The Wyrmling Horde

Once Talon and the others had finished eating and broken camp, the emir kicked the coals from the fire off into the nearest bushes; seemingly with a thought the fire raced among some dry leaves and began licking the trunks of the nearest oaks.

What good will it do him, she wondered, to give himself thus to Fire? All it will do is warn the wyrmlings. They ll see the smoke.

Daylan watched the flames for a long moment and said softly, "It is written that Raj Ahten fed his fires day and night, burning entire forests. I suppose that such sacrifices must be made if you are to gain his powers."

"It is not much of a sacrifice," the emir said. "There is a blight upon the land. The trees will be dead within a month anyway, I fear, and then the first spark would set this whole land alight."

"Sooner than a month," Daylan said, "unless we can break the wyrmlings hold upon the land."

Talon did not have any idea how that might be done. She wasn t sure that Daylan knew. How were the wyrmlings even poisoning the land? Was it some sort of rune lore, like the reavers had used at Carris in her father s day?

The Cormar twins laughed at some private joke, then sprang off along the road, their steps perfectly matched, their arms swinging in unison.

We can t be far from Rugassa, Talon thought, though she could see no sign of it yet.

They raced on with renewed fury, running forty miles in the next hour, until sweat weighed down Talon s tunic. They stopped to drink at streams along the way, but each time it was only a gulp, stolen quickly, and then they were off again.

Soon, a mountain began to loom in the distance, dark and forbidding, its coned peak looking blue at first, and then gaining definition as the heroes neared.

From time to time, they continued to pass villages-all of the houses broken and destroyed.

We re near the town of Ravenspell, Talon realized, consulting a mental map.

It was late morning when they reached it, crossing a fine stone bridge into a walled city. The walls here were not high, only twenty feet or so. The gates of the city had been broken down, and like the villages before, the houses had been demolished, their thatch roofs pulled off, their doors smashed.

Talon had no desire to inspect the ruins. But as the three sprinted through the city streets, rushing at forty miles per hour, it was as if her mind was storing pictures-a burned hovel, a dead man sprawled on his belly while a buzzard flapped heavily into the air, a frightened dog rushing into the ruins to hide.

Suddenly they rounded a corner in the market section of town, and there she was-a girl of five or six with long blond braided hair there at a market stall, hunched over a pile of cloth.

She must have heard the noise, for she turned and shrieked, peering at them briefly in terror but not really seeing them.

The girl leapt over the counter of the market stall to hide.

The company came to a halt, and all of them stood for a moment, panting, each wondering what to do.

"Looks like the wyrmlings missed one," the emir said. He peered to Talon, then to the others. "What shall we do with the child."

The Cormar twins laughed mirthlessly at some private joke, then said in explanation, "We re not carrying her into battle."

"We can t leave her here," Talon said. "She ll starve, if the wyrmlings don t find her first."

"Nor can we take her with us," the emir said. He looked about helplessly. "All we can do is pick her up on the way back. If all goes well, we will be done with our business before dark."

"She has managed to hide from the wyrmlings well enough for at least three days," Daylan Hammer said. "She should manage well enough for a few hours more."

But Talon could not leave it at that. The girl was terrified. She had seen it in the child s face. That kind of fear can turn a person into an animal. If nothing else, Talon needed to soothe her mind.

"Stay here," Talon said.

She approached the market stall quietly. The roof of the building was made from pine poles draped with red linen curtains. The curtains were ripped and bloody, flying like banners in the wind.

Approaching cautiously, Talon called out, "Little girl? Little girl? Are you all right?"

She went and looked over the plank counter. There was a pile of cloth beneath it. The girl was hiding there beneath some rumpled cloth, trembling, so that the whole pile shook.

"Do you have a name?" Talon asked.

The girl was shaking frightfully. Talon could only see a portion of her leg.

"My name is Talon. I m here to help you. I m with friends, Runelords. We re going to go kill the monsters that attacked the city."

"You re monsters!" the girl cried. She pulled the wrinkled fabric away but merely sat there, in a fetal position, too frightened to do anything but look. Her eyes roved over Talon s face.

She sees the ridge bone on my face, and the nubs of my horns, Talon realized. I don t look human to her anymore.

"I m not like those monsters. They re called wyrmlings. They re larger than me, and they re very evil. If I m a monster, I m a good monster."

"How can I tell?"

"If I was one of them," Talon said easily, "I would have taken you already."

The girl thought about this, but kept trembling in fear.

"Do you have a family? Is anyone else alive in this city?"

The girl shook her head no both times.

"Do you have a name?"

The girl shook her head no again, and shrank back against the wall of her little cupboard.

"I think you re teasing me," Talon said. "Everyone has a name."

The girl turned her face to the wall, and just stared at it.

"I m going to have to go fight the wyrmlings now," Talon said. "I don t want to leave you alone, but I have to. I ll come for you when I get back. I ll take you to safety. You can wait for me, can t you? You can be brave until then?"

