Raveler: The Dark God Book 3 (30 page)

The horn sounded again.

“Shimsmen,” she cried, “defend yourselves!”

The first collector soared over the trees toward the field and reached down with one long whip and plucked a soul up and buried it in the hair on its belly. It picked up another. Sugar ran toward the creature.

The collector picked up another soul, and another, its half-dozen whips striking down. Two other collectors joined it.

She ran past a number of souls standing in a stupor, waiting for their doom, and, with all her might, hurled her spear at the collector. It was a solid throw, and the spear struck.

The creature jerked back, dropped three souls from the hairs on its belly.

Sugar turned, saw a soul standing motionless, holding another spear, and ran to him. She grabbed the spear from his hand, then felt something wrap around her waist. She struggled, but the collector tightened its grip and heaved her off the ground.

28

The Raveler

TALEN’S ROAMLINGS SHOT high above the field. He didn’t think he was going to be able to catch the huge blue skir, but then it turned, and his roamlings caught up. The size of the creature up close was even more awe-inspiring. His roamlings were nothing compared to this creature. They were like two blades of grass in a meadow. Like two small stones on the side of a mountain. The Fire and soul of the urgom surrounded him, immense and delicious.

The monstrous beast rose with powerful speed, and Talen had to burrow deep into its hairs to stay with it. He immediately began to work his roamlings across the body, searching for the thralls.

The urgom rose a dizzying height above the fort, then dove. Talen continued to search, thinking he’d never find the thrall in time. Then one of his roamlings, the one closest to what must be the creature’s head, found the edge of something that looked familiar.

Talen felt along the weave imbedded in the urgom’s back and found the weave was huge. It was so large, he could not see where it ended, but it felt familiar, and so he gathered his courage and struck. In a moment he was in, but he was not ready for the presence he met there.

Before, when he’d attacked the wasp lord, he had felt the wasp lord’s soul, felt it flee before him. This time he faced a vast consciousness, but it did not flee. It turned and regarded him, and before he could begin to ravel the weave, it seized his roamling. From the roamling, its consciousness leapt into Talen himself, filling him up. He had felt panic when River had pushed through the doors of his soul, but this was magnified tenfold.

“Lords!” he gasped, and the shock of it sent him reeling backward.

Harnock leaned over his body. “Boy?”

Talen saw Harnock’s face for a brief moment and the tops of the trees and the sky beyond, and then the monstrous presence of the urgom pushed all that aside and filled his mind. Talen tried to flee, but everywhere he went, the urgom was already there.

He felt like he couldn’t breathe.

I’m trying to save you
, he shouted in his mind.

But the urgom did not listen. It pressed forward, took him in its grasp as the orange skir had done. Talen could feel its intent. It was going to kill him. Kill the thing that had tried to worm into its being.

For a brief moment Talen caught the flicker of a doorway and a man standing beyond the mind of the urgom. He felt the vaguest sense of another. Maybe a group of them. And then they were gone. He’d felt that doorway before with Hunger, felt the Mother beyond it.

I’ll break the bond!
Talen shouted.

The urgom began to pierce him in what felt like a hundred places.

Then Talen realized: it wouldn’t understand words. It wouldn’t speak Koramite or Mokaddian. But it could read his intent just as Talen had read its intent to destroy him. Talen pictured the weave grown into the urgom’s back, pictured the Skir Masters. He pictured the bonds raveling apart and the urgom soaring free.

The urgom stopped.

The pain seared through Talen’s whole soul, but he focused and pictured the bonds tattering again, pictured the urgom free, pictured his roamling raveling the weave upon the urgom’s back.

He felt the urgom struggle with those controlling it.

A moment passed. Another.

Suddenly the immense presence released him. It withdrew, out of his body, out of the roamling, and left Talen stunned and gasping in pain. The world about him rushed back in, and he found himself looking up into the trees and blue sky from where his body lay.

An immense relief surged through him as did the realization that man was nothing. Man was a gnat. A worm. How was it possible something so insignificant could control something so vast as an urgom?

Harnock’s face moved into view, “Boy?” He shook Talen’s shoulder.

Far above, his roamlings were still clinging to the hide of the urgom, two tiny snakes on the side of a mountain. Talen’s whole soul felt raw, but he reached out with the roamlings and pushed into the urgom’s weave again. This time the massive presence held back.

