The RuneLords

by David Farland

  Raj Ahten's facilitators looked for a place to lay the newcorner. A blind Dedicate who slept next to Eremon rolled in his sleep, huddling for warmth next to a limp rag of a man.

  Thus a slim spot opened beside Eremon, and now the facilitators muttered in their own tongue, "Mazza, halabdaoabo"--"Here, move this brick of camel dung."

  One man nudged Eremon's stiff legs aside, as if he were the brick in question. They lay the new Dedicate beside him.

  Eremon stared into the fat face of the eunuch Salim al Daub, not five inches from his own. The fat man breathed oh so slowly, in the way of one who has given metabolism. The man who held Eremon's endowment lay next to him, defenseless. A vector for metabolism. A vector, Eremon suspected, for Raj Ahten.

  Salim slept a deep slumber from which Eremon swore he'd never wake.

  A guard sat in the wagon, an Invincible on a stool in the far corner, wearing a curved dagger and bored expression. Eremon could not risk moving quickly, could not attract attention, but, then, he'd not moved quickly in six years.

  For long minutes Eremon slowly tried to unclench his right hand. This unclenching came hard. He felt too excited, too wrathful. A thrill took him, for if he could destroy this man, he would win a double boon--his own endowments back, while he robbed Raj Ahten of metabolism.

  Yet outside, a battle raged. Darkness strobed the sky, glimpsed as shadows and light breaking into the wagon. Men were screaming on the castle walls.

  Eremon wished that he still had his endowments of strength, wished he could throttle Salim with supernatural finesse. But those had been lost last night.

  For many long minutes he worked to open his damned, useless hand.

  Suddenly, as he struggled, Eremon felt a great burning desire. Strike. Strike now if you can!

  And as the thought filled him, his hand suddenly unclenched as effortlessly as a flower opening.

  * * *

  Chapter 51

  ON A MOUNTAIN TRACK

  Borenson felt more than half-crazed when he rode from Bannisferre. He was possessed, only partly conscious. He imagined the havoc he'd wreak upon Raj Ahten's troops.

  Coming from the north, he saw no signs of battle. Too many hills and mountains sheltered Longmont from his view. He could see no darkening skies, for the low clouds sweeping over the mountains blackened everything. Once he thought he heard cries, but he heard them distantly and thought them voices from some waking dream, a remnant of the fantasies of destruction that played in his mind.

  South of the mountain village of Kestrel, he turned aside on his trail, spurred his mount over the forest track, hoping to make better time. He had hunted these hills often with his king. He was a bit north of Groverman's hunting retreat, a lodge both large and comfortable.

  He did not fear wights or beasts of the wood. He feared only that he'd reach Longmont too late.

  As he climbed the mountains, the day turned cold. An icy drizzle soaked him, made the mountain trail slippery. Soon rain turned to sleet and snow, so that he lost more time by taking this trail than if he'd stayed to the road.

  High in the hills where aspens bordered a glade, he saw sign of a reaver-tracks crossing the wooded trail. The reaver had dragged something heavy through here within the past few hours, just before dawn. Red blood clots lay on the ground, with bits of oily synovial fluid from a cracked joint. The scuff marks where the creature had been dragged still had tiny balls of clay rolled in them. Very recent marks.

  The imprint of the reaver's track was nearly three feet long, two wide. Four toes. A female. A big female.

  Borenson stayed on his horse as he studied the trail. Among a jumble of sharp stones lay some black hairs. It looked as if the reaver had dragged a carcass across the road, perhaps a boar. But the hair was too fine for a boar. Borenson sniffed. Bear, definitely. A big male. As musky as the scent of Dunnwood's boars, but not as dirty.

  Borenson sniffed again, tried to catch the scent of the reaver, but smelled nothing. Reavers were uncanny in their ability to mimic the scent of their surroundings.

  Borenson looked up the trail, wishing that he could track the reaver--if only for a moment.

  Myrrima could be in danger. Mostly likely, Raj Ahten would lay siege for a bit, spend the day resting, preparing for battle. His occupying army should arrive soon.

  Borenson feared he couldn't possibly reach the castle before the siege, couldn't help Myrrima.

