The Lair of Bones (58 page)

He wanted to work up some strength, to go across the street and hunt for Myrrima, the reavers be damned. If she was alive still, perhaps he could
help her. And if she had died, then he had no reason to live out the day.

Strength is an illusion, he thought in his torment.

Twice now in his life, Dedicates had been torn from him, dozens of good men and women killed in an effort to prove him weak.

Screaming a war cry, he grabbed his weapon and burst out into the night.

Flames licked the sky in every direction, and smoke reflected the light in such a way that it seemed that the heavens had taken fire. It was brighter than dawn.

Almost directly overhead, Borenson saw a great balloon hundreds of feet above, nearly lost in smoke, a balloon shaped like a graak in flight. It floated in eerie silence.

At the far north of the island, trumpets blared wildly, calling once again for the folk of Carris to retreat.

A sudden roar shook the earth, like rising thunder. The earth began to quiver beneath his feet. Buildings trembled as if a giant jarred their foundations.

A reaver barreled down the street at the end of the alley, a juvenile blade-bearer, with grotesquely long legs and a small head.

It skidded to a halt and whirled, its philia writhing as it spotted Borenson. It opened its maw and charged.

“Death!” Borenson roared as he raised his hammer and rushed to meet it.

Raj Ahten looked down on Carris from a far hill.

The city was an inferno. Reavers thundered everywhere, slamming into homes like battering rams, raking through the rubble to pull out anyone who might still be alive. On the north end of the island, horns desperately blew a call for retreat while people climbed the castle walls and flung them-selves into Lake Donnestgree.

But they couldn't climb the ladders and tower steps fast enough to escape, and so they crowded the walls in a seething mass, trampling one another in their terror. Some tried to fight back as the reavers advanced, shooting with their puny bows or raising their weapons, but the reavers waded into them. As well might hens try to fight when the hollow wolf is in the pens.

The speed at which the reavers overwhelmed Carris astonished him.
Powerful lords had protected the gates, but the young reavers merely sprang over them or slammed into them, grinding them to ruin.

Men were no match for such monsters.

Above the city, Raj Ahten's spy balloon wafted on hot thermals. He could hear the whispering thoughts of his flameweavers, exulting. Sweet-smelling smoke roiled upward in great clouds, enticing them to battle. Their gondolas were loaded with arcane powders made of sulfur, potash, and herbs, brought from the south of Indhopal just for this night. “Give us the signal,” their thoughts whispered, “and we will drop our load.”

“Patience,” he whispered in return. The balloon had been drifting toward the reavers' fell mage as she squatted in the midst of a great rune, her Seal of Desolation.

As the wind carried the balloon toward the seal, he whispered, letting the Power of Fire carry his words to hisflameweavers.” Now let the heavens blaze!”

The flameweavers rejoiced, crying in tongues of flame, “Long live Scathain, Lord of Ash!”

Three miles north of Carris stood the Barren's Wall, a rampart that rose chest high and spanned from Lake Donnestgree in the east to the Alcair Mountains some dozen miles to the west.

King Anders's troops came up behind it, riding hard in the darkness, only to find Queen Rialla Lowicker's army, more than a hundred thousand strong, huddled in its lee. Ballistas by the hundreds were ranged higher on the hill, to help hold back any charge by the reavers, while archers and footmen manned the wall. Lowicker's intent seemed obvious: she would hold the wall if the reavers sought to range north.

Beyond the wall, Carrisflamed. Horns blared on the castle walls as the folk of Carris called for help, yet the screams of the dying overwhelmed the horns.

Reavers by the hundreds could be seen racing north along the wall-walks, dispatching any guardsman who dared try to withstand them.

At the foot of the city a vast reaver horde blackened the land. Howlers trumpeted in their midst, and the earth seemed to groan beneath their feet while clouds of gree whirled above the throng.

Near the great worm mound, a fell mage squatted, covered with glowing
runes. She wielded a staff that gleamed as white as lightning. A rune was taking shape beneath her, a malevolent thing that gathered mists and sent them swirling about like a tornado.

“By the Powers!” King Anders swore when he saw the mess.

There was nothing to save at Carris, it seemed.

Even if we charge the city now, Erin thought, the reavers will wipe out its people before we get there.

Erin's horse stamped nervously, and she leaned forward. Many a brave knight clutched his lance, as if to race into battle at any moment.

The lords at the front of the column stared hard at Anders, to see what he would do. He claimed to be an Earth King. Would he call a world worm, as Gaborn had done?

Erin shouted, “Your Highness, sound the charge!”

But Anders raised his right hand in warning, and said in a bereaved tone, “I cannot. The Earth warns against it. Those in the city are Gaborn's Chosen, and they must die for his sins.”

“What?” Celinor shouted in horror.

Anders shook his head sadly. “I am to be the new Earth King. He is the old. But I cannot be crowned until the old is swept away.” He peered for-ward as if he could see through the walls of Carris.

What kind of man is he? Erin wondered. Gaborn could never have sat idle while folk were in danger.