* * *

The collector curled Sugar up to its belly. There were other, smaller skir living in the hairs there. Gray things that skittered about like giant insects. One hair wrapped itself around her leg. Another tried for her arm, but she yanked it free. She still held the spear, but in moments she’d be immobilized and that wouldn’t matter, so she grabbed the spear with both hands, then stabbed up with all the strength she could muster. There was a slight resistance, then the spear broke through something.

The collector convulsed.

She stabbed again. And suddenly the spear was ripped out of her hands, and she was falling along with half a dozen other souls.

The collector blared its pain. It hissed. The other two collectors backed off a bit.

Sugar tumbled to the ground, then sprang to her feet and backed away.

The collector had the spear in one of its whips. It flung it away and bunched its body up as if to protect its wound. Then it struck out with a whip at another soul.

And Sugar realized they were going to lose this battle.

She and the other souls needed to find some hole to hide in, something they could defend. Except the horn would call them out, and only a handful seemed to be able to resist the thralls in their wrists to any degree.

One of the souls that the collector had dropped ran back to the monster and raised his arms like a child wanting to be picked up. “Don’t leave me!” he cried.

At the other end of the field, the Walkers that had been guarding the Skir Masters were moving forward against the few who had been able to resist the horn.

Collectors above. Walkers and howlers below. Sugar despaired. There were simply too many foes.

* * *

Black Knee backed away from the scaffold, bow in hand. Fish and Russet pulled back with him, hands on the pommels of their weapons.

A terrible melancholy welled up in Black Knee, and he began to weep. He did not know why.

A tiny part of him cried out that he must not draw the arrow from the arrow bag.

But the voice of warning shouted over it.
The Famished! They are there!

Fear shot through him. The men on the other side might already be possessed. He drew the arrow, fitted it to the string. The arrow had a good steel head that was long. Good for piercing through armor at close ranges.

Commander Eresh stood on top of the boulders holding one end of a rope. The men on the ground tied another load of poles to the other end of the rope Eresh held. When they finished, the commander began to haul them up. A few more loads and Black Knee suspected they’d have all the materials they’d need to finish the ladders on the other side.

But they must not finish them.

Black Knee looked at Russet and Fish, looked back at Commander Eresh. He would need to shoot Eresh first. Then Fish would need to climb up the scaffold himself with an axe and break it all apart. If the men here resisted, he would fight them. And he would win. He’d survived the forcing and now wore a dreadman’s weave. These men hadn’t even been made candidates yet. They would be slow, and he and Russet would cut them down if they did not listen.

This whole scene was unreal, as if he were watching it from someone else’s eyes. As if it were a foggy dream. He blinked and wiped his unaccountable tears away. Then he raised the bow, drew it, and aimed at Commander Eresh standing above. It was a strong bow. A close shot. With an arrow point designed to pierce armor.

* * *

Argoth ran along the wall walk, past a fist of men fighting Mokaddians trying to come over the parapet. Up ahead Mokad wheeled a ladder with a boarding bridge toward a part of the wall where the crenellation had been demolished. A number of Mokaddian soldiers had already climbed the wheeled ladder and clung to it like ants. And Shim’s men couldn’t shoot them off with arrows because the skir winds were howling like a gale down the battlements to defeat any defense with arrows or seafire.

As soon as the ladder was close enough, they would drop the hooked wooden bridge and storm over it to the battlement. Argoth was tempted to help his men who were preparing to jump up on the bridge when it was lowered and try to storm the men wanting to rush over it, but there were bigger problems down in the gap made by the fallen hoodoo.

Just before he reached the hammer of men waiting for the bridge, he jumped from the wall to the stairway descending to the courtyard, and then to the ground below. His wounds stung and throbbed, but he ignored them, rolled when he landed, and then continued to run toward the gap.

Groups of men waited in reserve in the courtyard. Shouts went up from one of these groups to look out for stones, and then men quickly raised their shields.

Argoth looked up and saw a rain of dark stones falling from the sky. He raised his own shield and dodged to the side. A number of stones thumped into the shield. One struck the side of his leg, but he kept running.

The twenty foot section of wall that had buckled and fallen after the hoodoo was now a jumbled pile of stone and rubble ten feet high. Vance had fought enemy troops charging up the pile, but the top of such a pile is awful ground. The jumble of stones made it almost impossible to maintain a solid line. And Vance’s terror had been beaten back. Vance himself had fallen. His standard was lying at the base of the pile.

