David Farland - Chaosbound

The enormous stone pinnacle of the fortress’s watchtower, standing three hundred feet tall and crafted from slabs of rock forty feet thick, drew the small humans like flies to a carcass.

They had been coming all morning—first children eager to explore this strange new landmark, then worried parents and siblings who were wondering what had befallen the children. Now an angry mob of warriors prepared for battle.

Human settlements surrounded the towers. No doubt by nightfall the small folk would begin to muster a huge army.

Still, the warriors below did not want to wait for reinforcements. So they sang their war songs, gave their cheers, lit their torches, and rushed into the entrance.

At Crull-maldor’s back, the wyrmling Lord Aggrez asked, “What is your will, milady?”

Wyrmling tactics in this instance had been established thousands of years ago. The tunnels at the mouth of the cave wound down and down. No doubt the humans imagined that it led straight up to the citadel, but they would have to travel miles into the wyrmling labyrinth to find the passage that led up.

Along the way, they would have to pass numerous spy holes and kill holes, ranging through darkness that was nearly complete, down long rocky tunnels lit only by glow worms.

“Let them get a mile into the labyrinth,” Crull-maldor said, “until they find the bones and offal from their children. While they are stricken with fear and rage, drop the portcullises behind them, so that none may ever return. I myself will lead the attack.”

Crull-maldor peered at the lord. Aggrez was a huge wyrmling—nine feet in height and more than four feet across the shoulder. His skin was as white as chalk, and his pupils were like pits gouged into ice. He frowned, his lips hiding his overlarge canines, and Crull-maldor felt surprised to see disappointment on his face. “What troubles you?”

“It has been long since my troops have engaged the humans. They were hoping for better sport.”

Twenty thousand warriors Crull-maldor had under her command, and it had been too long since they had fought real battles, and too long since they had eaten anything but walrus and seal meat.

“You want them for the arena?” Crull-maldor asked.

“A few.”

“Very well,” Crull-maldor said. “Let us test their best and bravest.”

Though Crull-maldor did not lead the way, she followed. This would be her people’s first real battle against a new enemy, and though the humans were small, she knew that even something as small as a wolverine could be astonishingly vicious.

So she went down into the tunnels, to the ambush site. The metal tang of blood was strong in the air, and filled the hallway. Dozens of the small folk had already been carried down to this point, deep under the fortress. Their offal lay on the floor—piles of gut and stomachs, kidneys and lungs, hair and skulls.

The humans had been harvested, their glands taken for elixirs, the meat for food, the skins as trophies. Not much was left.

Now Crull-maldor chose a small contingent of warriors to lead the attack, and they waited just down the corridor from the ambush site, silent as stone.

It took the human warriors nearly half an hour to arrive. They bore bright torches. Their leader—a fierce-looking man with golden rings in his hair and a helm that sported the horn of a wild ox poking forward— found the bones of his children.

Some of the men behind him cursed or cried out in anguish, but their leader just squatted over the pile of human refuse, his face looking grim and determined. His face was dyed in blood, and his hair was red, and torchlight danced in his eyes.

Quietly, each wyrmling raised a small iron spike and plunged it into his neck. The spikes, coated with glandular extracts harvested from the dead, filled the wyrmlings with bloodlust, so that their hearts pounded and their strength increased threefold.

The wyrmlings roared like beasts, and the rattling of chains in the distance gave answer. The portcullises slammed into the floor behind the humans, metal against stone, with a boom like a drum that shook the world.

Half a dozen wyrmling warriors led the attack, charging into the human hosts, bearing long meat hooks to pull the men close and short blades to eviscerate them. They hurtled heedlessly into battle.

The human leader did not look dismayed. He merely hurled his torch forward a dozen paces to get better light; in a single fluid move he reached back and pulled off his shield.

The wyrmlings roared like wild beasts; one shouted “Fresh meat!” as he attacked.

Instantly the human warlord snarled, and suddenly he blurred into motion. Crull-maldor had never seen anything like it. One instant the human was standing, and the next his whole body blurred, faster than a fly’s wings, and he danced into the wyrmling troops, his fierce war ax flashing faster than the eye could see.

Lord Aggrez went down, lopped off at the knee, as the warrior blurred past, slashing throats and taking off arms. In the space of a heartbeat he passed the wyrmling troops and raced toward Crull-maldor.

The human warriors at Caer Luciare had always been smaller than wyrmlings, yet what they lacked in size they made up for in speed. But this small warrior was stunning; this went far beyond anything in Crull-maldor’s experience.

The women and children had not shown such speed. There was only one explanation—magic, spells of a kind that Crull-maldor had never imagined.

The warrior raced toward her, but seemed not to see her. Her body was no more substantial than a fog, and she wore clothing only for the convenience of her fleshly cohorts—a hooded red cloak made of wispy material with the weight and consistency of a cobweb.

Thus her foe did not see her at first, but was peering up at the great wyrmlings behind her. In the shadows of the tunnel, she was all but invisible.

The humans’ champion bellowed—fear widening his eyes while his mouth opened in a primal scream. He charged toward the wyrmlings behind her, and suddenly his breath fogged, and terror filled his eyes.

He felt the cold that surrounded Crull-maldor. It stole his breath and made the blood freeze in his veins.

He shouted one single word of warning to the warriors behind, and then Crull-maldor touched him on the forehead with a single finger.

Her touch froze the warrior in his tracks, robbed him of thought. He dropped like a piece of meat, though she had brushed him only lightly.

The rest of the human warriors backed away in fear, nearly in a rout. Crull-maldor knelt over her fallen foe for a moment, sniffed at his weapons. There was no enchantment upon them, no fell curses.

She rose up and went into battle, floating toward the rest of the warriors. None raced with their leader’s speed. None bellowed war cries or tried to challenge her.

They were defenseless against her kind.

Crull-maldor was the most powerful lich lord in her world; she feared nothing.

She did not wade into battle on legs, but instead moved by will alone.

Thus she drove into ranks of the small humans. They screamed and sought to escape. One man tried to drive her back with a torch, and the webbing of her garment caught fire. Thus, for a few brief moments she was wreathed in smoke and flame, and all of the humans saw the hunger in her dead face and the horror of her eyes, and they wailed in despair.

Then, invisible without her cloak, Crull-maldor waded into the human troops and began to feed, drawing away the life force of those who tried to flee, or merely stunning those whose ferocity in battle proved that they would make good sport in the arena.

There were no more warriors like the mage that had confronted her. She found herself hoping for stronger resistance. She found herself longing for a war that promised great battles and glorious deeds, for only by distinguishing herself could she hope to gain the attention of Lady Despair, and thus perhaps win the throne.