Grudgebearer (15 page)

All know
, his voice echoed,
Rae'en, by Kholster out of Helg, will kholster the fate of Parl, Fifty-Third of One Hundred forged by Uled, Foresworn. Outcast. Oathbreaker. Not Aern. He lives or dies this day at her command.

“Kholster Rae'en.” Kholster nodded at her, holding out his arm that she might clasp it, each clasping the other's forearm. He smiled at her, but it was not a father's smile. It was his kholstering smile, the one he gave to all Aern newly in command.

He released her forearm, moving past her to the steps.

Rae'en's mind erupted in conversation all at once.

“You all know how to transmit your observations to me?” Vander asked aloud, looking at each of Rae'en's Overwatches in turn.

“Yes, sir.” Kazan answered for the group.

“Then I suggest you take up your positions and do so,” Vander said gently.

Rae'en mind raced, but her Overwatches took up positions at four cardinal points, as if the guard station were a compass. Instead of facing outward, however, to keep a lookout, their gazes faced inward at Rae'en, Parl, and Parli.

To kholster a decision involving one of the One Hundred
,
Joose thought, awed.

I think our kholster is up to the challenge
, M'jynn smirked.

Rae'en saw Kazan flinch, casting a heated glance in Arbokk's direction, then Rae'en heard Kazan's thoughts.
Arbokk is right, we're to assist our kholster, not distract her. Everyone transmit only what you scout and keep the chatter out of kholster Rae'en's head.

Very good
, Vander's thought came in mutedly.
I was about to mention it myself. Proceed.

Rae'en gulped at the feeling of Vander at the edge of her mind, not intruding but observing the tactical information. As Kholster's lead Overwatch, she knew he had the power and authority, even the duty, but the reality of his presence left her feeling guilty and exposed.

“Right,” Rae'en muttered under her breath. She stepped toward the Foresworn, the heels of her boots clicking crisply on the cold stone. Silence. All eyes on her. A cold breeze picked up, scattering a flurry of snow between them. Rae'en stared at the two males in front of her.

The two had been duplicates, identical, interchangeable. Now the differences in Parl glared forth.
Withered
, she thought to herself.
He looks withered and dried out.

He's shorter than his Incarna now
, M'jynn thought at her.
By half a hand.

“Is it true that you cannot hold metal, not even bone-steel?” Rae'en asked the Foresworn.

“It's true.” His voice was . . . she wasn't sure, but it was wrong. Strange.

She held out her hand near his chest and felt the truth of what he said. It was as if some invisible barrier had risen between them. She could push her hand close to his chest, but then it would slide away.

“What do you eat now?”

“My body won't process meat very well, not unless I chop it small and cook it thoroughly. I mainly eat stews and soups.” He started to look away, but didn't. Parl held Rae'en's gaze even though it obviously pained him. “And it's difficult without my teeth.”

“They don't grow back?” Near-constant teething was a part of any Aern's life. She'd been informed it got better with age, but the thought of not having teeth at all, of those teeth not replacing themselves . . .

“Not anymore.”

Parli grimaced at that, too, but stood next to his father staring straight ahead, his face as blank as he could make it. After all, every Aern knew the story of Parl's foreswearing. Parli had believed his wife to be innocent. His father had paid the price of his error. It saddened her, but it was a lesson, too, a cautionary tale about ill-thought oaths.

“Vegetables don't make me sick now, though. Not like when I was an . . . Oath . . . keeper.”

Parl sucked in his lips and looked down, his eyes tearing up. He did not cry, but it took several long breaths before he could meet her stare again. She walked around him, appalled to see a grown warrior in leather armor like a child. His Incarna's bone-steel mail seemed like plate armor by comparison. The warpick at Parli's back was a right and good tool, but Parl's . . .

“Where is your . . . weapon?”

“There.” He nodded to a wooden spear which leaned against the edge of the stone wall bordering the lookout position. “It had a tip carved of animal bone, but it was a mockery. This does not pretend to be anything it isn't.”

“May I?” She walked to the weapon, arm outstretched.

“Of course.”

She hefted the long, smooth shaft of wood. More javelin than spear, Rae'en reckoned. It had been made by a conflicted craftsman, equal parts pride and disdain. Well balanced and with a wood finish she did not immediately recognize, the weapon had no artistic embellishment, a weapon only—no art. And truly a weapon, not a tool, Rae'en realized. Parl may have been a weapon himself once, but he could no longer be considered one.

She walked back around to him, the wind blowing an errant hair across her eyes. Parl shivered and sniffed as mucus ran from his nostrils. He wiped it away with the back of his hand, stifling a deep cough as best he could.

“You're ill?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Like a human?”

“Yes.” He stared straight at her again. “It's called a cold.”

“Your eyes,” she asked. “Do they still see in the dark?”

“Better than a human's, but not like they used to. I—”

The deathblow came with only a fraction of awareness attached to it. On the one hand, Rae'en thought it possible she should have let him finish his sentence, but so great was his suffering, so wrong that the Fifty-Third of One Hundred should spend a candlemark as Parl had, much less the years he had endured, that Rae'en could not but act. Death was the only kindness for Parl, even if it meant a complete death, a death without the hope of his spirit flowing back into and strengthening the whole of her people.

Red blood, rather than the proper Aernese orange to which Rae'en was accustomed, poured from the wound in his chest when she withdrew Parl's javelin. One blow. Straight to the heart. His eyes blinked, but death came quickly.

“Burn that,” Rae'en scowled, not sure why her eyes were watering. “I don't think it's safe to eat.” She tossed the spear-javelin to Parli. “Do you want this?”