Erin's head spun. She was dazed with fatigue. More than that, she reeled from the shock.

She felt as if she were in a dream, or at least half in a dream. She wanted to call out to the owl of the netherworld for help, to touch his mind with a sending.

A thought struck her.

The owl had warned that Asgaroth could bend his will and read the minds of others. Could she reach Asgaroth with a sending?

Even as the thought struck, Erin silently screamed the name, “Asgaroth!”

King Anders sat on his horse just ahead of Erin, slouched wearily in his saddle, his long gray hair flowing out behind a kingly war helm.

In answer to her silent call, he whirled as if she had slapped him. His mouth parted in surprise, and he glared at her.

The mask of kindliness fell from his face.

The One True Master raced toward Iome, its feet a blur.

“Noooooo!”
Gaborn screamed, veering to block the monster's path.

He raced forward, weapon in hand.

For an instant, Iome watched them both, frozen in pain. Gaborn bounded toward a creature part light, part shadow. The One True Master blurred, her whip snapping like fire. Gaborn cried out, stumbled, and ducked beneath the lash.

Iome charged toward a Dedicate, a huge reaver that lay as if asleep. She cocked her arm back, preparing to stab with all her might.

The iron javelin ripped from her hand as a reaver swatted at her, missing by inches.

Gaborn shouted, “Iome, flee!”

The room shuddered. The ground rolled beneath Iome's feet, and stones rained down from the roof as another temblor struck.

“Gasht!”
a spell hissed from the monster's onyx staff. Gaborn took two steps forward and sprang high in the air as a dark green cloud flowed for-ward. He hurled his javelin.

The monster twisted to her side. The javelin glanced off her skull. Gaborn was still flying toward the beast, and hit it with a sickly thud, then fell away like a broken doll.

“No!” Iome cried.

The One True Master regarded Gaborn for a second, dismissed him, and turned toward Iome.

In her mind, Iome heard Gaborn's last words, as if he shouted them anew. “Iome, flee!”

The reavers circled Iome all around, their features twisted and cruel. She frantically peered toward the far corners of the room. Even with a dozen endowments of sight, she couldn't see how to escape.

There was no pain where Gaborn went. He'd smacked into the bony head-plates of the monster. Then nothing.

He woke in a realm as light as day. All about him werefields, brown from the farmer's plow, the rich soil spilling from the ground. Hills rose in gentle
humps in the distance, with oak trees sprawling on their sides. There was no wind, no sun, only a sourceless light that shone above. Ravens cawed and wheeled overhead, their raucous cries full of malice.

Tender shoots shot from the ground all about him, as if the soil could not hold the abundance of life.

The ravens dove and tore at them, drawing the seeds from the soil, rip-ping the pale roots.

A dozen yards away, a man-shaped creature slumped upon a large stone, his back toward Gaborn. He wore a shapeless robe of gray, and gray hair spilled down his back. But where he should have had skin, Gaborn saw only sand and pebbles.

The Earth Spirit sat before him. “I am but fruit to the crows of fortune,” he muttered. “They hover on jeering wings. My stones cannot fell them….”

Gaborn went to the creature, rested a hand upon its shoulder. It turned to face him.

The Earth Spirit wore the face of Raj Ahten, but no eyes peered from its head, only empty sockets.

The Earth looked at Gaborn helplessly, threw up its hands. “The ravens. The ravens feed….”

Gaborn saw the Earth's torment.

“Why do you wear the face of an enemy still?” Gaborn asked. “We should be friends.”

The Earth took on a pained expression. “You turned from me.”

“No,” Gaborn said, “only once, in a moment of weakness. But never again will I turn from you. All that I am or ever hope to be, I give to you.”

The pebbly face of the Earth Spirit began to shift. It took on a new form. Gaborn's father appeared for a moment, and then his face became young. Gaborn thought that the Earth might be showing him his own face, or the face of his father as a child, but then realized that it had revealed the face of Gaborn's son. The pebbles and grains of sand flowed once more, and Iome was smiling up at him.

Gaborn felt something within him ease, and saw that he was bleeding from a wound to his chest, but instead of blood, light flowed out. He let it flow. All around him, the crows began to caw and flap into the air, wings exploding into the sky.

39

No tree or plant can grow in daylight abne. Given only light, a seed will not germinate, roots will not take hold. It takes a balance of sunlight and shadow. Men, too, grow their deepest roots in the darkness.

—
Erden Geboren

Gaborn woke and scrambled to his feet, heart hammering. His ribs felt like broken twigs. The great reaver was chasing Iome, scrabbling on powerful legs as it scrambled over a knot of its precious Dedicates, crushing them.

The effect of its curses putrefied flesh and set wounds to festering. Now dozens of reavers nearby rasped loudly as they sought to breathe. But with the apparent slowing of time, the sound came as an ominous drone.

Iome ran from the monster. Its ghostly runes still glowed, but darkness seemed to flow beneath its feet, obscuring the view. Gaborn wiped tears from his burning eyes.