Vance’s slingers were hurling stones and lead shot at the Urzarians clambering over the top. But the Urzarians had shields and armor. And the slingers were being forced to retreat back down the pile of rubble.

Argoth rushed to the base of the gap, raised Vance’s standard, and planted it in the soft dirt of one of the trenches at the base of the pile of rubble. The best place to meet the enemy’s charge was at the bottom of the pile. That way the enemy’s line would be ragged as they tried to make their way down over the rocks. It would also expose them to slings and javelins.

Argoth shouted over the wind and motioned for the reserve soldiers to form up. A terrorman urged his troops forward, shields raised over their heads against the occasional volleys of stones that were still falling from the sky.

They formed up around Argoth. The front men lowered their shields in front of them. The men behind held theirs aloft like a roof. Argoth drew his short sword and roared into the wind, watching the ragged line of Urzarians try to advance over the rubble.

There were maybe a hundred in this first group. Their beards flowed out from underneath their helmets. Their eyes raged with murder. They held their shields before them. The slingers continued to throw their stones and lead. Many of the missiles simply bounced off the shields. But one man was hit in the face; he tripped and fell, making two others stumble on the rocks. Another man was hit in the leg. But the majority continued to come.

Argoth waited at the base amid a scattering of stones. It was difficult to hold a line. Your body cried out to charge forward and meet your enemy. Or, if fear had seized you, to flee. Vance’s men held their line at the bottom. The Urzarians coming down did not. They saw their quarry. Saw how few in numbers they were. A group of Urzarians roared and charged. The roar spread, and suddenly the mass of men were hurrying, jumping, stumbling down the rocks.

Vance’s men stood their ground and braced themselves. A tighter formation always had the advantage in a clash like this because a tight formation allowed two or sometimes three men to fight just one of the enemy who was in a looser formation. Furthermore, the men in a tight formation were less exposed to the blows of the enemy.

The Urzarians tried to form up, but the blood lust was upon them, and they crashed into Vance’s line, trying to shove shields aside so they could stab and thrust.

A huge black-bearded man slammed into Argoth’s shield. But Argoth was multiplied. He hit the man’s shield with his shield boss, knocking it to the side. Then he lunged forward with his sword, a straight thrust into the man’s belly. The sword pierced the mail, pierced the padded tunic underneath. Argoth felt the give as it slipped into the flesh. He twisted the blade, then pulled it out, and stepped back.

The big man bellowed, brought his axe around. But the Shimsman next to Argoth thrust his sword into the man’s neck, right up under the base of his jaw, and into the skull, and the big man fell.

There was now a wide gap exposing the Urzarian to Argoth’s right. Argoth stabbed forward into the man’s side, piercing mail and tunic again. The man cried out.

Someone cut the man’s calf, and he fell back, creating an obstacle for the men behind.

An axe slammed into Argoth’s shield, splitting a hole in it. Argoth shifted to his left, punched the boss at the axeman’s face.

The man raised his shield to protect himself, and Argoth crouched and stabbed into the man’s groin. The leather strips turned his blade, so he stabbed again, this time punching through and cutting the man’s inner thigh. The man swung his sword down, but the man next to Argoth raised his shield and shed the blow. Argoth stabbed just under the man’s coat of plates. His sword broke through muscle wall of the belly. He twisted the blade and pulled it out.

The unholy rage of battle filled Argoth. Made him feel invincible. And as a loreman of many years against these unmultiplied, he was invincible.

All around Argoth men screamed and grunted, but the Urzarians had been too eager. And more of their men fell. Argoth thrust the point of his sword into another man’s face, cleaving the skin along his jaw and breaking teeth. Vance’s man on Argoth’s left stabbed the man in the side, and he fell.

And then the remaining Urzarians were falling back, scrambling up the slope of rubble.

A cheer rose from Vance’s men.

“Hold your ground!” Argoth shouted, although he knew most of the men wouldn’t hear it. They would want to pursue now that their targets were easy, but to fight on those rocks was death.

“Hold your ground!” he shouted again and motioned for the men to stay back. The men next to him picked up the order and shouted it down the line. And Vance’s men held, the wind and dust and black seafire smoke gusting about them.