Worldbinder

THE BATTLE AT THE GATES

Daylan gave a shout in the king’s tongue, and suddenly the king drew steel while guards began sprinting out from under the trees.

Sisel whirled his staff in the air once, and fireflies began to rise up out of the grass, streaming toward the king’s group from hundreds of yards away.

The king began calling out to his warriors in dismay, and they peered off toward Mount Luciare. With the setting of the sun, the mount was left half in shadow, but the city suddenly blazed with light, and even in the distance, Fallion could see its white walls and golden scrollwork gleaming brighter than any fiery beacon.

Sisel translated, “The king is going to make for the castle.” The king’s men pointed to the northeast, where a fire suddenly sprouted on the horizon. Fallion had only seen fireworks once before, as a child at a midsummer’s festival when traders from Indhopal had called upon his mother’s castle, but now he recognized fireworks soaring up in the distance, two of bright red and one of blue, and each mushroomed into flame.

“Wyrmlings,” Talon said. “A large host of them. They’re advancing on Cantular!”

Then, to the northwest, another fire sprouted, and four more fireworks soared into the air, three of red, and one of yellow.

“And a larger host is coming for Luciare!” Sisel said, his voice trembling. “They planned this. They planned to attack as soon as the princess was gone!”

They will have the Knights Eternal with them, Fallion realized. And that beast, the giant graak. And what other horrors?

Sisel turned to Fallion. The king and his guards began hastening away, striding across the field.

“Fallion,” Sisel said. “The king is making for the city. He wants to be sure of its defenses. I should be there too. But there is a Circle of Life around the old tower. You can stay there for the night. It should be safe. Even the Knights Eternal could not find you, so long as you hide within that circle. But its powers will fade, eventually. You cannot stay there forever.”

Fallion looked longingly toward the king.

“Stay,” Daylan Hammer warned. “Unless you have runes of metabolism, you will only slow the war clan down.”

“I’ll not leave grandfather to fight alone,” Fallion said. “Tell them to run ahead if they must. We will catch up to them when we can.”

Daylan called out to the king, translated the words. The king responded. “He says that if you wish to stay, he and his men will draw off the enemy. But he can’t guarantee your safety, even in Luciare.”

Fallion drew his sword, peered at it grimly in the light thrown by Sisel’s fireflies. The blade was caked with rust now. In a few hours, it would rust through and be good for nothing. Already, the king’s guard was leading the way down through the trees.

“Let’s go,” he shouted to his friends, and they were off.

Fallion sprinted. He wanted to prove himself. He didn’t have the breeding of a man of the warrior clans. He didn’t have their size and stamina. Nor did he have endowments. But he learned long ago that a man can by will alone make himself more than a man. He can exercise until he is as strong as any three men. He can labor for long hours until it seems that he has taken endowments of stamina. And Fallion and his friends had been training from childhood.

So they raced under the trees into the marsh. Cool air was streaming down from the icy peaks of Mount Luciare, and as it hit the warmer water of the marsh, a layer of mist began to form, fog that hung in the air like spider’s webs.

Overhead, the trees hung in a heavy canopy, their leaves blocking out the stars.

Under the heavy shade of the trees, the only light came from the fireflies that circled Sisel’s staff, sometimes halting to rest on a bush, sometimes buzzing ahead as if to show the way.

The wizard slowed several times to strip the kernels of grain from off stalks of wheat. Each time he did, he would sprinkle the grain over the men, so that grass seeds clung to their hair and the folds of their clothes.

They traveled like this for miles, the king and his troops striding purposefully. Fallion and his folk struggled to keep up, and he found himself often dogging the steps of the slowest of the warriors-the Emir’s daughter, Siyaddah.

He did not mind. He preferred the view of her shapely figure to that of one of the over-sized warriors. And as they marched, he found himself feeling protective of her, promising himself, If we are attacked, I will fight at her side.

For her part, Siyaddah could not help but notice the attention. Several times she glanced over her shoulder to catch Fallion’s eye.

At last they slowed for a moment.

“Let no fear rule your heart,” Sisel warned Fallion and the others. “We are encircled by life-the trees and seeds above us, the ferns and shrubs at our sides, the grasses and mushrooms beneath. The Knights Eternal will find it hard to spot us.”

“What about your blasted light?” Jaz asked, for the fireflies were surprisingly bright. Hundreds of them circled now, perhaps thousands.

“My light comes from living creatures,” Sisel proclaimed, “Thus it is almost impossible for the eyes of the dead to see. A torch on the other hand, is only fire consuming dead wood, and is easy for one of the dead to spot.”

“The dead?” Jaz asked.

“Of course, the Knights Eternal are dead,” Sisel said, “or mostly so. And so death attracts them. They know when you are close to your demise.”

Fallion tried to make sense of this. “Do you mean they are drawn to us as we approach the moment of our deaths?”