Parli caught the weapon as Kholster's thoughts rang out.
All know. Parli, now Fifty-Third of One Hundred, is excused from military duty until the tenth day. His loss is great, but no greater than some. In addition, from this day forth all Foresworn are to be killed on sight. To let them live is no kindness.

Evidently Kholster agreed
, Rae'en thought as her Overwatches congratulated her on having made the only possible correct decision. She watched as a pair of Bone Finders descended on the scene as if from nowhere and began pouring oil on the body of the being which had once been an Aern. Each of them nodded in turn to Rae'en, as did Parli, who, casting the javelin down upon the remains, stepped forward onto the northern stair and did not look back.

CHAPTER 14

OLD WYRM'S ADVICE

Later that evening, deep in the recesses of South Number Nine, Kholster stood alone at the edge of a large mezzanine of steel reinforced granite. Orange light from the lava pools below, in which newborn Jun beasts moved and swam, lent a bronze cast to his bone-steel armor. Kholster still did not fully understand the Jun beasts. Though full-grown Jun beasts bore some vague resemblance to miniature dragons, they were not dragons. The young ones looked like strange stone tadpoles, some with legs, others without, but none possessing what Kholster could, in good conscience, call heads.

Despite their abnormal appearance, Coal, the great dragon, seemed to enjoy their company in the absence of his own kind. Kholster watched as the dragon shimmied in through a reinforced thermal vent and plopped down into the lava pool among the young creatures. Coal's gray skin blazed in bright reds and oranges as the heat warmed him, giving Kholster a rough glimpse of the dragon as he might have appeared in his youth.

“What is it, Angry One?” Coal asked as the immature Jun beasts crowded against him. “You never come down to bask in my inspiring glow, such as it is. We always speak on the mountaintops or in the fields.”

“I come with a question.”

“Said question, I assume, comes with a requested favor buried deep inside—a baited hook, as it were?”

“Yes.”

Coal submerged his bulk as far beneath the lava as he could, peering up at Kholster with nostrils and eyes scarcely inches above the surface of the molten rock.

“Ask,” the dragon's voice burbled, muffled by the lava.

“Would you like to see the Sri'Zauran Mountains one last time?”

Laughter filled the cavern, sending the Jun beasts scurrying clear of the dragon. Coal rose up, fiery rivulets draining from his features, and his massive neck stretched out to place him eye to eye with Kholster.

“So what if I would? I cannot make that journey by wing anymore. I, who am ancient beyond even your long life and experience, have grown infirm.”

Kholster blanched. “Surely you exaggerate . . .”

“No!” Coal growled, shaking the cavern with a thunderous roar. “I do not! I tell you truly that there are human babes born this very day who will yet draw breath when I do not.”

“Ah.” Kholster nodded, turning to leave.

“My answer, therefore, is yes.”

Kholster turned back.

“You have chosen to kill the Eldrennai, yes? You will make good on your ill-conceived oath and destroy them all. You will become a thing of rage once more, awaken your hate from its quiescence and feast upon the flesh of your creator's race. Will you not?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like the advice of an old wyrm, Kholster, first of Uled's Aern, First of One Hundred?”

“I would.”

“Have your warsuits rise up this very night and kill the Eldrennai.” The dragon's eye flickered with inner light as he spoke. “Have them steal your victory like thieves in the shadows. Arrive for the Grand Conjunction in thirteen years' time knowing that only the Vael will join you. So long as you still arrive, you will not be Foresworn.”

Kholster shook his head, crimson reflected in his black eyes. “I will not.”

“Foolish creature!” Coal rose up farther, forcing Kholster to step aside to avoid a spatter of lava. “You could take most of their Elementalists by surprise.”

“I know.”

“It would be the quickest road to victory.”

“It would.”

“Then why not take it?” Coal's foreclaw broke the surface of the magma. Sparks and smoke hissed as the great dragon's claws snapped at the air as if seizing some imaginary goal.

“‘Must we attack them now?'” Kholster quoted.

“I don't understand.”

“That's what Bloodmane asked when the idiot prince took irrevocable action and shattered his people's truce with me.”

“Must,” the dragon whispered, “not ‘can' or ‘do' or ‘should' . . . ‘must.' I see your dilemma.”

“I will not enslave that which I have created. If our skins are no longer of one will with our souls, we, their rightful occupants . . . I will not force them to do that which they do not wish to do.”

“So you've directed them to what? Remain vigilant?” the dragon snapped its claws, liquid rock spattering Kholster's boots. “You could task them with the reclamation of Fort Sunder. They could do that in secret, and surely it is a task they would welcome.”

“I did. They do.”

“If the warsuits are not with you, one dragon will not be enough. You will need an equalizer.”

“Yes,” Kholster flicked the hardening stone off of his boots. “And as I am unwilling to employ gnomes as warmages or humans as mind warriors, the only option which remains is distasteful to me.”

“You must ask the Dwarves for Jun cannon and junpowder.”

“Guns. Rifles.”

When the dragon seemed perplexed by that, Kholster explained.

“They are no longer holy weapons when used by one who is not a Dwarf. Years ago when I asked to fire one, Glinfolgo stored the weapon in a different place and called it a gun. It lost the right to bear Jun's name when used for a purpose other than the defense of his holy work.”

“Guns,” the dragon repeated. “Yes, the weapons of Jun would do the trick. If I were younger, or if you had a whole flight of dragons, you could make do without. As it stands, I don't see any other path to success, unless you unleash your entire population against the Eldrennai.”

“No,” Kholster shook his head. “I will take the Armored and the Bone Finders, who must protect the bones of the fallen. And one other—an Eleven. Freeborn.”