David Farland - The Lair of Bones

To the south and west, warhorns suddenly blared, the deep-voiced ram’s horns used by the lords of Indhopal.

Raj Ahten’s men charged into the fray.

Lowicker’s daughter shouted commands to her troops, downhill just below. Her own silver warhorns trumpeted a high note, as if to answer Raj Ahten’s call. Her knights on their chargers leapt the Barren’s Wall and raced toward the reavers like a gale. Lowicker’s archers and footmen roared their battle cries and raced to catch up.

“Sound the charge!” Anders called weakly to his son. His trumpeter sounded the warhorn, and Anders’s lords leapt on their horses.

Many would have urged their mounts into battle instantly, eager to obey what might well be their lord’s dying wish. But Celinor knelt, holding his father up to witness the contest, while a pair of lords stood guard over him.

“Go, now!” King Anders told his son feebly. “This is our day, your hour of triumph. Let the Earth King’s son make a name for himself in battle.”

Celinor’s troops were all mounted. Celinor leaned close, squeezing his father’s right hand in an effort to comfort him. A physic leaned close and sniffed the king’s wound.

“He’ll be all right,” the physic said. “The blade nicked his liver, I think, but missed the heart and lungs. With his endowments, he’ll heal in a week.”

“Very well,” Celinor said. He rose to his feet and vaulted onto his horse. He glanced down at the guards that held Erin and warned, “Kill her if she tries to escape.”

Averan finished roughing out the Seal of Creation, and began the second rune she’d envisioned in her dreams.

In the pool in the far corner of the chamber, water bubbled and boiled. She raised her staff and caused geometrical shapes to chase across its face—circles and triangles, and bizarre arcs—as if great fish sped just beneath the surface, dorsal fins cutting waves.

Sweat poured from Averan’s brow, and her lips grew parched, but she paid no mind. She was so deep in the act of creation that nothing else mattered.

Soon the Seal of the Deep began to glimmer in the pool. Waves stood up, as if frozen in time or sculpted in ice.

Averan studied her work. To look upon the runes filled her with joy. It was a great work, she knew, a slow magic, such as Binnesman had attempted when he sought to heal the plagues at Carris. Her labor would not bear full fruit for many centuries.

Yet she felt potency in the runes. Vigor would come to the Earth, life and health and mending. The grass would grow greener and taller than anyone had ever seen. Children born on this new day would be fairer and wiser than men of old. Fresh colors would be added to the rainbow, and wildflowers would sprout in the desert.

It conformed well to her memory. It was not perfect yet, but she could feel rightness in it, and she would have years to tinker and bend it into shape.

Only one thing remained for Averan there in the heart of the Underworld, to draw a circle and encompass the five Master Seals, make them one.

Averan raised her staff, felt deep in the Earth. She could sense the fault lines and cracks in the stones, the seams and blockages. To shape the stone required almost nothing, a simple release of the energy.

She let it flow upward.

Soil began to rise, bursting up as if a crust of bread had cracked. Then it raced along, leaving a trail within its wake. The circle began to form.

Suddenly she sensed a presence at the mouth of the tunnel, smelled the death cry of a reaver, and whirled.

Gaborn strode toward her, the light of his opal pin blazing like a meteor. Over his shoulders, like a pair of huge eels, he’d slung a pair of reaver philia, taken from the One True Master.

It was her garlicky death cry that Averan had heard.

Gaborn looked on in awe as he peered at the seals, feeling their potency. He spoke slowly so that she would understand. “What are you doing?”

“I’m fixing it,” Averan said. “I’m healing the Earth.”

“I feel the change coming,” Gaborn replied. “Yours is a great work, and I fear to hinder you. But I need your help. The battle goes ill at Carris, and only I can hope to change the tide of it.”

“How can I help?” Averan asked.

“We’re almost directly below the city. I need you to open a path for me.”

“I’m not sure that I can,” Averan said.

“You can,” Gaborn told her with certainty.

Averan was growing accustomed to Gaborn’s uncanny Earth sense. If he told her that she could help, then she believed that he was right.

Averan took a last glance at the seals. She felt exhausted, too tired to do more now. Though sweat soaked her clothes, she took a moment to draw strength from the ground so that she could secure the chamber. With her staff, she drew a rune upon the wall. As she did, the stone flowed together slowly, like boiling magma, until the opening closed.

“Here let the seals be hidden,” Averan whispered, “unaltered and unmarred by the hand of the enemy.”

“Come,” Gaborn said. “I left Iome and the prisoners behind.”

He fled the chamber, striding down the tunnel. She rushed to keep up for nearly a mile. As they neared the Lair of Bones she heard shouting in a side corridor.

“Milady, over here!” someone cried. “I’ve found their nesting grounds.”

“Break the eggs,” Sergeant Barris commanded. “Break them all.”

Averan’s heart hammered. Iome and the prisoners had found the hatching chamber. The clutch of eggs was precious.

Averan followed Gaborn round a bend in the tunnel, found Sergeant Barris, Iome, and the other men and women from the reavers’ prison peering into the egg chamber. Iome stood using a reaver dart as a crutch, a bandage wrapped around her ankle. Iome held her opal crown aloft to reveal leathery gray eggs upon the steaming ground. They lay wrapped in nests of silk spun by cave spiders, each nest holding a cluster of twenty or thirty eggs.

“Stop!” Averan cried.

Barris turned first. Anger blazed in his eyes. “Why?”

“They’re the last of the reaver eggs. The One True Master made war on other hives for years. Each time she took control of a hive, she destroyed the eggs of her enemies. These might be the only reaver eggs left in the world!”

“Good,” Barris said. “Then we can kill every last one of the damned monsters.”

There comes a moment in the life of every Earth Warden when she discovers the purpose of her existence. Binnesman had told Averan that when he realized that it was his lot to protect mankind, the knowledge had flowed into him with a purity and power that could not be denied.

Averan felt that now.

For this purpose I was born, she thought, and empowered by my master. For this reason I learned to commune with reavers and have been granted dominion over the deep places of the world.

“I forbid it!” she shouted. “I serve the Earth, and I will do my master’s will.”

Averan pointed her staff above the door to the egg chamber, and formed a rune there. She had no time to draw power from the Earth at her ease, and instead had to rely upon her own meager reserves.

The stone cracked instantly, and a circle appeared on its surface. Within the circle a rune burst forth. The whole wall warped and flowed together, barring entry.