David Farland - The Wyrmling Horde

The two refugees were forced to strike north and west, their backs to the blinding sun, heading almost the exact opposite direction from where they wanted to go. At length they discovered a road. It was not a wyrmling road, broad enough for the massive handcarts that were used to haul meat and supplies. It was a dainty road, almost a trail, the kind used by small humans.

In the great binding, the road had been superimposed upon a trackless waste. Thus the human highway had a few thistles growing up through it, and places where it was broken by outcroppings of rock. But it was serviceable enough.

It wound down out of the hills.

Cullossax ran now through the heat of the day, ignoring the welts that the sun raised on his burned skin, warily following the old road.

Soon they reached a village, a hamlet for the small folk. Cullossax stopped at the edge of the trees and peered out at it, bemused.

Quaint huts with chimneys of stone rose among serene gardens. The walls of the cottages were made of mud and wattle, painted in blinding shades of white, with windows framed in oak. A couple of cottages still had their straw roofs attached, though most had been broken into.

Wyrmlings had already been here.

"Come," Cullossax said. "Let s see if we can find food."

He did not know what the village might hold. There was no sign of living animals-no cattle or pigs, though a few corrals showed that such animals had been here recently. The wyrmlings had taken the livestock as well as the villagers.

Cullossax hoped that perhaps one of the small folk might be hiding in the village still.

Flesh is flesh.

They ransacked the hamlet, tearing the roofs off of cottages, searching through barns. Kirissa found a few human weapons-carving knives and a small half-sword. Cullossax would have preferred some heavy war darts, or a great ax.

Some type of fowl scampered about the village green. "Chickens," Kirissa called them, but they darted away from Cullossax s grasp.

At last, he realized that there was nothing to eat, at least nothing in easy range.

"I will show you a secret," Cullossax said at last, and he took Kirissa to a garden. There he found a wide variety of plants. He sniffed at a round leafy thing, then hurled it away. But he picked some pods and pulled up a few red tubers.

"Eat these," Cullossax said. "Some will deny this, but a wyrmling can survive on plants, at least for a short time."

"I know," Kirissa said, surprising him. "On the old world, I ate plants all of the time. These green things are called beans. The tubers are beets. I like to boil them with a little olive, but they can be eaten raw."

So they squatted in a darkened stable, and Cullossax bit into his first beet, and laughed. "Look!" he said. "It bleeds! I have gutted fat soldiers that bled less."

The vegetables tasted terrible, of course. They tasted of dirt.

But they filled his belly, and the two rested in the barn, slathering themselves with water from a trough in order to cool their blistering skin.

An hour later Cullossax felt sick and bloated, until he emptied his bowels. The strange food did not suit him well. Afterward the barn stank so badly, he decided to leave. The two of them found human blankets and threw them over their heads and backs, to keep the sun at bay.

The rest of the day, they continued their run. The sun was a blinding demon, and as it began to settle to the west, once again Cullossax had to turn from his track. He headed south for a bit, then due east. They passed more towns and villages. In each one, the humans and livestock had all disappeared. Obviously, Rugassa s hunters were in a frenzy. Game had been scarce the past few years. Suddenly it was plentiful again.

Kirissa dogged along at his side, growing ever slower with each step.

This pace is killing her, Cullossax realized.

Worse, she is slowing me down. If I left her, the hunters on our trail would find her, and perhaps they would stop for a bit to amuse themselves with her.

That slight diversion might mean the difference between my death and escape.

He decided to leave her behind. Yet he did not act upon that impulse, not yet at any rate.

Kirissa grew light-headed and at last she swooned. He picked her up and carried her for an hour while she slept.

I am going to need a miracle, he thought.

And at last he found it. He entered a town that rested upon the banks of a clear, cold river. To the due east he could see a human castle with pennants waving in the breeze, not four miles off. Sentries of the small folk were marching upon the ramparts.

Off to the west, Cullossax heard a bark, the sound a wyrmling guard makes to let others know that he is awake.

Apparently, Cullossax s kin had not been able to take the castle yet. But an army was near, hiding in the shade of the woods.

I will need to keep away from the trees, he thought.

Cullossax spotted a large skiff on the banks of the river, large enough to hold a wyrmling tormentor and a girl. He checked the boat quickly, laid Kirissa inside, and then shoved the craft out into the cool water.

The current was not the rampaging torrent that he might have wished. The river was almost too shallow for such a heavily laden boat. The crystal stream rolled over mossy rocks, and glinted in the afternoon sun. Water striders danced on its surface, and trout rose to take the mosquitoes that dared rest on the surface. A few swallows darted along the river, taking drinks.

But otherwise the lush willows growing along the bank provided a screen from any prying eyes.

The boat carried them along, making sure that Cullossax left no scent, letting him and the girl escape even as they took their rest.

Cullossax startled awake well past dark.

Kirissa had risen, and now she worked the oars, streaming along. The boat scudded against some submerged rocks, which scraped the hull. That was what had wakened him. The river was growing shallow.

The landscape had changed dramatically. They were away from the lush hills and the pleasant towns, with their groves of trees.

Now, along both banks, a thin screen of grass gave way to sandstone rocks, almost white under the starlight. There were no shade trees, no hills.

"I ve heard of this desert," Cullossax said. "It is called Oblivion. There is nothing to eat here but lizards, along with a few rabbits. This must be the Sometimes River. It winds through the wastes for many leagues in the wet season, but the water sinks into the sand out in the wastes, and only rises again occasionally. To the east of here is the hunting grounds-the land of the shaggy elephants."

He thought for a long moment. The hunters on his trail would find it hard to survive in this waste. So would he and Kirissa.

The blazing sun shining off the rocks would blind them by day, and the few lizards would offer no food. The lizards would hide under rocks during the night, when the wyrmlings were accustomed to hunt.

Away from the river, water might be scarce-or even impossible to find.

"Give me the oars," Cullossax said.

He steered the boat toward shore. When he found a place where rock met water, he landed the boat and had Kirissa step out.

He considered setting the boat adrift, but knew that it might only travel a hundred yards before it beached. He didn t want it to be found, and did not know what attributes his pursuers might possess. Would they have noses strong enough to track a man by scent?

Many scouts had that skill, and the Bloody Fist recruited only from among the best.

But he knew that the rocky slopes would not hold his scent for long. If he was to escape, this was the place to do it.

So he took his iron javelin and punctured the hull of the boat. He threw in a few heavy stones, then waded out into the deepest part of the river, and made sure that the boat sank.