Worldbinder

by David Farland

  “Let’s go,” Alun told the dogs. Wanderlust gave a strong jerk on her leash and went racing up the tunnel into the warrens, barking.

  “Quiet!” Madoc shouted at the dogs. “Quiet now.”

  Both dogs went silent, for they were well trained. Still, they strained at their leashes, leading the way.

  These won’t be common troops up here, Alun realized as he tried to hold the dogs back. No common troops could have climbed the sheer walls of the mountain.

  With a pounding heart, he realized that there would be Knights Eternal ahead.

  In the darkness, Rhianna reached the corpse of the dead knight and grabbed at his wings. The creature’s skin had gone gray with age and his flesh felt dry and mummified. As she pulled at his wings, his whole body followed. It could not have weighed fifty pounds. Even his bones must have rotted and dried up.

  Rhianna’s blow had taken the creature square in the skull, bursting it like an overripe melon. All that was left of its head was a single mandible hanging by a scrap of skin.

  Rhianna was afraid to move, afraid to draw attention. She could not see much in the darkness, but wyrmlings were filling the courtyard in front of the warrens, and the snarl and bang of thunder drums filled the night. Stone slabs were sliding down from the mountainside, revealing its secret passageways, and for the moment, that seemed to hold the wyrmlings’ attention. But at any instant, the wyrmlings could come for her.

  Grasping the wings with both hands, Rhianna gave the knight’s remains a swift kick, and the wings came free with surprising ease.

  She studied the fearful prongs in the powdery starlight, wondering how to insert them, afraid that the obvious answer was the only one.

  There was a rush of wings behind her, and Rhianna whirled, afraid that a Knight Eternal had found her.

  High King Urstone landed with a grunt.

  “Gesht,” the high king whispered, casting a worried look into the sky. The word might have meant hurry, or follow me. Rhianna could not be certain, so she tried to do both.

  She grasped the wings, held them over her head.

  The high king leapt forward, shoved the metal prongs into her back, hard.

  The pain that lanced through her drove a gasp from Rhianna’s lungs.

  But the king spared her no sympathy. He raced to Fallion, took one look at him, and picked him up.

  “Gesht! Gesht!” he hissed, and King Urstone leapt into the air, his wings flapping madly, trying to lug Fallion up along with his own bulk.

  Wait for me, Rhianna thought forlornly. Her wings felt like dead weight on her shoulders, and she had to wipe away tears of pain.

  She heard a shout off to her left, saw a trio of wyrmlings charging out of the darkness. Her own staff was at her feet, so she grabbed it and went sprinting along the wall, fleeing the wyrmlings. In a hundred yards, the wall ended.

  Rhianna ran, swiped the tears of pain from her face, and tried furiously to flap the wings.

  She had only gone fifty yards when she felt a tingling sensation as the wings came alive.

  The heavy footfalls of wyrmling warriors closed in behind her, accompanied by the sounds of bone mail clanking.

  Rhianna raced, fearing that at any moment a poison war dart would strike her square in the back, the way that one had with Jaz.

  She peered upward, saw King Urstone flying high up the mountain toward a parapet.

  A wyrmling roared at her back, came racing up with a burst of speed. Rhianna knew that she couldn’t outrun the monster, so she whirled to her right and leapt over the wall.

  A wyrmling leapt after her and grabbed her right wing. She pulled free. The wyrmling plummeted with a scream.

  Her wings were barely awake. She could feel blood surging through them, and she flapped frantically as she went into an uncontrolled spin.

  She hit the ground with a thud some eighty feet below, her fall softened both by the flapping of her wings and a pile of dead bodies.

  There were shouts off to the east. She heard a clang as an iron war dart bounced off the ground beside her.

  Rhianna took off, running and flapping her wings feverishly, and then it seemed that some power outside herself took control of the wings, began forcing them to stretch forward and grasp the air in ways that she had not imagined, then pull downward and back, propelling her into the air. The wings had awakened.

  Rhianna pumped furiously, aware that it was her own blood that sang through the veins of the wings, that it was her own energy that drove them.

