“Be gone, foul beast!” King Urstone roared, twisting his battle-ax to come in for another blow.
Vulgnash smiled. With his endowments of brawn and metabolism, he felt stronger and swifter than ever before. He had just made a flight that should have taken all night in less than two hours.
Soon, he thought, I will be Lady Despair’s most trusted servant.
Already he had begun to figure out new ways to twist forcibles. In Rugassa, torture was considered both a science and an art. And tonight, Vulgnash had advanced the science to new heights. He had created special forcibles for Areth Sul Urstone. By binding a rune of touch to a rune of empathy, he’d created forcibles that not only let a lord feel more strongly, but feel the tortures that the runelord’s Dedicates endured.
In the days to come, Vulgnash felt certain that he could raise the art of the runelords to heights that had never been dreamt of on Fallion’s world.
Now Vulgnash was eager to test his new-found strength in battle.
“Come with me,” Vulgnash said softly to those who stood between him and his prey, “and I will lead you to the land of shadows.”
The High King swung his ax, and Vulgnash leapt out and swiftly kicked the elbow of the king’s left arm. The ax went flying from his hand, over the parapet and into the darkness.
Rhianna shouted a war cry and swung her staff at Vulgnash’s waist. To Vulgnash the blow seemed laughably slow.
He reached down with a foot and kicked the High King, whose brows were still arced in surprise, shoving him into the path of Rhianna’s blow.
The great staff slammed against Urstone’s head with a snapping sound, as if it had hit stone. The king’s helmet shattered and a fine mist of blood sprayed out from the back of his head. Urstone fell. His body slumped over the railing.
Rhianna only stopped, heart pounding in horror at what she’d done.
Vulgnash leapt from the railing, his movements so fast that his speed was blinding.
He’s a runelord, Rhianna realized.
She swung her staff. The Knight Eternal dodged, and the staff struck the ledge with a jolt. He kicked her arm, and the staff tumbled over the parapet.
He smiled down at her, and Rhianna stood gasping. She had no weapon that could touch him. He knew it. Her only hope was to go after the staff.
But in doing so, she would leave Fallion alone, unprotected.
Fallion. All that the Knight Eternal wanted was Fallion.
Rhianna swiftly pulled a dagger, then put it to Fallion’s carotid artery.
“Leave,” she demanded. “Or so help me, I’ll kill him.”
This is what Fallion would want me to do, she thought. Fallion feared that his powers would be turned to evil. He knew what Lady Despair wanted. She wanted Fallion to bind the worlds into one, all under her control.
Vulgnash hesitated, studied her, and Rhianna dug the blade into Fallion’s flesh.
The Knight Eternal spoke, his thoughts whispering into her mind. “You love him more than your own life, yet you would kill him?”
“It’s what he would want.”
“It would please me to see you take his life,” Vulgnash said.
She studied his eyes, and knew that he meant it. Yes, he wanted Fallion, but he also wanted to see Rhianna commit this one foul deed.
He’s testing me, Rhianna realized. My pain amuses him.
Vulgnash did not move forward, and for a long moment he stood waiting. There were shouts from the tunnel behind Rhianna, accompanied by the frenzied yap of a dog.
She dared not turn away from the Knight Eternal.
“Rhianna,” Warlord Madoc cried. “Hold it. Stop.”
Warlord Madoc raced up at her back, keeping his distance from Vulgnash. For a moment he studied the scene, the Knight Eternal held at bay by a woman willing to sacrifice the man that she loved, King Urstone slumped over a railing, the back of his head smeared with blood.
“Get back from him, girl,” Warlord Madoc said. “Let me handle this.” He spoke to Rhianna in her own language.
Then he spoke to Vulgnash in the wyrmling tongue. “You need us,” he told the Knight Eternal. “Your harvesters need humans to prey upon. Leave us in peace, and we will be your vassals.”
“The land is filled with humans now,” Vulgnash said. “Great will be our joy as we hunt them and harvest them. We need you no more.”
“Still,” Madoc said. “I propose a truce: a thousand years. Give me a thousand years, and I will prepare these people to be your servants. We will join you, and Lady Despair whom you serve. If not, we’ll take the life of the Wizard Fallion, and you can go back to her empty-handed.”
Vulgnash knew the will of his master. For decades she had been plotting this, and right now the future balanced upon a precipice. Sometimes he could hear his master’s thoughts, like whispers in his mind.
He glanced off to the north, straining to hear the will of Lady Despair in this matter. At last, he felt her touch.
Tell him what he most wants to hear, she said. Vulgnash smiled.
“Lady Despair agrees to the trade.”
Warlord Madoc took the news hard, felt the breath knocked out of him. It was almost more than he could have hoped. Yet, now that the wyrmlings had agreed, he wasn’t sure that he liked the truce. He wasn’t sure that he could trust the wyrmlings. They might take Fallion and simply raze the city.
And even if the wyrmlings kept to the bargain, what then? Mankind would survive, but they would fall under the shadow of Rugassa, and his children’s children would serve his enemies.
Still, he hoped, in a thousand years, our children might multiply and become strong. The wyrmlings were notoriously hard on their spawn, and the mortality rate for wyrmling children was high. Madoc could only hope that his own descendants might win back their freedom.
Rhianna had her back to him, and she was peering up at the Knight Eternal resolutely, ready to slit Fallion’s throat at a moment’s notice. Warlord Madoc gave her a light kick to the back of the skull, and she went tumbling forward.
Madoc could hear the sounds of running feet and that damned dog barking in the tunnel behind him. His companions were drawing near, but came forward only slowly, unsure what to do.
“Take him,” Madoc told Vulgnash.
“No!” Talon cried at his back, and came lunging out of the tunnel.
The Knight Eternal moved with blinding speed, dropped, and seized Fallion’s sleeping form, like a cat pouncing upon a bird. In an instant he rose up, reeled and dove over the parapet.
Wings flapping madly, Vulgnash carried his prey into the sky.
Warlord Madoc whirled to meet Talon. The girl charged him with her small sword. She did not strike fear into him. She was, after all, only a child, one of the small folk at that, and Madoc had decades of practice to his credit.
She lunged with a well-aimed blow, but he slapped it aside with the flat of his ax, then punched her in the face. He outweighed the girl by nearly a hundred pounds, and Talon flew back and crumpled from the blow.
Siyaddah and Alun were right behind her. Siyaddah dropped the wings that she’d been dragging, and pulled a weapon as she stalked toward him. “Wait!” Madoc cried. “I can explain. I’m buying our lives here, saving the city.”
And it was true. The wyrmling armies had halted outside the city gates. The thunder drums had hushed, and the wyrmlings waited as if in anticipation.
“We heard,” Siyaddah said. “We heard the bargain that you made. But I’d rather die than honor it.”
They leave me no choice, Madoc realized. He could not leave witnesses to his unholy trade.
Madoc glared at her. “Stupid girl. If you’d rather die, then you shall.”
Behind him, he heard a groan and some small movement.
Siyaddah stepped forward to duel, her gleaming shield held clumsily at her side. She wasn’t a tenth the warrior that Talon had been.
