The Wyrmling Horde

The first full taste of a meadow in the netherworld was something that Talon would never forget.

The aroma staggered her senses: sweet grass, rich loam, and the perfume of tens of thousands of flowers-from deep beds of clover to vines of honeysuckle and stalks of wild mint. There were wood roses in the meadow, and flowers for which Talon had no name.

And all around, birdsong rose from the thickets, curiously complex in its music, as if by nature birds were meant to compose arias and had only somehow forgotten this upon Talon s world.

When the company was all gathered upon the netherworld, Daylan Hammer returned to the Door of Air, and with the Wizard Sisel s staff, drew another rune. In an instant there was a thundering boom, like lightning striking, and the door collapsed.

Daylan turned to the company.

"Remember my warnings. Touch nothing. Drink from no stream. We will head east, but must find shelter before nightfall."

"Why is that?" someone called.

"Because things come out at night," Daylan answered.

And he was off, striding across the glade. A trail ran through it, a winding trail like a rabbit run.

Daylan walked along it carefully, as if treading across a fallen log.

"Stay on the trail," he called. "We walk single-file."

The folks began forming a line, and soon they were winding down the hill, looking like a great serpent slowly slithering through the grass.

Talon strode along behind the emir. They gave up on their language lessons, and walked silently. No one talked. As well as they could, the forty thousand complied with Daylan s wishes. Babes cried, and occasionally someone yelped as they tripped, but overall, the journey was a remarkably sober one.

They had not gone for half an hour before a child screamed, not a dozen paces ahead of Talon. She peered around the emir and saw a girl, perhaps six or seven, drop a huge posy, its pink flower falling to the ground.

She screamed and held up her hand. "Help!" she cried. "A bee stung me!"

"Help yourself," her mother whispered impatiently. "You ve been stung by bees before. Pull the stinger out-or let me do it."

But the child held her hand up and studied it in shock, then let out a bloodcurdling cry. "I m on fire! Help. I m burning!"

To Talon it did indeed seem that the child was burning. Her hand was turning a vivid red, a color that Talon had never seen in a human limb, and near the sting it had begun to swell terribly. The girl screamed and fell to the ground, writhing in pain.

Suddenly Talon could hear the angry sound of bees swarming, and she looked up to see a cloud of them, rising from the glen in every direction, hurtling toward the girl.

Folks shouted in warning, and some stepped away from the child, frightened by the massive swarm that had begun to form.

"Stay on the trail!" Daylan Hammer cried out up ahead, but folks shouted for help. In moments Daylan was racing back down the line, until he reached the fallen child.

The bees had formed an angry golden-gray mass, and merely hovered in the air above the wounded girl, like sentries waiting to do battle.

Daylan cried out in warning, speaking in a tongue that Talon had never heard before. Yet Daylan s words smote her like a mallet. They seemed to pierce Talon, to speak to her very bones.

"Hold!" Daylan called to the bees. "The child meant no harm. Spare her. She is still ignorant of the law."

The bees buzzed angrily, their pitch rising and falling, and Talon suspected that they were speaking to Daylan in return, answering in their own tongue.

Daylan reached the fallen child and stood between her and the bees, using his body as a shield.

The girl wept furiously, and soon began to wheeze.

"It s nothing," the girl s mother said as if to reassure Daylan. "It s only a bee sting. She s had plenty before."

"On this world," Daylan said, "a single honeybee has more than enough venom to kill a man. Let us hope that she was not stung too deeply."

He stood between the girl and the swarm, and called out again. "Please, she did not know that these were your fields," Daylan apologized. "She meant only to enjoy a flower. She did not mean to steal pollen from your hive."

He spoke slowly, as if hoping somehow to break through to the dumb insects.

For a long tense moment the swarm buzzed angrily, and the bees began to circle Daylan, creating a vortex, so that he seemed to be at the center of an angry tornado. He turned to follow their leaders with his eyes, keeping himself between them and the girl.

