Wurm War Page 4

  Mistress Belladonna of the Order of Strychnos rose from her seat, a striking and bewitchingly beautiful figure clad in robes of the most vibrant green, a barely noticeable glance to either side enough to quiet the mouths of the clamorous guild members seated around her.

  “Lord Romulus, from your tone I take it that you believe we ought to trust Timothy Cade. Yet you have been one of the most vocal opponents of the boy. To what may we attribute such a change?”

  Lord Foxheart leaped to his feet. “Isn’t it obvious? The boy has clouded his mind!”

  There were mocking chuckles from those who found the Malleus Guild’s grandmaster absurd, but there were also grumbling nods of agreement from some members. Romulus had to restrain himself from the urge to reduce Foxheart to a pile of charred bones.

  Instead he turned to the Voice. “May I show them?”

  “I think we must,” she replied, and passed her hand over the top of her bone staff. A crystalline shape twirled in the air, throwing colors as it reflected the light of the chamber.

  With a gentle puff of her breath, the Voice sent the crystal drifting across the stage toward Romulus. He held his hand out, even as the crystal resolved into an image of fire, of Wurm raiders in flight, wielding swords and breathing liquid flame. Of slaughter and destruction.

  “This is Tora’nah,” Romulus announced.

  The images were nightmarish to behold: an army of Wurm filling the sky, descending on the mining operation. And all the while the voice of a guild member could be heard. “Help us, please help us.”

  Then one of the Wurm warriors alighted on the ground just feet away from the mage who had recorded the frantic message.

  The creature was terrifying to behold, clad in pitted armor the color of dried blood. He opened his mouth as if to scream, spewing a stream of fire. A piercing shriek of agony filled the air, and the transmission went black.

  The hall was deathly quiet as the crystal dissolved, raining down to the floor like so much dust.

  “You ask me how I can trust the boy and his Wurm allies?” Romulus said. “After seeing such as this, how can I afford not to?”

  Chapter Three

  They were slowing down.

  And to slow down, Verlis knew, was to admit defeat and accept death.

  The cold, biting winds of the Barrens swirled around them, kicking up razor-sharp slivers of ice that did little damage to his scaled hide, but left bleeding scratches on the exposed flesh of the surviving blacksmiths and miners of Tora’nah.

  Fifteen had left the storage shed at the mining operation and raced for the portal between worlds, besieged by Raptus’s vicious soldiers. The Wurm warriors had attacked with swords and fire, death on the wing, but as Verlis had predicted, they had all refused to re-enter Draconae. Still, the escape had been costly. Of the original fifteen, five had been killed before crossing over and two had died since then from wounds sustained during their exodus. Now only eight remained.

  But even those eight were in peril from the unforgiving environment of Draconae, the wind and ice and the bone-deep chill. The night would be even worse.

  “We must move faster,” Verlis called to Telford over the howling winds.

  The landscape of Draconae was cruel and inhospitable, ice barrens and mountains cloaked in constant blizzard, save in the areas where volcanic activity had burst up through the earth and created small oases of blistering tropical heat. Verlis wondered, as he often had while living on this cruel world, if the mages of old had chosen it intentionally, if they had secretly hoped in their blackened hearts that the place of banishment, now called Draconae, would eventually kill the Wurm. If that was indeed their intention, then the mages had not known their enemies well at all. For the Wurm were survivors, and this harsh land had only served to make them stronger, and in the case of Raptus and those who followed him, angrier.

  Telford nodded in response to Verlis’s urgings, pulling the collar of his jacket up around his neck. Ice and snow clung to his hair, and the man was shivering from the elements as he turned to the surviving workers.

  “Come on, now,” he yelled, his voice barely audible over the roar of the rushing winds. “We need to speed things up before…”

  The smiths and miners slowed to a stop. What a ragtag group they made. The Malleum armor hung on their trembling frames as though they were children wearing their fathers’ wares of war. Frost covered their features, and their breath froze almost before it could leave their blue-tinged lips.

