David Farland - Runelords 3 - Wizardborn

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Wizardborn
BOOK 9
DAY 2 IN THE MONTH OF LEAVES
Chapter 1
THE CALM BETWEEN THE STORMS
King Croenert of Toom bought dung for his fields to make the grass grow
deeper.
But found one day that warlords in gray would sell their sons far
cheaper.
--Nursery rhyme alluding to King Croenert, who hired cheap mercenaries
from Internook to attack Lonnock
In South Crowthen, King Anders had been entertaining guests all night.
Among them were a dozen fierce old warlords from Internook with their
sealskin capes and horned helms. They'd sailed on ships painted like gray
serpents, and the smell of sea salt clung to their beards. Their silver-
gold hair was braided; the wind had burned their faces raw.
Any lord but Anders would have sought to buy their loyalty. The
warlords of Internook were notoriously cheap. But Anders offered no money.
He merely filled them with strong drink and tales of the treachery of
Gaborn Val Orden. By midnight they were pounding the wooden tables with
their silver mugs and shouting for the boy's head. To celebrate their
decision, they killed a hog and dyed their braids in blood, then painted
their faces with streaks of green, yellow, and blue. They'd take no pay for
their services other than the spoils of war.
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Thus Anders bought half a million berserkers for less than a steel
eagle's worth of strong ale and a butchered sow.
Beside them the Lady Vars, counselor to the queen of Ashoven, watched
how Anders worked the warlords of Internook with a reticent smile. She
refused to touch even so much as a drop of his best wine. She was a stately
woman, beautiful and cunning, with flashing gray eyes the color of slate.
As he urged the warlords to dispatch their ships to the Courts of Tide,
the lady's lips drew tight. Though she tried to appear neutral, King Anders
knew she stood against him. Too bad for her.
When the warlords were deep in their cups, she excused herself from the
dining hall and fled to the docks, no doubt feeling lucky to escape his
realm with her life.
But a storm was brewing in the northern sea, Anders knew. He went out
into the night as Lady Vars sneaked away. From the door Anders could hear
the wind singing over the whitecaps miles away, could smell ice in the salt
air.
The beast within Anders stirred at the smell. It circled in his breast
like a restless dog. It suggested a small spell that would insure that wind
would fill the sails of the counselor's ship, and urge it onto the rocks.
Ashoven's queen would no doubt find the wreckage on her own shores. She'd
mourn her faithful servant's demise, never knowing what warning she might
have borne. Perhaps the next counselor Ashoven sent would be more malleable.
Anders stood for a long moment in the doorway of his keep, listening to
the receding hooves of Lady Vars's horse as it clattered over the
cobblestone streets of the King's Way. Thick clouds above sealed out the
starlight, and the fires in the great hall cast a ruddy glow over the cold
ground that seemed to strain to reach beyond the courtyard. Somewhere down
in the city below, a dog began howling. Soon, a dozen others joined their
voices with its keen wail.
He whispered the spell that would end the lady's life, and sauntered
back to the Great Hall.
A one-eyed warlord named Olmarg watched him knowingly as he returned.
Olmarg stood at the table, leaning over the roast pig. He cut an ear off,
chewed as he said in his thick accent, "She bolted on us."
"That she did," Anders admitted. Several other lords looked up through
bleary eyes, too far gone into their cups to bother speaking.
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"Knew she would," Olmarg said. "The ladies of Ashoven have no taste for
wine or war. Now that she's gone, we won't have to bridle our tongues."
Anders smiled. Moments ago he'd have thought the man too drunk to think
clearly. "Agreed."
Olmarg said, "Our land is a cold one, and in the long winters our young
men have naught to do but huddle in the keeps under the furs, warming the
wenches. For as long as our old ones remember, we've sold our sons to the
highest bidder. We need this war. We need the plunder. More than that, we
need lands in the south. And there's none better to be had than Mystarria.
Do you really think we can hold it?"
"With ease," Anders assured him. "Gaborn's forces are in disarray.
There is far more than just the reavers for them to worry about. When Raj
Ahten destroyed the Blue Tower, he killed the vast majority of Gaborn's
Dedicates. Though there be many lords in Mystarria, few of them are
Runelords."
He let those last words settle in. Mystarria was the wealthiest land in
all of Rofehavan. For centuries it had been well protected from attack--not
because its castles were unassailable, but because of the number and power
of its Runelords. With their wealth, the kings of Mystarria bought
forcibles--magical branding irons--made from rare blood metal. They used
those forcibles to draw attributes such as strength and wit from their
subjects.