For her part, the wounded child stopped whimpering, and lay now only wheezing. Talon caught a good glimpse of her-pale blue eyes staring emptily into the air as she struggled. Her face was blanched, and her whole body trembled.

The swarm stayed at bay, and their buzzing eased.

At last Daylan reached out his palm toward the swarm. "Show me the way to your hive," he begged. "Let me speak to your queen. I have not violated the law. You cannot deny me."

After a thoughtful moment, a single bee flew out of the mass and landed upon Daylan. It walked around in circles on his palm, stopping to waggle from time to time.

"That way!" Daylan said, pointing to the southwest. "About a league."

He called out to the Wizard Sisel. "Come here." To the crowd he warned, "The rest of you, stay where you are."

He glanced down at the failing child. Her breathing was slowing from moment to moment. Daylan told the wizard, "Cut open the sting. Suck the poison out. Keep her alive, if you can." He gave the company a warning look. "And don t move. Don t take so much as a step from the trail or touch a flower, lest the bees attack. There are enough of them to wipe out our whole company!"

Then Daylan was off, racing through the grass.

The Wizard Sisel hunched over the girl and did as Daylan had said, sucking out the poison. He was a master at healing, and Talon had great confidence in his abilities. But Sisel fretted as he muttered incantations and gently rubbed a balm into the child s fist. "So hot. I ve never felt a sting so hot."

Talon peered around at the folks nearby. Most of them had been born serfs, and so were dressed in drab attire. They had never had an education, and did not know much about the world at large. But even the dullest of them knew that this was all wrong. One did not negotiate with honeybees, or make truces with them. One did not die for picking flowers.

Talon felt foolish and vulnerable. The netherworld held dangers that she could not have anticipated.

The emir stayed where he was supposed to, until he could endure no more. Slowly he edged to the child, and at last stood above the Wizard Sisel. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

The wizard shook his head no.

The emir sat down in the grass and held the girl s head in his lap, then smoothed back the child s tawny hair and stroked her cheek, making soothing noises.

The child s mother stood nearby, watching. Perhaps she would have comforted the child, but she was cradling one toddler in her arms while she clung to a bag that held everything that the family owned.

"Don t be afraid," the emir whispered.

Talon felt curiously jealous of the emir s touch. She longed for him to stroke her that way.

The emir bent over the girl and brushed her forehead with a kiss. The girl kept wheezing, but closed her eyes, relishing the attention.

The cloud of bees continued to hover over the spot unnaturally, like an army at war.

It made Talon nervous. She had to pee, but dared not step off of the trail, lest the bees attack. So she held it in, and just stood, her heart pounding in fear.

"Wonder what happens if you run into wasps," one of the folks down the line said nervously, then broke out laughing at his own inanity.

The little girl appeared to be sleeping peacefully now, and the emir just sat in the grass, singing softly to her for a long time.

It was almost an hour before Daylan returned, a few bees following at his back. The bees entered the angry swarm, and in moments it dispersed, with honeybees scattering in every direction, flying back into the clover and honeysuckle.

"Good news!" Daylan shouted as he drew near. "All is forgiven. Just keep to the trail. Move along!"

Up ahead, the group began to walk again, and as he drew near, Daylan knelt next to the emir.

"Is the child sleeping well?" he asked.

The little girl appeared to be sleeping peacefully now. The emir had kept up his singing the whole time.

"Sleeping?" he asked. "No. She died not half an hour ago."

The girl s mother cried out, and Talon choked back a sob. Some angry farmer demanded of Daylan, "Why didn t you warn us about the bees?"

Daylan looked up at him, his thoughts seemingly far away. "Warn you? I did not think to warn you. I guess that I have known of bees all my long life. And of all the dangers here, this one seemed so small as to be almost insignificant."

After a long march, thunder roared on the horizon at sunset, a continuous snarl with barks and growls like a pack of dogs fighting to the death. Towering clouds lumbered over the hills, threatening a storm that would unleash a fury unlike any that Talon had ever imagined.