  “No farther,” a burly smith cried out, stumbling forward to stand in front of the others, his head covered in ice and snow.

  Verlis had learned that the man’s name was Burtlett. He had been the assistant foreman at the metal forge, but would now be foreman. Charna Tayvis had been killed during the exodus from Tora’nah. She had been the first to fall, distracting Raptus’s soldiers by running away from the group, goading the Wurm to pursue her while the others made their escape from the valley. Verlis had gained an entirely new respect for the human species, and their potential for sacrifice, this day—one that he would not soon forget.

  “We’re going back,” Burtlett said, planting his spear into the frozen ground before him in defiance. “I’ve decided—we’ve decided that if we’re going to die, we’d rather die back there, where it’s warm.”

  Verlis noticed the other smiths and miners glancing nervously at one another, and had to wonder how much they had actually participated in making this decision.

  They had all fought bravely. Though he himself had been engaged in savage combat with his brethren, Verlis had seen how valiantly the humans had waged their battle, even as they fled for their lives. The Malleum armor protected them from the razorsharp points of swords, spears, and knives, and also deflected the spells the Wurm sorcerers cast against them. Now that he had borne witness to this, he had begun to believe that with the Malleum, the mages of Terra truly stood a chance against Raptus and his army. Fortunately much armor and weaponry would already have arrived in Arcanum from the earlier shipment. But every piece would be vital to the war effort. He had to get this dwindling group of survivors safely back to their world.

  “No more of you will die,” Verlis said, striding toward them. He pulled his wings tighter around his body to protect himself from the biting winds. “On the spirits of my ancestors, I promise you this.”

  “You’re just as cold as we are,” Burtlett argued. “You can’t protect us from something that will eventually kill you as well.”

  Without a word Verlis stepped back, opened his mouth, and vomited a blazing gout of liquid flame onto the icy ground. The fire blazed, throwing off powerful warmth. The smiths and miners were drawn to the small conflagration, warming themselves, and seeming to take some inspiration from its invigorating heat. Though it made him colder, depleting his own inner warmth, Verlis knew that he had to give them hope.

  “I will die before allowing the elements here to take you,” he said with a growl. “To go back to the camp will surely mean your end.”

  The fire began to shrink, having nothing to burn, and he watched the mages huddle closer to the dwindling warmth. Soon it would be gone, and they would need to continue on.

  “Stay with me and I will take you to a place where the walls between dimensions are thinner, where I can work the magic taught to me by one of your own—the most revered Argus Cade—and return you to your homeworld.”

  Telford moved to stand beside Verlis, a silent affirmation of his support. Burtlett glowered as one by one the others joined them.

  “With me, there is a chance for life,” the Wurm said to Burtlett, who continued to stand his ground. “Is that not more appealing than the alternative?”

  At last the man grumbled beneath his breath, pulled his spear from the ground, and they all set off together across the frozen barren.

  A great many Wurm soared in the sky above the Cade estate, adults and children roaring fire as they dipped and wove around the ancient structure. The house spran
g from August Hill at the strangest of angles, only one corner of the house anchored to the ground, while the rest of it was supported by magic, dangling precariously over the hill with nothing below it but the gorgeous view of Arcanum. The mansion had suffered no evident structural damage in the flickering of the magical matrix, but as Caiaphas guided the sky carriage up August Hill, Timothy felt certain that many of the more delicate furnishings would have been shattered by the temporary jarring drop he had caused.

  As the sky carriage approached, Timothy could not help but feel the wonder and excitement he had experienced the first time he laid eyes on the ancestral home of his family, the home that, in the wake of his father’s death, belonged to him alone.

  Home.

  With amazing precision the navigation mage brought the carriage to a stop at the end of the stone staircase that led down from the great doors of the house and ended over open air.

  “It seems like such a long time since I was last here,” Timothy said, pushing open the carriage door and stepping onto the stairs.

