Rain fought back a frantic impulse to scream. “That would be Draken and Myrrima,” she said in clipped tones.
Wulfgaard bit his lower lip, peered down at the floor. “We will have to work fast if we are to save them.”
“But the wyrmlings,” Rain said. “How will you fight them?”
“With these,” Wulfgaard said. He pulled up his shirtsleeve to reveal white puckered scars upon his arm—runes of brawn, grace, stamina, and a single endowment of metabolism.
It was not much to fight a wyrmling with, but Wulfgaard’s cohorts looked both dangerous and determined.
“When will you strike?” Rain asked.
Wulfgaard studied his men. There were seven of them. The arena had nearly cleared. He gathered his courage and said, “What better time than now?”
With that, he nodded to the men. A huge warrior with blond locks stood up, pulled a short sword from his boot, and strode down toward the arena. He glanced back at his men. “Right, you men saw how it’s done: no hesitation, no standing about. Now let’s go free these wyrmling gents from the cruel vicissitudes of their mortal existence.”
The others produced weapons from the folds of their sleeves, from inside vests and boots, then followed in line, swaggering killers out for a night of fun.
“Wait,” Rain said before Wulfgaard could follow them. “Don’t you have a plan?”
“There are already men outside the doors to make sure that no wyrmlings escape,” Wulfgaard said. “We know the ground. Most of us have been playing in this arena since we could crawl. Grab a torch.”
When they got to the fighting pit, each man took a torch, then jumped into the arena. One of them picked up the dead wyrmling’s shield, and the men made their way into the dark passage, running swiftly and silently, hot on Aaath Ulber’s trail.
The passage was a simple affair chiseled through sandstone. It led some hundred feet from the arena, climbing up a gradual slope to a large room littered with cages. Some were mere boxes that might hold a wolverine. Others were huge affairs massive enough for a snow ox.
Aaath Ulber could not recall having been here before. The wyrmlings had dragged him to the arena in a daze, and then wakened him by jabbing a harvester spike in his leg.
The only light came from his torch and from the powdery stars that shone through a high open window. Four wyrmlings were in the room, all dressed in battle armor. One jutted his chin toward the largest cage, which was taller than a man and made of thick iron bars. Bear dung littered the bottom of it.
“Into your cage, human,” the wyrmling muttered.
Aaath Ulber stood for a moment, sword in hand, and considered his alternatives.
“You’re good,” a wyrmling said, giving a feral chuckle, “but not that good.”
Instantly the wyrmling blurred, moving so fast that he defied the eye. Before Aaath Ulber could react, the sword was plucked from his hand. A simple shove left him tumbling into the cage, sprawling into the bear dung, and then the iron door clanked shut.
The wyrmlings laughed.
Aaath Ulber got to his hands and knees, looked up at the wyrmling that had shoved him. The creature had to have eight endowments of metabolism, more than even Aaath Ulber could hope to best. Aaath Ulber picked up his torch from the floor and asked, “You sent a fool to fight me! Why?”
“Everyone in those seats has seen a man die,” the wyrmling answered. “We want them to see hope die. But it hurts a bit more, if it is nurtured first.”
A cold wind suddenly swept into the room, sending a chill up Aaath Ulber’s spine. It was a sensation he’d felt only three times in his life. A wight had entered the room.
He peered up, licked his lips, searching for the creature. But he could not see the ghost light that sometimes announced the dead. This one was keeping to its shadow form.
The wyrmlings in the room seemed not to notice. They were accustomed to the presence of wights.
A wight, Aaath Ulber reasoned, will be their leader. . . . It will keep away from the torch.
Aaath Ulber looked toward the torch. It had begun to gutter, as if in a high wind, struggling to stay lit.
“I don’t plan on dying easily,” Aaath Ulber said, rising to his feet.
22
The Escape
In battle, one must always seek opportunities to strike, but a wise man creates his own opportunities.
Crull-maldor reached the arena only moments before Yikkarga, and spotted humans outside the door ready to ambush any wyrmling that sought to escape.
She flew in unnoticed above them, drifting through the high open windows, floating like a wisp of fog, then rose up into the rafters to hide among the huge oaken beams.
Cages were strewn everywhere down below, making many a dark nook for her to hide in, and wyrmling guards surrounded one iron cage in par tic u lar. There, with a torch in hand, squatted Aaath Ulber.
Crull-maldor tucked herself into a shadow in the rafters above the door. For several minutes, she was entertained by the wyrmling guards below, as they ridiculed and tormented the human. But true to their orders, they did not harm him.
The attack on the guards came swiftly. Nearly a dozen humans rushed silently out of the arena tunnel, their torches blazing a warning to the wyrmlings.
Her troops instantly took a defensive stance. Wyrmlings drew their weapons and roared in warning. As they did, the guards at the door opened it a crack and rushed in, so that the wyrmlings were set upon both before and behind.
Rain was the last in line, and though she sprinted with all her might, Wulfgaard and the others drew far ahead. She heard shouts and metal ringing as sword met sword long before she reached the cage room.
By the time that she did, the battle was in full swing. One wyrmling was down, one human beheaded, and two men wounded. The men were attacking in a well-ordered pack, four humans to a wyrmling. Some were striking high, others low. They went at it with a fury she’d never seen before, men screaming and throwing themselves into the fray, taking no thought about how to attack or where to defend.
There was no hesitation. Rain could see that despite their evident lack of planning for this specific battle, they’d been training for weeks, preparing for the time when the confrontation would come.
Yet one of the wyrmlings surpassed all their skill. As Rain entered the room, a wyrmling captain roared a battle challenge and swung a mighty ax.
Two men dodged the blow, but a third took it full in the chest. The others leapt in, trying to eviscerate the monster, but it was so fast that it merely swatted the men aside.
Two other wyrmlings had their hands full, and this one roared and struck out with an iron boot, the motion a blur, and snapped the back of one warrior from Internook.
The huge wyrmling roared in delight, then stepped back, leaving a clear killing field before him, and with a snarl invited his three remaining opponents to do battle.
The men hesitated, and in that moment two more men went down. The battle was quickly turning.
Wulfgaard raced toward the captain, threw his torch at the monster’s face. The wyrmling stepped back, and in that moment Aaath Ulber struck. The wyrmling had drawn too close to Aaath Ulber’s cage, and Aaath Ulber lunged through the bars and grabbed the monster’s belt, then pulled with all of his might.
The wyrmling was thrown off balance. Instantly Wulfgaard lunged in and struck with his long knife, slicing into the wyrmling’s groin. Blood boiled out from the captain’s leg. Wulfgaard had hit a femoral artery.
The wyrmling batted with his shield, and Wulfgaard went hurtling some thirty feet and crashed into an iron cage. The wyrmling howled then, a primal scream of fear, and his men lunged in, trying to get closer. With the three of them side to side, they presented a fearsome wall.
But now Aaath Ulber reached up and got the captain in a stranglehold. The monster threw down his sword and struggled to use his free hand to break Aaath Ulber’s grasp.