They reached a great archway, and suddenly Talon knew where she was. They d reached the Arena of the Great Wyrm. Talon could smell the fetid air inside.
Rhianna bypassed it and led the way down the tunnel toward the southern gates.
Talon recalled the great iron doors that had fallen behind them earlier; she worried that she and her friends might still be locked in.
The warning bells were tolling heavily, making the walls vibrate with every resounding gong.
The company sped through in haste now, and as they sprinted ahead, Talon saw the great iron doors beginning to fall. Rhianna reached the spot and ducked beneath, but Talon was lugging the big wyrmling girl and could not match her speed.
I m not going to make it, she thought.
The emir raced to the door and rolled under, while Daylan dropped to his belly and skidded.
For an instant Talon feared that they had all left her behind.
But then the door slammed to a halt, and she saw what had happened. Two wyrmling axes had been placed beneath the door, their pommels in a groove in the floor, their heads up forming a T.
The emir had paved the way for her escape.
Talon reached the door, dropped her charge, and rolled under. By the time that she got to her feet, Daylan and the emir had pulled the wyrmling through, and the emir urged Talon, "You go ahead. I ll give you a rest."
Talon realized what he was doing. She had far more endowments than he. She might well be needed if it came to a fight. She didn t dare waste her energy being a pack mule.
So she went charging down the corridor, now racing ahead of Rhianna. Wyrmling troops were suddenly thick in the tunnels, and Talon had to shove each of them aside, gently, as if she were only practicing moves for a sparring match.
Suddenly she reached the exit, smelled open fields and pine trees, and went charging out into the night. The sky seemed to yawn wide overhead, and stars powdered the heavens. Off to the east, the slender crescent of a new moon was just clearing the mountains.
Down below her, tens of thousands of wyrmlings filled the courtyard.
Lord Despair was in his private quarters, dining with Scathain and making plans for the future, when he heard the warning gongs. Scathain raised a brow, giving Despair an inquisitive look, and Despair wondered what had happened. He felt inside himself, seeking the counsel of the Earth Spirit. There was no attack. Neither he nor any of his chosen lords were in danger, of that he felt certain.
"Probably one of the tunnels has collapsed," Despair told his visitor. "That is a constant danger when living underground. In the recent binding of the worlds, the ground here has been destabilized. A couple of small sections of tunnel have collapsed in the past few days. It is probably nothing."
It took several long minutes for the captain of the guard to bring word, interrupting dinner.
"Lord Despair," the captain cried as soon as he entered the door, "the prisoners have escaped!"
Despair stared blankly at the man for half a second, unsure if he believed his ears. This was a terrible embarrassment.
"Impossible," Despair said.
I chose my prisoners guards, he thought. The earth should have warned me if they had been killed.
He looked into his heart, felt for the guards in the dungeon. His earth senses let him pinpoint their location.
They were alive. They were well. They were at their posts still.
Suddenly Despair laughed at his own folly.
"That clever girl," he told his guest. "She came in right under our noses and stole my prisoners-without taking a single life!
"But it will do her no good. Fallion is one of my chosen ones. I can sense his whereabouts."
He felt the young man, fleeing swiftly from the fortress.
Despair rushed out to the parapet of his tower, and in one mighty leap he was atop one of his stone gargoyles, peering down from it, using its head as his vantage point.
The Darkling Glory raced up behind, flew atop a gargoyle beside him.
Down below were his prisoners, streaking out across the plain. Fallion was glowing brightly, a brilliant and unearthly white.
The prisoners were racing away so fast that Fallion looked almost like a comet streaking across the dark plain. Wyrmlings fell back from the light by the score, and Rhianna roared in warning, so that his people cleared a trail for the prisoners. In seconds they were beyond the wall and off into the brooding pines that surrounded the fortress now, and then Fallion let his brightness fade.
The Light-bringer lives up to his name, Despair thought.
