Erin stared at King Anders, dumbfounded. His manner seemed perfectly sincere. His gray eyes looked kind, thoughtful, and benevolent. He held himself with certitude. He smiled in a manner disarmingly warm. In physical appearance, he looked nothing like Gaborn. Yet in his bearing, it was as if Gaborn had been reborn in him.
“What do you mean, you’re the Earth King?” Celinor asked.
“It happened but yesterday, in the morning. I must confess that I had been feeling strangely for days. I’d sensed that dark times were coming, that great things were afoot, and so I retired to the woods to ponder them. The woods seemed quiet, tense. All of the squirrels were gone. I went searching for the Nut Woman—”
At this, the Nut Woman got off her rock, and ambled over to the party, squirrels prancing madly around her feet.
King Anders continued, “I found her in her cave, packing some dried herbs and whatnot. She told me that she had taken the squirrels to safety, and only returned to get a few things. Then, she led me deep into the woods, to a certain grotto.”
The Nut Woman put a hand on the king’s shoulder, as if begging him to let her continue the tale. “There,” she said, with a voice filled with awe, “the Earth Spirit appeared to us, and warned us that dark times are coming, darker than any this world has ever known. The Earth warned your father: ‘Be faithful! Cling to me, and my powers will attend you. Abandon me, and I shall abandon you: as I have abandoned the Earth King before you! ’ ”
Anders turned away as if the thought of a man losing his Earth Powers wounded him to the core. “Poor Gaborn, to be so cursed,” Anders lamented. “Dear boy. I fear that all the good he tried to do will turn to evil. I doubted him. But he was called of the Earth, if only for a while. Now I must carry on in his stead, and see if I can undo the great harm I’ve done him.”
Erin stared at them both darkly, unsure what to do, unsure what to think. She’d been prepared to meet a madman, and dispatch him quickly. Yet a niggling worry crept into her mind: What if he really is the Earth King?
The Mouth of the World, Averan thought, as she looked at the gaping cavern. I’ve flown over it a dozen times and seen the sheep cropping the grass on every hilltop near here. I’m not fifty miles from home.
The memory of home brought an ache to her heart. The reavers had destroyed Keep Haberd a week past. Just about everyone she’d ever known had been killed.
She leapt out of the wagon on legs that were still rubbery from sleep, and landed on the stony ground. To both sides of her lay a rut, as if this were an ancient road. But Averan knew better. She’d landed in the massive footprint of a reaver, the four-toed track of a huge female. It measured a yard in length and four feet in width. Countless other tracks surrounded it.
The “road” was really a reaver trail. A week past, tens of thousands of the monsters had boiled out of the Underworld here and spilled over the countryside. They had worn a rut in the ground sixty to seventy feet wide and several feet deep. Their trail, which wound over hundreds of miles, led through dozens of devastated cities.
Averan planted her staff in the ground, and found herself leaning on it wearily.
“Are you ready to take your endowments?” Gaborn asked as he shouldered his armor.
“You mean I’m going to do it here,” Averan inquired, “not in a Dedicates’ tower?”
“We’re a long way from any towers,” Gaborn said. “Iome brought a facilitator and some folk to act as Dedicates. Go find something to eat, and then we’ll see to your needs.”
Averan pulled her robes tight against her face. The air up so high had an autumn chill to it, and the wind came a bit boisterous, circling this way and that, like a nervous hound. She followed Gaborn to the mouth of the cave.
With each step they took, the singing grew louder. It reverberated from the cavern walls. “Why is everyone singing?”
“They’re celebrating,” Gaborn said. “The reaver horde has been brought to ground.”
No wonder they sing, Averan thought. Seventy thousand reavers vanquished. There hasn’t been a battle like that in ages. Still, so much wanton killing—even of reavers—left a sour taste in Averan’s mouth.
At the cave’s throat at least two hundred men crowded round the bonfire. Most were minor lords out of Mystarria and Heredon, though many were also Knights Equitable who called no man their king, and some were dark-skinned warriors who still wore the yellow colors of far-off Indhopal.
Still, dozens of peasants looked as if they had followed Gaborn’s troops in from nearby villages. Most of them wore lambskin jackets and knit woolen hats. Some were just curious farmers and woodsmen out to see the Earth King, but most carried heavy axes and yew longbows, as if eager to swell the ranks of Gaborn’s army.
Now that Gaborn had arrived, someone cried, “All hail the Earth King!” and wild cheers erupted.
Averan hung back at the mouth of the cave and glanced up. The flickering light of the bonfire illuminated the smoke-gauzed ceiling where gray-green cave kelp dangled in curtains. An enormous blind-crab crept along the ceiling precariously, clinging to rocks as it fed on kelp.
Even here at the cave’s mouth, the flora and fauna of the Underworld looked strange and unearthly. Averan hesitated, for once she stepped into the cave, she feared that she would be leaving the world behind forever, and her journey down would begin.
She glanced back at the star-filled heavens. She breathed deep of the pure mountain air, and listened to the peaceful coo of a wood dove, then stepped over the threshold of the cave. Her journey had begun.
Nearby, a young knight sat on a stone, trying to knock a dent out of his helm. He glanced up at Averan with shining eyes. Local boys were breaking camp—pulling cooking pots from the fire, checking and rechecking their packs. A grizzled knight of Indhopal knelt on the ground with an oil-stone, honing the steel bodkins on his arrows.
Everyone bustled about. She felt a sense of urgency, as if these folks had been waiting for Gaborn for more than just a few hours, as if they had been waiting for him for all of their lives.
Binnesman’s wylde stood conspicuously among the crowd. He had designed the creature to be a warrior for the Earth. She was one of few women in the group, and she stood holding a war staff of stout oak. She wore buckskin pants and a woolen tunic. To all appearances, she looked like a pretty young woman, but she had a disturbing complexion. Her huge pupils were so dark green they looked almost black, and her hair fell down her shoulders in avocado waves. Her skin, too, seemed to have been dyed a vigorous green, the color of young leaves.
Averan walked over to the wylde. “Hello, Spring,” Averan said, calling her by the name she had used ever since she’d first seen the green woman fall from the sky.
“Hello,” the wylde replied. Her language skills still were limited. On the other hand, Binnesman had only created the thing a little more than a week ago, and no babe could talk at a week of age.
“How are you feeling today?” Averan asked, hoping to start a conversation.
The green woman gazed at her blankly. After a moment of thought, she said, “I feel like killing something, Averan.”
“I feel that way some days, too,” Averan said, trying to make light of the answer. But it underscored a difference between the two. Averan had first thought of the green woman as a person, someone who needed her help. But no woman had mothered Spring, and no man had fathered her; Binnesman had fashioned her from roots and stones and the blood of the Earth. Averan could never really be her friend, because the green woman only wanted one thing in life: to hunt down and kill the enemies of the Earth.
Averan had thought that there might be two hundred warriors when she walked into the cave, but now she saw that she had underestimated the size of the band by at least half, for many men could be seen hovering about farther back into the tunnel, deeper in the shadows. The sight gave her some confidence. She would want all of the Runelords that she could find marching at her back as she led them into the Underworld.