The War Of The Black Tower (Book 3) (16 page)

She broke out sobbing before she
could begin, and was so racked by tears that she could not summon the focus
necessary to clean the mess.

Ungier roughly threw her upon the
table. She screamed and tried to roll off, but with his eyes he bound her,
mesmerizing her, and she stilled and quieted. The Vampire King tore open her
dress, and she did not protest. He sank his fangs into her throat. Blood
spurted into his mouth. She cried out but could not move.

By this time, Baleron had replaced
his father’s severed head on the platter and had been staring, lost, into
Albrech’s eyes. He had not been paying attention the girl’s plight, but her
screams drew him.

Seeing the situation, he bounded to
his feet. When the two Borchstog guards tried to shove him back down, he was
prepared. He elbowed one in the throat and jabbed the other in the eyes. Then
he wrenched loose one of their huge broadswords, leapt on the table and ran down
it, howling, jumping over dishes and the clutching hands of the guests.

Ungier was so focused on sucking
the girl’s blood that he hardly noticed, and when he did it was too late.

Baleron kicked the vampire off her.
Ungier fell from the table onto the ground, and the prince was upon him, sword
flashing down.

Ungier caught the naked blade in
his long-fingered hands and tore it from Baleron’s grasp. The blade did not
even cut him. Then Rauglir was pulling the prince away.

Ungier rose, eyes narrowed into slits
of hate. “How
dare
you!”

“I dare!” Baleron said.

“You will wish you had not.”

With a look to the girl, Baleron
said to Ungier, “Drink of me instead. Spare her. I’ll take her place.”

Ungier barked a laugh.
“To drink of the Savior?
To end the Ender?
I would love nothing more.” To his guards, he said, “Let her be.”

The girl nodded her silent thanks
to Baleron,
then
ran, crying, from the table, holding
her tattered clothes about her.

Rauglir lowered Baleron to ground
level but did not release him. Only the prince’s head and shoulders showed
above the Troll’s thick fingers.

“Yes,” Rauglir said to Ungier. “End
it now. My game is ready to go to the next level.” To Baleron, he added, “See
you in Hell, beloved.”

“The one good thing about dying,”
Baleron reflected, “is that I’ll never have to listen to you again.”

“Oh, but you will, dear heart, for
I will come personally to visit you in Illistriv.
I
will be the one to oversee your eternal torment. You see, my dear—if
I may call you that—our game has truly just begun.” Rauglir laughed, a great
big Troll laugh that shook Baleron up and down, up and down.

Ungier stalked forward, grabbed the
prince by his hair and exposed his neck. Baleron smelled the vampire’s musk,
felt his power, and braced for what would come next.

“NO,” said Throgmar suddenly.

Striking swiftly, his horned head
lunged forward and his massive jaws snapped closed around Rauglir’s throat,
biting off the demon’s head. A gout of black blood shot up, and the big body
toppled. Throgmar crushed the head between his huge teeth and swallowed it.

Baleron, seeing his chance,
struggled free of the dead Troll—hand and sprang up. For a moment his eyes
lingered on the decapitated creature. It did him good to see the ruin, though
he did not relish the thought of Rauglir’s spirit on the loose again. At least
without a body the demon was powerless for the nonce.

Ungier was so surprised by
Throgmar’s attack that he raised no hand against the prince as Baleron punched
him in his skeletal nose for the second time that day. Ungier’s black eyes
remained fixed on Throgmar, who loomed above, massive and fiery.

Baleron tore Rondthril from
Ungier’s scabbard and held it up so that it caught the torchlight. It felt good
in his hand.

Ungier wiped black blood from his
face. “That blade is mine.”

“It
was
,” Baleron said. “So was Rolenya. Now they both belong to me.”
He replaced the Fanged Blade in its scabbard.

Ungier glared at Throgmar, seeking
to place blame. “How dare you interfere in my
business!
This is
my
land now!
Begone
!”