  Then he had to consider the challenge of hunting the reaver. She'd be up in the woods, near the mountaintop, feeding on the bear. The ground here was too cluttered for a man to negotiate easily: aspen limbs had blown from trees; underbrush grew thick and tall after a long summer.

  Catching her would be hard. Reavers could sense movement, feel sound as a trembling. The only way to get close to one was to sneak, ever so slowly, letting footfalls come at uneven intervals.

  For a moment, Borenson considered following the reaver.

  Distantly, as if a voice called from far off, he felt a powerful compulsion. Strike. Strike now if you can!

  His king needed him. Myrrima needed him.

  He spurred his charger over the mountain trails as snow began to pile, the first of the season. The breath of Borenson's warhorse came in tiny swirls of cloud. His heart pounded.

  Tomorrow is the first day of Hostenfest, the first day of the hunt, Borenson realized, and he started thinking about this in order to keep calm. It would have been a good hunt, with snow falling. The boars would have moved to the valleys, leaving tracks at the edges of glades. He'd have bet with Derrow and Ault as to which of their lords would first put a spear into a pig.

  He longed for the yapping of dogs, the deep calls of the horns. The nightly feasts beside the fires.

  But I must strike now, he thought, spurring his mount faster. He wished to strike, wished he had a target.

  Again he worried whether he'd killed all the Dedicates at Castle Sylvarresta. I've struck as I can, he told himself. He'd killed all he'd seen, but some might have been taken from the keep into the city, so that invisible lines of power still tied Raj Ahten to Dedicates there.

  A battle between Runelords could be complex. The number of endowments played a great part in a battle, as did the skill and training of the warriors.

  But a balance of traits was also important. Raj Ahten had so many endowments, it seemed almost futile to slay his Dedicates. But a strong Runelord stripped of wit and grace could become a mere lout, nothing in battle. Take away his metabolism, and though a Runelord had ten thousand endowments of brawn, he moved so slowly compared to a balanced soldier that he might as well be a coat rack; he became a "warrior of unfortunate proportion."

  By killing men in Castle Sylvarresta, Borenson had robbed Raj Ahten of many endowments of grace. The Runelord had been hoarding it, had drawn it from hundreds of men at the castle. Which meant he felt overbalanced in brawn. This would leave him muscle-bound, lacking agility. Perhaps, given such imbalance, King Orden might stand a chance against the Wolf Lord.

  So Borenson hoped he'd accomplished his job. He couldn't bear to think his incompetence might cost Orden this battle. Couldn't bear--couldn't stomach the shame that coursed through him when he thought of King Sylvarresta and Iome, still alive.

  Sparing those two had cost the lives of dozens of others. Sparing them lent power to Raj Ahten.

  A small amount of power, true. But if Borenson and some other assassins struck Raj Ahten's Dedicates at the right time, the Wolf Lord might reach some unfortunate proportion.

  Today I hunt Raj Ahten, Borenson told himself, and he let a killing mood seep through every muscle and bone, blanket him like a cloak.

  Today I am death. Today I hunt him, and nothing else.

  In his imagination, he practiced killing, preparing his every fiber, his every response for cold murder. He imagined how it would be when he met Raj Ahten's scouts here, miles north of Longmont, along the road. He'd ride them down, impale them on his lance so that their warm blood washed him in a wa
ve, leaving no witnesses. Then he'd steal a uniform and ride pell-mell to the battle lines, bursting in on Raj Ahten, as if delivering a message. His message would be death.

  The warriors of Inkarra claimed that War was a dark lady, and that those men who served her best gained her favor. They claimed she was a Power, like Earth or Air, Fire or Water.

  Yet in the Kingdoms of Rofehavan, it was said that War was but one aspect of Fire, and that no one should serve it.

  But the damned Inkarrans should know, Borenson thought. They were masters of war.

  Borenson had never sought the Dark Lady's favor, had never addressed her before, hut now a prayer formed on his lips, an ancient prayer he'd heard from others but never dared voice himself.

  "Take me in your arms, Dark Lady, take me. Wrap me in grave clothes, and let your sweet breath lie cold on my cheeks. Let darkness steal over me, and fill me with your power. Today, I call to you. Today, I am death."