  “If time were measured by experience, you have been away for a very long time indeed,” Sheridan said as Timothy helped the mechanical man from the back of the carriage.

  “Will you join us inside, Caiaphas?” Timothy asked as he closed the carriage door.

  “I think I’ll stay here, if you don’t mind.” The navigation mage gazed out over the sprawling city of Arcanum. “It’s so peaceful right now.” He paused a moment before continuing. “And who knows how long it will remain this way.”

  Timothy admired the city as well, trying hard not to think about what would happen if Raptus and his army attacked.

  “That’s fine,” he told the driver. “But if you want to come inside, you’re welcome.”

  Timothy went up the stairs, admiring the grandeur of his father’s house. Sheridan clanked along behind him. There was the flutter of wings, and Timothy glanced up to see Edgar spiraling down from the sky. The rook perched on his shoulder.

  “Hello, Edgar,” Timothy said. “Nice to stretch your wings, I’ll bet.”

  The bird did not respond. His head was cocked back, beak pointed skyward as he gazed up at the roof of the house, where the Wurm were soaring and rolling in the air. Timothy thought he spotted Cythra, Verlis’s mate.

  “There’s something you don’t see every day,” Edgar said.

  Timothy smiled, happy to see the Wurm enjoying themselves. He only wished he did not have such terrible news. He reached the front door and stopped. Almost every door in the world had some form of magical lock to secure property and privacy, but those locks were useless to Timothy. The nullifying effect of his presence canceled out any security a spell would have provided. He might have left the existing spell-lock in place, but he did not trust magic. Instead he built his own lock. It was a simple invention, a metal bar placed across the door and frame on the inside, preventing the door from being opened. It took a key to slide that bar back, allowing the door to be opened.

  “Do you have the key, Sheridan?” Timothy asked, extending his hand.

  The mechanical man opened a small, hinged door in his chest and stuck his hand inside. “Certainly,” he said, searching among the pumps, pistons, and gears that made up his internal workings. “It was right here the last time I looked … ah, here it is.”

  Sheridan withdrew the small, cylindrical-shaped piece of metal and handed it to his maker.

  “Thank you,” Timothy said as he unlocked the door. There was a faint clicking sound from inside, and he pulled the door open. “After you,” he said to Sheridan, pocketing the key.

  They went into the foyer of the house, and Timothy closed the door behind him. As he suspected, the ripple that had gone through the matrix had caused a good many things to be jumbled about. It was obvious that the Wurm had done their best to pick up, but a number of sculptures his father had collected had fallen from their shelf. The Wurm had returned the rubble to the shelf, obviously unsure what to do with it. Timothy supposed he ought to be glad there wasn’t more substantial damage.

  “It’s good to be home,” Edgar squawked, spreading his wings and taking flight from Timothy’s shoulder. The rook soared around the sprawling foyer, disappearing up the circular staircase to the second floor.

  “It is, isn’t it,” Timothy whispered.

  His eyes went to the inventions that he had created after leaving Patience, creations that allowed him to be able to live in the great old house without the gift of magic. The special lamps of hungry fire burned in their places about the lobby. The Wurm had obviously been refilling the oil lamps for him. His eyes traced the piping that ran along the ceiling to bring water by nonmagical means to certain areas of the house. A few of the pipe joints looked as though they might have been damp from leakage. Immediately his mind filled with ideas about how to repair the system and improve it at the same time.

  “The house it rather dusty, though,” Sheridan said, clumping to the stairs before them, and running his segmented metal hand along the railing. He examined the ends of his fingers. He made a clucking noise and a sigh of steam came from the pressure valve on his head. “I can see I’ll be busy.”