Now, without Runelords to protect it, the kingdom of Mystarria would
not be able to stand for long.
"What's more," Anders continued, "to your advantage the vast majority
of Gaborn's troops have marched west to drive Raj Ahten from Mystarria's
borders. They'll have a tough job of it, for Raj Ahten has leveled several
castles, and his men hold the strongest that remain. Gaborn will have to
spend his men to dislodge Raj Ahten. With any luck the two are already at
one another's throats. That leaves Gaborn open to attack. Now his coastline
is Gaborn's soft underbelly."
"Soft, maybe," Olmarg said, "but soft enough? Mystarria's men outnumber
mine twenty to one. Even with your help--"
"Not mine alone," Anders assured him. "Beldinook will sweep down from
the north, joining us."
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"Beldinook?" Olmarg asked, as if he could not have hoped for such a
boon. Beldinook was the second-largest kingdom in all of Rofehavan. "You
think old King Lowicker will bestir himself?"
"Lowicker is dead," Anders said with finality.
At that, several warlords gasped. "How?"
"When?" One fellow downed a mug in the old king's honor.
"I got word only hours ago," Anders said. "Lowicker was murdered today
by Gaborn's own hand. His fat daughter is a surly creature. Surely she will
demand vengeance."
"Poor girl," Olmarg said. "I have a grandson who is not particular
about his women. Perhaps I should send him to court her."
"I was thinking of sending my own son." Anders grinned.
Olmarg lifted a mug of ale in salute. "May the better man win."
At that, Anders's wife got up from her seat at the dinner table and
shot Anders a glare. She'd been so quiet the past hour, he'd all but
forgotten her. "I'm going to bed," she said. "I can see that you gentlemen
will be up all night trying to figure out how to carve up the world." She
lifted the skirts of her gown and walked stiffly upstairs to the tower loft.
There was a long silence. A burning log shifted in the hearth, as it
steadily crumbled to ash.
"Carve up the world..." Olmarg intoned. "I like the sound of that!" The
unabashed greed that shone from his single eye gave Anders pause. There was
a hardness to his jaw that Anders found chilling. Olmarg was a man without
compunction. "And Gaborn is still a pup. It will take little to strike off
his head. If I can take a few key cities quickly--dispatch his remaining
Dedicates...Gaborn would never be able to retaliate."
Anders smiled. Olmarg saw things more clearly with one eye than most
could with two. The world was turning upside down. It was true that
Gaborn's forces vastly outnumbered them, but without Runelords to lead
those forces...
"Carving up the world should not be so hard to do," Anders said. "I
want very little of it. I'll take Heredon." Olmarg raised a single white
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brow. Heredon was no small bit of land, but Olmarg would have no use for
it. "Lowicker's daughter will want western Mystarria, along with her
vengeance. You'll want the coast--"
"Everything within two hundred miles of shore," Olmarg said sternly.
"A hundred and fifty," Anders suggested. "We'll want to leave something
for the others."
"Others?"
"I've received missives from Alnick, Eyremoth, and Toom. Dignitaries
should be arriving shortly."
"A hundred and fifty," Olmarg agreed. But he added thoughtfully, "On
the other hand, what if Gaborn is indeed the Earth King? Could we stand
against him? Dare we stand against him?"
Anders laughed, a sound that reverberated through the quiet room and
made the hounds sleeping before the hearth look up in anticipation. "He's
nothing but a fraud."
But Anders tried to sound more self-assured than he felt. The beast
hidden within him lent him special powers. Anders could hear voices carried
on the wind from far off. He could smell scents from miles away. But even
the wind took time to travel.
He wished that he knew how Gaborn's battle with Raj Ahten had ended.
But that news would not come until later. At Anders's assertion, Olmarg
sliced off the pig's other ear, and they celebrated.
With these affairs of state in hand, Anders climbed to the towers of
his castle early in the night, found his wife brushing her hair in the
bedchamber.
Her back was stiff with anger. As he crossed the room, she followed him
with her eyes, raking her brush through her hair as if she were trying to
rid it of burrs.
"You seem upset," Anders said casually. He knew the source of her
anger, sought to divert her attention. "You should be overjoyed. The news
was good today. I have done little but worry about the reavers rumored to
be in North Crowthen, and now we hear that my cousin has driven them back."
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"A lucky shot with a ballista killed their fell mage," his wife
groused, "and the sorceresses beneath her harvested her brain. There is
nothing to rejoice about. They'll return in greater numbers."
"Yes," Anders said, as if to put a bright face on it. "But next time,
my cousin will be better prepared for them."