The little girl did not answer.

Talon turned to leave.

I can track her by smell if I have to, Talon told herself. She hesitated, and whispered, "Be well," then walked away.

"No!" the girl shrieked. Talon turned as the child came leaping over the counter of the little market stall. Then the girl grabbed her by the leg and held on, terrified that Talon would leave.

"Come here," Talon said, reaching down and grabbing the child.

"Don t leave me!" the girl shouted. "Don t ever leave!" She peered into Talon s face, stricken. The girl s eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep, her face dirty. She smelled of dog hair and sweat. But she was a pretty thing, in a common sort of way.

Daylan and the others came over, stood at their side. "You can t take her with us," Daylan said in the tongue of the warrior clans. "We go to save a world. We cannot wait upon this child."

Talon gave him a reproving look.

"She can t just leave the girl," the emir said. "Her mothering instincts are too strong." He grimaced and looked down. "Nor can I leave her. What kind of men would we be to do so?"

"Wise men?" the Cormars said as one.

Daylan grabbed the girl and gently pulled her from Talon s arms. He set her on the ground. "We ll be back for you," he said sternly. "Go find a place to hide until then."

The girl lurched toward Talon, but Daylan reached down, grabbed her by the forehead, and pushed her onto her butt.

"Stay there," he warned. "I don t have time to be nice about this."

The child looked at him, terrified, and while she was frozen with indecision Daylan said, "Let s go."

The emir took Talon by the sleeve and whispered, "Hurry. Don t look back."

Talon ran, but her heart grew heavy as her legs stretched, carrying her away from the town. They raced through empty streets, where elms lined the path, and they leaped over another quaint stone bridge. She could hear the child screaming behind her, "Come back! Come back!"

What would I do if that were one of my own little sisters? Talon wondered. How would I want her treated?

And then she knew. She would want the soldiers who were out to save the world to turn a cold shoulder to her little sister. She would want them to fight all the more valiantly to avenge her. She would want them to do their job.

"Come back!" the girl called as they raced into the fields beyond the edge of town. Talon s keen hearing let her detect the sound two miles away.

I will, Talon promised. I will.

They had not gone ten miles when they spotted another Knight Eternal all dressed in red, flying from the south. They were walking along the road at the noon hour when they saw it coming over the treetops, not a mile behind.

"Flee!" the emir hissed.

But Daylan just stood for a second, gazing up at the Knight Eternal. It came hurtling toward them so swiftly that Talon almost didn t have time to draw her weapon.

"Fear not," Daylan cried. "It is only our friend Rhianna."

The robed figure landed before him in a flutter of wings, and Rhianna pulled back her crimson hood, her red hair spilling out in a tide. She smiled at them, and the emir and the Cormar twins all stepped back and gasped.

Much had changed. Rhianna shook her hair loose, and it seemed as if it was full of light. Her eyes gleamed like stars in a night sky, and seemed to beg for all to gaze upon their glory. Her skin had grown softer and more radiant than before. She was like some great queen of legend, so beautiful that she would turn men s knees weak with desire.

"Don t be afraid," Rhianna said. "It s only me." Her voice was as pure as water, as mellow as a woodwind.

Daylan peered at her angrily. "So, they re wasting forcibles on endowments of glamour nowadays?"

Rhianna looked down, embarrassed. "The horse-sisters gave them to me. It encourages others to do the same."

"How many?" Daylan asked. "How many of glamour, how many of voice?"

"Perhaps twenty in all," Rhianna said.

"Or thirty or forty?" Daylan suggested.

Rhianna shot him an angry look. She was obviously embarrassed. She had wasted forcibles taking beauty when she could have used them to boost her strength and stamina. "The people have been generous," Rhianna argued. "They ve granted me more than three hundred endowments in the past day. How many were you given?"

"Did they give them," Daylan demanded, "or did you steal them?"

Rhianna glared at him but held her silence.

"You know the law of the Ael. Taking another s glamour is forbidden!"

"I m not Ael," Rhianna shouted, "and I never shall be. Your grand folk in the netherworld wouldn t even let me stay a season there. I m a Runelord, and I ll do as I please. I ll do what I must!"

Talon glanced from face to face. She knew what Daylan was afraid of. He was afraid that Rhianna s beauty would corrupt her.

And maybe it shall, Talon thought.

"Let s go kill wyrmlings," Rhianna growled. She looked north. "I have a convoy of horse-sisters from Fleeds ahead. I saw them from the sky. They re only three miles from here. They have a wyrmling with them, a girl who can lead us to the dungeons."

The moment of tension eased.

"Why would she do that?" Daylan asked.

"She wants to fight the wyrmlings," Rhianna said. "In the binding, two of her shadow selves were bound-a wyrmling and an Inkarran. The Inkarran had been one of Gaborn s chosen ones."