Lightning flashed at the crowns of the thunderheads, strobing in a dozen places at once, and the hair on the back of Talon s arm and neck bridled with every flash. The clouds swore to unleash a torrent.

At Talon s side, Alun s war dogs whimpered at the sight of it, and backed off in alarm, peering ahead while their thighs quivered and their tails went fearfully still.

For a long hour the company had been marching toward some massive pine trees that towered above them like a mountain.

"Quickly," Daylan Hammer cried. "We must get beneath that largest tree. Those clouds may be hiding more than rain!"

Talon had only a vague idea what Daylan feared. She suspected that Darkling Glories might be riding in those clouds. She dared not ask him, but the worry in the immortal s brow was warning enough. Daylan urged the people forward, nearly forty thousand refugees from Caer Luciare. They were a hungry, tired lot, worn to a frazzle. Many were wounded from battle and so they limped along in bloodied bandages. Those who were healthy still bore what treasures they could-weapons or blood-metal ore from the mines at Luciare, food and household goods. For many a mother, the only treasures that she could bear were her babes.

The refugees began a slow jog, but Daylan urged them on. "Run, blast you!" he shouted. "Now is not the time to dawdle. Run for your lives."

He pointed to a rocky crag three miles ahead, covered in pine trees larger than any that Talon had ever imagined in her own world. Indeed, he singled out one vast pine, larger than the rest. Here upon this new world, the trees were great and venerable. A day here had not been time enough to let Talon grow accustomed to the change in scale. The great pines ahead rose high in the air, their tops hidden in clouds. Each tree s myriad branches splayed wide, so that each tree was half a mile at the base, creating a canopy that one could not see through. Talon could not guess how thick the boles of the trees might be, for they were hidden in utter darkness.

Since coming to this world, Daylan had been urging the refugees forward all day long, and from the early afternoon he had been rushing them toward this outcrop. There were other trees in the hills, but this site alone seemed to call to him.

Daylan shouted, "Hurry now! Death is upon us!"

Talon ran, with the emir just ahead and Alun behind. With Alun came his war dogs-fourteen large mastiffs, boiling around his legs. He did not have them leashed, and so they swarmed around him as if he were the leader of the pack.

The warriors ahead of Talon ran through tall golden grass that smelled of honey. Wildflowers nodded in the breeze, great red poppies that grew over one s head. Birds flew up from the grass at the people s approach, larks as bright as sparks from a forge.

Talon had never felt so invigorated, so alive. Her people had camped beside a stream at noon, where Daylan Hammer had begged the stream first for water, and surmised by something in its waves that the stream approved, or at least would relinquish a drink. The blistering cold water had tasted as sweet as nectar. The children had hunted for berries beside the stream, and found salmonberries on the shore that somehow were more filling, more wholesome than any she d ever known.

This world, this One True World, was more perfect than hers in every way.

But even it had its dangers. Ahead lay a perfect storm.

For half an hour they ran, while the storm rolled toward them. The boom of thunder grew louder, so that the earth began to shake with every peal.

Talon watched the outcropping of rock draw closer, saw the tops of the vast pines sway in the wind.

They had almost reached the trees when the storm began to unleash its fury. The wind rushed this way and that, lurching like a drunken man, and suddenly the storm front hit and the wind drove straight into the ground. Hail began to slash through the skies, huge balls as big as a child s fist. Women screamed and old men cried out in pain.

Ahead, the emir took the war shield from his back and raced to a young mother who ran in a crouch, trying to shelter her infant son from the hail. The emir held up his shield and ran beside her, protecting them the best that he could, while hail pummeled down.

Talon raced to the mother s other side, and walked with her between, all of them huddling beneath one shield, protecting the mother and child.

All around, every warrior in the clan did the same.

Beside Talon, an old man took a hail ball to the back of the head and then dropped like a stone, a streak of blood running through his silver hair. "Do you need help?" Talon cried, but the old man did not answer. Hail balls slashed from the sky like iron shot from a trebuchet, and Talon realized that in moments the man might be dead, if left here alone.

