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.
19
THE FLIGHT
Thus sayeth the Great Wyrm: I am your god. Above me there is no other. Thou must serve me or perish. The dumb man seeketh to disobey, and the fool seeketh flight.
— From the Wyrmling Catechism
With a glimpse of the shadow wights rushing up behind her, Rhianna leapt into the air with a shout of warning, and flapped up into the darkness. The arena was about one hundred and fifty yards across and had a high ceiling, but in the darkness she could not be certain how high.
She glanced below. A wave of wights had rushed in behind Vulgnash. Talon whirled to do battle, but it was in vain, for a wight merely took her hand, and its paralyzing touch drove her to the floor.
Daylan Hammer sprang forward, bringing his war hammer to bear on Lord Despair, raining blows upon him like a human cyclone. But Despair merely danced back, parrying every blow with his great sword, until after a dozen blows from Daylan s weapon a wight leapt into the air and grabbed him from behind, arms locked about his throat in a death grip, and rode him to the ground.
With her companions all either dead or paralyzed, Rhianna had no choice but to seek escape.
She flew up, circling the arena like a bird that had flown into a house through an open door. She flapped higher and butted her head against the ceiling, a blow that nearly sent her reeling to her doom.
In the darkness she could see little, even with her endowments. Glow worms had not been placed up here, and apparently found little to eat upon the stone. She spotted doors at both ends of the arena, doors for wyrmling spectators to gain ingress, but the misty forms of wraith
s streamed into the arena, blocking her escape. She could not get past them. There was no room.
She flapped about, peering down, and the wraiths stared up at her hungrily, eager for her death.
"Take her!" Lord Despair shouted, and Vulgnash leapt into the air, too. The Darkling Glory at Despair s back roared in mirth to see her predicament. There was not enough room for her to elude Vulgnash for long. All that she could do was to fly in desperate circles.
Nor can I fight, she realized. Vulgnash is under the protection of an Earth King, a twisted Earth King, but an Earth King nonetheless.
Her heart pounded with terror, and she was so frightened that she almost missed it. She felt a sudden updraft.
An air vent, she realized. The arena had an air vent at its top.
Vulgnash was hot behind her. Rhianna flapped harder, pressing in her need, and he fell back a few paces.
I m faster than he is, she realized.
Whether it was because she had taken more endowments of metabolism or because she had taken more strength, she could not be certain, but Vulgnash fell behind.
Rhianna wheeled, then folded her wings and dropped into a dive. She swept low, just over the heads of the wights, and drew steel, as if to whack one with her blade, then rose up in the air.
She peered hard, looking for the air hole, and finally saw it-a thin circle of gray in the stone, where light shone down a long narrow shaft.
She flapped her wings hard and rose. Vulgnash wheeled with a shout, and came screaming toward her, trying to block her escape.
Is the hole wide enough to let me through? she wondered. It will have to be.
Rhianna burst upward, reached the air shaft.
She folded her wings tight, letting her momentum propel her upward. She found herself in a narrow chimney, no more than two feet wide. Her shoulders were so large that she almost could not fit. Up above, she could see sunlight not sixty feet away.
I m a Runelord, she told herself. I can make myself fit.
She dropped her blade and contorted her shoulders, bringing them together in a way that no human should. With a dozen endowments of grace, it was not hard. Then she clawed her way up the hole, scrabbling as quickly as possible.
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