Despair considered going down among the fools, doing battle. He felt no fear of his enemy s champions. The Earth did not warn against it, and he knew that they could not slay his body.
But Fallion had a power that no other flameweaver had ever displayed. He could shine so fiercely that he could slay a locus, incinerate it.
Would the Earth Spirit warn me of such danger? Despair wondered. No, it wouldn t. A locus is not a human. The Earth Spirit would not value its life.
I dare not try to take them alone, he thought. I need Vulgnash.
But Vulgnash was hours away, and his quest was of tremendous import. He had to win control over the blood-metal mines, and until he was finished, he could not be spared nor distracted.
And what harm does it do to let them run? Despair wondered. None of my servants was killed. My enemies only deceive themselves. They believe that they have freed Fallion, not knowing that he can never escape.
The guard had rushed in at Despair s back, and now he begged, "Shall I have men give chase?"
"You can t catch them," Despair said. "And if you did, it is not in your power to take them."
But Despair had a servant who could. He sent a thought to Vulgnash: When you finish punishing my enemies, return with all haste. Bring back some blood-metal ore for forcibles.
"Would you like some help?" Scathain said. "I can have a murder of Darkling Glories here within minutes."
Lord Despair smiled.
"Get them. It s time that these fools get a demonstration of what will come."
The Darkling Glory did not walk back into the tunnel. Instead he leapt from the gargoyle s head and went winging up the mountain, toward the cone of the volcano, where the door to the netherworld stood open.
Despair turned to the captain of the guard. "Tell the tormentors to get to work upon Fallion s Dedicates. I want him reeling in agony."
24
TWILIGHT
At the End of Time, darkness shall cover the world, and gross darkness shall fill the hearts of men.
— From the Wyrmling Catechism
Just outside the walls of Rugassa, the Emir Tuul Ra halted long enough to steal a vehicle. It was a simple wyrmling handcart-two wheels and a tiny bed, with a couple of long poles to use as handles. The handcart was empty, and the wyrmling woman who was pulling it never knew what hit her. A simple tap from behind sent her sprawling into the dusty road, and the emir had her cart.
The emir knew the wyrmling tongue well. He had not wanted to hurt the woman. There were no words to make apologies in the wyrmling tongue, so he called out, "We have great need. Be well."
He urged Talon to throw Kirissa into the cart, and Rhianna dropped Fallion on the back, and off they went, racing down the road, running at sixty miles an hour.
By the time that the wyrmling woman recovered enough to climb to her feet and hurl some curses at the thieves, the cart was far, far up the road.
Rhianna led the way, clearing the trail before them. The emir pulled the handcart, while Talon pushed it from behind. Daylan Hammer could not match their speed, and so they asked him to jump aboard so that they could make better time.
The green around the fortress had been clogged with wyrmling foresters and hunters, miners, and soldiers, for many in the great horde had come out to work for the night, but it was not yet an hour past dusk, and two miles from the fortress the roads were clear.
So Rhianna, Talon, and
the emir ran.
After five miles, they topped a wooded hill and gazed back toward Rugassa. The trees overhead covered the company like a cloak, making them feel warm and safe. The woods were filled with the buzzing of cicadas.
They stopped only for a moment to catch their breath, but the emir felt sorely famished, more than he had ever felt in his life.
He wasn t sure why. Perhaps it was the touch of a wight that had done it. The hurt to his body had been tremendous, but he felt that its touch had even been more devastating to his soul.
Or maybe in part it was simply because he had taken so many endowments of metabolism, and he had been asleep, paralyzed, for hours, after running for hundreds of miles.
"I don t suppose you had the foresight to bring along any food or drink?" the emir asked Rhianna, for the wyrmlings had stolen their packs down in the dungeon.
"Food is for the weak," Rhianna said, then laughed, shaking her head.
She peered back over the road behind them. The great volcano rose up, black and dominating in the distance.
Rhianna had enough endowments of sight so that she could see the road well enough under the starlight.