The emir gave his shield to Talon, and cried, "Get the babe to shelter!"

Then, mindless of the danger to himself, he stopped and began to drag the old man as best he could. War dogs swarmed around the emir curiously, sniffing at blood, looking fierce with their blood-red leather masks and spiked collars. The dogs sniffed at the old man, but a few hailstones convinced them to abandon him and race for shelter in the trees.

"Hurry!" the emir cried to the refugees who scurried past him, but the refugees were already running as fast as they could.

Talon jogged forward with the shield held high, sheltering the mother.

Up ahead, the first of the warriors reached the tree line and raced under the branches, leading in the women and children, then sprinted back with shields held high to gather other refugees.

Lightning boomed and the earth shook. Rain began to fall among the hail, slashing like knives.

Balls of frozen ice struck Talon in the back, and one shattered against her shoulder. She cursed at the pain and ushered her charge under the trees, panting and wet.

Under the pines, it was as dark as night and as still as a tomb. The smell of leaf mold was overwhelming, and huge yellow mushrooms, like misshapen heads, dotted the forest floor.

Talon turned to see if anyone else needed her help, and saw hundreds of men of the war clan bringing people in, including ten dozen folk that had to be dragged or carried.

The emir carried the old man under the pine and laid him down on a soft bed of pine needles. Then he grabbed the shield from Talon and raced back out into the storm.

The Wizard Sisel had the poor folks laid just beneath the great pine, and there he bent over the injured, treating them as best he could.

In green robes that looked more like roots that had grown together than any cloth spun by human hands, the wizard looked like some strange fungus.

Racing out into the storm, the emir found a child, a young boy crying and bloodied from hail, and raised his shield above the lad and brought him in.

By the time he returned, nearly everyone was under the shelter of the tree. Dozens lay on beds of fir needles, dead.

Talon stood with her mouth agape, amazed to see that even a couple of minutes in a summer storm here could be so devastating.

She knelt beside the emir and studied the young boy. He was still breathing fine, but the child stared at the dead in shock. The emir spoke to him, gently calling out, until the boy was able to focus once again. But still the boy sat in a daze.

"Where is your mother, boy?" the emir asked. The child looked to be no more than six or seven years old. He had curly blond hair, and deep brown eyes. He had the strong features of one of the warrior caste.

"Gone," the child said, eyes growing wide.

"Gone where?"

"I don t know. She s been gone for two days. My da went off to fight the wyrmlings, and he didn t come back either."

Talon considered. The child s mother must have disappeared when the worlds were bound. If she had merged with her shadow self, there was no telling how many hundreds or thousands of miles away she might be. At this very moment, she was probably teary-eyed and desperate to get home.

Like my own father, she told herself. Sir Borenson would be desperate to reach her.

As for the boy s father? Well, there were plenty of corpses along the outer walls of Caer Luciare.

"Tell you what," the emir offered. "I ll be your big brother for a while. I can take care of you. Are you hungry?"

The child knew better than to talk to strangers. He hesitated for a long moment, then admitted that he was hungry. The emir offered him some cheese from his pack.

The Wizard Sisel came to their aid, stood over the child for a moment, then reached into the pocket of his robe and pulled out a handful of moss, which he used as a compress to stop the boy s bleeding.

In the gloom under the trees, Daylan raced ahead, calling, "Quickly now! Quickly-everyone into the cave!"

Talon could see nothing ahead but blackness, no sign of a cave. Still, she got up and followed the sound of moving feet, until suddenly a brilliant light shone out up ahead.

Up on the hill, between the boles of two vast pine trees, Daylan stood holding a star in his hand. Its brilliant light cut through the shadows, revealing a sanctum here among the woods.

He stood beside the boles of twin pines that seemed almost to grow out of the same root. Each bole was hundreds of feet in diameter. Carved into each tree was the face of a man, with solemn eyes and a serene expression. Leaves of oak stood in place of his hair and beard.

It was an ancient symbol, and feared among the folk of Luciare. But on Talon s world it was a welcome sign. It was the face of the Wode King.

