All in all, the map was a masterwork of intelligence gathering. Draken was impressed, as was Aaath Ulber.
But Draken had to wonder how one man might hope to secure the island, for it seemed that the island was covered in cities and villages. Hunting down the wyrmlings in each area might take weeks or months. And no matter where Aaath Ulber began his attacks, the wyrmlings would surround him.
But now Aaath Ulber put his finger on a dark blot some eighty miles south of them—the wyrmling fortress.
“Here,” Aaath Ulber said, “this is the prize. This is where we must attack.”
Some children ran past carry ing buckets. Aaath Ulber held the map on his knees, drew a long draught from a huge mug.
Draken wondered how many great battles had been plotted on the porches of ale houses.
The village was a riot. The fishermen were out on their levee with nets and spears, harvesting sea bass in great quantities. The women in town had taken up knives, while the children took the filets and soaked them in brine. The whole town had turned out for the harvest, and there was singing and rejoicing.
A carrion crow flew to the top of a merchant’s shop across the street and sat on a black iron weather vane. Warlord Hrath peered up at it and grimaced. The crow merely squatted on its perch, braving an afternoon wind that barely ruffled its feathers.
Aaath Ulber studied the map. “This wyrmling fortress,” he asked Wulfgaard, “have you found the bolt-hole for it?”
“Bolt-hole?” Wulfgaard asked. “There is none. There is only one way in, one way out.”
“The wyrmlings always have a bolt-hole,” Aaath Ulber explained, “sometimes more than one. A wyrmling warren is like an ant hive. The air within it needs to be refreshed. So there must be a second entrance somewhere. It has to be large enough for a wyrmling to get through, so it will have a roof of four or five feet at least. The bolt-hole will not be in sight of the main entrance, nor can it be at a higher elevation. Usually, it will be on the far side of a hill—not less than two miles from the main entrance, but often ten miles or more.”
“We haven’t seen anything like that,” Wulfgaard said. “Not a trace.”
“I’ll have to find it then,” Aaath Ulber said. “The wyrmlings will have it hidden. Rocks or brush might cover the entrance. But if you follow the wyrmling’s tracks . . .”
Aaath Ulber pointed out three large hills on a ridge to the west of the wyrmling fortress. “I’ll check here, behind this tallest hill. That’s a likely place.”
“I’d like to come with you, if I may,” Wulfgaard asked.
Aaath Ulber glanced toward Warlord Hrath, to get his input.
The warlord shrugged. “Wulfgaard here, he has a taste for blood.”
Aaath Ulber made a sweeping motion with his hand, from the eastern end of the island to the west. “We have hundreds of miles of coastline— and we know where the wyrmlings are stationed inland. We can’t clear all of this out. . . .” He frowned in concentration.
“Why can’t we?” Wulfgaard begged.
“It would warn the wyrmlings in the fortress,” Aaath Ulber said. “Each time that we kill a wyrmling, a couple of dedicates are freed. Those who have granted the dead wyrmling metabolism will wake from their slumber, someone who has given sight will regain his sight. This won’t go unnoticed for long, and the wyrmlings would retaliate, mount a campaign.”
Wulfgaard seemed not to have considered that.
“More importantly,” Aaath Ulber said, “by killing the wyrmlings, we’re endangering their Dedicates.”
“How is that?” Warlord Hrath asked.
“What do you think that the wyrmlings will do to a Dedicate that revives?” Aaath Ulber asked. “A man can never grant a second endowment, so they’re no use as Dedicates. They might be of some use as slaves—but there is nothing that a human can do that a wyrmling can’t. A slave would serve little purpose. But the wyrmlings have a taste for human flesh. I doubt that anyone who revives in the wyrmling dungeons will ever breathe fresh air again.”
Wulfgaard’s face paled in concern. “We can’t just slaughter the wyrmlings then,” he said. “Even if we wanted to, we can’t rise up against them without . . .”
“Sacrificing the lives of every man, woman, and child that they have already taken from you,” Aaath Ulber confirmed.
Warlord Hrath’s eyes flickered as he glanced up to Aaath Ulber. “There is really only one course of action then,” he suggested. “We should kill the Dedicates ourselves, take the wyrmling’s endowments from them. If we did, we’d leave the wyrmlings sunblind, as slow as commoners, and vastly outnumbered. We could take them then—even our old men could take them.”
Wulfgaard grabbed the map and threw it to the ground. “No!”
Draken looked up to Aaath Ulber. As Sir Borenson, he had killed Dedicates before, slaughtered them until the stairs on the Dedicates’ tower at Castle Sylvarresta ran with blood. There were songs sung about it still today.
Aaath Ulber shook his head and growled, “Now who is talking about sacrificing the lives of your people? By a conservative estimate, the wyrmlings have twenty thousand troops here on the land. Each of them has at least two endowments. The wyrmlings must have taken at least forty or fifty thousand of your people down to their lair.”
“More like a quarter of a million,” Wulfgaard said.
“By the Powers!” Aaath Ulber swore.
The number was staggering. It hinted at vast forces of enemies down in the warrens.
Aaath Ulber had never entered a wyrmling fortress of this size. He wondered if it was even possible to clear the monsters out of such a place with as few resources as he had.
Yet if he was to attack Rugassa, he imagined that this would be a good trial run. It would give him a chance to explore the wyrmlings’ lair, study their defenses, and learn more about the enemy.
Aaath Ulber asked, “A quarter million. Are you certain?”
“I’ve heard from people in fifty villages and cities,” Wulfgaard said. “If my estimates are right . . . then it is a quarter of a million at the very least.”
“So many can’t have given endowments yet,” Aaath Ulber suggested. “It would take four dozen facilitators working night and day to grant the endowments that have been given already.”
Unless the facilitators had taken endowments, Aaath Ulber realized.
He wondered. How many facilitators might the wyrmlings have? How many wyrmlings are in that fortress? If each warrior has only two or three endowments, does that mean that they have over a hundred thousand warriors?
That seemed to be too large a number.
Perhaps the wyrmlings are harvesting these folks, or merely executing those who present a danger.
Myrrima suggested, “The wyrmlings might be holding people captive until they have enough time to take their endowments.”
That sounds right, Aaath Ulber thought. It would accomplish two things: the wyrmlings could round up those most likely to revolt while ensuring themselves a stock of potential Dedicates.
But harvesting so many endowments would require forcibles. Did the wyrmlings have that much blood metal?
Aaath Ulber considered. They might be mining it here in the North, but it seemed more likely that they would rely on shipments coming in from Rugassa.
The thought sent chills through him. “If we could capture their forcibles . . .”
Suddenly, the worry over what to do with wyrmling Dedicates was shoved to the back of Aaath Ulber’s mind. There were more important tasks at hand.
Aaath Ulber pointed at the map. “I came to save human lives, not take them. There is only one way I can see to save the Dedicates. I’ll have to go down and kill their guards, then work my way up the tunnels, slaughtering wyrmlings as I go.”