Windcatcher: Book I of the Stone War Chronicles (17 page)

“When you left on your precious march, you took half my defense force with you, without properly informing me. I have spent months training recruits to take their places. I finally got to a point where my soldiers could cover the entire territory again, and his lordship sent them off down south to join up with the southern garrisons. I barely had enough soldiers to secure the capital, let alone to station checkpoints near the cliff. So don’t you dare ask me where my troops were to hide the fact that it was your own incompetence! You had the item and lost it. You have no one to blame but your own shortsightedness.”

Corza’s face reddened.

Shortsightedness? I am the master of planning and strategy! How dare he call me shortsighted!

He forced himself to calm down.

No matter, he’ll be out of the picture soon enough, along with those damn Darkened. I think it is time to awaken my pets. Let’s see if he dares to insult me after he sees them following my every command.

He gave Koltar a small smile.

“Well, I’d say it’s about time to put that cargo of mine to some good use. Would you care to have a look?”

Corza road off toward his cargo wagon without waiting to hear an answer. He knew Koltar would follow him, just like he had always done for the past four days. They were not letting him out of their sight. There was always a Darkened or trusted soldier of Koltar’s following in his wake. He stopped taking notice of it. Everything was already arranged, before his troops left the capital, so they needed no secret meetings to achieve their goal. The only thing Corza needed was the right moment, and he felt that coming closer with every moment that passed. Soon, he would be free to go where he wanted again, and he would continue his plan to secure the dragon. After that, no one would be able to stop him, not even the Stone King.

Arriving at the wagon, Koltar heard Corza bark commands to his soldiers to unload the two heavy packages and open them. The crates, too heavy to be lifted, were rolled off the back. A soldier took his axe and carefully forced them open. What Koltar saw emerge made him curse under his breath.

That weasel has the guts to bring these abominations.

He had not seen them in this shape before, but he had seen the human ghol’ms during test runs. He had never needed to use one on the home territory, but he was fully aware of the devastating power that the ghol’ms possessed.

This must be some new type of ghol’m; but where did he get them?

“What in King’s name is the meaning of this? I wasn’t aware we had a new type of ghol’m. What do you plan to do with these?”

Corza dismounted from his horse.

“Now that we have a trail to follow, it would be best to ditch the heavy wagon. It’ll only slow us down. These two beauties will be more than capable of keeping up with a galloping horse. If the enemy group is in possession of the sacred item, they need a wagon to transport it. We will be able to catch up with them very fast, if we do not lose the trail. But such a heavy wagon is bound to leave tracking clues everywhere, so your scouts should be able to find them.”

Corza opened his saddlebag and dug around in it until he finally pulled two sacrifice scrolls from its depths.

Koltar’s mood darkened. He had no objection to the extra power a ghol’m gave to their hunt, but all that power at Corza’s disposal could mean real problems.

“How fast can they move? You know the human ghol’ms are slow travelers when they aren’t in combat. They have that awkward stride, and it takes time for them to move between the forest trees.”

Koltar was right…it had surprised them when the first test ghol’ms showed a complete difference in speed during combat and normal travel. They tried to find a solution, but in the end had to accept it as a flaw in the design. Corza theorized that in combat one’s energy was completely different from a normal state of mind. That combat buzz normal soldiers felt has the power to take away fatigue, pain and doubt. Corza figured it triggered a complete change in how the ghol’ms moved. It was one of the reasons why the ghol’ms were transported in wagons, instead of letting them walk.

“Not to worry, High General Wayler,” Corza said, officially, “for these creatures, there is no difference between combat and no combat. There is only the hunt. Now, if you please, take a step back with your horse. This could get a bit dangerous and we would not want you to get hurt.”

The sarcastic tone in Corza’s voice was barely noticeable, but Koltar was fully aware of its presence. Turning his ride around, he put some distance between him and the stone wolves. During their patrols, Koltar and his men had plenty of encounters with the timber wolves, enough to have a healthy respect for these killing machines of nature.

Without further delay, Corza walked between the statues and stopped at the back of their necks. He raised his arms, a scroll in each hand. Corza softly mumbled the incantation of sacrifice. He felt the scrolls resonating while a faint blue glow originated from the sides of the scroll. In one swift motion, he brought down both scrolls; the sharp points hit each wolf statue accurately between the shoulder blades. The blue light immediately increased to a bright sparkling flare, as the resonating sound increased, making the horses neigh. Corza’s clothes waved in the wind created by the sound. He was now experienced enough to brace himself for what came next. Both sound bursts came almost simultaneously as the blue energy light rushed into the statues, expanding outward, echoing along the forests.

Wrenching the scrolls out, Corza walked back to his horse and put some more distance between himself and the black wolves. Since it would be his first time seeing the transformation for them, he did not want to take any chances.

After a brief moment, he heard the familiar sound of stone cracking. Small pieces crumbled from both wolves. Their heads started moving as one wolf turned its head sideways and back to stretch its neck. The other looked down as it ripped lose its front paws. Large nails shaped at the end of the paws as both tails broke loose and swept back and forth a couple of times. The cracking grew louder as a muffled growl became audible. The entire jaw formed, and their mouths split open, revealing razor-sharp teeth. Their two large canine fangs were almost the length of Corza’s lower arm.

The wolves had an eerie appearance, with little color difference between their skin and their fangs. Both eyes glowed blue in their hollow caskets. It was like the entire beast was a shadow, which made it difficult to clearly see the details. Corza noticed a small difference in size between the wolves. The larger one was almost at the point that all paws were fully formed and ready to get up; the smaller one was currently snapping its head backward, trying to bite its own tail.

