit the little mantelet barricade inside the gates with their ram. The barricade exploded, sending shards of woods flying, flaming out.

  Any men who stood near that barricade blew back under the onslaught of fiery debris, yet painfully few men had been standing at all. A few knights were still up on their horses, but the fallen bodies of their comrades hemmed them in.

  The battle was lost. All along the walls before him, defenders were down. Thousands of men screamed and writhed in pain. Arrows were hurtling over the castle walls now, a dark and deadly rain, dropping into wounded men.

  Some few hundred men were rushing from the north side of the castle, trying to reach the gates, to put up some kind of defense. Yet Raj Ahten's Invincibles rushed to meet them by the thousands.

  War dogs in grim leather masks raced through the streets, leaping over fallen knights and their horses, ripping apart any man or beast that lived, feeding as they slaughtered.

  Tempest hoped still that he might find Shostag, slay him so that the serpent would form a head. Yet he felt stunned, confused. Blood dripped from his face.

  He collapsed as Raj Ahten's war dogs raced over him, leaping through the fray.

  * * *

  Chapter 49

  THE EARTH KING STRIKES

  Binnesman rode over the heath toward Gaborn and Iome, beneath the cloud of dirt and pollen raised by the feet of hundreds of thousands of men and cattle.

  Gaborn stared at the wizard. It was the first time he had seen him in full daylight. His hair had gone white, and the baggy robes he wore had turned from a forest green to shades of scarlet and orange, like leaves that had changed color.

  Gaborn rode so close to Iome that at times her knee touched his. He dared not try to call a halt as the wizard neared, his mount speeding over the purple heather. Too many people and animals moved in the great throng. Yet Gaborn wanted to talk to Binnesman, wanted to hear his report.

  Binnesman stared at Gaborn's troops for a long moment, wheeled his horse to a near halt, and at last asked in surprise, "Do you plan to feed Raj Ahten's army with all these cattle, or trample him with them?"

  "Whatever he desires," Gaborn said.

  Binnesman shook his head in wonder. "I heard the startled cries of birds here, felt the earth groan under the weight of feet. I thought that you had conjured an army. I thought it fortunate that I'd gone to the trouble of destroying the old Harm's Gorge Bridge, blocking Raj Ahten's hopes for reinforcements from the west."

  "I appreciate the gesture," Gaborn said. "What can you tell me? Have Raj Ahten's reinforcements been spotted?"

  "No," Binnesman said, "nor do I think they are close."

  "Perhaps luck is with us," Gaborn said.

  "Perhaps so," Binnesman said.

  On the horizon, just along the line of green hills covered with trees, the blackness flashed again, much more fiercely than ever before--a line of blackness that split the sky from horizon to horizon.

  Then a great pillar of fire roared slowly into the air, an explosion so massive, Gaborn had never seen the like. Something terrible was happening.

  "Gaborn," Binnesman said. "Close your eyes. Use your Earth Sight. Tell me what is happening."

  Gaborn closed his eyes. For a moment, he felt nothing, and he wondered if Binnesman had erred in asking him to use the Earth Sight.

  Then, faintly, he felt the connections, felt the invisible lines of power between him and his people. He had only consciously chosen his father. Now he realized that he'd been choosing people for days. He'd chosen Myrrima that morning in the market, and he'd claimed Borenson. He'd chosen Chemoise when he saw her helping her father in the wagon, and had chosen her father.

  Now, he felt all those he had claimed--Borenson, his father, Myrrima, Chemoise and her father. He felt...danger. Terrible danger. He feared that if they did not fight now, they would all die.

  Strike, Gaborn silently willed them. Strike now, if you can!

  Twenty seconds later, the sound of an explosion roared across the plain, shaking the earth, like distant thunder.

  * * *

  Chapter 50

  THE OPENING

  At Castle Sylvarresta, Chemoise was getting dinner in the buttery when she felt the urge to strike. The desire came so quickly and so profoundly that she struck her hand against the table by reflex, smashing a round of cheese.

  Myrrima tempered her response with reason. The thunders of war shook the manor house where she hid, and outside the sky was black. She couldn't strike against Raj Ahten's soldiers, knew she was no match. So she raced upstairs, hoping to hide beneath some lord's bed.

  Six years past, Eremon Vottania Solette had chosen to live as a Dedicate to Salim al Daub because he had two dreams: The first was to see his daughter again. The second was to survive until his grace returned so he would waken among Raj Ahten's Dedicates, able to fight.

  Yet over the years, Eremon's hopes faded. Raj Ahten's facilitators drained too much grace from him, left him near death. Robbed of flexibility, his arms and legs became useless, so that he lay as stiff as in rigor mortis.

  Life became torment. The muscles in his chest contracted easily enough to let him inhale, but afterward for long moments he had to consciously relax in order to exhale. Sometimes, his heart would clench and not open, and he'd struggle silently, fearing death.

  Unable to relax his lips, he spoke with difficulty, through clenched teeth. He could not chew. If he swallowed anything but the weak broth Raj Ahten's servants fed, it sat like lead in his stomach; the muscles in his gut could not contract enough to digest it.

  To empty his bladder or pass a
stool was an embarrassment, a process requiring hours of work.

  His five endowments of stamina had become a burden, for they kept him alive long after he wished for death. Often he'd wished that King Sylvarresta would slay the men who served Eremon as Dedicates. But the King had been too soft, and so Eremon languished. Until last night. Now, at last, it seemed that death was within reach.

  His fingers curled into useless fists. He had lain for years in a ball, bent at the hips. Though endowments of brawn kept him strong, some muscles in his legs and arms had atrophied. So he'd lain imprisoned in weakening flesh, knowing he'd never get vengeance, a helpless tool of Raj Ahten.

  Thus it seemed miraculous when his first dream came true, when Raj Ahten decided to take him to Heredon and throw his failing body in front of King Sylvarresta. The deed was supposed to shame the good king. Raj Ahten often went to great lengths to shame a man.

  It had seemed miraculous when Eremon saw his daughter Chemoise. She'd grown beautiful, no longer the freckle-faced child of his memory.

  Seeing her had been enough. Eremon now felt his life was complete; hereafter he'd take a long slide into oblivion.

  Yet one deed more lay before him. As he languished in the Dedicates" wagon, it began to shake as men climbed onto the buckboard, opened the door. Slowly, Eremon opened his eyes. In the dark wain, flies rose in clouds from forlorn Dedicates around him. Men and women were crammed together like salted minnows in a keg, lying on beds of moldering hay.

  Facilitators in gray robes stood huffing by the open door. Shafts of sunlight stabbing into the room blinded him, but Eremon could see that they'd set a body against the wall. A new Dedicate. Another victim.

  "What have we here?" the guard asked. "Metabolism?"

  The facilitator nodded. Eremon could see the scars on the man--a dozen endowments of metabolism he'd taken, and now he served as a vector.