  It took great effort to get off of the ground. It was as hard as any race that she had ever run. Her heart hammered in her chest and blood throbbed through her veins as she took flight, but with a final leap she was in the air, her feet miraculously rising up from the ground.

  She was boxed-in ahead. A two-story market rose up on one side, a sheer cliff face on the right. She flew to the market wall, batting her wings, and raised herself high enough so that she could grab onto the roof. With a burst of renewed fear, she clambered over the wall and rose into the air, flapping about clumsily like a new fledgling, grateful only to be alive and flying.

  She wheeled about, heading upward, her heart pounding so hard that she grew light-headed. She had only one desire: to reach Fallion’s side.

  Thunder drums roared and a deafening concussion blasted through the tunnels. Daylan Hammer, with his endowments of hearing, drew back from the door.

  “King Urstone is flying up, bearing the wizard Fallion to safety,” the lookout called. “The wyrmlings have got battering rams.”

  The thunder drums snarled, and from pedestals inside the iron door, archers shot arrows out through small kill holes.

  There was a tremendous boom. Rocks cracked overhead; a split ran along the tunnel wall creating a seam, and pebbles and dust dribbled down. There were strange rumblings, the protests of stones stressed beyond the breaking point.

  “Run!” Daylan warned. “The roof is going to collapse!” He whirled away from the great iron door, heard rocks sliding and tumbling outside, banging against the iron, sealing them in.

  The warriors of the clan just stood, peering up at the widening rent. Time seemed to freeze.

  Daylan could outpace them all, and right now he realized that he needed to do so. There would be no saving them if the roof came down.

  “Flee,” he warned, hoping to save at least a few men, and then he darted between them, shoving men aside as lightly as possible, hoping not to throw them off balance.

  A cave-in, he thought. This passage will be sealed, leaving only two entrances to defend.

  By the time that most of the men had begun to react, he was thirty yards from the door and gaining speed. His ears warned when the rocks began to come down behind him.

  He yearned to go back and dig out what men he could, but his duty was clear. Fallion Orden was of greater import than all the men in this cavern.

  Vulgnash dropped from the wispy clouds, bits of ice stinging his face, and for a moment he just soared, floating almost in place as he studied the battle below. He was hidden up here, a shadow against the clouds.

  Starlight shone upon Mount Luciare, turning the stone to dim shades of gray, almost luminous.

  Distantly, he could hear the triumphant battle-cries of wyrmling troops, the rumble of thunder drums.

  The city was in ruins. Mounds of dead men littered the streets between the lower gates and upper gates, and now the wyrmling troops had brought up battering rams and were attacking the great iron doors that sealed off the warrens.

  Rents had opened up in the mountainside where great stone slabs had slid off, exposing some of the tunnels that had been dug into the mountain.

  And there above the battle, a tiny set of wings fluttered clumsily.

  It was no Knight Eternal flying there, he knew instantly. The wing-beats were ineffectual, and the body was too small to be one of his own kind. It was one of the small folk, a fledgling, new to wings!

  Vulgnash knew that it was the cus
tom among humans to claim wings won in battle.

  If that small fledgling is not the wizard I seek, Vulgnash thought, it is one of his kin.

  He studied its trajectory, saw where it flew—there, a parapet where another winged human lay wounded.

  With a slight folding of the wings, Vulgnash went into a dive.

  On the fifth level of the warrens, Alun raced up the gently sloping tunnel. Tiny thumb-lights, hanging from their pegs, lit the way like fallen stars.

  But suddenly, the path ahead went black, and the smell of fresh air impinged on his consciousness. He’d found a rent. Part of the rock face had collapsed to his left, leaving the tunnel exposed.

  And up ahead, the lights were all out.

  He heard a distant wail, the death cry of an old man.

  Alun raced past the rent, which was no more than twenty feet wide, and peered down. A hundred and fifty feet below, the wyrmling army crowded in the courtyard. A Death Lord stood at their head, a chilling specter whose form was so dark, it seemed that he sucked in all of the light nearby. There was a boom and the ground shivered beneath his feet, but there was no snarling as was found in the report of a thunder drum.

