The RuneLords (77 page)

Gaborn did not want to hear the rest, how the spirits had issued from the Dunnwood, what they had done. But he had to know.

"All of Raj Ahten's men, lost?"

"Every man within sight of the woods," Orwynne said triumphantly.

At this news, many in the Great Hall cheered, but Gaborn bid them to silence. "There is no triumph in the deaths of these men," Gaborn murmured. "By their deaths we are all diminished. We will need such men, in the dark time to come."

That night, Gaborn could not sleep. He went out into Binnesman's garden. The trees and grasses were but gnarled ash. Yet beneath him he could feel life--seeds and roots already beginning to stir. Though fire had burned this place, come spring it would once again become a riot of life.

On the plains of Fleeds, far from the borders of the Dunnwood, Raj Ahten's troops raced south for a day before they met the remains of Vishtimnu's army, bivouacked near a pinnacle of rock.

The Clan Lords of Fleeds had discovered the army moving through the wilderness, had feared that it had come to attack the stronghold at Tor Billius, so they had surrounded the army, then slain some eighty thousand men.

Raj Ahten broke the enemy lines. As he appeared before the clans, he admonished them to serve him. Thirty thousand men joined his army that day, though many others continued to fight against Raj Ahten.

Chief among those who fought were the great High King Connel and his valiant warriors, who led charge after charge against the Wolf Lord, until the knights' lances were all broken and their shields shattered. Still, Connel fought on with hatchet and dagger.

At sunset, Raj Ahten fed Connel, alive, to his Frowth giants.

Then for a long time Raj Ahten stood, gazing at the remnants of his army, considering, then he looked back to the north, as if torn in indecision.

Some say that he muttered curses under his breath, and that he trembled, alternately gripped by rage and fear. Others say that he merely stood, thoughtfully. With so many more men at his back, he felt sorely tempted to return to Heredon, strike at the Earth King now, and finish it.

At last, Raj Ahten turned his back on Heredon and raced for the mountains.

Three nights after the fall of Longmont, Gaborn and Iome married in Castle Sylvarresta.

The ceremony was a large one, for thousands of lords were gathering from nearby nations. Iome wore no veil, and if Gaborn was pleased that Iome's beauty had returned, he did not show it. His devotion had not faltered when she grew ugly; it did not suddenly sprout greater wings now.

On her wedding night, Gaborn kept his promise. He proved to be no gentleman in bed, at least no more a gentleman than she wanted him to be.

That night, after making love, Iome lay in bed for a long time with her hand gently placed over her womb, wondering what manner of child she carried. '

For she knew she carried a child. The earth power in Gaborn was growing so strong, it was no longer possible that he could plant a seed and not have it take root.

Borenson and Myrrima married that same day with little fanfare, choosing a poor couple's wedding.

The next night, a quarter moon rose over the eastern hills outside Castle Sylvarresta. By its faint light, Gaborn, Borenson, and fifty Knights Equitable mounted their chargers and rode pell-mell into the Dunnwood, lances at the ready, to hunt for reavers.

The men were ferocious, longing for the hunt, and all promised that this would be one to remember.

Binnesman went with them, for he said that there were soils deep beneath the Dunnwood, soils once mined by the duskins, soils that carried magics of the deep earth, which could grant magical properties to the weapons that the Earth King's smiths would forge this winter.

Of what transpired on that great hunt, little was ever said thereafter. But the Earth King and his wizard and some of his knights returned shortly after dawn, three days later, on the last and greatest day of the Hostenfest, the day of the great feast.

By great misfortune, in the duskin mines they had found more than they could easily handle twenty-seven juvenile reavers, along with their reaver mage.

Forty-one brave knights died in that battle.

Borenson himself slew the reaver mage in her lair, and brought back with him a trophy, dragging the creature's massive head behind his steed.

He laid the head of lumpy gray leather out on the green before Castle Sylvarresta for all to see. It was almost six feet in length, four feet high, and somewhat ovoid in shape. It looked much like the head of an ant or some insect, except that it had no eyes, ears, or nose. Its only sensory apparatus was the patches of feelers that hung like gray worms from the back of its head, in mockery of hair, and down near its mouth.

The rows of crystalline teeth in its great maw made a huge impression on the peasants and children, many of whom were afraid to touch the rigid lips. The thousands of teeth inside that maw sat in seven rows, like those of a shark, but each jagged tooth was as clear and tough as quartz. Like the bones of the skull behind it.

Peasants by the tens of thousands came to view the monster's head. The children shrieked in delight to touch it, and many a maid gaped at it, and tittered, while the old folks just stared long and thoughtfully.

It was the first reaver mage found within the Dunnwood in nearly seventeen hundred years, and many of those present believed it would be the last one they'd see in their lifetimes.

But they were wrong. For it was not the last.

It was only the first.