The RuneLords

by David Farland

  A pillar of fire rose into the far-off skies like a mushroom, and the sound of thunder rumbled over the plain.

  Yet Gaborn felt something far more disturbing--distantly, distantly he felt a single heartbeat flutter and fail.

  It tore him, dismayed him, far more than that flash of light or the groaning of the earth.

  He swayed in his saddle, whispered, "Father."

  Somehow, somehow Gaborn feared that his wish to strike at Raj Ahten had caused his father's death.

  It had not been the will of the earth to strike. Gaborn had felt no compulsion greater than his own anger. Yet he'd given the command.

  No, Gaborn thought. I don't believe it. I don't believe I caused it. How can I know he's dead until I've seen it?

  The wizard Binnesman turned to Gaborn, infinite sadness in his eye, and whispered, "You called for your father. Is he gone, then?"

  "I...don't know," Gaborn said.

  "Use the Earth Sight. Is he gone?"

  Gaborn felt inside himself, tried to reach out to his father, but could feel nothing. He nodded.

  Binnesman whispered so that only Gaborn could hear. "So the mantle passes. Until now you have been but a prince. Now you must become a king in deed."

  Gaborn slumped forward in his saddle, sick to his heart. "What? What can I do? How can I stop this?" Gaborn asked. "If I am Earth King, what good can I do?"

  "Much good. You can call the earth to your aid," Binnesman said. "It can help protect you. Hide you. You only need to learn how to do so."

  "I want Raj Ahten dead," Gaborn said blankly.

  "The earth will not kill," Binnesman whispered. "Its strength lies in nurturing life, protecting. And Raj Ahten is backed by other Powers. You must think, Gaborn. How can you best protect your people? All mankind is in jeopardy, not just these few at Longmont. Your father is but one man, and I fear he chose to place himself in jeopardy."

  "I want Raj Ahten dead! Now!" Gaborn shouted, not at Binnesman, but to the earth that had promised to protect him. Yet he knew the earth was not at fault. Gaborn had felt a premonition that his father was in jeopardy. Yet he had not heeded that warning, had not pulled his father from Longmont.

  Gaborn felt ill to his heart.

  He was twenty miles from Longmont. His force horse could cover that distance in less than half an hour. But if he did, what would it gain him? He'd lose his life.

  He considered spurring his horse on, anyway.

  Beside him, Iome seemed to read his thoughts. She touched his knee with her hand. "Don't," she whispered. "Don't go."

  Gaborn looked at the ground. At his horse's feet, gray-green grasshoppers flew up in fright, fat grasshoppers, sluggish at the end of the autumn.

  "Can we help them at Longmont, do you think?" Gaborn asked Binnesman.

  The wizard shrugged. Worry lined his face. "You help their cause even now, with this ruse. But do you mean, can you defeat Raj Ahten? Not with these troops. The battle goes ill for Longmont--as it would for you, should you attack too soon. Your strength lies not in slaughter, but as a defender. Let your men kick up more dust as they walk. Then we will see what happens..."

  They rode on in palpable silence for two long minutes. All that time, Gaborn felt torn, fey. He blamed himself for his father's death, for the death of Rowan, for the deaths of all the Dedicates at Castle Sylvarresta. Such a toll, such a heavy price the world was paying for his weakness. For he felt sure that if he were stronger, if he had just done something different, turned left when he'd turned right, he could have saved them all.

  A strange noise began to rumble across the plains--a single note, a cry like none Gaborn had ever heard or thought to imagine. It rolled over the plains like a distant shout.

  Raj Ahten's death cry! he thought.

  But almost immediately, it was followed by another such cry, echoing over the heath.

  Binnesman's mount kicked and raised its ears, just as heavy wet drops of sleet began to splash over the ground. With an ache in his heart, Gaborn watched the wizard spur his horse toward Longmont, and wished he could follow.

  "Come, Gaborn, bring your army!" Binnesman shouted. "The earth is in pain!"

  Then he saw--the sleet ahead had begun to fall in great sheets from the sky, watering the heath. No far-seer would be able to pierce the oncoming deluge. If Gaborn's ruse had not worked already, it could have no further effect.

  With a shout, Gaborn raised his fist, called the charge.