His wife did not speak for a long moment. He let the tension build,
until the words broke from her. "Why do you lower yourself like this? We
should have no dealings with barbarians from Internook. They stink of filth
and whale blubber. And those tales you told--"
"Were all true," King Anders countered.
"True?" she demanded. "You accused Gaborn Val Orden of murdering King
Lowicker?"
"Lowicker defied Gaborn today, denied him passage through Beldinook,
just as I said. For that, Gaborn slaughtered him as a man would slaughter a
steer."
"How do you know this? There have been no couriers!" she shouted.
"There could not have been: I'd have seen them."
Years of neglecting his physical needs had left Anders thin and starved-
looking, a rag of a man. He drew himself up, trying to appear
authoritative. "I received the message privately." He did not want to argue
the point. His wife knew full well that she had been at the table with him
all afternoon. Had even a private messenger arrived, she'd have seen him.
Her mouth twisted in anger. He could tell that she was about to rail at
him. He silently gathered a spell, reached out and touched her lips with
his forefinger. "Shhh..." he said. "A message did come by word of mouth
only. No doubt we will hear more details by morning."
Hearing the Earth's summons, believing that he would find the city
besieged by Raj Ahten's troops. Instead he'd found Raj Ahten surrounded by
a ghastly horde of reavers, trapped.
He'd used his newfound powers as Earth King to summon a world worm--a
beast of legend--from the Earth's core to dislodge the reavers.
The aftermath of that battle would be sung for a thousand years,
Myrrima felt sure. The carnage took her breath away.
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To the south lay a field of dead reavers, enormous and black in the
darkness, their wet carapaces gleaming in the wan light as if they were a
plague of dead frogs. Men and women swarmed among them, torches in hand.
The plains were terribly broken and uneven, pocked with thousands of
burrows. Squads of troops armed with spears and battle-axes were searching
every nook for live reavers. But not all of the people out there were
warriors. Some were coming from the city to cart off the dead and wounded--
mothers looking for sons, children hunting for parents.
A reaver suddenly lunged from a burrow three quarters of a mile away,
and out on the plain screams arose with the blaring of warhorns. The reaver
charged straight for a knot of footmen. Knights on chargers galloped to
intercept the monster.
"By my father's honor," shouted one lord of Orwynne, "there's still
reavers about! This battle's not won yet!"
The lords spurred their mounts down to what was left of the Barrens
Wall. Beneath its arch, beside a bonfire, a dozen footmen huddled beneath
muddy capes with hands wrapped around their longspears.
"Halt!" they called as the lords approached. A couple of guards
struggled up. They wore mismatched armor, marking them as Knights Equitable.
Their bright eyes reflected the firelight. Jubilantly their leader
shouted, "Most of the reavers are in a rout--fleeing south the way that
they came. Skalbairn asks that any man who can bear a lance give chase with
him! But there's still a few of the damned things holed up in their
burrows, if you've a mind to fight here."
"Skalbairn is chasing the horde in the dark? In the rain?" Sir Hoswell
shouted. "Is he mad?"
"The Earth King is with us, and no one can stand against us!" the guard
shouted. "If you've ever had a fancy to slay a reaver and win some glory,
tonight's the night for it. Some simpleton from Silverdale killed a dozen
on the city walls today with nothing more than a pickax. True men like you
should do as well--or better." His tone was challenging.
The guard raised a wineskin in salute. Myrrima saw that the man's eyes
gleamed from more than mere jubilation. He was half drunk, reveling in the
victory. Obviously Skalbairn's men didn't know that Gaborn could no longer
warn his Chosen warriors of danger.
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Even though they'd been Chosen only a few hours ago, Myrrima could see
how these men were already becoming complacent. Why should they keep a
close guard so long as the Earth King would warn them of danger?
Obviously, Skalbairn's men hadn't heard the latest. Gaborn had used his
abilities to dislodge the reavers from Carris, but in the aftermath of the
battle, he'd sought to use his gift to kill Raj Ahten.
For misusing those protective powers, the Earth had withdrawn them--
including the ability to warn Gaborn's Chosen warriors of danger.
These men, blithely celebrating their victory, had no idea how much
trouble they were in. The Earth had charged Gaborn to help "Save a seed of
mankind through the dark times to come." Full night was not yet upon them.
Myrrima glanced right and left at the lords of the Brotherhood of the
Wolf--sober men with hard faces. They'd come to fight, but hadn't bargained
for such madness.
"I'll warn Paldane's men," Sir Giles of Heredon offered.
"Wait," Myrrima said. "Are you sure that's wise? Who knows where the
rumors might fly, how the tale might grow in its travels?"