“YOU SAID I COULD EAT ANYONE HERE.
CONSIDER YOURSELF LUCKY THAT I DID NOT CHOOSE YOU.”

Baleron’s eyes lit up. “Eat him!”
he cried, seeing his chance. If Rondthril could not slay its maker, and Ungier
could deflect any other weapon, then why not let the Leviathan do Baleron’s
work for him? “Eat him and you’ll be king of Ungoroth!
Of
Havensrike!”

Ungier’s mouth dropped open and his
eyes grew round as they stared up at the Worm. In fear, he stumbled backwards,
wings fluttering.

Smoke curled up from Throgmar’s
nose.

“Yes!” Baleron said. “Do it!”

But then the smoke died and
Throgmar picked Baleron up in a claw. “I DO NOT WANT TO BE KING. WE LEAVE.”

“Good riddance!” Ungier snarled. He
straightened and suddenly looked his old haughty self. His gaze found Baleron
in a space between two scaly fingers. “But I’ll see you again. I too must go to
Krogbur.”

What was this? Even Throgmar paused
to hear the rest.

Ungier smiled, almost serene now,
as if causing Baleron consternation had somehow relaxed him. “I’ve longed to
see the Black Tower since Gilgaroth first spoke of his
vision to me thousands of years ago. But in the main I go to win back that
which was mine—that which you have stolen.”

Baleron gave him a hard look. “She
will not be yours.”

“She shall.”

“She is mine.”

Ungier raised an eyebrow. “From the
sounds of it, she is Gilgaroth’s.”

“Then he will not give her up to
you.”

“He must. She will be my prize for
conquering your city. Although, I must say, I would have done it for nothing.”

“ENOUGH,” Throgmar grunted.

He bore Baleron
away,
flying up into the dark heavens and away from the ruins of Glorifel, and Ungier
grew small below.

“THE BLACK TOWER AWAITS,” said the
Leviathan.

Baleron gripped Rondthril’s hilt.
Quietly, he said, “Then it waits for its destruction.”

Ungier watched the diminishing shape of Throgmar against the
night.

Perhaps
I can beat them
, he thought. Either way, he must go. Glorifel was
conquered. Rolenya would be his once more.

His eyes fastened on the
decapitated body of Rauglir. He had never liked the demon, not after it had
possessed Rolenya, but in this form it had proven an interesting companion.
Ah, well.

Swiftly Ungier appointed a
lieutenant to oversee Ungoroth in his absence, and departed. A squad of
glarumri flanked him as he went, cutting a black swath through the night. All
others fled before them.

I
will win her
, he vowed.
I shall make
her Vampire Queen of Ungoroth.

Chapter
11

On the second day of their journey, Throgmar set down for a
rest. He’d been flying relentlessly, silently, without
so
much as a word to Baleron, since they had left Glorifel.
Ungoroth
.
The prince had watched
the land unroll under him with shame and loathing and sadness; the beauty of
Havensrike had stretched to its borders and beyond, but now all was burnt and
blackened; cities and villages razed and sacked, forests burnt or cut down for
lumber. Rivers were poisoned or ran red with blood. Monsters lurked in the
lakes, and ravening beasts lived in the hills.

Not despair but hopelessness filled
him. He had a plan, yes, if such a thin thing could be called that, but he did
not see how it could be achieved. For unless Rondthril could be purified of
Ungier’s spirit and Baleron given the chance to use it—which seemed impossible
at this point—the world was lost.

How could it have come to this? It
was a scene out of a nightmare that he’d been dreaming for years, and it had
come to its head.

But he was determined to find a way
to defeat Gilgaroth. If he did not have that hope, he would go mad—if he was
not already. And he
might
be: he
often caught himself mumbling incoherently, and sometimes he would see the
faces of dear ones floating by: Sophia, Salthrick, Logran, Elethris, Shelir,
Albrech, Rolenya . . . all dead, or nearly. Was Rolenya still waiting for him?
Did she still live? Was it true she now sang for the Wolf like some songbird in
a gilded cage?

