David Farland - Wizardborn

Every man under his charge was at risk.

“Not yet,” Gaborn whispered to his master. In Feldonshire, his Chosen still lay abed, while others puttered over the bridge of the river Donnestgree. He hoped to buy them time. Every minute that he slowed the reaver horde might win him another hundred souls. “Not yet.”

Then the reavers were two hundred yards ahead, almost to the smoldering woods.

The reavers did not slow. In fact, they seemed to lope faster as they neared the flames, as if in welcome.

When they reached the fire, they lowered their heads into the dirt, bowling over and burying the burning leaves. Even trees that crackled with flame fell back under the onslaught.

The horde marched forward, irrepressible, trampling the flames. Reavers hissed in warning to their neighbors.

“Retreat!” Gaborn shouted.

The reavers began to hurl a hail of stones. Boulders that weighed as much as a man came soaring overhead, falling into his front ranks.

“Dodge,” the Earth warned, and Gaborn spurred his charger to the left. A great boulder slammed into the stone sheep wall, toppled it. Flaming debris and flakes of stone hurtled past Gaborn and into the ranks of his men behind. Horses and riders burst into a spray of bloody gobbets. Gaborn felt sickened to the core as half a dozen men were ripped from him.

He glanced over his shoulder, Baron Waggit rode on his tail. The young man had followed his instructions precisely, and it saved his life. The pasty color of Waggit’s face showed that he knew how close it had been.

To the left of the battlefield, another boulder hurtled from the reavers’ ranks and slashed through Gaborn’s lines.

His men wheeled their mounts and raced for safety.

In the reavers’ fortress, darkness reigned. Fireballs hammered the outer walls, and briefly illuminated the reavers’ kill holes. The hive shuddered under their impact. But deep in the heart of the lair, no outside light could pierce.

With his keen ears, Raj Ahten heard the cries of war out on the plains.

He raced through a tunnel, a string of dead sorceresses and blade-bearers strewn behind him.

There were no kill holes so deep in the lair. Only a little light issued from the flickering blue runes tattooed on the dead sorceresses.

Darkness was the reavers’ element. They did not need light to hunt by. Even the watery lights of the runes were most likely an accident. The reavers would not know that their tattoos glowed.

But ahead of Raj Ahten, a room seemed to be filled with fire. He raced to an entrance and looked down from a parapet to a floor twenty-five feet below.

The Seal of Desolation spread before him, pulsating with color, throbbing. It was nearly two hundred yards across. A dozen scarlet sorceresses filled the room. At the center of the seal, like a great spider in its web, hunched a great mage.

Indeed, she was larger than the one at Carris.

Raj Ahten dared not give the reavers time to react. His left arm was still numb, and he could not hold his breath much longer. Soon he would be forced to take the foul air, and learn just how vile it tasted.

He ran several paces, leapt from the parapet, vaulted onto the head of the great mage. His right leg snapped from the impact, just below the knee.

He bore the pain, slammed his warhammer into the mage’s sweet triangle. He feared that for such a huge monster, the blade itself was too short. He reversed the weapon and plunged the handle into the hole as if it were a lance.

She seemed unaffected by the wound. The mage shook her head and tossed him. Even with all his metabolism, all his stamina, Raj Ahten’s leg had not yet healed when he slammed painfully to the ground.

The Seal of Desolation itself looked to be made of molten glass, but felt as solid as stone. The mucilage of the glue mums had hardened into knobby shapes. Ghost fires in shades of deepest purple flickered through the thing, bursting out in actinic flashes. A sorcerous smoke filled the room.

The Rune of Desolation was powerful.

Raj Ahten swung his hammer, broke off a knob. A blinding flash of white light burst from the broken rune.

The great mage wheeled to confront him. Gree flew up from her bloated body in a swarm, and her staff blazed a sickly yellow.

Raj Ahten leapt aside as a bolt of pure night shot from the staff. It slammed into the rune where he’d stood, demolishing a wide swath.

The rune simply shattered. A scarlet sorceress caught in the blast hissed in agony, was bowled over on her side. The left half of her body had disintegrated or been blown away, as if it had been eaten by acid.

Raj Ahten dared not give the mage time for a second attack. He raced across the Rune of Desolation, darting left and right.

The huge mage reared back in alarm.

She stood a full six feet taller than the monster at Carris. Never in legend had a reaver grown to such a size. Surely, he told himself, this is the great Lord of the Underworld.

He would never be able to leap high enough to slam his hammer into her massive brain, and she had the wisdom to close her mouth so that he could not strike up through the palate.

His best target was the soft spot of her thorax, but he would have preferred a lance to pierce so deeply.

He reversed his warhammer. The handle was nearly six feet long. With his endowments of brawn, it was no great feat to leap high in the air. He hurled the hammer with all his might, wrenching his shoulder from its socket as he did.

The warhammer buried itself into the monster’s thorax, and the fell mage reared higher, trying to escape. Raj Ahten hit the ground, scurried out of danger.

The fell mage threw down her staff, reached up with her huge clumsy paws and began trying to yank the warhammer out. She got it between two claws, thrust it away from her. It rang against the roof, then clattered a dozen yards off.

She reached for her staff. Raj Ahten lunged for his warhammer.

He had not struck deeply enough. A sound hit to the thorax should have caused her to die almost instantly, similar to a blow to a man’s kidneys.

All around, scarlet sorceresses rushed to join the fray. The great mage lowered her head and charged him, gaping her jaws wide at Raj Ahten.

That was what he needed. He gripped his warhammer, and vaulted into her mouth. The dry, raspy surface of her tongue felt as if it were made of gravel.

Her jaws snapped closed around him, and she tilted her head back in an attempt to swallow. He jumped, plunging the warhammer deep into her soft palate, raking a long gash.

He pulled out the hammer in a rain of gore. Blood and brains cascaded down, spattering.

The fell mage staggered a few feet, wobbled.

Raj Ahten slammed has hammer against the back of her throat to make her gag.

As she coughed him out, a dozen other Runelords in fine silks came leaping into the room. Bhopanastrat shouted, “Kill them all, secure the fortress!”

The scarlet sorceresses backed away, tried to retreat. But there would be no escape. The fortress was surrounded. Raj Ahten had already cleared a path into it, and ripped out the heart of the reavers’ defenses.

Pusnabish entered seconds later. Runelords swarmed into the fortress by the hundreds.

Raj Ahten ran for the open air, leaving lesser men to complete the job.

He imagined how the world would now sing his praise. There would be parades at Maygassa as he ascended the Elephant Throne. The people would carpet the road beneath his feet with petals of rose, gardenia, and lotus. The enormous golden gongs outside the city’s western gate would pound night and day for a month. The most beautiful women in the realm would seek him out, hoping to bear his sons, while wealthy lords and merchants showered him with gifts.