  * * *

  Chapter 54

  SHOSTAG

  Shostag the Axeman hid in the Duke's cellars when he felt the quickening. A sense of profound energy tingled through every inch of his skin, and he leapt into action.

  So Orden had died. Shostag wondered how it had happened.

  Shostag had outwitted dozens of Runelords in his short life. He was not a man of deep understanding or broad study, but he kept his eyes open, reached decisions fast. Most people assumed that because fat covered his bearlike muscles, he was also dull-witted. Not so.

  As he clutched his huge double-headed axe, he raced up the steps and burst through the cellar doors. He did so with calculated efficiency, hitting doors no more quickly than if he'd run full-tilt. He even slipped the bar from a door as he exited, so the door burst open from the impact of his blow.

  Then he raced through the buttery of the Duke's kitchens, out the kitchen doors, and to the green before the great hall.

  Hundreds of Raj Ahten's Invincibles were in the green, battling the defenders of Longmont. War dogs raced among them, huge mottled gray horrors in red leather masks. Along the west wall he saw a fiery salamander, and along all the walls were men, burning or fallen in battle.

  A few of Orden's archers along the north castle walls were firing into the green, for his men were faring so poorly that any arrow would likely strike Raj Ahten's men without a chance of hitting a defender.

  But even the fastest war dog or Invincible in the group could hardly move at an eighth of Shostag's speed. They seemed little more than statues. Here in the green, Shostag could see no sign of Raj Ahten.

  Shostag took his great iron axe and began moving through the crowd, swinging in complex arcs, lopping the heads off of Raj Ahten's Invincibles in almost a casual manner, cleaving dogs in two, dodging arrows and whatnot.

  He'd hardly murdered two hundred of the bastards when he spotted a swift movement at the gates. Raj Ahten himself, rushing toward him.

  The Wolf Lord wore no helm, but bore a battle-axe in one hand and a scimitar in the other. Or at least Shostag imagined it was the Wolf Lord. His face shone like the sun, but he had a hideously deformed shoulder. All the easier to fight him, Shostag imagined.

  Raj Ahten took one look at Shostag, smiled. "So, King Orden is dead, and you think you are next, do you?"

  Shostag jutted his chin, and spun his huge axe with a flourish. "You know, that arm would look better if I hacked off the rest of it for you."

  "Come give it a try," Raj Ahten urged. The Wolf Lord was studying the swath of corpses, some of them still in the process of falling, strewn in a path from the kitchens.

  With a start, Raj Ahten dashed left, darted up the narrow road to some lord's manor, away from Shostag. As he sped along the street, he slashed the throat of any defender within reach, shoved his own men from his path.

  Shostag leapt after him. He saw Raj Ahten's plan.

  Shostag was at the pinnacle of twenty men, each vectoring metabolism to him. And several of those men had taken endowments of metabolism before, so that Shostag now ran with the speed of forty. If Raj Ahten could find a man in the serpent and slaughter him, he'd break the line of Shostag's power, "slice the serpent" in two.

  By doing so, he'd give two separate warriors high metabolism, create two serpents' heads, neither able to strike as quickly as Shostag could now. Raj Ahten was hunting for Dedicates.

  If Shostag was lucky, Raj Ahten would find a man near the tail of the serpent. Killing the tail would still leave Shostag with high metabolis
m, leave him with the speed of something close to forty.

  But Shostag preferred not to rely on luck.

  Raj Ahten had glanced at the corpses strewn across the yard, seen that Shostag came from the kitchens. Now Raj Ahten suspected that the Dedicates wouldn't be hiding in the Dedicates' Keep, hut were secreted around the castle. Raj Ahten ran to the nearest unsecured building.

  Shostag followed, rounded a corner too fast. His center of gravity kept him traveling so that he bowled into half a dozen of the castle's defenders. He scraped his leg on some man's pike. Regained his feet. Ran.

  The air felt heavy, hard to breathe. Shostag did not have the endowments of brawn necessary to easily draw breath with such high metabolism. His head spun; he felt dizzy.

  Raj Ahten turned at a doorway leading to the lord's apartments, raced into the manor. Shostag followed.

  Shostag was a Wolf Lord, with endowments of scent from three dogs. He could smell better than most men ever dreamed, and men are such smelly brutes. Thus he wasn't surprised to enter the room and see Raj Ahten tearing at the door of a cedar wardrobe. Like Shostag, Raj Ahten didn't need to see a man to know that one was hiding in the room.

