“How many enemy troops are here on the island?” Aaath Ulber asked.
Warlord Hrath looked to a young man, one of the striplings who had helped free Aaath Ulber. “Wulfgaard?” The boy leaned forward eagerly. Warlord Hrath explained, “This young man has sworn an oath to fight the wyrmlings. His woman was taken by them within days of the binding.”
There was a deadly gleam in Wulfgaard’s eyes, the kind of determination that Aaath Ulber had seldom seen.
If his woman had indeed granted an endowment to a wyrmling, there was no way to know which wyrmling it might be. If she’d granted sight, she would remain blind until her lord was killed. If she’d granted metabolism, she’d be in a slumber. In either instance, Wulfgaard would have to slaughter one wyrmling after another until his beloved revived.
“We estimate that about twenty thousand have shown themselves,” Wulfgaard said. “But we suspect that there are many more in their main fortress to the south. As Warlord Hrath told you, those twenty thousand are stationed all over the island, but half of the guards in any given city get switched once a week, and shock troops form roving patrols that travel the length of the land—”
“In squadrons of fifty,” Aaath Ulber finished. “I think you’re right. There will be many more below ground. The wyrmlings always hide their numbers that way. And though their head is in Rugassa, they have hundreds of smaller fortresses scattered all across the mainland.”
Aaath Ulber didn’t want to admit it, but his own people had never been able to calculate how many wyrmlings might be about. He’d argued with the High King many times that they should take their people south, flee beyond the mountains, in hopes of escaping the wyrmlings. But the king had justly argued against it. Wyrmling fortresses were hidden everywhere, and flying into the face of one offered no hope—not when Aaath Ulber’s own people might have found themselves fighting in the open, without walls or towers to protect them.
“How many endowments can you grant me?” Aaath Ulber asked.
“We have been gathering blood metal for weeks. Indeed, we have already taken endowments in your behalf.”
“Taken endowments?” Aaath Ulber asked.
Warlord Hrath leaned forward. “I myself have taken endowments of scent from three dogs. Other men have taken brawn, grace, stamina, metabolism, glamour, voice, sight, and hearing. We can vector endowments from a thousand people across the island within a couple of days.”
Aaath Ulber leaned back, astonished. He had imagined that it would take a week to garner a hundred endowments. “How could you take them in my behalf?”
“The wyrmlings themselves announced your coming,” Warlord Hrath said. “They have been hunting for a giant, sailing from the north. They’ve searched our houses, searched our fields, looking for a man with horns upon his head. At first, we thought that they were mad. But as they began to lay heavy burdens upon us, our disbelief turned to hope.”
Aaath Ulber sat thinking furiously. He had long been hunting the wyrmlings, and he knew that their lich sorcerers had strange powers. But he’d never heard that they were prophetic.
So how could they have known that I was coming? Unless, he reasoned, their powers have somehow grown or shifted since the binding of the worlds. . . .
“You could have created your own champion,” Aaath Ulber suggested.
“For what purpose?” Wulfgaard asked. He scraped his chair forward, so that a young maiden could pass, bearing an armload of pillows. “We might protect our own lands for a time, but rumors say that the real danger lies to the south, beneath the shrouds of darkness. Where would our champion go? Who would he strike? So we waited for you.”
Aaath Ulber wondered at the phrase “shrouds of darkness.” He had never heard of such a thing. “Tell me,” he said, “what has changed in Rofehavan since the binding of the worlds. . . .”
“You don’t know?” Warlord Hrath asked.
“I know that most of Landesfallen sank into the sea on the far side of the world, so I set sail to come here as fast as I could.”
“Toom fell into the sea also,” Warlord Hrath said, “as did Haversind and all of the land along the north coast. But the coastlines of Mystarria were raised, and much that was ocean is now land. Ships that were in the bay ended up on dry land. But here in Internook, the sea level did not alter much.
“When first the binding came, we did not look abroad. There were troubles on our own island, not far from here. A fortress was found, with tunnels that led into the ground, and a single dark tower.
“Women and children that went to explore it never made it out. Good men went to rescue them, and their tale ends the same.
“We sent what runelords we could, but it had been ten years since we’d seen a forcible in our lands. The men who went were not like the runelords of old. Some lacked brawn, some grace. None was hale and well-rounded. Though they had the speed of runelords, they were warriors of unfortunate proportion.
“So they scaled the wyrmling tower, but they did not get far inside, I think. No sooner had they entered than smoke began to issue from every vent in the wyrmling fortress. None of our men escaped.”
“A wyrmling fortress is not something that one assails lightly,” Aaath Ulber said. “The wyrmlings love traps. Even your runelords could not breathe in that oiled air. There are pits and false walls inside a wyrmling lair. The harvesters are present in every stronghold, but they are not the worst of your worries. Wraiths guard it, sorcerers of great power who fend off death and steal the life energy from those that they vanquish. And just as every hive has its queen, at the center of the wyrmling fortress there is a lich lord who can communicate across the leagues with their emperor.”
“By the Powers!” Warlord Hrath growled. “We have no weapons against such monsters.”
“I do,” Myrrima said. “I can enchant your weapons so that they strike down even the most powerful wraith.”
“That is why the wyrmlings fear you,” Warlord Hrath proclaimed. “They fear your coming.”
There was a scraping sound nearby as some of the folks dragged a heavy bench across the floor. Two young men pulled up a hidden door, then went climbing down a ladder into the recesses of some hole.
“Our armory,” Warlord Hrath explained, “hidden where the wyrmlings could not easily find it.” Seconds later, the men began hauling weapons up from the hole. Hrath raised an eyebrow and asked Myrrima, “Will you bless these weapons?”
“Take your weapons to the nearest stream; I’ll do it as soon as I can.”
All around, people were darting about, gathering food and clothes, preparing to flee into the night. Warlord Hrath jutted his chin, and the men began hauling the weapons out—spears, axes, shields.
“What more have you learned of the south?” Myrrima asked.
Warlord Hrath shook his head, as if to warn that he held tragic news. “A few days after the binding, ships began to arrive from the south, our folks coming back from Mystarria. They too had been overtaken by the wyrmlings—and worse things.
“They spoke of changes that occurred during the great binding. Giant men appeared, like yourself, at the Courts of Tide. They warned of dire things to come, but that fool Warlord Bairn made a sport of killing them, in the hopes of placating the wyrmlings and making some sort of compact with them.
“But then a winged woman came and told of mountains of blood metal to the east—”
“Wait,” Aaath Ulber said. “You say that a winged woman came? Was she a normal human, or was she like me, or was she a wyrmling?”
“She was human in every way, but for her crimson wings,” Warlord Hrath said. “She was young, beautiful.”
Aaath Ulber considered this news. The only winged people that he had ever heard of were the wyrmling Seccaths—the greater lords. They wore wings that were constructed by means that no human had ever learned or could duplicate. Humans had sometimes won the wings—by slaughtering their wearer and fitting them to their own backs—but it was a rare occurrence, something that might happen only once every two or three generations.