David Farland - Runelords 06 by Farland David

Author:Farland, David
Language: eng
Format: epub

High King Urstone sprinted through the early morning, a thousand warriors at his back, as they raced along.

With the great change, dirt and grasses had sprung up over the old road in a single night. It didn’t erase the road so much as leave a light layer of soil over it with clumps of stubble growing here and there. The wyrmling trail was easy to follow.

There was only one set of wagon tracks in the dust, along with the tracks of a dozen wyrmling warriors.

They stopped at a brook that burbled over the road, and several men bellied down to drink. It was the heat of the day, and sweat rolled off them. A few cottonwood trees shaded the brook, making it a welcome spot, and King Urstone shouted out, “Ten minutes. Take ten minutes here to rest.”

He saw a fish leap at a gnat in the shadows, and watched for a moment. There was a pair of fat trout lying in the water.

Warlord Madoc came up at his back, and asked, “Will we catch them today, do you think?” At first the king thought that the warlord was talking about the fish. King Urstone shook his head, trying to rid it of cobwebs and weariness.

“Aye, we’ll catch them,” the king assured him. “We got a late start, but it should be enough. The wyrmlings are forced by their nature to travel at night. But the days are far longer than the nights, this time of year. We should be on them well before dark.”

Madoc nodded and seemed to find no fault with the logic. That was odd. It seemed to the king that Madoc always sought to find fault with his logic nowadays.

“It will be a rough fight,” Madoc said, “with two Knights Eternal in the battle.”

“We have weapons to fight them with,” the king said.

Madoc bore one of those weapons, a dainty sword that was nearly useless in his immense hand. He pulled it from its sheath, showed it to the High King. A patina of rust had formed on the fine steel blade.

“Sisel said that these had been blessed, but I say they’re cursed. This rust has been spreading like a fungus since dawn.”

The High King smiled, not in joy, but in admiration for the enemies’ resourcefulness. “I would say that they are both blessed and cursed. We will have to put that sword to good use before it rots away into nothingness.”

“You gave that fool Alun one of these swords to bear,” Madoc said. “Will you let him bear it into battle?”

“You call him a fool? You are the one who made him a warrior, and he acquitted himself well in battle this morning, by all accounts. Do you now regret your choice?”

“Oh course not,” Madoc blustered. “But…he has no training with the sword, and it is an enchanted weapon!”

“Your point is well taken,” King Urstone said. Alun had fallen behind the war party. He didn’t have a warrior’s legs, couldn’t hope to keep pace. The king had assigned some men to help him along, even if they had to lug him like a sack of turnips.

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