Read Online The Wyrmling Horde by David Farland - Free Book Online Page B

lead.
    â€œWho are you to tell us what to do?” an old woman demanded at Talon’s side. Others cried, “Madoc! Clan Madoc!”
    Old warlords raised their axes in the air and began to chant, “Madoc! Madoc! Madoc!”
    Talon felt bewildered, and had to wonder why so few would support the emir. In part, she suspected that it was because he was foreign-born and had lost his own war against the wyrmlings.
    But the people didn’t just seem to be rising up against him. There was genuine support for Clan Madoc.
    Old Warlord Madoc had been a bold man, it was true, but his character had been flawed. He had gained popularity among the lesser lords by flattering them and offering bribes. If the Madocs took power, many a man would find himselfgiven an office that he was not fit for, shoving aside men who were wiser and better qualified. The resulting upheaval, in this difficult time, would be a disaster.
    But it wasn’t just secondary posts that Talon had to worry about. Madoc’s sons were not their father’s equal—not in courage, not in battle prowess, not in wisdom or intelligence or cunning.
    But apparently some of the lords did not care. So long as the bribes continued and undeserved wealth and honors flowed into their hands . . .
    â€œEmir Tuul Ra!” Talon cried. “Emir Tuul Ra!” A few others raised the chant, and some old woman turned to Talon and raged, “Shut your mouth, damn you. You don’t know what you’re saying!”
    But Talon cried all the louder, and soon tempers were flaring. In some knots, weapons were drawn. It almost looked as if it would turn to civil war.
    A great good that will do, Talon thought. The wyrmlings will rejoice to see it.
    Daylan Hammer whistled loudly, to capture folks’ attention.
    The emir held his hands up, begging for quiet, seemingly as baffled by the outcry and clamor as Talon was. He tried to dispel the rising tide of rage. “I do not propose to be your leader,” he said. “I led a nation once, a proud nation that was larger than all of your eastern realms combined. Where is it now? I will tell you: I led it to ruin. The wyrmlings destroyed it.”
    Talon wanted to argue. It was not the emir’s fault. Tuul Ra had been but a youth at the time when his father died in battle, and his people had been refugees fleeing the wyrmling horde. The war that destroyed them had been waged for centuries, and Tuul Ra had inherited his defeat. She remembered even as a tot how her father had said that the emir “did a miraculous job of fighting an unwinnable war.”
    Apparently, others knew the truth, too, for some cried, “No! That is not how it was.”
    The emir was a hero in Talon’s mind. He had dealt savage blows to the wyrmlings against all odds. He’d captured the wyrmling princess, and thus forestalled last night’s attack for more than a decade. He was such a hero Talon believed that his name would be remembered in the Halls of Eternity.
    But the emir called the protesters to quiet. “I will tell you who should lead you,” he shouted. “Your prince—Areth Sul Urstone.”
    There was silence for a moment. The naysayers had not expected that. Their prince had been taken captive by the wyrmlings years ago, and it was believed that he was still held in the dungeons of Rugassa.
    â€œHe can’t lead us,” Connor Madoc shouted, striding from the crowd to confront the emir. “If he’s even alive, what’s left of him—a gibbering shell of a man? The wyrmling torturers will have made a wreck of him.”
    â€œI doubt it,” the emir said resolutely. “All who knew Prince Urstone doubt it. The prince that I knew was the best man that I have ever met. If all men were such as he, there would be no need for prisons or judges or barristers, for there would be no crime. All men would dwell in peace and deal honorably and courteously with one