"The Earth King warned us that he has lost his powers in order save our
lives," Baron Tewkes of Orwynne said. "He can't hide the truth, and we
can't hide it for him."
If she were to tell Gaborn's secret, Myrrima feared she might betray a
man who had never unjustly sought to harm another. Yet if she withheld the
news, innocent men would die. To tell was the lesser evil.
Sir Giles took his leave of them and galloped toward Carris.
"The rest of us will need to warn Skalbairn," Tewkes said. He
dismounted for a moment, cinched his saddle for a fast ride. Others drew
weapons, and more than one man brought out a stone to sharpen a lance or a
warhammer.
Myrrima licked her lips. She wouldn't be riding south with the others
tonight. Gaborn had said that she would find her wounded husband a third of
a mile north of the city, near the great mound. But reavers were still
hiding out on the field. She tried not to worry.
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"Do you want me to come with you, milady?" a voice asked, startling
her. Sir Hoswell's horse had sidled up to her, and he was bending near. "To
find your husband? I told you that if you ever need me, I'll be at your
back."
She could barely make out his face beneath his hood. Hoswell leaned
close, as if expecting her to fall into his arms at the first sight of
blood.
Hah! she thought. Maybe when the stars have all burned down to ashes!
He had tried to seduce her once. When she resisted his advances, he'd
tried to force her. He'd apologized, but she still didn't trust him, even
though she had enough endowments now that she knew he would never try to
force her again.
"No," she said. "I'll go alone. Why don't you find some reavers to
kill?"
"Very well," Hoswell said. He drew his steel greatbow from its pack,
began carefully to unwrap the oiled canvas that protected it from the rain.
"You'll fight with that?" she asked.
Hoswell shrugged. "It's what I use best. A shot to the sweet
triangle..."
Myrrima spurred her own mount away from the other lords, rode under the
arch toward the largest knot of dead reavers. Borenson would have fallen in
the thick of battle. She imagined that he would be there.
In the distance, she could hear others searching the battlefield,
calling for loved ones. They shouted different names, but all were the
selfsame cry: "I am alive; are you?"
"Borenson? Borenson!" she called.
She had no way to know how severe his wounds might be. If he lay
trapped beneath a fallen reaver, she'd make light of it. If he was
disemboweled, she'd stuff his guts in and nurse him back to health. She
tried to steel herself for whatever she would find.
She imagined what she would say when she found him, rehearsed a hundred
variations of "I love you. I'm a warrior now, and I'm coming with you to
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Inkarra."
He would object--perhaps on good grounds. She had only gained a little
skill with a bow.
She would persuade him.
As Myrrima drew close to the fell mage's final battleground, she
smelled the remnants of the monster's curses. Residual odors clung like a
mist to the low ground.
Even two hours after the mage's death, the curses' effects were
astonishing. "Be blind," a curse still whispered, and her sight dimmed. "Be
dry as dust"; sweat oozed from her pores. "Rot, O thou child of man"; her
stomach knotted and every scratch felt as if it might pucker into a
festering wound.
She rode in the shadows of reaver corpses that loomed on every side.
She gazed in awe at crystalline teeth like scythes. She caught movement
from the corner of her eye. Her heart leapt in her throat to see a reaver's
maw open.
She yanked her mount's reins to turn it back, but realized that the
reaver did not hiss or move.
It was dead. Its maw merely creaked open as the monster cooled. Its
muscles were contracting like a clam's as it dries in the sun.
Myrrima looked around. All of the reavers' mouths were opening by slow
degrees.
The air seemed heavy. No katydid buzzed in a thicket. No wind sighed
through the leaves of any trees, for the reavers had uprooted every plant.
"Borenson!" she shouted. She scanned the ground, hoping the reflected
firelight might reveal the form of her husband buried beneath a layer of
soot.
A trio of gree whipped past her head, wings squeaking as if in torment.
Through the tangled legs of a dead reaver, she glimpsed a flickering
light, and suddenly she had the wild hope that Borenson had lit the fire.
She spurred her mount. Around a bonfire had gathered a crowd of
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摘要：

WizardbornBOOK9DAY2INTHEMONTHOFLEAVESChapter1THECALMBETWEENTHESTORMSKingCroenertofToomboughtdungforhisfieldstomakethegrassg owdeeper.Butfoundonedaythatwarlordsingraywouldselltheirsonsfarcheaper.--NurseryrhymealludingtoKingCroenert,whohiredcheapmercenariesfromInternooktoattackLonnockInSouthCrowthen...

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