Talon wondered at that, wondered how many more Inkarrans might be bound into the wyrmling horde, wondered how many of them Gaborn might have tried to sway.

"We saw your handiwork on the road a hundred miles back," Talon said. "Good job, that. Did you get many forcibles?"

"A few thousand. I couldn t let them reach the wyrmling horde."

"Some got through anyway," Daylan said. "We saw Knights Eternal flying north not an hour ago, carrying cargo. We must fear for the worst."

Rhianna bit her lip.

"We ll release the wyrmling girl," she said, "a few miles from the fortress. She can go to the doors, beg for mercy. The wyrmlings will take her to their dungeon for torture. I can track their path by smell. I promised that I would go in for her in less than an hour."

It did not seem like much of a plan to Talon. She wanted things locked down better, more secure. But it was the first and only plan that had been introduced so far.

Daylan Hammer said, "And once we get into the fortress, what next?"

"We kill anyone who stands in our way," Rhianna said, all business.

Talon could not help but hear the ghost of the Bright One s warnings. Erringale had told them to spare the enemy, be as lenient as possible, lest they stain their own souls.

Almost Talon thought to object to the plan.

But why should I bother? she wondered. The wyrmlings have been a scourge upon the earth for far too long. They ve all but destroyed my people, and if left to their own ends, they will exterminate us. We are strong. The six of us could wipe out the whole wyrmling horde.

She looked to the Cormars, saw that they grinned, their smiles obscenely identical. There was a glint of madness to their eyes.

Yet Talon couldn t imagine engaging in slaughter. There were innocents among the wyrmlings too, children and babes. There might be more wyrmling girls like the one that Rhianna had found, people who longed to be free and who were willing to fight for it, to die for it.

"I go to Rugassa to free my friend," the emir said, "not to wash in wyrmling blood." He said it in Rofehavanish. His accent was thick, his words unsure, but he managed to say it. Talon was surprised that he could speak the tongue at all given their short conversation. Then he switched to the tongue of the warrior clans. "Take a life if you must, but only if you must." There was rage on his face, a temper barely under control. "We are in dire straits," he said, "but I swear, if any of you take an innocent life, you will have me to deal with."

Daylan Hammer translated his words for Rhianna, then gave him an appreciative look and added, "And me."

Talon admired their courage. "And me."

The Cormar twins peered at them with glinting eyes, and Talon could read their thoughts. We could take them, they were thinking. We could kill them all, and then kill the wyrmlings.

Suddenly they both laughed, each chuckle precisely synchronized. Daylan glanced at Talon, giving her a look of warning.

They ve lost themselves, Talon realized. Somehow in twinning their minds, they ve lost themselves. We should go to battle now, before they go completely mad.

"Let s not argue," she said. "We ve got a job to do."

So they plotted their attack. Rhianna related what intelligence she could, telling of her bargain with the horse-sisters and her overthrow of Beldinook. She told of the dangers she had faced at the Courts of Tide, and her hopes that the warlords there might form a diversion. She repeated reports of reavers surfacing near Carris, and relayed how the horse-sisters scouts warned that they were marching in a northeasterly direction. She told how the wyrmlings at Caer Luciare had begun taking endowments, and described where she had hidden the forcibles that she d stolen from the wyrmlings-news that was important, should she fall in battle.

Talon related all that had happened to her, including Erringale s vision of Borenson sailing to their aid upon a white ship.

It seemed as if they spoke for an hour; but all of them had taken endowments of metabolism, so in truth not five minutes had passed before Rhianna leapt into the air and flew north to meet the horse-sisters.

Then the company began their race again, sprinting down the broken road to Rugassa.

Holding a blanket over her head to protect her bleary eyes, Kirissa scrambled down out of the forest and over the uneven black paving stones into Rugassa, a fortress built into a tall volcanic cone of black basalt, smoothed on its slopes so that one could see where hundreds of towers and walkways and air shafts had been carved.

She had hoped never to see the fortress again, but the Earth King s words resounded in her mind.

The time was coming when the small folk of the world would have to stand up to the large.

But he didn t say that I d live through it, Kirissa realized.

She stumbled, her toe catching on an uneven stone, and fell to one knee, then climbed up carefully.

The defenses of Rugassa were all underground. From the outside it looked as if you could just walk in. There were no tall walls with guards walking them, as you would see in a human castle. The wyrmlings didn t like being so exposed. No, the defenses were all inside, underground, so well concealed that those who managed to breach them never got back outside to tell how far they had gone.

So Kirissa walked across the dark stones with the sun blazing above her, a bit of sandalwood perfume upon her heel, until she reached the south tunnel.

Deep within its recesses, fifty yards from the entrance, guards were waiting. A great iron door stood closed before her, and the guards peered out through a slit, so that she could see only their white eyes.

They did not ask her questions. They only opened the door, winching it slowly, until the guards stood before her, great brutes in armor of bone.