On the second day, Throgmar set
down on the burnt top of a high hill near a muddy brook whose waters were still
drinkable, though just barely, and both partook of the moisture with relish.

Afterwards Baleron took the
opportunity to stretch his legs, Rondthril sheathed at his side. Cramps seized
him, and he tried to work them off. Being in the unwavering grip of a dragon
for days on end was a torture on the body, as well as the mind.

Throgmar sat, brooding, by the
stream.

“DO NOT STRAY,” he warned Baleron.

The prince said nothing.

In a while a group of Borchstogs
who had seen them alight on the hill approached. They were mounted on
murmeksa
, but they swung down from the shaggy backs of the
creatures and bowed low to the Worm, and their leader spouted obsequious words
that turned Baleron’s stomach.

The Borchstog offered their steeds
to Throgmar for sustenance, and Throgmar took one look at the huge, tusked hog-like
creatures with long rat tails, dark fur and cloven hooves—and said, “LEAVE
THEM.”

“Yes,
your
Greatness,” said the leader in Oslogon. “Is there anything else we can do to
ease your time?”

“WHAT CAN YOU DO TO AMUSE ME?”

The Borchstog thought a moment. “We
have been trained in the festive arts. We can sing and dance for your pleasure.
We can juggle, do tricks.”

“NO MORE JUGGLING.”

“Yes, Great One, as you say. Well,
at our camp we have some captives you can devour or entertain your Greatness
with, if you desire. There are some human women. If you can change your shape
you can have them.”

Throgmar snorted. “I HAVE NO
INTEREST IN MORTALS OR IN IDLE PLEASURES OF THE FLESH.”

“Truly?”
The Borchstog’s curiosity overcame his good sense, and he asked, “Then how do
you enjoy yourself, my lord? You’ve lived for thousands of years and will live
for eons to come, surely. How do you get through each day?”

Throgmar stared at him with an evil
expression until the Borchstog chief quailed and cast his gaze down.

“Forgive me, your worship,” he
said. “I have overstepped my place.”

“INDEED. LEAVE ME THESE MOUNTS OF
YOURS AND BE OFF.”

He snorted flame, and the
Borchstogs hurried away. Left alone with the dragon, the great hogs shuffled
nervously. Throgmar watched the Borchstogs go and, when they were out of sight
down the hill, he spat a column of flame that roasted the ten tusked steeds
where they stood. Then, without a word to Baleron, he ate them. After two days
with no food, the cooked pork smelled delicious to the prince-king? Heir, at
least—but he refused to beg the dragon for scraps.

When the Worm had had his fill—eight
murmeksa
—he slunk over to the brook and slaked his
thirst, then folded his wings about himself like a blanket and lay down, making
his camp for the night.

Using Rondthril, Baleron hacked off
a chunk of hog, and the Worm did not stop him. He sheathed the Fanged Blade and
ambled over to the Leviathan. Cautiously, he sat beside Throgmar cross-legged
as he munched on his meat. Though overdone, it was actually not as bad as he’d
feared.

Tilting back his head a bit, he
stared up at the stars. Despite everything, it was a pleasant night, not too
cool, not too hot, with a gentle breeze that blew across the hill with a
feminine sigh. There was even the faint scent of flowers in the air.

It was good to see the stars again.
Both at Krogbur and at Glorifel, a screen of dark clouds had blocked out the
sky, and their merry twinkle lifted his spirits more than they would have.

He looked over to the vast mound of
the Leviathan. The dragon’s eyes were closed, but he doubted Throgmar slept.

“So,” he said slowly, “am I
returning to Krogbur as a prisoner because I failed to complete my task, or a
hero because I did?”

 
“THAT IS FOR
HIM
TO DETERMINE. I AM JUST THE DELIVERER.”

“You do not have to be. You could
have simply killed me outright. You were about to.”

“PERHAPS GILGAROTH WILL PROLONG
YOUR SUFFERING. I HOPE SO. IF HE DOES, IT WILL BE SWEETER FOR ME THAN YOUR MERE
FLESH.”