  Timothy didn’t bother to stop his mechanical friend as he marched off to find a rag. He knew that there were far more important things to worry about than a little dust, but at that moment, he was truly enjoying the warmth of the house, and the memories that flooded his thoughts. He hadn’t been living here long before he was whisked off to SkyHaven, but even in that short amount of time, he had developed a connection. This was his father’s house, after all, and though he had no magic himself, he could feel the man’s presence in every corner. His father’s spirit had long since departed, but in some ways, it was in every inch of this house.

  Edgar cawed loudly and shouted for Timothy to look out. The boy looked up to see the rook swooping toward him from the second floor. Timothy felt panic race through him, thinking they were under attack, but then he spotted the two Wurm children flying after Edgar. They were smaller than the adults of their kind, but were still quite fearsome to behold.

  “I think they want to eat me!” Edgar screeched, landing atop Timothy’s head, scratching the boy’s scalp as he tried to find purchase, wings fluttering in panic.

  The boy reached up and steadied the bird and started to tell Edgar he was being ridiculous, but the two young Wurm flew closer and closer still, and Timothy began to worry. Abruptly they veered off in opposite directions, wings beating the air inside the house, raising dust, until at last they both landed on the foyer floor.

  “Greetings, Timothy,” one of them said.

  “And to all those who call you friend,” added the other.

  Edgar leaned down from atop Timothy’s head to whisper in his ear. “1 thought I was a goner,” he said breathlessly.

  “Hello,” Timothy replied, watching as the Wurm landed, their leathery wings furling tightly against their backs. But still he heard the heavy sounds of wings flapping, and looked up again to see the much larger shapes of three adult Wurm as they, too, descended from the upper levels of the house.

  One of them was Cythra, the wife of Verlis. Two warriors flanked her. They landed gently at the foot of the stairs, and all bowed their horned heads in greeting.

  “It has been too long since last we saw you, Timothy,” Cythra growled, her large, yellow eyes mesmerizing in their intensity—and not for the first time, he was quite glad that these fearsome creatures were indeed his friends.

  The Wurm of Verlis’s clan had been living at the Cade estate since their escape from Draconae a little over a month ago, much to the chagrin of the Parliament of Mages. But these Wurm shared a common foe with the mage guilds, and Timothy hoped that an alliance could be forged between the two.

  “Greetings to you, Cythra,” Timothy said politely. “I hope that you’ve been comfortable in my home.”

  Smoke streamed from her flared nostrils. “Your hospitality to my clan will always be remembered
. As your father was accepted into our ranks, so too, do we embrace you as one of our own.”

  “Hey, imagine that,” Edgar croaked. “You’re a Wurm now.”

  Timothy smiled at the thought, proud of the honor, but his smile quickly faded as he recalled the disturbing reason he had returned to his home.

  “Something troubles you, Timothy?” Cythra asked, tilting her head to one side. “I presume it involves the anomaly we felt in the matrix of magic. We did our best to restore the house, but some things—”

  “That’s the least of our concerns, I’m sorry to say,” he told her. Timothy took a deep breath before continuing. “Alhazred’s Divide has fallen, and Raptus and his followers have come across.”

  Cythra grunted as if she had been struck, and jets of flame shot from her nostrils. She turned to her warrior companions, and they began to communicate in the strange language of noises that they shared, the snapping of jaws and clicking of tongues. Cythra gestured with a taloned hand to the two younger Wurm, and they immediately took flight, soaring above their heads and up the stairs to the levels above, where the other Wurm were congregated.

  She then turned her attention back to Timothy.

  “We have anticipated this news,” she said in a rumbling growl, “and are ready to assist you in any way that we can.”

  “I mean you and your clan no disrespect, and I appreciate your offer,” he told her. “But I have not yet received word from Parliament that your offer to aid us in our coming struggle has been accepted and—”

  “But we have,” Cythra interrupted.

  Timothy frowned in confusion and would have asked her to elaborate, but there came a heavy pounding on the front door.

  “Who?” Timothy asked, looking toward the door.

  “Maybe Caiaphas has to use the bathroom,” Edgar suggested.