David Farland - Chaosbound

“There are tales of the orb calming the seas for our warships—” Wulfgaard said.

“And hurling storms against enemy fortresses,” Aaath Ulber said. “If you can figure out how to unleash a storm against this fortress, be my guest.”

Anya whispered, “Tellaris used it to guide her daughter’s spirit back from the land of the dead.”

Aaath Ulber knew strange legends about the orb. There were hints of a curse. Too often those who sought to own it wound up dead.

Of course, he thought, the same could be said of any man who owned a fine horse, too. The world was full of thieves who would gladly slit your throat for something like this.

“Move on,” Aaath Ulber ordered. “We’ve got to find those Dedicates, and time is wasting. . . .”

“Myrrima,” Rain said, her face filled with concern, “I think that I should row out to the Borrowbird . A battle is coming. Sage should go with me. It will be safer there.”

Rain’s heart pounded. The revived Dedicates had warned that wyrmlings knew the name of Ox Port. That meant that they would be here soon. A man with ten endowments of metabolism could easily run sixty miles an hour. At such a speed, the wyrmlings couldn’t be more than an hour and a half away. Probably, they would be here much sooner.

Can we even make it? Rain wondered.

Fleeing sounded like a good idea right now—not just for Rain, but for all of them.

“Won’t you come with us, Mother?” Sage asked.

Myrrima smiled grimly and shook her head. With a jut of her chin she motioned toward the collected Dedicates. “I can’t,” she explained with infinite sadness. “These are your father’s. Someone must protect them.”

There was a runelord guarding the room, the young woman Hilde. But Rain understood what Myrrima meant. She couldn’t just leave the Dedicates in a stranger’s care.

Draken growled and drew his sword. “Nor can I leave.”

Rain studied his face, so full of resolve.

“Aaath Ulber is not your father,” Rain pointed out to Draken. “You don’t owe him your life.” She pleaded with Myrrima, “Nor is he your husband.”

“You’re right,” Myrrima said. “Perhaps there is only a tiny piece of Borenson left in him, a small corner of Aaath Ulber’s mind. But even if he is only a ghost of a memory, I must remain faithful to him. I know that now.”

“As must I,” Draken said.

He gazed into Rain’s eyes, and there was so much pain in his gaze, so much concern. “Please,” he said. “If you must go, go!”

Sage wept and she threw her arms around Myrrima, gave her a hug. She came to a decision. “I want to stay, too, Mother.”

Rain glanced toward the door in a near panic. Time was wasting. She admired the family’s dedication to one another, but she didn’t want to die for Borenson’s memory.

Myrrima looked at her daughter Sage; the love in her face had grown fierce. “Stay with us then. We can all watch your father’s back together.”

They’ll die trying to save what is left of Sir Borenson, Rain realized. She wondered if Borenson had indeed been such a great man. Was he, or anyone, worth such a sacrifice?

A distant cry rose from far down the street, a woman’s wail of fear and pain. The wyrmlings were coming.

Rain didn’t trust Myrrima’s magic. It was said that water wizards had uncanny powers of protection, but they were not foolproof. A powerful mage could see right through the wizardess’s ruse, as could a person with a strong and focused mind.

Some folks in the arena cried out in alarm, they glanced about in a panic, as if seeking the closest exit.

Myrrima stood at the door and blocked their escape. “Hold!” she called. “No one may leave. The enemy is here already. They are searching the town. We are hiding, hiding in a mist of our own making. No enemy can find us here. Avert your eyes from your enemy, and they shall avert their eyes from you! They will not see you!”

Before she finished her last words, there was a boom at the door to the arena. A wyrmling ax cleaved through it, shattering the wood and creating a wedge of light.

Myrrima whirled to face the threat.

Faster than a heartbeat, a second blow rang upon the door, and then a third; the wreckage of the door flung open.

A huge bull wyrmling stood for an instant, glaring into the arena.

Children gulped in terror.

Myrrima faced him. She looked down to the floor, and the wyrmling’s eyes followed.

The wyrmling was breathing rapidly. A dozen endowments of metabolism he had to have had.

The wyrmling bull peered about the room, and his eyes seemed glazed, unfocused, as if he wandered through a waking dream.

Suddenly a cry rang out in the arena. One of the Dedicates had awakened, and she called out in a wail, “Alas, our lady Anya has fallen in battle!”

Rain stifled an urge to curse and brought her short sword ringing from its sheath as she waited for the wyrmling to charge.

Aaath Ulber roared in pain as a wyrmling runelord’s ax sliced into his scalp, chipping bone from his skull.

The blow knocked him back a pace, and he staggered, head reeling. He tried to find his feet.

He’d reached the Dedicates’ keep. Unfortunately he’d found the wyrmling guards, too—enormous bulls who were scarred by hundreds of forcibles.

One of them rushed into the breach and lunged with a meat hook, snatching Anya from her feet. She writhed and her bright blade flickered forward like the tongue of a serpent, but the huge meat hook had caught her in the back of the neck. The wyrmling shook his fist, and neck bones snapped. Anya’s head lolled crazily.

The wyrmling hurled Anya against the wall as Wulfgaard gave a battle cry. The boy lunged with his own sword and plunged it beneath the wyrmling’s arm, so that it ran up the bone and bit deep into the creature’s armpit. Hot blood erupted from the wound, and Wulfgaard danced backward.

Aaath Ulber charged, knocking the dying guard away, and saw Dedicates ahead. In the dim light thrown by ten thousand glow worms on the roof high above, he saw men and women stacked like cordwood, three or four deep.

Alarm bells had begun to sound, huge gongs that tolled solemnly. The wyrmlings had tried to slow Aaath Ulber down by closing the portcullis gates, but he’d spotted gear boxes below, and soon discovered that he had to open each box in order to clear the level above.

But he’d found the wyrmlings’ treasure.

The room was filled with Dedicates. Many were still sleeping, but others were now awake—men and women freed from their endowments.

Unfortunately, the keep was also filled with wyrmlings. The wyrmling workers were trundling about with great swords, taking the heads off of anyone unfortunate enough to rise.

Bodies lay thick on the floor.

With a rush of bloodlust, Aaath Ulber buried his war hammer into the chest of a wyrmling runelord, then leapt in the air and kicked the head off another.

The path opened.

Wulfgaard rushed into the room, eager to find his betrothed.

Aaath Ulber glared at the wyrmling workers, so intent on slaughtering the Dedicates as they woke, and a red curtain lowered in front of his eyes.

With an animal howl, he waded in among the dead and rushed the wyrmlings.

Warlord Zil stared uncomprehendingly into the humans’ arena at Ox Port. It was a strange building, with thick walls all around but open to the sky.

Inside, hot springs rose from the ground in an emerald pool, with roiling mist rolling off in waves.

A few beech trees grew beside it, and wild birds flitted among the branches, chirping and singing.

Zil wondered at it. It looked like some kind of sanctuary, a walled bath where a human lord might soak beneath the trees and meditate.