“That’s
right,
you don’t like mere pleasures of the flesh.”

Now both amber eyes were open, and
they narrowed to slits of hate. “YOU SLEW THE ONE BEING I COULD ENJOY THEM
WITH.”

Baleron knew he was treading on
brittle ice, and he did not think it wise to continue this leg of the
conversation, yet he was, as he’d been told often enough recently, both foolish
and rash, and so he marshaled his resolve to say, “You deserved it. You torched
my city, and burned my home. You killed thousands.”

“YES,
I
DESERVED IT. DID
SHE
?”

Baleron did not know how to answer
that. He had actually given the matter much thought over the months of his
imprisonment, and it haunted him still.
Felestrata’s
murder had bothered him, and he supposed it would continue to do so; he had
killed a helpless, reasoning being
who
had done him no
harm.

However, he was also disturbed by
the memory of the she-Worm changing into the form of Rolenya before his eyes.
What could it mean?

He turned it over and over in his
mind, playing with it as though it were a puzzle. Someone had wanted him to
hurt. Someone had known he would slay her—after all, he’d been fulfilling his
Doom—and had prepared for it. Throgmar had dismissed her transformation as a
mere trick, and it was.
But what kind of trick, and played by
whom?
Throgmar surely blamed his father, and there could be no doubt
that it bore his signature.
Yet . . .

Turning again to the dragon, he
said, “Just how long did you know her?”
Throgmar, who’d closed his eyes, opened them again.
“FELESTRATA?”

“Yes.”

“NOT LONG.
A
YEAR, PERHAPS.
SHE CAME TO ME IN THE CAVERNS OF OKSIL, HAVING HEARD THAT
I WAS THE LAST SURVIVING DRAGON OF THE FIRST BROOD, THAT I HAD SIRED A THIRD OF
ALL THE DRAGONS THAT FOLLOWED OF THAT LINE, AND THAT I WAS ALONE AND HAD
REBELLED AGAINST OUR MASTER. SHE CAME TO SUCCOR ME, AND TO LEARN FROM ME. WE
GREW VERY CLOSE IN A SHORT TIME, AND THEN . . .” His voice hardened, and
dripped with hatred. “THEN YOU TOOK HER FROM ME.”

Baleron wisely stayed silent for a
while. During the silence, he thought on the dragon’s words and was reminded of
the time the Wolf had sent him Rolenya in his pit,
then
stolen her from him. Suddenly, it came to him. As if out of a vision, the truth
of what must have happened coalesced in his mind, and it was crystal clear,
though no less monstrous because of it.

He was on the verge of revealing what
he’d determined when the dragon’s hatred gave him pause. In telling what he
knew, or thought he knew, he might just be spelling his end, right here and
now.

Throgmar seemed to sense his
thoughts and said, as if despite
himself
, “WHAT
TROUBLES YOU?”

“Nothing.”
Baleron turned his face away.

“NOT
NOTHING
.
I CAN READ YOUR FACE ONLY TOO WELL, MORTAL. I CAN FEEL YOUR FEAR. TELL ME, OR I
WILL RIP IT OUT OF YOUR MIND.”

Baleron resolved to himself that he
would not. He had too much to accomplish; he could not afford to die.

“LOOK AT ME.”

The dragon exerted his will.
Baleron struggled with it, but it was a losing battle and he knew it. He
looked.

Throgmar’s amber eyes began to
glow. Without the aid of a protective amulet, Baleron felt drawn in. Amber
surrounded him, drowning him in seas of gold, and he was lost in the dragon’s
power.

“TELL ME,” bade the dragon.

“It . . . was Mogra. Felestrata . .
. she was Mogra.”

A long pause, then:

“NO. IT COULD NOT BE.”