"There is no sign of pursuit yet," she said after a moment.
"That won t last," Daylan Hammer said with certainty. "We have stolen Lord Despair s prize, and he will spare nothing to retrieve it."
The emir looked to Rhianna, but told Talon, "She should take Fallion to safety. She should leave us. The Knights Eternal will be on our trail all too soon. She ll have a better chance of escaping if we do not slow her down."
"I m surprised that the Knights Eternal are not already in pursuit," Daylan said. "The emir is right. Rhianna should take Fallion and go."
Talon translated for Rhianna.
"Where would you have me take him?" she asked. "Where shall we meet?"
The emir could think of nowhere. There was nowhere in the world that felt safe anymore. Rhianna had mentioned the horse-sisters of Fleeds, but they had little in the way of fortifications.
"We should take him back to the netherworld," the emir said. "If he is to fight Vulgnash, he will need proper endowments, powerful weapons, and time to train."
The emir looked to the others for comments. Rhianna just shrugged, as if the destination did not matter. Talon was willing to concede the argument, for she seemed to have none better of her own. But Daylan Hammer knew the folk of the netherworld better than any of them, so the emir looked to him most of all.
"I do not know," he said. "The Bright Ones understand all too well what kind of danger he will bring. We cannot hide there forever.
"And yet," he continued, "Fallion brings hope with him, and Erringale s folk might easily welcome him.
"I suppose it could not hurt to ask his permission."
That gave them a destination. Erringale and the Wizard Sisel had gone to gaze upon the One True Tree.
At that very moment, lightning flashed in the sky behind them at the crown of the volcano. The emir glanced back and saw a roiling mass of darkness there, obscuring the volcano s crown. It was as if clouds had sprung forth from it in a matter of seconds, and he worried that the volcano was about to blow.
But the clouds were strange in shape-oddly flattened on top, so that they circled the volcano s crown like a great wheel, and the mists that had suddenly risen were rapidly expanding, blotting out the stars. Lightning flashed again and again, sending percussive booms over the land, and from those clouds he could hear strange sounds, peals of evil laughter and terrifying cries.
A bear roared in the forest nearby, and night birds began to peep and call out in terror.
"Well, I don t think that we have to worry about the Knights Eternal coming for us any longer," Daylan said. "It looks as if the Darkling Glories will beat them to the task."
Over the tree-covered hills the party ran. Rhianna raced to the back of the handcart and began to push, urging the group forward. The emir was forced to sprint as fast as he could, stopping only for a drink from an occasional brook. They cast their eyes back furtively many a time, and watched as the storm around the volcano s cone intensified, the clouds growing thick, the lightning flickering wickedly, storming in the night.
For ten or twelve minutes, as common men count time, the storm intensified, until the crown of the volcano was hidden from sight.
During that time, the heroes ran, covering another dozen miles or more.
The emir sprinted beside the cart. It bucked and leapt over the broken road, and after only a few miles the wheels began to squeak. He worried that the car would hit a rock too hard and suddenly explode on impact.
But it was a stout thing, made for wyrmling workers, and it held together.
Each time that he glanced back, he peered at the growing cloud, and he was able to take some comfort in the notion that the Darkling Glories had not set out after them-that they were only gathering, like a great flock of crows.
But as he peered back, time after time, he noticed that Fallion was gripping the side of the handcart as if afraid that he might fall off. His face had been sickly pale, but now his head lolled, and he seemed barely conscious.
He has taken some terrible wound, the emir thought.
There had been blood on his tunic, matted and dried, and the emir wondered if that was the cause of Fallion s distress.
The emir glanced back at Rhianna. She was pushing the cart, her face drained of emotion from fatigue. But she didn t seem to fear the Darkling Glories. The object of her fear was right in front of her. Fallion had taken ill.
"What s wrong?" she called to him at last.