  Shostag rushed Raj Ahten, axe whirling.

  Raj Ahten spun, blocked Shostag's blow with his own battle-axe; sparks flew from the weapons. The iron handle of Raj Ahten's smaller axe bent. Shostag marveled that his blow didn't shatter Raj Ahten's arm. With deadly grace Raj Ahten swung his icy scimitar beneath Shostag's guard, pierced Shostag's belly with a blow of cold horror.

  But Shostag was no commoner, dismayed at the sight of his own guts. He had more stamina than most lords, the stamina of wolves who hunted the winter woods for bear and boar.

  The little prickling wound only angered him, so that Shostag whirled his mighty axe with both hands, spun and delivered a blow that should have cleaved the Wolf Lord in two.

  But Raj Ahten threw himself back, dropping his bent axe, dodging Shostag's blow, smashing the finely wrought cedar door of the wardrobe, falling into it himself.

  A Dedicate lay beneath Raj Ahten, half buried by splintered cedar, crouching among some maids' dresses, a warhammer in one hand, shield in another. Sir Owlsforth, a warrior five men down the line of defenders from Shostag in the serpent.

  If Shostag didn't kill Raj Ahten now, he'd never get another chance. He drew back his great axe, preparing to cleave the Wolf Lord in two.

  At that moment, Raj Ahten plunged two fingers through the eye slits of Owlsforth's helm, into his brain.

  Shostag felt a piercing nausea, and watched in horror as Raj Ahten leaned away from the falling axe and suddenly became an indistinct blur, leaping toward him.

  Shostag knew nothing more.

  * * *

  Chapter 55

  THE CRY

  Raj Ahten did not trouble himself with finding the heads of the serpent. He followed his keen nose through buildings, and in a few moments found several more men hiding, slaughtered six more Dedicates. As he did so, he also murdered another sixty of Longmot's defenders. He half-hoped to find Jureem here.

  The battle was winding down. King Orden was dead, most of the defenders. Seldom had Raj Ahten dealt a foe such a fell beating. Never had he personally spilled so much good blood.

  Once, he came upon a man running from a building with uncommon speed--a nobleman. He recognized the Earl of Dreis by the gray horse and four arrows on his shield, more than by any finery. Another head to a serpent.

  A fine-looking warrior, the Earl was. Spooky gray eyes, tall and noble in every mannerism.

  Ahten slowed enough to hamstring the fellow, then slashed the Earl's throat as he fell.

  By now, Raj Ahten had the battle well in hand. He stood on the rise below the Dedicates' Keep, perhaps fifty paces from the two hundred or so knights who kept guard there.

  He stopped for a moment to survey the battlefield. Down below, his men had taken the courtyard. The walls were almost empty of defenders.

  Now Raj Ahten's men raced along the wall-walks to the east, while a trio of salamanders cleared the walls to the west. Everywhere the cries of dying men arose, insubstantial to his ears. The scents of blood and smoke and sulfurous powders carried on the wind.

  Little remained for him to do.

  He raced for the Dedicates' Keep, thinking to slaughter the two hundred warriors who stood guard, when a great feeling of anxiousness swept over him, that familiar twist of the stomach that accompanies the death of a Dedicate.

  Eremon Vottania Solette throttled Salim al Daub. It takes a long time to strangle a man, particularly if he has endowments of stamina. Eremon found the job immensely difficult. Sweat began to bead on his brow, and his fingers grew wet, making his fingers slip.

  Salim didn't fight, remained unconscious. Yet he turned his head slowly, uncomfortably, tried even in his stupor to escape. His legs began to kick feebly, rhythmically. Salim's lips went blue, and his tongue bulged. His eyes opened in blind panic.

  The guard didn't see, for the man stood gazing out the rough door of the wagon to watch the storming of the castle. Among the stinking, ill-kept Dedicates, the silent struggle attracted no notice. The rhythmic kick of Salim's feet seemed but a background noise, the shuffle of a sleepy Dedicate as he sought comfort among the moldy hay.