  As he rode, Borenson began to smile, then to laugh a deep, throaty chuckle that seemed to rumble from someplace outside him, to well up from the hills or from the trees.

  * * *

  Chapter 52

  A PERFECT DAY

  Orden woke in pain, unable to tell how long ago he had passed out. The blood around his mouth was still wet, tasted coppery on his tongue. Any moment, Mendellas Orden thought, Raj Ahten will kick me again, begin pummeling me to death.

  But nothing happened. Orden lay weak, at the edge of consciousness, waiting for a killing blow that never came.

  With his many endowments of stamina, Orden could sustain tremendous damage. His wounds, as extensive as they were now, would not lead to his death. Weeks of convalescence, perhaps, but not death.

  That is what he feared.

  He opened his good eye, tried to see. The sun high above shone very dim through clouds; then the sky went black.

  The glade nearby was empty.

  He swallowed, struggled to think. He'd heard the faint ching of ring mail as he passed out. Realized numbly that it could have been the sound of Raj Ahten lunging away.

  Orden looked around the field at the edge of the knoll. The wind faintly swayed the pines; the grass sat as if bent in a stiff gale. A flock of starlings hung in the air like thistledown, not five spans from him. But Orden was living so quickly, the wind seemed to blow slowly in comparison.

  Raj Ahten had fled.

  He's left me, Orden realized, because he suspects I'm part of a serpent. He's left me so he can attack the castle. Dimly, he heard a roar like the sound of the sea. Loud sounds, as if tides surged and churned. In his quickened state, the world of sound had vastly changed.

  Now he recognized that these must be loud noises, must be cries of war. With one hand, he pushed himself up, gazed over the rolling slope of Tor Loman to Castle Longmont.

  What he saw horrified him.

  Beyond a curtain of rain or sleet, a huge fire raged on the hillside above Longmont. From that otherworldly fire, flameweavers and salamanders had drawn terrible energies, sending a green wave of flame screaming across the downs to the castle. Frowth giants lumbered over the fields carrying great scaling ladders. The mastiffs of war, with their iron collars and fierce masks, boiled like a dark tide toward the castle gates.

  Everywhere in the blackness Raj Ahten's Invincibles raced like dark roaches for the castle, shields high to deflect arrows, weapons drawn.

  Raj Ahten's forces were storming Longmont. The sky above the castle was black, ropes of twisted fire funneling from the sky.

  King Orden watched from Tor Loman. With his endowments of metabolism, it seemed the skies had gone black for long minutes; one could only discern the dim ropes of flame winding down from heaven--coiled and churning like the winds within a tornado.

  He could do nothing to help. He could not charge into battle, could barely crawl.

  Quietly, he began to sob. Raj Ahten had taken everything from him--his past, his present. Now his future.

  In the darkness, Mendellas turned and painfully struggled up the rough stone steps of the tower to the Eyes of Tor Loman.

  To block the agony of his ruined limbs from his mind, he tried to remember good times. The feasts in his palace in Mystarria during midwinter, on Alms Day.

  Always the fogs washed over the green swales on those winter mornings, and from the pinnacles of the great tower one could look down over the marshes as if one were a Sky Lord in a ship of cloud--the gauzy fog so pure. In places, lesser towers of the Courts of Tide could be seen, or the greens of distant pine forests on the western hills, or to the south the shimmering waters of the Caroll Sea reflecting the sky.

  On such mornings, he'd always loved to stand on his own observatory in the tower, and watch the geese in their winter migration come winging below him in dark Vs.

  He conjured the memory of a perfect day long ago, when he'd descended from his tower, invigorated at dawn, gone to his wife in her bedchamber.

  He'd planned to fetch her up to the observatory, to show her the sunrise. Weeks before, an early frost had killed the roses in her garden, and he'd planned to show her how the sun crept up the horizon in the color of the softest blushing rose, a rose that painted the fog for miles around.

  But when he reached her bedchamber, she had only smiled at his request, then devised other entertainments.

  They'd made love on the tiger-skin rug before the hearth.