The carved faces on each bole seemed to peer inward, and each hovered above Daylan, dwarfing him, for each of the images was sixty feet tall.

But the Wode King did not seem frightening on this world. Instead, Talon felt comforted by the images, as if they exuded an aura of tranquility.

Daylan pushed on an outcropping of jagged gray stone, and suddenly a hidden door swung in, revealing a large round hole, like a burrow, tall enough for a man to walk through.

Daylan stood at the door, shouting, "Quickly! Get inside. It is safe in here, for the time being. And you don t want to be caught out in the dark."

Talon did not know what might be found in the night. Strengi-saats, Darkling Glories. Those creatures she had heard of. But Daylan spoke in terror, as if worse things might prowl the edges of these meadows.

But no one moved forward, for the tunnel ahead was dark.

"What is this place?" the Emir Tuul Ra asked.

He peered into the hole cautiously, his daughter Siyaddah at his back.

"It s a sanctuary," Daylan said, "long abandoned. Once it housed many folk, and was a joyous place. It should be large enough to shelter the whole company. There is fresh water below, fed by underground streams. You may bathe there, and drink. You will find it quite pleasant. Make yourselves comfortable-

"But first, send some warriors down if you must. I suppose that it would be wise to make sure that nothing… unpleasant has found its way in."

At that, bark suddenly stripped from the trees and three men appeared from the shadows at Daylan s back, striding into view. Their skin and faces were bark for a second, but smoothed in the space of a heartbeat, as if they were trees turning into people.

Each of them was perfect in his way. One man had hair of yellow as gold as sunlight, and another had hair of red, while the third had long tresses of hair like spun silver. They were of different heights and builds, yet each was handsome beyond words, and each stood boldly, eyes shining as with inner wisdom. Each of the men bore a staff of golden wood, and they stood, barring the entrance.

Bright Ones, Talon realized. These were perfect men.

One of them spoke in a strange tongue, and the words smote Talon, for they seemed to penetrate her mind, and she understood him as if he spoke her own tongue.

"Daylan Hammer," the tallest of the three said, a man with long silvery locks who wore a doublet in colors hard to define-gray as charcoal, it seemed, but it flashed green when he moved. "What have you done?"

Daylan turned to the three. "So, the sanctuary is not as empty as I had hoped."

A Bright One said, "Daylan, you were banished from our world. It is only out of respect for what you once were that I do not destroy you now!"

Daylan said, "My life is mine to keep or spend. You cannot take it from me, Lord Erringale."

Erringale, the leader, was a man of stern features. He looked to be elderly, but in an indefinable way. His body seemed young and strong, as if he were only in his mid-forties, but his face was lined with care and creased with worried wrinkles, so that he looked as if he might be sixty or even seventy. But it was his eyes that revealed his true age. There was a wisdom in them that was vast and indeterminable, and there was the sadness in them that can only come from someone who has seen far, far too much death.

He isn t forty or fifty or even sixty, Talon thought. He is millions of years old.

Daylan had warned them that there were folk in the netherworld of vast powers, strange and dangerous powers.

She somehow knew that Erringale was one of these. There was too much light in his eyes, just as there was too much light in Fallion s eyes. And he seemed to shimmer when he walked. Bright Ones. Truly he was a Bright One.

Erringale strode forward, peered down at Daylan. "You defy us! It is forbidden to bring even one shadow soul to our world, yet you bring a host?"

"I bring allies," Fallion said, "in the fight against our common foe."

"You bring women and children," Erringale said, "who will cry for protection. You bring men so imperfect that they cannot even withstand a summer storm."

"They are good people," Daylan argued. "And though they may appear weak and imperfect to you, they are strong and brave. More importantly, they are in need. Have you no compassion? Our ancient enemy has taken their world, and they need a place to hide-not for long, a few days at most. Should you deny them that privilege our enemies would rejoice."

"The stink of evil is upon them," Lord Erringale said. "We cannot hide them from the enemy. Despair will sense their presence."