  The wyrmlings had taken battering rams to the iron gates, the city’s last defenses.

  “Hurry,” Warlord Madoc urged, racing past Alun.

  Alun chased after Madoc, feeling naked, exposed to the sight of the troops below. The wyrmlings could not help but see them sprinting along the open cliff. But soon they were back in the darkened tunnels.

  Madoc halted to light a thumb-lantern, and then they hurried ahead.

  The knight’s trail would not be hard to follow. He left darkness in his wake.

  He can’t be far ahead, Alun realized. It takes time to kill people, even women and babes.

  They passed an apartment that had its door bashed in. Warlord Madoc stopped to survey the damage. The apartment looked like a slaughterhouse, with blood-splashed walls. Alun did not dally to gaze upon the faces of the murdered mother and her boys, the youngest just a toddler. Yet he could not help but notice with a glance that upon each of the dead, there was a red thumb-print between the eyes, as if the Knight Eternal had anointed them with blood. Alun knew the family, of course. The dead woman was Madoc’s wife.

  Warlord Madoc roared like a bear when he saw her body, and went charging back out into the corridors, brandishing his war ax.

  King Urstone is a dead man, Alun thought. If there was ever a chance that Warlord Madoc would forgive him for this debacle, the chance has passed.

  No, Urstone had tried to save his son, and the imprudent attempt would bring ruin upon them all.

  For that, it was only right that King Urstone should die.

  Yet a part of Alun rebelled at the thought. It was not fair that Urstone had lost his son. It was not fair that he should die for loving too well. This was all a tragic mistake, and Alun worried that he was supporting a monster, that Warlord Madoc, despite his bravery and his prowess in battle, was the kind of man who would bring them all to ruin.

  Let him die first, Alun silently prayed to whatever powers might be. Let Madoc die at the hands of a Knight Eternal.

  They passed apartment after apartment, each much the same, each smelling of blood attar, each dark and bereft of life.

  There were cries up ahead, a woman’s scream, and Warlord Madoc went bounding up the hallway.

  Talon gave a cry and raced up at his back.

  Alun felt strangely disconnected from his body. His heart pounded in fear. He couldn’t bear the thought of fighting a Knight Eternal in the darkness like this. It was madness. They’d all be killed.

  Yet he sprinted to keep up, realizing that at the very least he would not die alone.

  “Here!” Warlord Madoc shouted as he rounded a corner. Up ahead, thumb-lanterns still burned merrily. The Warlord raced to an open door and peered in.

  “Welcome,” a voice hissed from within, “to your demise.”

  “If I die,” Madoc growled, “then you will lead the way.” He raised his ax and charged.

  Timing is everything in battle, Alun knew. Even a Knight Eternal might be struck down with a lucky blow. But it required perfect timing, and perhaps the element of surprise.

  “Kill!” Alun growled, as he released his dogs.

  Wanderlust and Brute bent double as they dug their paws into the floor and bounded down the corridor.

  The dogs swarmed past Warlord Madoc as he raced into the room. Talon and Siyaddah charged in at his back, while Alun drew up the rear.

  He heard a smack and a yelp, Brute’s cry. The dog went flying, thumped against a wall.

  Madoc roared like a wounded animal, and as Alun rounded the corner, everything was in chaos.

  The room was as cold as a tomb. Dead children littered the floor.

  Wanderlust had hold of the Knight Eternal’s left wing and was dragging it backward and thrashing her head.

  Madoc himself had taken a mighty swing with his ax, nearly lopping off the knight’s right arm.

  The knight growled like a beast and lunged past Madoc. It grabbed Talon by the throat and hurled her to the floor, just as Siyaddah leapt in with crescent shield, slashing at the knight’s wrist.

  Talon’s own small sword clanged to the floor and came spinning near Alun, just as the Knight Eternal caught his balance and leapt in the air, kicking with both feet, sending Warlord Madoc flying over a chair.

  Alun looked at the small sword, its blade covered with rust, and knew that it might be the only weapon in this room that had the power to unbind the knight, to drain the stolen life from its organs.