  Nearby a deaf Dedicate watched Eremon, eyes wide in fear. This was no knight brought to embarrass a Northern lord. This was one of Raj Ahten's own Dedicates, a fellow who vectored hundreds of endowments of hearing to the Wolf Lord. For his service, he was treated worse than a dog. The Dedicate had reason to hate his lord, had reason to wish him dead. Eremon held the deaf man's eye as he strangled Salim, silently hoped the man would not raise a cry.

  Salim kicked once, hard, made a pounding noise with his boot.

  At the wagon door the guard spun, saw Salim's feet kicking. The guard lunged forward, sliced Eremon's arm with his curved knife, hacking it off.

  Blood spurted from Eremon's arm, just below the elbow, and the severed stump burned like fire. But his hand, the hand that had been robbed of grace, that could hardly unclench over these many years, clung to Salim's throat like death itself, fingers locked on the big eunuch's esophagus.

  The guard snatched at it, tried to pull the severed hand from Salim's throat. Eremon managed to kick the guard behind the knee, so that he fell back among the Dedicates.

  In that moment, Eremon felt a great easing in his chest as grace flowed through him, felt his heart and muscles unclench completely for the first time in many years. Salim was dead.

  Eremon gasped a deep breath, tasted in one last gasp the sweet air of freedom. Then the guard was on him.

  In a moment of vertigo, the world slowed profoundly for Raj Ahten. The deep-toned clickings of the Earl of Dreis' dying shout now came as a call for aid to his ears, and Raj Ahten found himself sliding on his feet as he tried to stop before the crowd of soldiers who guarded the Dedicates' Keep.

  He realized he had only his normal six endowments of metabolism. Some of these guards might nearly equal him.

  He shouted a battle cry of such incredible volume that no human tongue had ever matched it. He had begun thinking only that he might dishearten a few warriors.

  But as he shouted, the effect astonished even him.

  The men began to drop to their knees, grasping in pain at their helmets. The walls of the keep behind them shuddered and vibrated, dust cascading from cracks in the stone as if the walls were a rug, and his Voice a stick that beat it.

  The Wolf Lord had endowments of Voice from thousands, and brawn that let him expel air with incredible force. Yet even he had never guessed that his cry might carry such power.

  So astonished was he that as Raj Ahten shouted, he shaped his call, lowering the tone several octaves until stone and gravel chipped away from the wall.

  Then he shouted anew, increased his volume, chipping deeper at the stone, turning his voice into a fey weapon.

  It was written in Taif that the Emir Moussat ibn Hafir
once had his warriors raise such a cry. In the deserts of Dharmad, the brick walls of the city of Abanis had crumbled under such a sound, letting the Emir send his cavalry through the rubble.

  But then the sound had come from the voices of a thousand trained warriors, crying as one, and the city walls had been made of weak adobe brick.

  It was called the Death Cry of Abanis, a sound legend said could rend stone much as certain singers could train themselves to shatter crystal.

  Now, Raj Ahten raised such a shout alone.

  The effect felt gratifying. Before him, warriors dropped as if clubbed, many falling in shock, some dropping in death. Blood poured from men's ears and from their noses.

  Behind them, as Raj Ahten reached his crescendo, the huge stone tower of the Dedicates' Keep suddenly cracked, rending nearly from top to bottom.

  Yet the tower did not quite crumble or fall.

  Raj Ahten raised the shout again, playing his voice back and forth over the stone, experimenting with various harmonic frequencies, until he struck just the right chord.

  This time the tower crumbled like magic, falling in a mighty crash that pummeled the earth, raising a cloud of dust. Great stones dropped, slamming into prostrate defenders who had guarded the tower's steps.

  Raj Ahten turned, looked on the walls of Castle Longmont. In places, the walls of the castle had cracked. The Duke's Keep looked as if artillery had struck it, blasting off huge chunks of stone, crumbling a windowsill, toppling gargoyles.

  Those men who still could gazed at Raj Ahten in horror.

  Defeated. Longmont lay defeated.

  Raj Ahten stood, gloating in his power. The King of the Earth may come, he thought, but I am mightier than the earth.

  Everyone, even Raj Ahten's own men, watched him in terror. Among his Invincibles, few had been damaged by the Death Cry. Raj Ahten's Invincibles each had a minimum of five endowments of stamina--and, apparently, that was enough for them to withstand the destructive power of his Voice.

  But many commoners who had defended the walls had punctured eardrums or had lost consciousness.