“No, no,” Sisel answered. “They don’t know when you will die any more than a goat does. But every living creature has a measure of death in it. Bits of us die every moment-skin flakes off, hairs fall away, and even though we are alive, we slowly decay. You can smell it on the old. It is the decay that draws the Knights Eternal. It smells sweet to them. And if we are wounded, if the life within us ebbs, we draw their attention, and they gain greater power over us.”

Fallion took mental stock of himself. He felt much stronger now than he had two nights ago, when the Knights Eternal had first begun hunting him. He had wondered even before the knights had begun stalking him if he was near death, for a great weariness had been on him.

On the trail behind them, perhaps five hundred yards back, an owl hooted once.

It was a common sound in the woods at night, but Sisel immediately tensed, and then whispered, “Shhh, they are upon us.”

The king raised a hand, calling a halt.

Up in the air, the pounding of wings came heavily.

Fallion looked up to Sisel, for he was taller than men on Fallion’s world, and saw the wizard standing with his eyes closed, leaning on his staff, mouthing some spell.

Fallion gripped his sword, found himself studying Siyaddah. If she felt any fear, she concealed it well. She peered up into the trees with seemingly as little concern as a housewife might show upon learning that it might rain on her clean laundry.

Rhianna, Talon, and Jaz only stood as still as a herd of deer, sensing for danger.

The Knight Eternal passed, flying ahead, and Fallion’s group began their journey again.

They climbed up out of the marsh, into the foothills near Luciare; the mist drew back, and the trees thinned. Stars shone through bright swathes in the canopy. The hills became like a chessboard with dark blotches of forest skirting meadows where sun-bleached grasses shone ash gray under the stars.

Fallion felt exposed. The king called a halt at the edge of a clearing, and stood for a long moment. One of his guards pointed ahead. There were wyrmlings in the trees on the far side of the clearing, just beyond a gentle rise. Fallion could hear the tread of heavy feet, the clack of bone armor, a pair of grunts, followed by a snarl. There had to be a patrol of at least two dozen of them.

All of the fireflies suddenly winked out, and the king motioned for everyone to get down. Fallion soundlessly dropped to his knees, ducking behind a fallen log. He heard Jaz drawing heavy breaths to his left, saw his brother nock an arrow and then lie quietly, like a poacher waiting for a boar to come drink at a pond.

Talon and Rhianna were just beyond him.

To Fallion’s right, Siyaddah lay with her face up-turned, listening.

She caught Fallion staring at her, and she just lay there peering into his eyes.

There was a grunt on the far side of the clearing, the sound of a footsteps coming toward them.

Fallion clutched his sword, loosened it from his scabbard. He didn’t fancy the notion of fighting wyrmlings in the dark.

He heard another gruff grunt, and the wyrmlings suddenly halted. One of them began to sniff the air, like a stag checking the trail ahead.

They’ve caught wind of us, Fallion realized. He saw his own warriors tensing nearby, gripping battle-axes, preparing to leap up.

The Wizard Sisel was only ten feet away, just beyond Siyaddah.

He raised a hand, pointed his pinky finger downhill. Fallion spotted the glint of a golden ring.

Something ominous sprung from the ground. It was a boiling mist, numinous and fog-like; the air suddenly chilled, as if they were in the presence of a wight.

The hair stood up on Fallion’s neck; goose bumps rose along his arms as the mist went hurtling through the brush like an arrow shot from a bow.

It glided almost soundlessly away, making only the faintest rustle through the grass and bushes, like a small wind; its effects were chilling. A hundred yards away, a grouse suddenly erupted from a bush, squawking in terror. A moment later, in the field beyond, a hare thumped its feet in warning, while its fellows hopped in every direction. Farther on, in the oaks beyond the clearing, a hart bounded three times, its rack snagging in a branch.

For all the world, it sounded as if someone were fleeing in fear.

With a growl the wyrmlings went charging south, racing after their invisible prey.

Moments later, once the wyrmlings had departed, the king headed north, and Fallion had to sprint to keep up.

They reached a narrow ravine that headed up the skirts of the mountain. A small brook ran through the ravine, its waters burbling over rocks and moss. The trees overhead grew thick and dark, and had it not been for the return of fireflies to give their light to the wizard, the troops could not have negotiated the thick brush.

Three times they had to cross the broad road that wound down from Caer Luciare. Each time, the king sent his scouts to watch for long moments before they made their crossing.

It was not until they neared the castle, perhaps three hundred yards from the gates, that they met resistance.

The king and his men climbed up out of the ravine, beneath the shadows of the oaks, and reached the last stretch of road. It was paved with thick stones, each four-foot square and fitted so closely together that a knife blade could not have been inserted between them.

Ahead the city blazed. Blue-white lights played beneath the arches on the mount, flickering and twisting, like some ethereal bonfire, and these lights reflected from the golden scrollwork and the freshly limed walls.

To Fallion, it looked beautiful, as if the walls of the city were made from enchanted crystal, and the Glories themselves stood guard beneath the arches.

Little did he know that it was not far from the truth.