One guard lunged for her, grabbing her in a stranglehold, then threw his weight against her so that she fell to the floor. He landed on her ribs, forcing the air from her sharply, so that she could not breathe. Two other guards grabbed her from behind and began feeling through her clothes, ostensibly searching for weapons.

One of them hissed, "I would have thought that you would be smart enough to stay gone."

"I came back," Kirissa grunted, "to serve the Great Wyrm. I was wrong to leave. I know that now."

"Oh, she knows that now!" her strangler mocked. The others laughed harshly as his grip tightened on her throat. Kirissa gasped for air and struggled for all that she was worth for fifteen seconds.

As her lungs began to burn, she went limp, feigning unconsciousness, but the guard kept strangling.

Don t let me die, she begged the Powers. Please don t let them kill me now.

Talon and the heroes waited on a pine-covered hill with the horse-sisters of Fleeds, a fearsome company of women upon blood mounts, red warhorses with red eyes, their flanks painted with mystic runes.

Though the horse-sisters armor was light, consisting of boiled-leather cuirasses enameled in green and gold, their lances were sharp, and they wore fantastic enameled masks over their helmets-images of stags with antlers, and boars with tusks, and bears with long fangs, and the green man with leaves for hair-so that they looked more like fearsome beasts than humans.

The forty women were four miles from Rugassa. The pines grew thick around them, but not so thick that the company couldn t see the entrances to the fortress from here.

They could not go to battle immediately. They needed to give the wyrmlings time to take their prisoner into the dungeons.

If they take her to the dungeons, Talon thought.

There were no guarantees. Rhianna had warned that the guards might kill her outright.

Talon said, "That girl is showing great faith in us."

"Let us live worthy of it," the emir agreed.

It was early afternoon, a perfect time to strike.

Talon took a few minutes to sharpen her sword, then her daggers. The others did the same. She got out her sunstones, and gave one to each of her companions. She had only five, and so the Cormar twins were forced to share.

But Daylan Hammer urged, "Keep them hidden. Use them only as a last resort. If Vulgnash sees them, he will draw the fire from them and turn their power against us." So Talon hid her sunstone in her shoe. It was uncomfortable, but it was a familiar pain. As a child she had often hidden coins in her boot when she went to the fair.

The memory made her smile, reminding her of more innocent days.

It seemed that the sun crawled through the sky. Talon saw the emir wander off into the trees.

She followed him, until they found a private place in a small glen.

He did not speak. He took Talon s hand and squeezed it. It wasn t that he had nothing to say, she realized. It was that he had too much to say, and words did not suffice.

So she kissed him again, and held him for a time.

"Don t die on me today," Talon said.

He made no promises.

Am I not reason enough for him to live? she wondered. But she understood his math. He had taken endowments from people, and he needed to give them back. The happiness of the many outweighed the happiness of two.

At last, Rhianna gave a small shout. It was time to fight.

The two of them walked up the hill, hand-in-hand, until they reached its top.

Daylan Hammer and the Cormars were itching to go. The horse-sisters were all mounted, ready to ride.

"Good fortune to you in your hunt," Sister Daughtry said.

"Are you going to ride to Caer Luciare now?" Talon asked her. Almost she wished that the horse-sisters would join the raid, but none of them had taken the number of endowments that would be needed for such a fight.

"Yes," Sister Daughtry answered.

"Don t try to take it yet," Rhianna said. "You don t know what you ll find there. There will be Death Lords for certain, and Runelords. Find a place to camp for the night, and hide well. We will join you as soon as possible, if we can!"

"Well spoken," Sister Daughtry said.

Raising their fists in salute, the horse-sisters urged their mounts forward one by one, and headed down the road to the south.

When they were gone, Rhianna leapt into the air and led the charge, flapping madly, flying low above the road, veering among the trees, building up incredible speed-until soon she was a blur, faster than a falcon.

She had volunteered to hit the gate first, take out the guards, and leave the way open for the others.

The five stood upon the hill, watching her fly, and in moments she was lost in the trees. Just as Talon began looking for her, suddenly Rhianna was there at Rugassa, rising up out of the forest and hurtling over the wall. She could not have been visible for two seconds before she disappeared into the fortress, choosing a huge black gaping tunnel at the southernmost face.

"Good hunting," Talon prayed, as she raced to catch up.

"Come, and see this, my friend," Lord Despair said to his visitor. "Forces are coming to attack the fortress. I believe that they are humans, empowered by runes. You should enjoy the spectacle."

The creature beside him was covered with coarse dark hair, and stood nine feet tall, but the vast wings at his back rose even higher. He smelled like a storm, and normally would have wrapped himself in clouds and darkness, drawing all light from the room. But here in Rugassa, he felt at home. He was a Darkling Glory from the netherworld, but he was more than that. There was a wyrm feeding on his soul, a powerful wyrm named Scathain, the Lord of Ashes. For nearly twenty years now, Scathain had been feeding upon the Darkling Glory.

