There was sudden shouting up ahead, troops jostling. Alun was in the rearmost third of the division. Suddenly he saw the High King and a dozen warlords off to the side of the road, peering ahead. Connor and Drewish stood at the king’s back, and Alun peered at them fearfully, afraid that they would follow him, that they would slide a blade between his ribs in the heat of the battle.
He stumbled, tripping on the heel of one of the soldiers in front, and then he realized that a gray shadow loomed above them all. They had reached the fortress. They had seemingly reached it in an instant.
The ring of metal the cries of dying men suddenly came loud, echoing down from the stone walls. Alun was startled to find the battlefront so close ahead. He pounded along the road, and the soldiers beside him broke into song:
What shall they say when the day is done
Of battles fought and glory won?
I was first into battle,
I struck fear in my foe,
I was first to land a bloody blow!
Suddenly they were in a seeming canyon, walls rearing high above them on either side-the fortress. A heavy war dart came hurtling from the tower above, clanked against a man’s helmet, and bounced away. Alun glanced up at the crenellated tower, tried to see the wyrmling that had thrown it, but archers along the street sent up a rain of arrows and the wyrmling dove for cover.
And then he saw his first bodies, human bodies, men of the warrior clan littering the roadside-spears and arrows in them. And then he was rushing beneath an arch, and there were huge doors that had been battered down, and Alun raced into a courtyard.
Everyone but him seemed to know where to go. Soldiers to the left fanned out to the left, those to the right went right. Alun couldn’t see any sign of battle, but he heard cries in the mist all around him.
He hesitated.
“Out of the way!” a soldier shouted, shoving him aside.
A black arrow whizzed out of the fog, plunked into the neck of a fellow behind. Alun whirled, saw the man stagger back in shock, pull the arrow free. Blood gushed from the wound, but it wasn’t much, and he looked at Alun and laughed, “I’ll be all right.” A second arrow plunged into the man’s chest.
Alun decided that it was safer to be anywhere but here.
A huge warrior went charging past him, shouting a battle cry and bearing an ax in either hand, and Alun decided: I want to be behind that monster!
He gave chase, and soon he saw the warrior, tearing through a dark doorway ahead, his arms swinging like mad. A pair of wyrmlings blocked his way. They were larger than the human warrior, but they fell back before the onslaught, and Alun went racing into the building.
His warrior was ahead, across the room, doing battle at another doorway.
The dead littered the floor all around, both human and wyrmling. Apparently the wyrmlings had fought to secure the doorway, and the battle had gone back and forth. Alun glanced behind him, afraid that Connor or Drewish might have followed.
Someone cried, “Help!” and Alun peered into the shadows. A man was down, blood gushing from a wound to his chest. Alun moved to give aid.
He heard a growl, saw a wyrmling commander trying groggily to rise up from the heap on hands and knees, his black armor slick with blood. He was reaching for a small pouch tied to his war belt. His helm was cracked, and he had a deep wound to the scalp.
Not deep enough, Alun thought, and buried the pick end of his ax in it.
The wyrmling collapsed, still clutching his pouch.
Curious, Alun reached down, drew the pouch from the wyrmling’s dead hand.
Perhaps there is some treasure here, he thought, imagining golden rings or amulets.
But when he opened the pouch, he saw only three crude iron spikes, rusty and bent, each about four inches in length.
Alun stared at them in wonder, for they were a treasure greater than gold. They were harvester’s spikes-iron nails encrusted with glandular extracts drawn from those that the wyrmlings had killed. The extracts granted a man tremendous strength and threw him into a bloodlust, at least for awhile.
A warrior came rushing in behind. He must have seen Alun finish off the wyrmling, for he shouted to Alun, “That’s the way lad!” then stopped and peered at the spikes. “A harvester! You killed yourself a harvester. Use ’em up, lad. Good men died to make those.”
The fellow snatched one of the spikes from Alun’s hand, and Alun thought that he was stealing it. He protested, “Hey!” and turned to confront the fellow, just as the man shoved the spike into Alun’s neck, piercing the carotid artery.
And the dried fruit of the harvested glands surged through Alun’s veins.
His first reaction was that his heart began to pump so violently that he feared it would burst. Then his mouth went dry and he felt nauseous as blood was diverted from his stomach to his extremities.
And then the rage came, a rage so hot that it drove all thoughts from his mind. Blood pounded in his ears like the surging of the sea.
He let out a blood-curdling cry, grabbed an extra ax from a fallen comrade, and suddenly found himself charging through a mist of red, leaping over fallen foes, lunging past warriors of the clan.
A wyrmling suddenly appeared before him in a doorway, a huge creature with an ax, his face covered with beastly tattoos, his oversized incisors hanging out like fangs. He wore thick armor and wielded a battle-ax and a shield. Alun felt no fear.
Somehow, in the haze of war, Alun saw a flash, and for an instant it was Drewish that stood before him.
Alun went mad with blood rage.
I am immortal and invincible, Alun thought in a haze, and he leapt high in the air. The wyrmling raised its shield defensively, but the harvester’s spike in Alun’s neck had given him super-human strength. He swung an ax, cleaving the shield in two, striking through, and burying his ax into the wyrmling’s skull.
As Alun’s weight hit the falling monster, Alun saw three more wyrmlings in the shadows behind it.
Good, there are more! he thought, laughing in glee.
And so he fought in a haze of red. The battle was like a dance, him leaping and twisting in the air, swinging his ax.
Some conscious part of his mind warned: Watch your back. They still want you dead!
But that was the last conscious thought that he had.
Sometime later, an hour, two perhaps, he came out of the haze. He was in a room, a barracks, where only the tiniest crack of light shone through a single door.
He still had one ax, though the head had broken off of the other and he held its haft in his hand. He was swinging his good ax into the corpse of a wyrmling, screaming, “Die you cur! Die, you damned pig!”
There were a dozen wyrmlings sprawled on the floor, each of them hacked to pieces.
Several human soldiers were standing in a doorway, peering at him and laughing.
Alun’s heart still raced as if it would explode, and his arm felt so tired that he did not think it would heal in a week. He had a bad gash on his forehead, and blood was flowing down over his eyes. And the other soldiers were laughing at him.
“Here now,” a commanding voice said, “that’s enough of that, lad. You killed ’em already.” The soldiers guffawed.
Alun peered up in shock. It was a captain.
“I killed them?” Alun asked, not believing his ears. But the memories rushed through his mind, ghoulish apparitions.
The captain walked up, pulled the spike from Alun’s neck, and gave him a bandage to staunch the wound.
“You’re lucky-” the captain said, “a little fellow like you, fighting like a harvester.” He held up the bloody spike. “It gives you strength and speed and murderer’s instinct, but it was made for a wyrmling that stands eight feet tall and weighs five hundred pounds. You took a monster’s dose. You’re lucky that your heart didn’t explode.”