  The Knight Eternal threw off Wanderlust and then leapt upon Warlord Madoc, grabbing him by the throat. He slammed Madoc’s head back against the wall, smashing the warlord’s helm and leaving a smear of blood, then howled in victory and gaped his teeth, ready to tear out Madoc’s throat.

  Alun grabbed Talon’s sword and lunged at the Knight Eternal, aiming for its face.

  The creature whirled and caught the blade in its hand, almost absently.

  Too late it realized its mistake.

  The blade struck, and the Knight Eternal gripped it like a vise. Alun struggled to pull it free, like a sword from an ancient scabbard, and the blade sliced into the creature’s palm.

  It had been focused on Warlord Madoc, but now the Knight Eternal whirled and peered at its hand as if a serpent had just bit it.

  “How?” it cried, raising its palm.

  Black blood came boiling from the wound. The Knight Eternal studied this phenomenon, then looked up to Alun in consternation.

  Already the creature had begun to change. Its dry flesh was turning papery, and it suddenly weaved, unable to keep to its feet.

  “Death take thee,” Alun said thrusting the sword into its throat. The Knight Eternal fell back and collapsed.

  Wanderlust leapt on it, wrestled free a leg, and then stood growling and shaking it.

  Siyaddah stood in a fighting stance in the corner, as if afraid that the creature would get up and attack. Talon was crawling on her knees, shaking her head clear.

  Warlord Madoc lay against the wall, blinking and breathing heavily for a moment. Alun had expected him to be dead, but suddenly he regained his feet.

  The only fatality in the fight was Brute, who lay against the wall, lips drawn back in a permanent snarl.

  Siyaddah raced to the Knight Eternal, grabbed it from behind, and pulled off the valuable wings. She could not leave such a prize for the enemy.

  Alun stood above his dead dog, mourning.

  “These are yours,” Siyaddah said, shoving the wings toward him. But Alun only stood. He peered up at her for a moment, and shook his head.

  “I don’t want them.”

  “Then bring them,” Warlord Madoc said. “I’ll wear them proudly. Come on. We’ve got a war to finish.” He whirled and raced through the tunnels, outdistancing his companions as he searched for a target for his wrath.

  In E
mperor Zul-torac’s observatory, Areth Sul Urstone lay in a fetal position, groaning in pain, watching the destruction of his city.

  Suddenly the snarl and boom of thunder drums went silent. All of creation seemed to pause on the brink of ruin as the Death Lord raised a spidery hand, then turned his cowled head toward Rugassa, as if seeking permission to put an end to mankind.

  “Will you concede?” the Emperor hissed. “Your soul, the life of your spirit, in exchange for the city?”

  Areth knew that the Death Lord only awaited the Emperor’s command. Such wights, being less than half alive, could communicate across the leagues, whisper thoughts to the spirits of one another. It was for this reason that Lady Despair had elevated them in position, giving them charge of her armies.

  They are waiting only for me, for my word, Areth knew. It is in my power to save my people, or to let them die. He let out a whimper of pain and despair.

  Rhianna landed upon a parapet above the city, where High King Urstone knelt above the body of the wounded Fallion, examining the splotch of blood smeared over Fallion’s ribs. The thumb-lanterns here had blown out, apparently when the great stone doors that concealed this place had fallen. Now the parapet was open to the cool night air. Stars rained down light, sprinkling it liberally over the gray stone. Flowers, overflowing from gray pots, gleamed like starfish in the darkness, perfuming the night air. Pennyroyal petals and seeds had been strewn upon the floor, giving a heavenly scent.

  This would be a pleasant place to die, she thought.

  Rhianna gasped, sweat streaming from her face after the short flight, and peered down at Fallion, her heart burdened with worry.

  Down below, the thunder drums had fallen silent. Rhianna had seen the huge battering rams that the wyrmlings carried through the city, entire trees felled just for this purpose, bound with iron rings, fitted with brass heads shaped like snarling lions. With a single thrust of each battering ram, sparks and fire had flown out, and the great iron doors had shattered, torn from their hinges.