Despair was filled with nervous energy. Hundreds of endowments he had been granted this day, sent through various vectors. He had not wasted his time attending the rites. He d been too busy negotiating. He d taken so many endowments of stamina, he almost felt as if health and vitality must be radiating from him, bursting like beams of sunlight from every pore. His endowments of brawn were so great that he felt as if he was hardly touching the floor. His own weight seemed insignificant, as if he floated above the ground instead of walking. It was all that he could do to restrain himself, to keep from running.

Scathain followed at his side, walking in a hunched manner. Lord Despair said, "The attackers will come down this very tunnel."

"How can you be certain?" Scathain asked.

"My Earth Powers," Despair said. "Some of my chosen servants are down the corridor. I sense the danger coming."

Lord Despair could see the attackers path in his mind s eye. They would leave a trail of dead-all the way down to the dungeons, if he did not stop them.

"Yes, they will come," Despair said, his anticipation rising pleasurably.

"Would you like me to deal with them?" Scathain asked.

"No. My wyrmlings will handle the intruders."

"Yes, Great One," Scathain said. Despite his size, the Darkling Glory walked lightly.

Despair had ordered a certain member of the High Council to watch the southern passage. That was how he knew exactly where the enemy would enter. He could feel death approaching the fool. But Despair dared not use his Earth Powers to warn him. If the wyrmling lord warned others, it could cause a panic. People would flee, defenders might gather. Despair could not allow that. The enemy could not suspect that he had set a trap.

But what is the source of the attack? he wondered. Most likely it was humans, since they were attacking in the early afternoon, when the sun was the brightest.

It could be the Fang Guards coming from Caer Luciare, he decided. But wyrmlings would traditionally travel at night. Still, he supposed, if it were members of the Fang Guard, they might have taken enough endowments of stamina to resist the sun s burning powers.

But something else came to mind. What if the Fang Guards had discovered some other way to abide the daylight?

What would happen, Lord Despair wondered, if a wyrmling took an endowment of sight from a normal human? Would he suddenly be able to withstand sunlight better?

What a fearsome thing that would be, Despair considered-a wyrmling that can abide the light.

He sent a guard to tell his facilitators to test the theory.

Or perhaps, he wondered, it is neither the folk from Caer Luciare nor the Fang Guards. His warriors had been harrying the small folk on his borders now for three nights running. Perhaps some of the small folk had found some blood-metal ore and taken endowments. Perhaps it was a contingent of these that were coming, a band of Runelords who planned an attack for reasons of their own.

He was so in tune with the Earth Powers, he could almost count the seconds until the attack. It would come at the southern gate, in only a few moments.

Running now, Lord Despair charged up the stairs to his chambers, three steps at a time, until he found himself in his rooms. He went to his parapet, and crouched there in the shadows in his black robes beside the gargoyles, watching to see what enemy would come.

Scathain raced up to his side, and knelt like a great black gargoyle himself.

The sun stood still in the sky, and the air was almost perfectly calm. Only the slightest afternoon breeze played across his brow.

With his endowments of hearing, birdsong seemed to rise in a chorus from the forest in every direction-the cooing of wild pigeons, the ratcheting of jays, the chirps of songbirds.

The plains before the gates of Rugassa were empty now.

In the nights, the fields would come alive as his minions toiled by the tens of thousands, a dark mass of wyrmlings coming to feed the city: huntsmen bringing in handcarts piled with carcasses to feed the empire; skirmishers leading bands of small folk in chains, to be stripped of endowments; woodsmen tugging carts filled with cordwood for the cooking fires; wyrmlings bringing animal skins for clothes, and ingots of iron from the mines, and all other manner of goods.

In such a throng, it would have been difficult to spot intruders. They might have hidden among carts or worn disguises.

But the plains were empty now.

Despair saw no armies in the distance. With a dozen endowments of sight taken both from wyrmlings and from the small folk, he would have spotted them across the miles.

Yet alarms blared in Despair s mind. "Death is coming. Tell your chosen one to flee."

At last something caught his eye on the horizon to the south: a flash of red in a shaft of light-the crimson robes of a Knight Eternal.

It was hastening toward the fortress, flying low through the pine trees that ran along the road.

Kryssidia? Lord Despair wondered. What is he doing out?

The Knight Eternal that flew toward the castle had endowments, it was obvious. He was flying at tremendous speed, perhaps two hundred miles per hour, making toward the southern entrances.

"Flee," the Earth Spirit said. "Warn your chosen to flee. Death is coming."

Could it be Kryssidia? Despair wondered. Dismay filled him. If his Knights Eternal were to turn against him…

Then he spotted movement in the distance-too far for the city guard to see. But a handful of warriors was also racing toward Rugassa in the midday sun.

Humans. So, the heroes had come to rescue Fallion.

