The human warriors in the band hurled themselves on the wyrmlings, stabbing and roaring. One man reached the wyrmling captain and plunged a poniard into his side again and again, striking through his ribs. The other wyrmlings were similarly wounded, but managed to stand and fight.
Suddenly there was a snarl at the door, and a huge wyrmling in full battle array filled the doorway.
Three young guards were there, and they whirled to confront the beast. In an instant the monster used a meat hook to grab one young man by the neck and jerk him from his feet. He used a heavy curved blade to slice through a second man, then ran the third through and lifted him into the air.
He hurled the corpses across the room, knocking one of the human defenders away from his target.
Eight endowments of metabolism he has, Rain thought. There was no way that we can defeat such a horror.
Her heart sank, and the blood seemed to freeze in her veins. Time stood still. She saw the huge wyrmling, imperious and cruel, seeming to grow as it took in the battle before it.
It spoke in the human tongue. “Fools! No man can kill me, for I am the chosen of the Earth King.”
Rain did not do it consciously, but she sank to her knees, hoping that the wyrmling might see some reason to spare her. Of the humans in the room, she alone had not struck with her weapon. She had no place in a battle among runelords.
But in that instant, as all hope left her, she saw a shadow descend from the rafters. At first she thought that a black cat was leaping onto the wyrmling, but suddenly the shadow shined—a blue-gray ghost light revealing the form of a woman. She landed beside the wyrmling champion and leered down upon the battlefield.
Instantly, the temperature in the room dropped by fifty degrees, and the breath fogged from Rain’s mouth.
The wight was smaller than the wyrmling champion, almost dainty in comparison. She was ancient, with flabby breasts and forearms. Her flesh was rotting from her body, but it was not her physical appearance that caused much alarm—a sensation of intense malignant evil filled the room, as if all the maliciousness in the world was made flesh in this creature.
“Wight!” Aaath Ulber shouted in warning. The humans all stepped away from their wyrmling opponents to face this darker foe.
None of the men in the room had weapons that could harm a wight. It took cold iron to wound one. A weapon blessed by a water wizard would sever it from the mortal realm, but such a blow could only be struck with a price—for the man or woman who struck the blow would likely die from touching the wight.
Rain’s weapon had been blessed by Myrrima.
She pulled her dagger, shouted to the other men, “Get behind me!”
She couldn’t hope to take on both a wight and the wyrmling lord, but she couldn’t refuse the challenge.
She shifted her weight, tried to relax, and made ready to spring at the slightest provocation, as Aaath Ulber had taught her.
But at that instant the wight turned and smiled up at the wyrmling lord, a feral smile filled with hate. As swift as thought, she reached up and touched his shoulder.
“Yikkarga,” the wight whispered. “Come!”
The wyrmling lord lunged backward, stricken, and snarled like a wounded dog. The touch of a wight could kill most men. But it only wounded the wyrmling. Its arm fell and dangled uselessly; the meat hook dropped from its hand.
Ice rimed the creature’s bone armor, bright as frost, and its hot breath steamed from its nostrils. It froze, stunned for a second, and the wight leapt to attack.
She rammed her hand into the wyrmling’s face, a thumb and pinky touching each of its mandibles, the middle finger between its eyes, directly over the brain, and the remaining fingers each covering an eye.
The wyrmling tried to swing its sword, but did so in vain. Its sword arm waved feebly, the wight swaying from its reach, and the behemoth stood in a daze, then dropped to one knee.
A thin green vapor began to pour from its mouth. The wight leaned forward and inhaled briefly, draining the life force from its victim.
Then she backed away. The wyrmling lord’s eyes were as white as ice, soulless and empty. Its face was slack, devoid of consciousness.
The enormous wyrmling captain was all but dead.
The wight turned to Rain and whispered, “Finish him, my pet. Banish his spirit with your blade, lest he report your deeds to his master, even in death.”
Then the wight turned to Aaath Ulber. “With this gift I free you, as a token of my goodwill. The emperor fears you. He fears the death you bring. Go now, and take it to him. Serve me well, human, and you shall be rewarded.”
In that instant she faded, the dim light going back to shadow, and it seemed to leap through the doorway and go vaulting up to meet the stars.
Rain trembled, and the hand that gripped her knife felt weak.
If the fallen wyrmling lord had spoken the truth, he was under the protection of an Earth King. Rain tried to understand how such a thing might happen, but all reason failed.
One thing she knew—the wyrmling before her was wounded. Perhaps it could have fended off an opponent bent on its demise, but it hadn’t been able to fight off a wight—one who did not seek its death, but only to wound it.
Perhaps the wyrmling has a locus in it too, Rain reasoned. Or maybe the touch of this blade really will destroy its spirit.
“Do it!” Aaath Ulber urged from his cage. Rain peered over at him. He was still gripping the wyrmling captain, holding him by the throat, though the wyrmling sagged in ruin.
The other two wyrmlings were failing, too. Both of them were down, bleeding from many wounds.
Human warriors lay ringed about on the floor. Blood was everywhere.
Rain held her ground, glared at Aaath Ulber. “Am I some lich lord’s pawn? I’ll not kill at that creature’s command. It has a locus in it.”
Draken and Aaath Ulber had both warned her of the dangers of the loci. To obey their promptings was dangerous, for she could easily find herself under their control.
The men were wrestling with the lock on Aaath Ulber’s cage now, and Aaath Ulber peered at her through his bars, thinking furiously.
“We are caught in some larger game,” he said. “The wyrmlings often hate each other as much as they hate us. . . .”
Some larger game, Rain mused. But what could it be?
Her only goal was to get through this campaign alive, but the wyrmlings and Aaath Ulber were fighting for a greater cause. They were struggling for control of a million million worlds.
Her mind could not quite grasp all of this.
“We fight for our own side!” Wulfgaard said. He had pulled himself up from the floor and struggled to stand. He wobbled to one knee, then came staggering to her. He had a drop of blood eeling down from his nose, but no other sign of a wound.
He reached Rain and snatched the knife from her hand, went to the big wyrmling. The fellow did not seek to fight or run. It merely stared ahead blankly. It did not even blink as Wulfgaard sliced its throat and stepped back, so that it could bleed itself dry.
Wulfgaard turned and peered at Rain. He was handsome, with his long blond hair fanning out over his shoulders.
“The spirits of the newly dead only remain with the body for half an hour,” Wulfgaard said, all business. “If we are to cover our tracks with these lich lords, we must take the spirits of all—friend and foe alike.”
Rain had never heard such a thing before. One of his own men laughed, “Hah! Where did you hear that—from some lich lord?”
“From my mother,” Wulfgaard said. “She could see the spirits of the dead.” With that, Wulfgaard went to each of the wyrmlings and plunged Rain’s dagger into them, then did the same with his own men.
She stood in shock. To kill a man’s body was one thing. To banish the life of the spirit was another.
Can Myrrima’s dagger really do that? Rain wondered.