  By the time they finished, the sun had been up for hours. The poor of Mystarria had gathered in the streets before the castle to collect the winter's alms.

  Thus the King and Queen had been required to go out in the afternoon, to spend the remainder of the day riding the huge wains through the street, where they passed out meat, turnips, dried fruits, and silver to those who stood in need.

  Orden and his wife had labored hard, stopping often to exchange smiles, or to let a touch linger.

  Orden hadn't thought of that day for years, though every sight, sound, and smell remained perfect in his memory. With twenty endowments of wit, Orden could relive such moments at will. It had been a magic day. It was the day, he discovered weeks later, he'd got his wife with her first child, Gaborn.

  Ah, how he longed for her still.

  As Orden reached the top of the Eyes of Tor Loman, the light reappeared in the heavens, and he stared in horror to see the monstrous wall of fire that Raj Ahten's beasts had hurled against the castle. The skies were painted with strange powders--gray and black, the yellow of sulfur, something red.

  The vast, seething green wave of fire seemed to roll through the sky slowly from this distance, at the pace he lived. For what seemed agonizing minutes, Orden crawled across the stone steps.

  As he crawled, Orden wondered why Raj Ahten had come here. Certainly not to see down into Longmont. The view here offered nothing.

  No, something else had alarmed the Wolf Lord.

  So King Orden gazed east, saw dust rising from the plains as if they were aflame, the light shining from shields. An army marching from Castle Groverman.

  Despite the immense dust cloud, it could not have been a large army, Orden knew. Thirty thousand commoners come to his aid, marching across a dusty heath, nothing more. They'd be no match for Raj Ahten's Invincibles.

  But Orden knew his son marched at the head of that army. Certainly Gaborn would not be fool enough to attack Raj Ahten. No, this had to be a ruse. Orden smiled. Against a man of Raj Ahten's wit, misinformation could be a potent weapon. His son was fighting as best he could.

  In almost every contest, victory came to those who refused to be subdued. The Prince was not cowed.

  A good ruse, this, Orden told himself. Raj Ahten believes Longmont was taken days ago. Now he sees an army come to smash him. King Orden only hoped the ruse would work.

  And a darker fear crept into his mind. Certainly Gaborn would not attack, would he? Would he?

  Yes, he would, Orden realized. If he believed that by doing so he could save his father. Didn't I tell him to attack? Orden thoug
ht. Didn't I tell him to sweep down the hill with his knights?

  Orden was filled with dread. This was a boy who risked himself to save enemy Dedicates. This was a boy who had become an Oath-Bound Lord.

  Orden didn't doubt. Though he'd die in the attempt, Gaborn would certainly attack!

  At that moment, the great wave smashed into the castle, sent pillars of fire racing into the sky. Orden could see the horrible damage it wrought, men flying over the walls like flaming birds, could see giants and war dogs, Invincibles and archers all rushing for the castle gates.

  Yet he could not feel the stirring within that marked the death of a Dedicate. None of the Dedicates in his serpent ring burned in that flame. Surely the castle would fall.

  Deep inside, he felt an overpowering urge. Strike. Strike now as best you can!

  Orden recognized that he himself might hold the key to insuring that this great fiasco of a battle served some higher purpose. The men in the castle were joined in a serpent ring, and if the castle were overrun, the men in the ring would all be forced to fight, none drawing metabolism from the others. Eventually one of them would die, and a serpent would form. But who would be at its head?

  Certainly not that idiot Dreis, Orden hoped.

  No. It had to be Shostag. Formidable, venerable in his own crude way. A fierce warrior.

  Orden crawled to the edge of the observatory, looked down.

  The Eyes of Tor Loman perched on the edge of a promontory, and on the west edge, huge rocks thrust up from the ground. There, Orden thought. I will hit there.

  He threw himself from the tower. It was time for the serpent ring to break. Now let Shostag the Axeman earn his lands and title. Let Gaborn live to inherit his birthright.

  And let me return to the arms of the woman I love.

  With so many endowments of metabolism, Orden seemed to fall slowly, almost as if he floated to his death.

  * * *

  Chapter 53

  THE FLUTTERING