Suddenly, the large wolf put its hind paws back and stretched forward, throwing its head backward in his neck. The howl it threw at the sky was like nothing Koltar ever heard before. He recognized the howl of a wolf but the sound was like it was inside a cave, bouncing off the stone walls that were its lungs, amplifying itself. He felt it resonate through its body. Instantly, he was back at the black palace near the dome, where that rumble had sounded so familiar and so unnatural at the same time. He wondered what the Stone King hid in that dome.

The smaller wolf reacted to the howl and added its own. Ripping its paws lose, it stumbled to the side, crashing into the larger wolf. The impact was all that was needed to set the beast off. In an instant, the larger wolf turned sideways and threw itself viciously on the other wolf. Its jaws closed on the back of the other’s neck as the sound of stone scraping over stone rolled over the clearing. The smaller wolf rolled sideways, making the larger one role over it, and at once put in a counterattack directed at one of the front paws.

Neither wolf did any real damage to the other with their teeth, or their claws; but Koltar had no doubt one bite would have enough power to bite through a man’s arm, leg, and perhaps even a torso, with ease. The wolves tumbled across each other, scrambling to their feet and launched another attack, right away. They both crashed into a large boulder, forcing them to split up again. The smaller one ran to the side, using the large boulder to run across it—horizontally—and get behind the bigger one. The latter immediately turned around to keep its competitor in front of him. It jumped at the larger wolf’s throat, but got pinned down by the full force of its larger foe. With its full weight on top of him, the smaller wolf finally yielded into a submissive position.

The large wolf lowered its head and let out a low growl, at which moment one of the soldiers came around the boulder to see what all the ruckus was about. Instantly, both wolves forgot about each other and jumped at the unprepared soldier. He barely had time to raise his spear, as two pitch black wolves pounced on him. The larger wolf closed the full length of its jaw over the soldier’s right shoulder, its front canine teeth pierced all the way into the stomach, while the smaller wolf sank its teeth in his left femur, tearing the leg off at the hip. The soldier died in a pool of blood; so fast, no scream was heard.

Fascinated by the spectacle, Corza had an immense grin on his face. His creations were more marvelous than he had dared to dream. The fact that the soldier had been one of Koltar’s men just been made it so much sweeter.

As the wolves noticed their prey stopped moving, it dawned on them that they had no appetite to feed on it. Confused, they backed away and looked around, taking in the surroundings for the first time. Noticing both Corza and Koltar observing them, the larger one turned and started walking toward them slowly. Its head held low, it bared its teeth while slowly stepping toward them.

“Corza! Don’t you have any control over them?” Koltar roared, as he drew his sword from his side.

Corza did not bother answering. He kept his eyes on the large wolf approaching. The smaller wolf was now in its tracks, as they simultaneously increased their speed. The distance between them and the wolves closed rapidly, as Corza tightened his hands around both scrolls.

Wertel better be right, or he has another think coming to him.

Koltar’s horse started moving nervously from side to side, seeing the wolves come at them. Any untrained horse would have been long gone, even the trained warhorses had trouble following commands with ghol’ms nearby, and these were no normal ghol’ms. The wolves were fast, athletic and even more intimidating than any normal ghol’m. It was a wonder that the horse had not thrown him off yet.

“Corza! You better tell me you have a way to stop these things! You bastard, say something!”

But Corza did not turn around. His eyes were locked on the larger wolf, counting under his breath. Both wolves were at full running speed and would be on them at any moment. Corza considered, for a split second, letting the wolves tear through Koltar, right there and then; but that would mean instant chaos. One of Koltar’s soldiers might get away in the panic and inform Lord Rictor, and that would complicate things. Besides, he only had eyes on one of the Darkened, which meant they might be able to take him out if he was not careful enough. Reluctantly, Corza decided to wait for a more opportune moment, when there were fewer uncertainties.

Just before the wolves were on them, Corza bellowed.

“STOP!”

Both beasts skidded to a halt, stopping right in front of Corza. They looked at him strangely, not fully comprehending why they broke off their attack.

“Lie down!” Corza ordered in loud voice, and immediately both stone wolves sank their legs to lie down on the ground.

“Excellent, this is working out perfectly, I would say,” Corza said to no one in particular.

“You son of a whore, you let those things tear up one of our soldiers for nothing.” Koltar forced his horse to move in closer to Corza and the wolves.

Corza turned around.

“One of
your
soldiers, to be precise…you better be careful about what you call me, High General Wayler. We would not want the wolves to lose control again. Who knows what could happen...”

With the slightest movement of his finger, Corza let the wolves rise up, after which they moved to either side of him and positioned themselves between him and Koltar. The larger wolf was almost as tall as Koltar’s own horse. Its hollow eyes stared at him from just below his horse’s eye level. The smaller one lowered its head slightly and let out a small growl.

Not willing to push his luck in a situation like this, Koltar cursed audibly. He forced himself to turn his horse around and look backward.

“Trust me, High General Setra, I’ll remember. Now if you can keep them under control, let’s see if they can truly keep up with the horses during tracking and catch these thieves as quickly as possible.”

As Koltar rode off to whip their men into motion and get everything ready to set off, he gritted his teeth. These wolves would be trouble and not something he would easily be able to get rid of. All of a sudden, High General Setra became a much more dangerous person to control.

Raylan was enjoying a satisfied stomach, when he looked up and saw Xi’Lao come up to him.

“I need your help,” she said.

“What’s wrong?”

“Stephen’s leg is getting worse. I need to do something, or it will be too late.”

“Okay, what do you need me to do?”

“Find as much of this moss as possible,” said Xi’Lao, as she pulled a small pluck of green out of her bag. “It seems similar to the moss back home that is known for its disinfection abilities. I want to make a paste out of it and apply it to Stephen’s leg.”