"They are young," Daylan said. "They are not truly evil, but only suffer the flaws of youth. The oldest of them has not lived a hundred years. It takes time to ripen in virtue, to purge one s self of all selfish thoughts and desires. Ten thousand years is hardly enough. How can such… children be expected to perfect themselves?"

The Bright Ones peered down at Daylan Hammer doubting his arguments. "There is great darkness among them," Erringale said. "I feel it. You must sense it, too. Take them home."

Daylan stood his ground. "I will not. There is much at stake here, more than you know. You by your traditions say that this is the One True World-that all others are but shadows, cast off from it when the Great Seals were broken. You say that these folk are shadow souls. But I tell you that they are not. All worlds contain bits of truth to them, some bits that you have lost. In ways, some worlds are truer than this…"

"You have made this argument before," Lord Erringale said, "to no avail."

"I make this argument because I have proof. Our enemy knows that it is true also, and that is why she has made her home upon these people s world."

Erringale s pale green eyes flickered to his companions, as if they spoke with a look, faster than thought. The three seemed inclined to listen a moment longer.

"There is more," Daylan said. "The Torch-bearer knows that it is true, for he too has been reborn upon their world and I have news of great significance. At long last, the Torch-bearer has bound two worlds together."

There were gasps from the Bright Ones. Erringale took a step backward in shock.

"Yes," Daylan said. "You always thought that he would be here when he did it, that he would bind our world to some lesser shadow. But he has bound two worlds together, two worlds rife with power. The binding was flawed, it is true. People died. But he bound two worlds nonetheless. Great magics are at work in these lands, and the enemy has mastered them.

"To our woe, the Torch-bearer has been captured and is now in Despair s hands. He has not had time to fully awaken to his past lives, and so he may not know how to defend himself. He does not know the vast resources of his enemy. Thus Despair hopes to twist him to its purposes."

"He bound two worlds together," Erringale asked, "without the aid of the True Tree? This cannot be."

Talon called out, for she had been present with Fallion Orden when he bound the worlds. "He stood beneath the True Tree when he bound the worlds."

Even Daylan Hammer seemed astonished by this news.

"How can you be sure that it was the Tree?" Erringale asked.

"It was like an oak," Talon replied, "but one of unspeakable beauty. It had bark of gold, and an earthy scent, and it spoke peace to our minds and urged us to be strong, to be gentle and compassionate and perfect in all things!

"I have a leaf from it here in my pack," she recalled. She had picked it up from the ground as a souvenir.

Talon unloaded her pack, then rummaged through it a moment before pulling out a single golden leaf. She rushed up to the three Bright Ones, held it up to their view.

Of all that had been said, this impressed the Bright Ones most. Talon saw their lips trembling and eyes glistening with tears. With great tenderness and respect, the eldest of the bunch took the leaf from her and held it gingerly in his palm, as if it were a treasure beyond words to tell.

"The True Tree has sprung forth," Erringale said, "upon a shadow world?"

The Wizard Sisel cried out, "That is a thing I would like to see!"

Daylan exulted. "There was an Earth King there not long ago. How long has it been since one has walked upon this world? There is rune lore at work there, and the True Tree. The Torch-bearer practices his magics there, and Lord Despair has resorted thither. For countless ages we have waited for the days foretold by the Bright Ones when the True Tree would grow again. Surely the Restoration is upon us! Surely the days long foretold are coming to pass.

"We have brought gifts of blood metal, and with them we can create an army of Ael, as in times of old. We must join forces with our brethren from the shadow worlds and fight-not for your world or their world, but for all worlds!"

Lord Erringale was obviously moved by Daylan s words. He seemed cautious, as if he feared to believe in the long-hoped-for news. He cast a gaze off into the distance, as if listening to a far-off voice. "We must call a council, and your tale will be heard. Enter," Erringale said. "Enter as friends. We have little in way of food and supplies, and so cannot hope to entertain you as we should. But what we have, we will share."

Suddenly the hallway behind him began to glow with a silvery light, beckoning the people to sanctuary.