As they waited, a deep growl came softly from the trees off to their left.

Four wyrmlings stepped from the brush.

“Watch out!” Rhianna cried, leaping forward with her staff. The king’s guard seemed startled, and many a weapon was drawn.

One of the wyrmlings held up his hand, three fingers extended in the air.

Jaz let an arrow fly, but Sisel bumped him just as he did, and the shot went wide.

“Scouts,” Sisel whispered. The wyrmlings began to talk softly and urgently to the king, their voices deep and guttural.

“Scouts?” Fallion whispered.

“Not all of the wyrmlings are evil,” Daylan Hammer whispered. “Not all of them have wyrms inside them, and though they are taught that they should desire one, they resist the teachings. They long for peace, just as we do. These few here are friends.”

Fallion looked to Talon, who seemed shocked. “Did you know about this?”

She shook here head. “I did not know that the king employed such creatures.”

As the wyrmlings spoke, Talon began to translate. “They say that the road ahead is dangerous, and they were afraid to try to reach the castle. They say that a horde of wyrmlings is approaching Luciare, a horde so vast that the city cannot withstand it. Another horde is already upon Cantular.”

Fallion nodded. Taking Cantular had been a vain gesture, it seemed. The men of Luciare had taken it in the morning, and the wyrmlings would have it again by midnight.

The wyrmling scouts finished relaying their message, and the king gave a nod, waved his men forward with his battle-ax.

So the men came out of the trees and bracken, and they could not hide any longer. The king’s men began to sprint, and the little road filled with light as Sisel’s fireflies streamed along beside them, a cloud of green fire.

Suddenly there was a strangled cry from Rhianna behind, and Fallion whirled to see something huge and dark spread its wings. It had been sitting in the crook of an oak, and now the branch went bobbing and waving as if in a strong wind.

Down the mountain, other cries arose, strange and vile, like the cries of peasants as they die, and suddenly the Knights Eternal were winging toward them.

Now it was just a race, the king’s men sprinting up the even road, calling for help in their strange tongue, as three Knights Eternal winged toward them like a murder of crows.

Siyaddah was running just ahead of Fallion. Suddenly she stumbled over something in the road. She fell in a tangle, and Fallion saw that it was a dead man, a scout who had not made it to the castle in time.

“Fallion,” Jaz shouted, “give me some light!”

Fallion stood above Siyaddah and reached inside himself, tempted to hurl a killing blaze, but instead cast a far weaker spell. He sent a nimbus into the air, a shimmering ball of heated gases that did not blind so much as it revealed.

A Knight Eternal in blood-red robes was swooping toward the fleeing form of King Urstone, the knight’s slender black blade aimed at the king’s back.

Jaz slid to one knee, drew an arrow to the full, and sent it blurring. It took the knight in the belly, six inches beneath the sternum.

The Knight Eternal howled in grief like a wounded bear, then veered slightly and crashed to the ground, mere feet ahead of Siyaddah.

A cheer rose from the castle walls, from defenders hidden up in the shadows behind the merlons, and Fallion felt a small thrill of hope to realize that they were so close to safety.

He and his friends ran with renewed vigor.

But howls of rage erupted from the other Knights Eternal, and they redoubled their speed.

Fallion felt a spell wash over him, an invisible hand. It reached inside him grabbed the heat that he had stored there, and began to pull.

A flameweaver is here, Fallion realized.

Fallion did not fight the creature.

He let the heat go, even though it would mean that Jaz would not have light to see by. The Knight Eternal absorbed the heat, imagining that his own powers were superior to Fallion’s.

They were only two hundred yards from the wall, then a hundred and fifty. Fallion heard the thud of heavy wings behind him.

He spun, reached out with his mind, and pulled the energy back from the Knight Eternal. Fire came whirling from the sky in twisting threads, and before the knight could react, Fallion sent it hurtling toward the creature in a bright ball of flame.

Jaz pivoted, dropped to one knee, and fired another arrow. The knight shrieked like the damned and veered away.

The arrow sped upward and went ripping beneath the knight’s wing, mere inches from the shoulder.

Fallion waited to hear the creature’s death scream, but it only went lumbering toward the trees.

A miss, Fallion realized, his heart sinking.

The arrows that Myrrima had blessed were few in number, and with the curse laid upon them, their wood was rotting away. In another day, they would be good for nothing.

“Give me more light!” Jaz cried.

Fallion could not help, but Sisel whirled and aimed his staff. Fireflies went streaking up into the night sky like green embers, filling the air.

But the last two Knights Eternal wheeled back, soaring like a pair of hawks above the trees.

Jaz and Fallion waited a long moment, acting as a rearguard for the king and his troops, even as the castle gate opened, and a mighty host spilled out.

Jaz shouted a taunt to the Knights Eternal, “Come on, will you? We’re not that dangerous. Give it your best try.”

But the Knights Eternal were gone, soaring away down over the valley.

Wearily, Fallion turned and trudged into Castle Luciare.