“Yes, it could. It was. Ask
yourself why she was in the region of
Worthrick
just
at that exact moment. Don’t you see? He sent her to you in that form to lure
you, to tempt you, to seduce you. He did it so that he could take her away from
you—that so—called potion of his—so he’d have a tool he could use against you.
Her
.
You’d do
anything for
her,
even betray your own mind. That is
why she was in those mountains, how she came to us so quickly. And that is why
she left before we had been set free, so that she could return to
Worthrick
and assume
Felestrata’s
form once more.”

Throgmar shook his head in denial.
“NO. IT COULD NOT BE.”

“Oh, yes it could.” Baleron tried
to stop himself but couldn’t. The Worm’s compulsion was still upon him. “It’s
just like him. It’s exactly what he would do, and you know it. But he never had
any intention of giving her back to you. He and Mogra knew what I’d do, that I
was following you . . . that I’d kill her. They stole her from you, and used me
to do it. But they were clumsy. Finally, they made a mistake. Don’t you see?
Because they tried to make it
painful for me, too
.
Mogra, pretending to be a dead Felestrata,
changed into Rolenya, trying to wound me, to make me think I killed her. In
accomplishing my revenge I would destroy my greatest treasure. They love to
cause pain. You know they do. They feed on it like vampires feed on blood.”

Throgmar was shaking his horned
head. “NO. IT’S NOT POSSIBLE. MOGRA . . . IS MY MOTHER.”

“She’s a mother to Gilgaroth also,
and you know how close they are.”

Seething, Throgmar snorted flame,
almost killing Baleron. Thankfully, he was not looking straight at the prince,
and the flame plumed to his side. Still, Baleron was singed a bit, and he
shrank back a few feet. The pain shook him from Throgmar’s power, and he could
master his own mind.

Yet he did not stop.

Throgmar looked horrified. “IT
CANNOT BE. NO . . .”

Taking a perverse delight in it,
Baleron said, “But it is.
There was no
Felestrata
.”

“NO . . .”

“They used you, Throgmar.” It was
the first time he’d called the dragon by name that he could remember. “You knew
they were using you. You just didn’t know how much, and to what lengths they
would go. Remember, the only reason they had to use you at all is because
through you
they could get access to
Glorifel.
And why?
Because you had helped me, as they
knew you would.” His voice took on a tone of defiance and hope. “Help me again,
Throgmar. Help me like you did back then. Together, maybe we can strike at Him.
Maybe we can—”

“NO!” roared the dragon, rising to
his feet. “NO, I WON’T HEAR IT. YOU AND YOUR KIND ARE FULL OF LIES. YOU’RE OF
THE FALLEN RACE, AND I WON’T SIT HERE AND LET YOU CORRUPT ME WITH YOUR FILTH. I
PRESERVE THE PURITY OF FIRE. YOU WOULD TAINT ME WITH YOUR WORDS, BUT I WILL NOT
STAND ANOTHER SECOND OF IT.”

So saying, he scooped up Baleron in
a mighty claw, squeezing him tightly, and took to the skies, evidently too
worked up to sleep. Baleron just breathed shallowly, as he couldn’t expand his
chest enough for a deep breath, and hoped for the fit to pass soon.

It didn’t.

The dragon flew for two more days
straight through without stopping. And when he did stop, Baleron tried to bring
it up again, risking his fire. The Betrayer, however, would have none of it. He
mesmerized Baleron with his eyes and forbade the prince from ever mentioning it
to him again.

They flew on.

If nothing else, Baleron thought,
at least he would see Rolenya again. For, with every beat of Throgmar’s wings,
the Black Tower drew closer.

A trail of red smoke neared the rearing tower of Krogbur,
deep in the dark center of Oslog. Shaped like a great crimson serpent, the
tongue of smoke approached the screen of dragons that constantly circled the
tower. Below the Inferno licked the tower’s sides, millions of screaming souls
swimming through it, pursued as ever by demons. The Worms of the aerial moat eyed the red smoke
and knew it for what it was—Lord Ungier—and even if they’d wanted to stop him,
they could not, not in this form. He was taking no chances tonight.