Death was imminent for the High Council member at the south gate. The Earth Spirit seemed almost to be thundering in his ears. The attackers on the ground were still miles away when the Earth screamed its final warning, and it took a great of amount of discipline for Lord Despair to withhold aid.

So the flier is just the vanguard, Despair realized.

Kryssidia would not be in league with humans.

It is one of them-a human with stolen wings and a Knight Eternal s robes.

"The flier is one of the attackers," Despair told the Darkling Glory. "But others are following."

"The enemy flies swiftly and well," the Darkling Glory said. "I would be honored to fight that one."

Despair smiled.

When death came to the High Councilman, Despair felt a cruel sense of loss, as if his very heart was torn from him. It was the Earth Spirit, punishing him for allowing the murder. Any other man would have crumbled to the floor and wept bitter tears, so overwhelming was the loss.

But Despair simply whispered to the Earth, "Patience, my dear friend, patience. The one who died was a fool, and therefore worthless to me. I repent that I ever chose him. But I have others that I value more."

The Earth did not answer. Despair felt its spirit withdraw, and worried that it might flee him forever.

"We must hurry," Despair said to the Darkling Glory. "I have prepared a most special welcome for our guests."

Talon ran through the forest toward Rugassa, heart pounding, and watched for Rhianna s signal. Talon was still two miles out from the city, probably too far for the wyrmling guards to see. But she felt exposed here. The black volcano rose up from the plains, looming above her. As she drew nearer she could descry thousands of dark holes in the basalt, windows and air vents for the wyrmling labyrinth. And at each one, she knew cruel eyes might be watching.

Rhianna had hardly touched down in the tunnel when her signal came-three bright flashes from a sunstone at the mouth of the tunnel.

She had taken out the guards.

Now the race began in earnest. The Cormar twins led the way, giggling at some private joke, followed next by Daylan Hammer, the Emir Tuul Ra, and last of all by Talon.

Each of them had copious endowments of metabolism; now the Cormar twins sprinted at breakneck speed, matching each other stride for stride, fifty miles per hour, sixty.

They raced under the pines, through the shadows thrown by the midday sun.

Even a wyrmling can t see us yet, Talon thought. The sun is in their eyes, and we are all in shadow.

So she tried to comfort herself with reassurances of her own lack of visibility until at last the comrades exited the woods, passing a great basalt wall some forty feet high, and ran now through barren fields, subject to the scrutiny of any who might be watching.

It was still a mile to the gate, black and yawning ahead.

She waited for some alarm, for surely, she thought, someone is aware of us by now.

"Run faster," Daylan cried.

The less time that we are exposed, Talon thought, the less chance that we will be seen.

At sixty miles per hour it would take nearly a full minute to cross the open plains. Only the greatest stroke of luck would let them make it unseen.

They would have to rely upon their own speed and fighting skills to get them to their destination.

Before she ever reached the gate, a gong sounded. It was a bell more massive than any she d heard before. The tolling of it sent a thrill through the ground.

Twelve seconds later, the company burst into the tunnel and were soon at an iron gate that had been thrown open. Guards lay dead and bloodied, while Rhianna stood over their corpses, a black long sword in hand.

She pocketed her sunstone, waited a heartbeat, then turned and led the way into the fortress.

The Cormar twins charged in at her back. Suddenly both of them cackled and raced to take the lead, sprinting down the corridors in unison, cutting down any wyrmling that stood in their way.

There was no resistance. None of the wyrmlings had endowments as far as Talon could tell. Some had time to register a look of shock. Some warriors even had their hands stray toward a weapon. But the battle was over before it ever began, with the Cormar twins artfully hacking the defenders down, one man swinging high, another low, so that heads and legs came off at the same instant.

It felt too much like murder. Talon could hardly stomach it.

We have that right, Talon told herself, after all that they ve done to us.

Talon was in the rearguard, and as such she kept a lookout behind. But her job, it seemed, consisted mainly of trying not to slip on the trail of blood left by those who blazed the path ahead.

As she ran, she had time to notice the little things-the glow worms grazing on the walls, wyrmling glyphs painted in white to mark the doorways. The air was warm and sultry inside the tunnels, stuffy and filled with the acrid scent of sulfur and the stench of a million wyrmlings. She saw kill holes and spy holes in the walls-and in one she glimpsed an eye, the pure white iris of a wyrmling, gazing back at her in fear.

She had no idea how to reach the creature. Surely some hidden corridor would lead her there, but she did not know which byways to take, or how many turns she might have to pass.

They re watching us, she thought. They know everything that we do. We can only hope that they don t have enough power to do anything but watch.

She lunged toward the spy hole and thrust her blade through before the wyrmling had time to back away or even blink. Her blade slid through the eye socket and clunked as it hit the back of the wyrmling s skull. The blade came out covered in gore.