Fallion s voice came softly, slowly, and as always Talon offered a translation. "My Dedicates… the wyrmlings are torturing them."
"What?" she asked, for his words made no sense.
The emir could not help but note the alarm in Rhianna s voice. She loved the boy. He could hear it in her every word. He drew the cart to a halt.
At that, Fallion reached up to his tunic, pulled it open. Strange runes were branded on his chest, dozens of them, larger and more intricate than any that the emir had taken in his own endowment ceremonies.
"What are those?" Talon begged.
"Compassion," Fallion said. "They re runes of compassion. I can feel the pain of others-their loneliness, their love, their horror. I feel when a foot is severed, or an eye gouged out. The wyrmlings are punishing me now through my Dedicates. Lord Despair is letting me know-I can never go free."
The emir gazed at the runes, dumbfounded.
"I can go back," Rhianna said. "I can find those Dedicates, release you from your pain."
"Certainly Lord Despair has chosen those Dedicates personally," Daylan cut in. "If you try to kill them, he will be ready for you."
"Don t try it," Fallion begged. "They re innocent people-women and children. You cannot kill them without forfeiting your own soul. Even if you succeeded in freeing me, once you came back, you would not be the woman that I have grown to love."
He peered up at her then, pleading. There were tears of pain in his eyes-pain that he could not run from, pain that he could not bear.
"How many endowments did they give you?" Rhianna asked, as if she might charge into Rugassa and murder his Dedicates anyway.
Fallion shook his head in anguish. "Dozens," he said. "Hundreds maybe, through those who act as vectors. Despair said that he will give me thousands of them, millions if he has to: until I break, until I become him."
Immediately the emir cast his mind about, seeking a solution, but very quickly he realized that there was none. No matter what they tried, Despair would win. Fallion could not run from the pain, and they could not free him.
"What can we do?" Talon asked.
"Don t take me anywhere," Fallion said. "It only puts you and others at risk. Send me back."
"I have killed myself to save you," Rhianna said. "I m walking dead. I won t let you go."
Fallion took her hand, squeezed it tightly, and just peered into
her eyes. She was a Runelord now, powerful and beautiful, swift and deadly, with so many endowments of speed that she would never again be able to relate to those in the mortal world.
"You ve saved me," he whispered. "Your love has saved me time and again, and if you desire, I will stay."
In the distance, lightning began to flash brighter, and the sound of thunder was a solid roar. The ground was trembling beneath the soles of the emir s boots. It felt like the end of the world.
A blast of wind struck. The trees that had been sitting in silence all suddenly bent beneath a gale, and the leaves hissed like a distant sea.
"The Darkling Glories are coming," Fallion said. The emir peered back toward Rugassa; the ring of clouds and lightning was expanding outward in every direction, and he suddenly realized that it was not one vast cloud that covered the crown of the volcano but dozens or hundreds of smaller clouds. Within each, a form moved, a single Darkling Glory. They were separating now, winging away from the volcano in every direction, though a large contingent of them was heading south.
Talon whispered to the emir, "In my father s time, a single Darkling Glory wreaked great havoc upon an entire kingdom. He was unstoppable. Now we must face an army of them."
"It s not an army, " Daylan said. "It s called a murder — a murder of Darkling Glories."
"We should hide," the emir suggested. "We should get underground."
"They ll check every building, every tunnel," Daylan said.
"The Wizard Sisel can hide a warhorse behind a wheat stalk," Talon offered.
"If you can get to him in time," Rhianna said.
She looked at Talon and the others.
"We must get our forcibles," Rhianna said, "take them with us. Without them, we cannot fight the coming darkness." She was speaking of the forcibles that she had hidden to the south. It was not far. But to retrieve the forcibles and then reach the True Tree sounded nearly impossible.
The emir looked into Talon s eyes, and knew instantly that they had to try.
Immediately Rhianna grabbed the handles of the wyrmling handcart and raced away. It was all that the emir could do to keep up.
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