Worldbinder by David Farland Read Free Book Online Page B

the horizon like a bloody eye.
    The wyrmling peered at Daylan, cold and mocking in her rage. The wyrmlings could not abide light. It pained their eyes and burned their skin.
    Humans feared the darkness, and so they had agreed to meet here now, in the half-light.
    The sight of her sent a shudder through Daylan. Thoughts of compassion, honor, decency—all were alien to her, incomprehensible. The maggot that infected her soul saw to that.
    “Well met?” she asked, as if trying to make sense of the greeting. “Why would it be well to meet me? Your body trembles. It knows the gaze of a predator when it sees it. Yet you think it well to meet me?”
    Daylan chuckled. “It is only a common greeting among my people.”
    “Is it?” the wyrmling demanded, as if he lied.
    “So,” Daylan said, “you asked for proof that your princess is still alive.”
    “Can you name the day she drew her first blood?”
    It was a difficult question, Daylan knew. The wyrmlings kept great beasts to use in times of war—the world wyrms. Among wyrmlings, time was measured in “rounds” which lasted for three years—the length of time that it took between breeding cycles for a female wyrm. Each day in a round had its own name. Thus, there were over a thousand days in a round, and if Daylan had to lie, he would have had a slim chance of guessing the right day.
    “Princess Kan-hazur says that she drew first blood upon the day of Bitter Moon.” That was all that he needed to say, but he wanted to offer ample proof. “It was in the two hundred and third year of the reign of the Dread Emperor Zul-torac. She fought in the Vale of Pearls against the he-beast Nezyallah, and broke his neck with her club.”
    Daylan knew a bit about politics among wyrmlings. As he understood it, the “he-beast” was in fact the Princess’s own older brother. He would have been larger and stronger than her, but the princess claimed that her brother was also less violent, and therefore less “able to lead,” by wyrmling standards.
    “Aaaaah,” the wyrmling sighed. “A fine battle it was. Kan-hazur won scars both of flesh and of the heart that day.”
    “Yes,” Daylan said. “And now, do we have a bargain?”

    5    
     
A LIGHT IN THE HEAVENS
    Death never comes at a timely hour.
    —
a saying of the netherworld
    Alun waited for the two to leave—the wyrmling flying back north, while Daylan Hammer climbed gingerly from the wall.
    He let Daylan Hammer have a five minute lead, and then hurried for the castle.
    I’m in a real fix now, Alun decided. It was eleven miles back to the castle, and he’d never be able to make it before dark. The wyrmling harvesters would come outby then. Indeed, the last sliver of sun dipped below the horizon as he began his race, and he knew that he had perhaps a half an hour of light, and there would be only the faintest waning moon tonight.
    Maybe I’ll get lucky, he thought. The lords have been hunting the harvesters hard. There can’t be many around the castle.
    But he had little hope. Wyrmling harvesters butchered humans, taking certain glands that the wyrmlings used for elixirs. Thus, the castle attracted the wyrmlings like wolves to a carcass.
    So Alun ran, heart pounding, sweat streaming down his forehead, his back, his neck and face. He came up out of the bogs into the wastes and kept to a rocky ravine, the dry bed of creek.
    The shadows grew long and deep, and he struggled to keep up with Wanderlust.
    The dog will warn me of danger, he thought—until he rounded a boulder; something large lurched in front of him.
    He heard the sound of steel clearing a scabbard, and Daylan Hammer’s boot knife pressed up against Alun’s nose.
    “What are you doing?” Daylan demanded. “Why are you following me?” Daylan studied him with a cold eye.
    “I, I, I uh, was looking for a lost dog,” Alun explained, coming up with the lie. “Wanderlust here is my favorite.”
    The dog growled at Daylan Hammer but didn’t dare