Talon raced down the tunnel, following her comrades. They had not gone far when she heard a tremendous rattling. She turned and peered back in the gloom. A huge iron portcullis was dropping, gravity bearing it inexorably down. It looked as if it weighed several tons, and the whole tunnel shook. If she had not had endowments, it might have seemed to fall instantly, but with her speed it seemed to take a pair of seconds before it slammed into the ground with finality.

Our exit is blocked. There s no way out!

Her heart raced, but Talon realized that there had to be a path out. She d seen thousands of windows and air holes. Surely there was more than one exit.

No one else seemed to worry. They battled on.

Only once did Talon provide any real help. They were following the scent of sandalwood on Kirissa s trail, but even with endowments of scent, the others could not be sure which way to go.

"Are we heading down the right tunnel?" Daylan called.

"Yes," Talon shouted back. Her voice sounded stressed, frightened. She realized that from the time they had entered the labyrinth, almost no one had spoken.

Suddenly the corridor ahead darkened and a great red shadow filled the hallway. Talon saw wings rise up, and realized that a Knight Eternal stood before them, barring the way.

There was a nervous cry of warning from Rhianna. She raised her sunstone and squeezed it so that it sent out a piercing light. The Knight Eternal squinted a bit, then swiftly raised a hand.

The sunstone flared impossibly bright. A whirling torrent of fire went streaming out from it into the Knight Eternal s hand, and the sunstone shattered in Rhianna s fingers. Fragments went scattering like hot sparks across the stone floor.

"It s Vulgnash himself!" Daylan shouted, and Talon felt her bowels quiver.

The Cormar twins cried out in anticipation, like dogs eager to attack. But their perfectly choreographed moves ceased. In their haste, one of them stumbled.

They re fighting each other for control, Talon realized.

The stumbler regained his feet, and the two bounded forward; one swung low while the other went high. But their movements seemed slow, jerky, uncoordinated.

In a heartbeat Vulgnash leapt and ducked at the same instant. He did not seem faster than them. Indeed, he barely seemed to escape alive.

Then he went on the attack.

His own black blade swung and lunged and swung again with such ferocity that the Cormars were driven back. He pressed the attack, rushing forward, and in the dim light had some advantage.

He has endowments to match our own, Talon realized, maybe even more.

Out of the darkness at Vulgnash s back, specters appeared-a pair of shadows clothed in the ragged black robes of Death Lords.

The air suddenly chilled, the temperature dropping and becoming numbingly cold. The air fogged from Talon s mouth. Then the Death Lords shed their robes. They became indistinct shadows in the darkness.

No mortal blade could kill a Death Lord. Their very touch would freeze a man s soul, leaving him paralyzed.

The Cormars fought to fend off Vulgnash s ferocious assault, but the very sight of the Death Lords unmanned them. Vulgnash swung mightily. One Cormar tried to block with his ax, but Vulgnash s great sword landed with such ferocity that there was a snap.

Tun Cormar s arm shattered.

Instantly Vulgnash leapt, his wings flapping once, so that he flew over the young man s head-and kicked, sending Tun into the wall.

Tun s head hit with a smashing sound, and he began to slump to the ground, leaving a bloody red streak.

No endowments of brawn could save his bones from such abuse.

His brother Errant cried out in anguish, and leapt at Vulgnash s back, arms flailing in an unrestrained attack.

Tun is dead, Talon realized. His brother feels the loss of a Dedicate.

But the Knight Eternal ducked beneath Errant s blow, stepped backward, and clubbed the young warrior with an elbow.

Errant Cormar was thrown backward-into the arms of the Death Lords.

They took him, black shadows clawing at his face greedily as they consumed his spirit.

Errant s scream rent the air, and he kicked in vain.

Talon could not see what happened next, for Vulgnash raised his wings high, so that they spanned the entire corridor. He lifted his sword in salute, inviting the next challenger.

Something s wrong here, Talon realized. Vulgnash is toying with us.

She wondered if he had more endowments than it seemed.

"Run!" Daylan cried. "To the right!"

There was a doorway to their right, just behind Talon, a large corridor with an arched roof. Talon was rearguard, so she whirled and raced down the corridor with only glow worms to light her way.

She did not like the smell of the room ahead. It tasted of blood and putrefaction, like a slaughterhouse.

The emir was at her back. He reached into his own pouch and grabbed his sunstone, held it up and pinched it. The sunstone flared into light.

They were standing in a huge room, circular in shape. There were high walls all around them, twenty feet perhaps. And above those walls were seats.

We re in a coliseum, Talon realized, a place for blood sports.

"Welcome," a man called out, "to the Arena of the Great Wyrm."

Talon halted, heart hammering, and saw a man standing before them in fine robes at the very center of the ring. At his side stood a dark creature, hairy and winged. Talon had never seen such, but she recognized it from her mother s description. It was a Darkling Glory.

Behind the man, a pair of burly guards were holding the wyrmling girl, Kirissa.

