The old merchant eyed him for a long moment. “It’s not pigs that you’re wanting to kill,” the fellow mused. “I don’t have much call for real weapons, you understand, but I have something that might interest you. . . .”
He turned and went to the display case on the far wall, then pulled out a hidden drawer beneath. It opened to reveal a tall sword, the kind that the barbarians here favored—nearly seven feet long. Few men were big enough to wield such a blade, but Aaath Ulber thought it just a bit too short. He knew that he couldn’t afford it.
Yet the old man laid it on the display table in front of him. “You’d have to travel many a mile,” he promised, “to find its equal.”
Aaath Ulber nodded, but did not pick it up. Between a rucksack over his shoulder and a pig under one arm, there was not much that he could do.
He peered down at it appreciatively.
“You’ve an accent,” the old man said. “Where do you hail from?”
Aaath Ulber grunted, “To the east—Landesfallen.” He glanced back over the crowds, spotted Rain’s dark green cloak. The girl was standing near some boys who were play-fighting with sticks. Aaath Ulber turned away quickly.
The old man fixed him with a stare, and nodded appreciatively. Aaath Ulber prepared for the old fellow to hit him with a barrage of questions: “How are things on the far side of the world?” “Did you have a pleasant voyage?” That sort of thing. But the old fellow simply got worry lines in his eyes, leaned forward, and whispered, “They’re looking for you, you know.”
Aaath Ulber was certain that the old man had him confused with someone else.
“For me?” Aaath Ulber asked. “How could that be?”
“Don’t know,” the fellow whispered secretively. “There’s a giant—sailing from the northeast. That’s all that I’ve heard. But they’re asking for you.” Then he peered straight into Aaath Ulber’s eyes and urged, “Take the sword!”
“I . . . don’t have that kind of money,” Aaath Ulber said honestly.
But the old man smiled gamely, the look of a soldier who had fought for far too many years. “The price is cheap, to the right man. All that I ask is a wyrmling’s head!”
Aaath Ulber wasn’t surprised that the man had heard of wyrmlings. “What news do you have of them?”
The old man’s eyes suddenly went wide, and he hissed, “Watch your back! They’re here!”
A woman cried out, perhaps a hundred yards behind, and a deep growl rumbled through the crowd—a wyrmling curse.
Aaath Ulber straightened, whirled. Two wyrmlings came striding through the crowded market like small hills.
Wyrmlings in broad daylight! Aaath Ulber realized in dismay.
He’d never seen such a thing. The sun blinded wyrmlings and could burn their pale skin.
They wore helms and ring mail ornately carved from the bones of a world wyrm, so that it was the color of yellowed teeth, and their flesh and hair was as white and as unwholesome as maggots.
They’d seen him already, and one shouted in the tongue of Caer Luciare, “You!”
The wyrmlings rushed him, shoving commoners aside, and the crowd could not part fast enough.
They have endowments! Aaath Ulber realized. Each of them had at least two endowments of metabolism, he guessed, by the speed of their movements.
He didn’t have time to run. He could hardly hope to fight. The wyrmlings streaked toward him.
He dropped his rucksack, reached behind himself, and grabbed a wicked fish knife from the table. Its blade was narrow and long. He figured that it would fit nicely between the chinks of a wyrmling’s armor.
He grabbed the handle, held it in his palm, with the blade flat against the inside of his wrist.
His heart was pumping loudly in his ears, and Aaath Ulber’s thoughts came swiftly. He studied their weapons. Each had a battle-ax sheathed to his back, and each wore a pair of “daggers” on his hips—each dagger the size of a bastard sword. One carried a long meat hook, and both had heavy iron war darts tucked into their belts. Aaath Ulber noticed how the wyrmlings peered about, their heads swaying from side to side. They were alert for danger, watching the crowd warily. Though they homed in on him, he could tell that they expected trouble.
I can use that fear against them, he thought.
I can’t hope to beat two wyrmling runelords using normal tactics.
He didn’t have an endowment to his name anymore. He couldn’t match these monsters—not in speed, not in size, not in strength. But perhaps he could hope to outwit them.
Sir Borenson had studied the fighting styles from a dozen countries, and had mastered them all. Aaath Ulber suspected that he’d have to pull from Borenson’s hoard of knowledge to win this fight, show these wyrmlings some tricks they’d never seen before.
The wyrmlings neared him. It had not been five seconds since he’d spotted them.
“You there!” one of the wyrmlings shouted. “Come with us!” He reached behind his shoulder to grab the huge battle-ax sheathed on his back.
Aaath Ulber picked that moment to strike. He hurled his pig at the monster’s head. The pig squealed in terror, lofted into the air. The wyrmling’s eyes went wide, and he reached up to swat the pig away.
At that moment, Aaath Ulber lunged, throwing all of his speed and strength into one terrific burst, his hand blurring as he sought to strike.
The wyrmling was fast. He roared a battle challenge and knocked the pig out of the air as easily as if it were a pillow. He reached back and slid his ax from its sheath, twirled it as he threw it the air, and then caught the handle—too late.
Aaath Ulber’s diversion had served him well. He slid his long fish knife into the wyrmling’s armor—prodding for its kidney, then twisting. Black blood spurted from the wound, warming Aaath Ulber’s hand. The wyrmling roared in pain and surprise, then tried to step back. Aaath Ulber placed a foot behind the monster’s heel and threw his shoulder into the creature’s chest, using the wyrmling’s momentum against it, so that it tripped and fell.
Aaath Ulber grabbed one of the monster’s poisoned war darts and palmed it as the creature dropped.
The second wyrmling had already gained his weapon. This one pulled his “knife” from its sheath and halted for a moment, warily.
Already Aaath Ulber had palmed his knife again, and now stood with both hands in fists, so that the creature wouldn’t know which hand held a weapon. But of course, at the moment, Aaath Ulber had a weapon in each hand.
The Muyyatin knife tricks, Aaath Ulber thought. That might do it.
The Muyyatin assassins had made an art of hiding weapons, of pulling daggers from hidden folds in their clothing, or switching weapon hands as they whirled about, seeking to gain the element of surprise.
The wounded wyrmling roared in frustration and scrabbled up from the ground. Aaath Ulber hoped that the creature had only seconds to live, but he couldn’t be sure. The wyrmling was enormous, over eight feet tall, and the fish knife might not have reached all the way into monster’s kidney.
I’ll know soon enough, Aaath Ulber thought.
If he’d hit the kidney, the monster would go into shock within seconds.
His companion raced up behind and roared like a lion, urging the fallen wyrmling into battle. All around, the folks in the marketplace were screaming, fleeing, so that a battlefield was opening up around them.
The second wyrmling swatted with the back of his hand, slapping aside a woman who was carry ing a small babe. The blow took her head off and sent a spray of blood over the crowed. People shouted in terror and lurched back.
In that instant, it seemed that a curtain of red dropped before Aaath Ulber’s eyes. He drew a breath in surprise, and his heart pounded, so that he heard a distant drumming in his ears.
He lost all conscious thought as a berserker’s fury swept over him.
18
Wulfgaard
From where the sun stands and from this day forward, I swear to fight evil where ever it may be found— first in my own heart, and then in my fellow man.