"Areth," a voice cried at Talon s back. "Areth Sul Urstone!" The Emir Tuul Ra sprang forward, confusion thick in his voice, as if he wanted to embrace his old friend but suspected that he should flee.

"Areth Sul Urstone no longer exists," the swordsman said. "I am the master of this house. I am the king of the Shattered Earth. I am the Great Wyrm that haunts your nightmares. I am Lord Despair."

At their back, Talon could hear heavy feet. Vulgnash and the Death Lords had stepped in to block the company s escape.

The emir looked crushed, confused. He staggered forward, as if he might embrace Areth.

But Daylan warned him back. "Hold, my friend. This is not the Areth that you so loved."

"Areth!" the emir shouted in a near panic. "Resist him. You can resist evil. Resist it, and it will flee from you!"

Despair laughed. "No, there is not much left of him in here. What remains is hardly aware. Like a mouse stung by the venom of a scorpion, he is torpid. Yes, that is it, a mouse. He is a mouse hiding in my skull, a frightened mouse shivering in the recesses of my consciousness, dreaming of escape. He cannot resist me."

"But, Areth," the emir cried, "we re here to rescue you."

"Too late," Despair said. "You should have come years ago, fourteen years ago. You could have offered ransoms. You could have fought valiantly."

"There is no coin that we could have paid with," the Emir objected. "There is no chance that we could have won."

"Ah," Lord Despair said, "that is where you are wrong. You could have fought. It is true that you would have died, and Areth would have been saddened for a moment. But he would have also been comforted by the depth of your love. The knowledge of what you had sacrificed might even have steeled him, so that he could endure all of our torments. But alas, we ll never know. All he felt for you in the end was hurt and betrayal."

"That s a lie," the emir said. "Areth knew that I loved him as a brother. I would have come for him years ago. I would have come and died. But the wyrmlings would have destroyed our people in the backlash. Areth knows that, too, I am sure. And he would have suffered for an eternity rather than see that."

The smile the crept across Lord Despair s face was terrible to see. It was cruel beyond torture, and it mocked all who beheld it.

"He held on to such noble sentiments for as long as he could," Despair said. "But here in Rugassa, we have perfected torment, and in the end, pain drove all such thoughts from his mind."

The Emir Tuul Ra attacked then; with a cry of anguish he drew his blade and lunged. Talon felt sure that it was a last desperate attempt to rescue Areth Sul Urstone, to free his soul, to save him from what he had become.

With the strength of a Runelord, the emir leapt thirty feet, blinding in his speed.

But Despair blurred into motion himself, easily batting aside the emir s weapon, and then landed a crushing blow with the butt of a dagger to the emir s head.

The emir fell to the ground with a crash, his sword clanging to the arena floor, then ringing as it spun away.

Talon almost charged next, but Daylan warned her back. "Ware! Ware! He has more endowments than we do, and he has the powers of an Earth King besides." There was fear in Daylan s voice, and regret and horror.

Lord Despair studied the fallen emir, as if dissecting him with his eyes.

"Fourteen long years Areth waited for you," Despair said. "Fourteen years of torture. Let s see how well you bear up as you suffer his fate."

Then he turned his cold gaze upon the rest of the company. He glanced at Kirissa, who struggled in the grasp of her wyrmling guards.

"Fools," Despair said. "Why do you even bother to resist?"

"Ah," Daylan said, "and that is where you are wrong. We are not fools. The rules I live by are not the rules of this physical world. They are the rules of the invisible world. By abiding by those laws, Despair, we gain power that you never could comprehend, nor control."

Despair dismissed him with a flick of his eyes. "If you insist," he said. "But what has all of your power gained you? Yes, you resist me, but your efforts are of no consequence."

"Until now," Daylan said. "Your time is coming to an end. The True Tree has been reborn. The Torch-bearer has returned. The Restoration of All Things is at hand."

"The remains of the True Tree are rotting away at Castle Coorm," Despair said. "And the Torch-bearer writhes in my dungeon, and shall soon be joining me."

Without blinking, Despair must have uttered some silent command, for from the corner of her eye Talon caught a movement. She whirled with her weapon in hand just in time to see specters hurtling toward her silently, as insubstantial as a mist. In their shapes, she thought that she saw the remains of their forms-skulls shrunken and meatless, with pits for eyes. A ghostly hand reached out to touch her with fingers of bone.

She cried out and tried to lurch away, but the finger brushed her hand. Instantly it felt as if the blood froze in her veins, racing up her arm, and her entire right side went numb.

The icy sensation swept up her arm, paralyzed her shoulder, and stopped her heart with its piercing cold. She heard Rhianna cry out and a rush of wings as the woman leapt into the air.

"Run!" Rhianna shouted.

But Talon could not stagger a step. The wight had taken her by the hand, and she could not break free. Even with the strength of a dozen warriors of Caer Luciare, her knees suddenly felt too weak to hold her, and she collapsed to the arena floor.